Social & External
The people behind it
Cristian Menezes
Lonely Boy
His world was already like an empty anthill, a dry swarm to which a cricket has come to sneak.
Returning home to visit their ill grandfather, two estranged brothers must confront their unresolved rivalry while their parents’ marriage frays.
Based on four of the six short stories compiled in Murakami Haruki's anthology, After the Quake explores the complex aftermath of Japan’s earthquakes and other global crises. (Movie version of the TV drama).
Van and Gogh have never seen cherry blossoms in person, yet they've spent their whole lives searching for the reason why they love them so much.
In Tokyo, lonely patrons pay to sleep ("soine") with someone. Massage, cuddle, sleep… for comfort and nothing more than the warm embrace of another. Tasuku, a young man fresh out of a relationship, starts a new job as one of the cuddlers. He's nervous and reticent, but soon finds himself with a procession of clients, male as well as female. In his unique position as their companion, he finds himself privy to the true selves they keep closeted. Tender performance and contemplative writing elevate an exploration of the human need for comfort and tenderness, while learning to be true to oneself.
Suzie, a 58 year old depressed taxi driver on the night shift. On Halloween, she finds a 10 year old autistic boy in the back seat of her taxi with 50$ and an address. As Suzie arrived at the father's address, she realizes the mess this family is in. This child and her own troubled past lead her down a surprising road.
In the late 1940s, a murderous couple known as the 'The Lonely Hearts Killers' kills close to a dozen people. Two detectives try to nab the duo who find their targets via the personals in the paper.
Matia, a marginal young man, escapes to an island in the River Paraná. In an uncomfortable atmosphere that is not his own, he tries to start a new life, but the tensions his arrival cause take him back to his criminal past and to the idea of having to flee in order to survive.
A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.
The story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness. The film shows the currents that brought them together and the facets of their natures that first made them seem compatible but eventually drove them apart. Their story reflects, to a degree, the situation of anyone who has ever shared the life of another.
A supernatural encounter burdens the recently retired Mr. Melih with an existential awakening. Soon he, his wife, and their daughter are all haunted by the "ghosts" of lost opportunities, abandoned dreams, and alternate possibilities -- literally...
Two parallel tales about two modern women. One is Štefica Cvek, average and lonely girl who desperately tries to find the man of her dreams. The other story is about a woman director who is making the movie about Štefica and has the same problem.
Every night while the city sleeps, Ahmad, a former Pakistani rock star turned immigrant, drags his heavy cart along the streets of New York. And every morning, he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own. One day, however, the pattern of this harsh existence is broken by a glimmer of hope for a better life.
Left to her own devices during an August heatwave, a seven-year-old wild child and her companion have an adventure filled with squirt guns, cicadas and rain dances.
A lonely Gravedigger falls in love with a female corpse, causing tension between a village's priest who wrongfully accuses him of necrophilia.
A road in the middle of nowhere. A car. A bike. Two lonely people looking for the same thing. They meet.
After the death of her father, Little Voice or LV becomes a virtual recluse, never going out and hardly ever saying a word. She just sits in her bedroom listening to her father's collection of old records of Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe and various other famous female singers. But at night time, LV sings, imitating these great singers with surprising accuracy. One night she is overheard by one of her mother's boyfriends, who happens to be a talent agent. He manages to convince her that her talent is special and arranges for her to perform at the local night club, but several problems arise.
A boy, obsessed with comparing himself with those less fortunate, experiences a different life at the home of his aunt and uncle in 1959 Sweden.
Maria always lived alone. One day she needs to rent her own room to a student. But living with another person will only add to her own loneliness.
An almost bombproof method of staying single is called "speed dating". 18 people participate in such an event. Nine men and nine women are sitting opposite each other in order to sell optimally under the pressure of time and to find a partner. They are looking for a date - and have nothing else in common. They talk about allergies, cappuccino, consumer behavior, buses and designer clothes: the list of serious embarrassments is long. Yet none of the lonely hearts has given up the hope of romance.
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
A man is released from prison after 15 years. He reunites with his high school girlfriend, now a single mother of three. What follows is a lyrical take on love, regret and second chances.
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
When strangers Jim, Eva, Emily and Mo meet William online in his new 'Chelsea Teens!' chatroom, they're completely seduced by his fast-talking, charismatic character. But beneath the surface lies a much darker truth. William is a dangerous loner, channeling all his energies into cyberspace. He's become an analyser, a calculating manipulator who finds it almost impossible to interact normally with others in the real world, instead turning his hand to manipulating people online.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
In a small village, a lonely fisherman yearning for a son is drawn to an ethereal light that links him to others and their long-buried secrets.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.
Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.
Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.
A disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem.
At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.
After withdrawing to the Chateau Marmont, a passionless Hollywood actor reexamines his life when his eleven-year-old daughter surprises him with a visit.
