Houses of Poverty (1936)
Genre : Documentary, Drama
Runtime : 29M
Director : Henri Storck
Synopsis
Borinage left Henri Storck profoundly disturbed by injustice and social poverty. When he was offered a chance to make the film he undertook an in-depth survey into the working class and slums and shouldered his camera as a militant filmmaker. In a plot of Walloon slums he staged characters and situations as examples. All shots work on intensity, the filling of the frame, which gives the impression of being unable to breathe, of being trapped, closed in. And in the face of this overflowing misery is the emptiness of the expressions, the absence of emotion. Survival is all. But the message of hope is there, with the destruction of slums (the hovels are demolished as if getting rid of a tyrant) and the construction of garden cities surrounded by trees in bloom and a future of song, leaves one with the impression that man’s dignity has been safeguarded.
The citizens of a tiny Cornish village are tormented during World War II by a headless ghost which is haunting the local tin mine.
A look behind the scenes of the Czech gay porn boom.
Monica is 13 years old and has already created her own world, on the street, where she fights courageously to defend what little she has: her friends, her boyfriend, who sells drugs, and her dignity and pride that makes no concessions to anyone. On Christmas night, like every night, she sells roses to make a living. But life brings her a new appointment with loneliness, poverty, drugs and death.
A behind-the-scenes look at the rise of the American rock band, Kings of Leon.
Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling author, has given up his literary ambitions and relocated to the port city Le Havre. He leads a simple life based around his wife Arletty, his favourite bar and his not too profitable profession as a shoeshiner. As Arletty suddenly becomes seriously ill, Marcel's path crosses with an underage illegal immigrant from Africa, who needs Marcel's help to hide from the police.
Real-life drama about why, in a beautiful and quirky rural town, film- maker Jez Lewis' childhood friends are killing themselves. Beginning with a personal quest for understanding, the film moves into a year-long drama of human tragedy and redemption as principal character Cass comes to terms with his own mortality and attempts to lift himself out of his cycle of self-destruction. This core narrative carves an upward arc through an intimate study of a place often described as paradise, but which harbours an undertow of lethal hedonism and disillusionment. As people continue to kill themselves during the making of the film, a maelstrom of conflicting values throws up unexpected truths about the human condition.
Somewhere in the spanish country, in the 60s. Paco and his wife Régula are very poor. They work as tenant farmers for a very wealthy landowner. They have 3 children. One is backward. The others can not got to school because the master "needs" their work. When Regula's brother is fired from where he has worked for 61 years, he settles down at their little place... An attack against the archaism of the spanish country of the 60s.
MADE IN SERBIA portrays the Serbian video porn industry by presenting four life stories of domestic porn actors. Unlike their Western counterparts, these people work in porn industry in order to survive and obtain basic life supplies. The film follows the young hot shot porn star who travels to a shoot in Hungary, a bisexual actor who visits hometown, a 40 year old actress that invites her husband into the porn business and a peasant who became a local legend thanks to working in porn industry. The whole story is framed within one young man's search for the long lost girl who appears to have entered the world of porn. He shoots the documentary in order to find her.
A couple of youngish adventurers go into the wilderness of British Columbia in search of a lost colleague. Their plane crashes and they find themselves at the mercy of a crazed old Scottish miner, who has lived in isolation for many decades searching the mountain caves for a chamber of long lost gold. He is prepared to do anything - including murder - to keep his gold for himself.
The film chronicles everyday struggle of a Russian woman for “ordinary” happiness of her family.
Life creates many obstacles for 12 years old boy - Tedo. Tedo belongs to the generation, which was forced to mass displacement because of the civil war in Abkhazia, one of the most beatiful places in Georgia. The civil war took away everything Tedo had, even hope. The film tells about an extraordinary internal drama of a little boy, his thoughts, feelings, pasions, sorrows and efforts to take arms against the difficulties.
Ellie Mae lives on Primrose Hill with her good-hearted and fancy free mother, her drunken father, her younger sister and a mean-spirited grandmother. The Hill is not a good part of town, however. When she meets and falls for a hard-working man, they marry and she hides her past from him. When he discovers the truth it jeopardizes their marriage.
Mickey is playing Christmas carols on a standup bass for change. Alas, all he gets is screws, rocks, and other useless stuff. He plays outside a rich man's window, and the spoiled brat kid inside decides he wants Pluto. Mickey isn't selling, but when his bass gets destroyed by a passing sleigh and he sees a house full of orphans with no presents, he changes his mind. Mickey plays Santa to the kids. Meanwhile, the brat has been torturing Pluto; his father finally has enough and throws Pluto out and spanks the child. Pluto and Mickey are reunited, and as a bonus, the kid has tied the Christmas turkey to Pluto's tail.
(Also included: Chip an' Dale 1947, Lend a Paw 1941)
Biographic film chronicling the last year of the life of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, 1919, who falls in love with a girl from a wealthy family. Her parents are against this relationship and stop financial help. Modigliani worked and died in abject poverty in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France.
A group of German infantrymen of the First World War live out their lives in the trenches of France. They find brief entertainment and relief in a village behind the lines, but primarily terror fills their lives as the attacks on and from the French army ebb and flow. One of the men, Karl, goes home on leave only to discover the degradation forced on his family by wartime poverty. He returns to the lines in time to face an enormous attack by French tanks.
Like a Candide dreaming of Eldorado, Jallel lands in France, hoping to try his luck. From encounter to encounter, hostel to social welfare group, Jallel will make his way through a Paris of outcasts. Although failing to achieve his hopes, he discovers and shares in the solidarity felt by the destitute. –uniFrance
In this dense setting, the inhabitants of a large, claustrophobic apartment reveal their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions and hostilities.
In his film debut Ritter is sent to investigate miners being killed and their mines confiscated. The culprit is Evans and after Tex joins the gang, he is sent to kill two more miners. When Estaban is killed, Tex is put on trial for all three murders.
Two brothers—Chul-ho, an accountant with a toothache and a pregnant wife, and Yong-ho, an unemployed ex-soldier wounded in battle—navigate life in post-war Korea.
A young man runs a scam selling pigeons that always return to his home. He falls under the wing of Kyoko, an older student whose heart is touched after Masuo sells his pigeons to her. However, after his scam is revealed, can these feelings truly remain the same?
