Great Freedom (2021)
Genre : Drama, War, Romance
Runtime : 1H 56M
Director : Sebastian Meise
Writer : Sebastian Meise, Thomas Reider
Synopsis
In post-war Germany, liberation by the Allies does not mean freedom for everyone. Hans Hoffmann is repeatedly imprisoned under Paragraph 175, which criminalizes homosexuality. Nevertheless, over the decades, he continues his quest for freedom and love, even if he finds it in the most unusual places.
Josef K wakes up in the morning and finds the police in his room. They tell him that he is on trial but nobody tells him what he is accused of. In order to find out about the reason for this accusation and to protest his innocence, he tries to look behind the façade of the judicial system. But since this remains fruitless, there seems to be no chance for him to escape from this Kafkaesque nightmare.
Intercutting dramatic vignettes with newsreel footage, the story follows the characters from an infantry squad as they make their way from Sicily to Germany during the end of World War II.
It's 1957, and James Whale's heyday as the director of "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein" and "The Invisible Man" is long behind him. Retired and a semi-recluse, he lives his days accompanied only by images from his past. When his dour housekeeper, Hannah, hires a handsome young gardener, the flamboyant director and simple yard man develop an unlikely friendship, which will change them forever.
Hildy, the journalist former wife of newspaper editor Walter Burns, visits his office to inform him that she's engaged and will be getting remarried the next day. Walter can't let that happen and frames the fiancé, Bruce Baldwin, for one thing after another, to keep him temporarily held in prison, while trying to steer Hildy into returning to her old job as his employee.
An American man returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love and conflict.
In the Deep South, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.
Released after being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 13 years, a woman begins executing her elaborate plan of retribution.
Former child star Joe Davis, reduced to living in a cheap Hollywood motel while struggling for acting jobs, is lusted after by nearly every woman he meets, including Jessica Todd, a tightly wound feminist who has recently come out as a lesbian. When Jessica's mother, Sally, an emotionally needy has-been actress, meets Joe, she moves him into her enormous, tacky mansion as her new boy toy and attempts to get him acting work.
The petite waitress Johnny works and lives in a truck-stop, where she's lonely and longs for love. She develops a crush on the garbage truck driver Krassky, although her sleazy boss Boris warns her that he's gay.
During World War II, a secret agent must seduce then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.
Ecki is a sweet, closeted gay man who works in his family’s bakery and plays goalie in his small town’s soccer team. When he both loses the big game, and is caught flirting with another player, his homophobic teammates throw him out. He vows to return one day with an all-gay team that will grind the heteros into the dust, so he sets off to find his “dream team.” With the help of his nurse sister, Ecki scours local gay bars and eventually assembles a hilariously motley but endearing crew of misfits that includes a leather-daddy threesome, a femme Turk with Beckham fantasies, a secret straight guy in love with the sister, and a seriously cute nurse eager for some private play-time with the goalie. Ecki now has two problems – turning this bunch into a team, and facing his own fears regarding his first romance.
Ferdinand was abandoned as an infant by his parents in the forest. There he was found by a homosexual couple. Ludwig (called "Laila") and Harry adopted him. Ferdinand was strongly influenced by his adoptive parents. As a young man, he is an outsider due to his potty behavior.
A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
Two escaped cons' only prayer to escape is to pass themselves off as priests and pass by the police blockade at the border into the safety of Canada.
Three convicts escape from prison on Devil's Island just before Christmas and arrive at a nearby French colonial town. They go to the store of the Ducotels, the only store that gives supplies on credit. They initially intend to take advantage of them but have a change of heart after they find the family is in financial troubles.
Romain, 31, a fashion photographer with terminal cancer, elects to die alone, preparing others to live past him rather than prolong the inevitable with chemotherapy or be smothered in sympathy by those who know him.
In a German town, teacher Irene leads an inconspicuous, boring, lonely life. One day, a man rings at her door and slips in. It's an armed convict from the prison next door, escaped with a leg wound. He now makes her a prisoner in her own home. Almost without a word, as if she secretly enjoys the excitement or just mesmerized, she obeys Vassily, every single command, even sexual services, submissively or after a symbolic struggle. Somehow that seems to change, but can force initiate love?
Jimmy Kilmartin is an ex-con trying to stay clean and raise a family. When his cousin Ronnie causes him to take a fall for driving an illegal transport of stolen cars, Detective Calvin Hart is injured and Jimmy lands back in prison. In exchange for an early release, he is asked to help bring down a local crime boss named 'Little Junior' Brown. However, he's also sent undercover by Detective Hart to work with Little Junior and infiltrate his operations. As soon as Little Junior kills an undercover Federal agent with Jimmy watching, the unscrupulous DA and the Feds further complicate his life.
A Puerto-Rican ex-con, just released from prison, pledges to stay away from drugs and violence despite the pressure around him, and lead a better life outside NYC.
Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. When he finds his late mother's journal after the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, he takes it with him to her native country, Singapore, hoping to piece together the story of his family and his life.
A young Finnish woman escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow by boarding a train to the arctic port of Murmansk. Forced to share the long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a larger than life Russian miner, the unexpected encounter leads the occupants of Compartment No. 6 to face major truths about human connection.
Two childhood best friends are asked to share a kiss for the purposes of a student short film. Soon, a lingering doubt sets in, confronting both men with their preferences, threatening the brotherhood of their social circle, and, eventually, changing their lives.
A piano composer's family moves into a new house; when his pregnant wife collapses from working to support the family, he hires a hot housemaid to help with housework.
Valentine, a student model in Geneva, struggles with a possessive boyfriend and a troubled family. When she runs over a dog, she discovers that its owner, a retired judge, is illegally wiretapping and eavesdropping on his neighbors' phone calls. Although Valentine is outraged, she develops a strange bond with the judge – and as the two become closer, she finds herself caught in the middle of events that could change her life.
Nelly has just lost her grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother's childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods. One day she meets a girl her same age building a treehouse.
A rock climbing adventure between two friends turns into a terrifying nightmare. After Kelly captures the murder of her best friend on camera, she becomes the next target of a tight knit group of friends who will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence and anyone in their way.
A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.
A young man has an affair with an older woman. He is very jealous of her husband and decides that they should kill him. One night, after the husband had plenty of sake to drink and was in bed, they strangle him and dump his body down a well. To avert any suspicions, she pretends her husband has gone off to Tokyo to work. For three years the wife and her lover secretly see each other. Finally, suspicions become very strong and people begin to gossip. To make matters worse, her husband's ghost begins to haunt her and the law arrives to investigate her husband's disappearance.
The Tramp and his dog companion struggle to survive in the inner city.
Erik Blake has gathered three generations of his Pennsylvania family to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter’s apartment in lower Manhattan. As darkness falls outside and eerie things start to go bump in the night, the group’s deepest fears are laid bare.
The film tells the story of a young girl who travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong in pursuit of education, but ends up working for her aunt seducing rich and powerful men.
In a beauty salon in Beirut the lives of five women cross paths. The beauty salon is a colorful and sensual microcosm where they share and entrust their hopes, fears and expectations.
Nine-year old Eunhee anxiously prepares for her recorder exam as she struggles to find a place within her own family.
A serial killer strikes fear in the hearts of residents of Hamburg during the early 1970s.
This complex portrait of modern-day life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation explores the bond between a brother and his younger sister, who find themselves on separate paths to rediscovering the meaning of home.
Annie, a bright young student, is facing an unwanted pregnancy in 1960s France, where abortion is illegal.
Alma is a scientist at Berlin's famous Pergamon Museum. In order to obtain research funds for her studies, she accepts an offer to participate in an extraordinary experiment. For three weeks, she must live with a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence designed to allow it to morph into that of her ideal life partner. Enter Tom, a machine in human form, created to make her happy.
Victor, a disillusioned sexagenarian, sees his life turned upside down on the day when Antoine, a brilliant entrepreneur, offers him a new kind of attraction: mixing theatrical artifices and historical reconstruction, this company offers his clients a chance to dive back into the era of their choice. Victor then chose to relive the most memorable week of his life: the one where, 40 years earlier, he met the great love.
Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.