Rebbe Mendel is a single father who teaches the Talmud, a sacred text of Judaism, to the boys of his small Polish town. Behind closed doors, he also instructs his daughter, Yentl, despite the fact that girls are forbidden to study religious scripture. When Yentl's father dies, she still has a strong desire to learn about her faith -- so she disguises herself as a male, enrolls in a religious school, and unexpectedly finds love along the way.
Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil live with Sylvia Brown, their guardian. Money is tight and as the story opens, three boarders - a garage owner, a retired English professor, and a dance teacher - come to stay. Theo Dane, the dance teacher, has the girls accepted at her school by the formidable Madame, and the three go on the stage to help raise money. Each discovers her talents - Pauline as an actress, Petrova in fixing engines, and Posy as a dancer.
England, 1645. The cruel civil war between Royalists and Parliamentarians that is ravaging the country causes an era of chaos and legal arbitrariness that allows unscrupulous men to profit by exploiting the absurd superstitions of the peasants; like Matthew Hopkins, a monster disguised as a man who wanders from town to town offering his services as a witch hunter.
Peter Carter, his wife Sally and their young daughter Jean move to a sleepy Canadian village, where Peter has been hired as a school principal. Their idyll is shattered when Jean becomes the victim of an elderly, and extremely powerful, paedophile. The film was neither a box office nor a critical success, it garnered criticism for breaking a significant public taboo.
