Sometimes in life, you are prematurely left alone. Your parents, instead of being parents, leave. It is a new relationship that they want to pursue without you hanging around at all times, a different career, a move to a different country, or it is death. While you are just on the verge of growing up and the last thing you want from life is to be left alone when you have no answers to your own questions. Growing-up has no time limit. There's no perfect timing when you can call yourself an adult. It is never easy to find out that your survival and future depend solely on you. Belle Épine.
Jealousy makes people do silly things. Out of suspicions, you can lose your mind, hire a private detective, threaten your family and friends. There are kinds of jealousy, depending on what you value the most: your partner, your career, your children or your material possessions. Its green demon can turn a reasonable citizen into a beast and you would be surprised how much you can be affected. How strongly you can fight for what should be considered yours. There are no exceptions. Even a fairy tale relationship can stumble upon a block of infidelity. What would you do if your most cherished possession was taken by someone else? Would you have the dignity to let go, as no one can be forced to stay with you for ever? Or would you resort to a slightly less admirable deed? Unfaithful.
It was supposed to be the beginning of the twenty-first century. Then it was a date from the Maya calendar. Somewhere in between, there was a comet, an asteroid, global warming, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis. We still wait for the end of the world, occasionally threatened by bigger and smaller false alarms. Can you picture yourself waiting for the climactic moment of the history of civilization? Would you cry your lungs out at the thought that the world, as we know it, will inevitably come to an end? It will take all accomplishments of our inventors, the works of our artists and social movements that took decades to bring us to a point we are today. Would you pity your own death? Or would you do something that you always wanted to do, but felt inhibited and scared, and this finally feels like the right moment? Inspirational. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
The fate of your birth decided what you believe in. As a child, you rarely have an opportunity to chose and compare one religion to another. You follow your family's tradition, your school's teaching, your nearest church. At the far end of the world, a different child follows another tradition, school, and church. Both of them are sure that their faith is the one and only truth.
Over centuries different denominations, beliefs, dogmas caused millions to perish in pain and suffering. They still do. For the God. But your God might not be my God. My God might not be everybody's God. For some, there might not be a God at all. God should mean goodness, justice, equality, forgiveness, peace, and hope. Instead, it means hatred, punishment, judgment, ostracism, prejudice, intolerance and fear. No one wants to die for someone's God. No one wants to see people suffering in the name of one's own God. Is it better then to remain silent? A film about the power of faith and cruelty of a man. Silence.
The world is such a small place. You can meet your neighbor during your trip to the USA, you can bump into your primary school classmate on the train to the other side of the hemisphere. You might also realize that distance is a dimension which nowadays doesn't matter much, as the knowledge of languages can break the barriers set by governments. And while we fear each other: out of ignorance, prejudice, different customs, we'd be surprised how close we are, how similar and how interconnected. A little tour around the world where people lose, gain, fall in love, break-up and find themselves among billions of others, where fate depends on someone's wave of the butterfly wings. Cliché but still true. 360.
It often happens that your life is all planned. Wrapped up with a ribbon on it. You're set to go. You're sure that your well-thought scheme is going to tick every point of your agenda. And at the very last moment, all plans collapse. You meet someone and all previous someones fade into insignificance. You think that you have been in love, while all the previous loves seem to be barely crushes or infatuations. You're standing at the crossroads. You have to look at your future from a different perspective. One little event, a single gesture or a kiss can turn your life upside down. Now you have to choose a different fate or let your fate chose for you. And, occasionally, that fate can opt for what is best for you, without asking for permission. A beautiful story of love. Kyss mig.
Can you picture your life in five years?
Is it a job interview question?
Imagine it isn't. Can you predict what will happen in five years time, what will be your interests, how your life is going to look like, what will be your everyday habits, routines, even your diet? Can you?
Can you picture your life in five years of a relationship?
Can you imagine how you will love the person who is right now with you, but slightly older, slightly weirder, slightly more familiar?
Can you picture your life in thirty years?
Can you picture your relationship after thirty years of being together?
For some, the whole life seems to be the last chance weekend. A story about marriage. Enjoy.
Is it a job interview question?
Imagine it isn't. Can you predict what will happen in five years time, what will be your interests, how your life is going to look like, what will be your everyday habits, routines, even your diet? Can you?
Can you picture your life in five years of a relationship?
Can you imagine how you will love the person who is right now with you, but slightly older, slightly weirder, slightly more familiar?
Can you picture your life in thirty years?
Can you picture your relationship after thirty years of being together?
For some, the whole life seems to be the last chance weekend. A story about marriage. Enjoy.
Do
you believe you can meet a woman of your dreams, an epitome of your
wildest desires, an impersonation of your unspoken ideals? Are you a fan
of an actor or an actress to the point of idolatry? Can you envision
yourself by his/her side, totally in love, entirely besotted with her
mind and infatuated with her body? Can you finally picture yourself
happy together, possibly forever, while your feelings are
systematically subjected to trial and test? Is there something like
destiny? Aren't we all little manipulators of our fate when it comes to
love and relationships? Or do we openly ignore the signs, symptoms and
the obvious to be the directors of our own love story? Caprice.
Why in the majority of countries men for the same amount work earn more than women? Do they need more money for their daily maintenance? Is it for them more humiliating to make an effort? Are their expenses more important or more reasonable (maybe a new gadget, a new computer game, a new car part), while women waste money on lipstick and perfumes? But what if women do their work better than men? What if they outsmart them, what if they win the competition of wit and creativity? If even at school girls are better than boys why this advantage shouldn't be prolonged to work? And why very often women, instead of supporting each other, prefer competition to comradeship?
The brain has no sex. The greatest minds were something better than skin color, age, and citizenship. And this is a smart story of three ambitious, intelligent women and their rise to career, despite prejudices, obstacles, and injustice. Hidden Figures.
Oh, we do seem to have a problem with procreation. There are now questions if you really want to have children at all, taking into account the cost of upbringing, potential risks, and dangers of having a child and the fact that the whole process of raising a human is not really a piece of cake. At the same time, those who have the capacity of being a parent often struggle to have biological children due to infertility, the lack of the right partner, being in a same-sex relationship with no possibility of surrogates or adoption. Rich pay the poor to have children. Poor have many, yet they are not able to support them. Sixty-year-old mothers hit newspapers headlines, reminding us that it is never too late to become a parent. But if it was too late and the mankind faced the infuriating problem of global infertility? What if the last born child meant the upcoming end of the world? Children of Men.
What makes us fall in love? Is it the appearance, the same lifestyle, the same sense of humor, the spark that catches our attention from the first glance, first touch of a hand, first scent of perfumes? Why do we get married? Is it for love? Or is it out of pressure and desperation? Is it out of fear of being alone for years or never meeting the person, whom we will love till the rest of our lives? Is it of financial security, as we can hang out indefinitely with someone who we like and tolerate but never really love? Why are we stuck in relationships which don't mean anything to us, they are simply our comfort of meeting the same person in the same circumstances in the vague safety of our days? Can life events revolutionize the way we perceive love? Can poverty, disease, the lack of illusory trinkets bring people closer together and make them fall in love, despite their irreconcilable differences? The Painted Veil.
From Shanghai to Mumbai. From London to Paris. From New York to Stockholm. We all know it. We all fell for the convenience of a wrapped-up burger in a couple of minutes landing on a tray, with the company of chips and Coca Cola. We crave it from time to time both when we travel and stay at home. It combines our need to get fed and our desire for something tasty. Leaving the health value of the meal, a number of calories (far too big for our needs), or the fact that it doesn't really disintegrate over time (the famous case of McDonald's burger looking almost intact after ten years of preservation), let's focus on the phenomenon. Behind every company there is a story, behind every business and corporation there is an idea. This is a story about the idea of a fast food meal that enchanted masses and a man who had a far bigger dream that one local restaurant. The Founder.
Were you fond of fairy tales as a child? Don't you think that they taught you the wrong lessons? Was your childhood obsessed with princesses, magic fairies, happy ever afters and you grew up surprised that happy endings are ultimately a figment of hopeful imagination? There is no fairy godmother who turns your mortgage into a lotto prize. Your prince charming would rather leave you for a younger model or simply grow old than offer you his castle, carriage, and horses. Is it better to find a magic wand which turns everything into gold than work hard on it and achieve it by yourself? Is it wiser to switch one dependence (parents' house) to another (husband's house) rather than individually decide on your life choices and preferences? Is it worth to devote everything for the sake of one dream, neither fully grasping its consequences nor entirely understanding its price? Why fairy tales have so little do to with reality and why some decide to break the stereotypes encoded in a childlike good night tale? Into the Woods.
Are adventures reserved for only the bold and beautiful, the mesmerizing characters of books, legends and movie stars? Cannot we all take part in the pursuits of lost treasures, searches for hidden gems, hunts after enemies, dangerous tribal rituals and roller-coasters of events? Cannot we cross the borders of South America and Africa to experience exotic moments not only on the cover of National Geographic, adventure books, and tourist agency brochures? Cannot we all squeeze the life to the fullest?
If you wish to set off on a journey where love, adventure, and excitement seem to be larger than life, let yourself be reminded of Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile. Two classic films from the 80s when everything was possible.
You cannot always rely on human beings. Your best friend might betray you or even steal your life partner. Your children can kick you out of your home and you might wonder why you devoted so many years for their upbringing. Your parents might disown you, not accepting your job, relationship or life choices. There are moments in life when the most trusted, most loyal friend appears to be someone of a different race and it will be with you in spite of it all. It doesn't care about your material possessions, it doesn't fall for your looks. It can help you through depression, cancer, loneliness, and poverty. A tribute to one loyal friend and a story of a human saved by four legs and a tail.
Let's be honest. People have problems with talking about sex. They have difficulty expressing their needs, they are very often frustrated, unsatisfied, looking for something that their partner is unwilling to give them, or are simply ashamed. Thus, Christian Grey phenomenon, as the majority of women's partners don't really look like that and cannot (with all due respect to their manual skills) operate the variety of sex toys.
Human beings circulate between the traditional approach, in which sex should happen after the wedding night and its purpose to be procreation, and internet sex sites, friends with benefits, polyamorous relationships, promiscuity and billion dollar sex business (from films, gadgets to prostitution). The majority of us are somewhere in between. Shedding years of hypocritical speeches, pseudo-scientific books about sexuality, written about women by men (as if they had a better idea what they are writing about than the actual subject matter) we always look for someone honest and true. This is a film about a woman who once revolutionized the approach to sex and helped a lot of women feel better about their sex life. This is a film about a woman who combined intelligence, research, and personal experience when fighting the man-dominated world of science and publications. Enjoy.
You know these people. The most popular guy at school, the prettiest girl, the most coveted couple. A dream come true for the rest of us who are wallflowers, while they are the king and the queen of the graduation ball. You can envision that everything will be great for them, their parents' money will grant them the best of future, their looks will put them in the best of jobs, their earnings will exceed the earnings of our strongest vocational efforts. Is that so? Is the seemingly perfect life of those who have everything really that perfect? Can a dream love, a dream home, and a dream child turn into something you would expect from the less representative layers of society? Can a child bring something more than a joy of upbringing? And why tragedy also touches seemingly ideal people? American Pastoral.
Can you make fun of cancer? Apparently, you can. Tragedies hit us hard. And they often come in twos or threes, or even whole bunches of them. One tragedy is a lonely bitch and she needs to have company. So if one hits you, never underestimate the upcoming ones; they might be lurking just behind the corner. There are people who return stronger after personal downfalls, they survive loss, diseases, they overcome obstacles with the grace of a sense of humor. We need this humor and we need their strength to build again our self-esteem, our lives, our self-worth. We need people who make us believe that we will be happy despite it all. A genuine story of a cancer survivor and a really funny person. Tig Notaro.
When you set on a journey to your vocational career, you have high expectations. Titles of the best magazines and newspapers, TV channels just waiting for your appearance, Oscar speeches after you greatest film performances, the best cities in the world just opening before you in their inviting embrace. But what if your plans went a little bit wrong? What if unlucky coincidence taught you that there was no easy way out and sometimes all you need is what you already have. A lesson of being grounded. Maybe success at all cost is not really worth the deal. Maybe more important are people who help us along the way. Enjoy.
Art means freedom. It allows you to express your deepest desires, your views on the reality around you, it lets you explore possibilities, hypothetical scenarios, and life's truths. It doesn't care about politics, money, and religion. Yet still, a lot of people fear art, whether they don't understand it or are simply scared of its lack of inhibitions. To be an artist is to be suspended between the need to express and the necessity of survival. For the latter, you need money, shelter, and food. What happens to a talented man who doesn't want to subject to the norms of the emerging system? What happens to people who lose fight with the system: with Soviet regime and censorship in the past, to the unscrupulous rules or capitalism, consumption, and corporations nowadays? What happens to those who want to stay true to themselves despite the fleeting winds of history? A film about an artist.




















