Klara Jagovit

American Honey

driving 09:56:00

Life is not on the pages of gossip magazines. It happens not in the glamorous million dollar houses and television studios of your favorite TV-show. Forget the bullshit you listen to on TV. Forget about politicians' lies, beautiful faces of trust fund babies, dreams of Hollywood wives, degrees of Ivy League universities. Find the true America in its rich and poor, in its hope and hypocrisy. In its religion and approval of resourcefulness. Find it on the road and grow up, opening your eyes to the real world, not choreographed version bought by TV series' producers. Follow the footsteps of one American Honey and enjoy the ride.

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Carrie Pilby

education 23:31:00

There is something wrong with the educational system of today, as it teaches you the greatest thoughts of the most accomplished, the most brilliant concepts of those most devoted to science and philosophy, but it still allows you to fail at life. Why theory has so little to do with practice? Why, even though you have brains, you make mistakes in friendships, relationships and work? Why don't the best grades guarantee the most exciting career and six number salary? Why your attempts at relationship end with bigger and smaller heartbreak and there's no equation which would give you a perfect formula for success and happiness? Why we have to fail and there's no limit to failures, and why education is just the beginning, which poses questions but fails at giving answers? Carrie Pilby

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Contagion

disease 10:16:00

According to Wikipedia, the Black Death killed between 75 and 200 million people (out of about 450 million). It was spread by lovely flees who inhabited black rats and had an easier way to commute. The population of the planet was significantly lower. Now it's over seven billion people.
It is more than probable that the world at some point will be hit by a disease there's no cure for in the first place. Now that the distance is smaller due to plains, trains, and cars, the time of contagion can be cut to weeks, days, even hours. Remember that time when one of your relatives sold you the stomach flu, boasting about the fact that it was terrible (it went both ways and prevented him from leaving his flat for days) and he's now perfectly fine. A few days later you are hit with the same stomach flu and you suffer just the same. The warm feelings towards your benefactor are now less warm. Apparently, even though cured himself, he could still infect with the disease. Imagine a scenario when one virus causes the death of many. Imagine an uninhibited spread of a disease that turns the current world upside down just as The Black Death revolutionized Europe almost seven hundred years ago. Contagion.

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A Cure for Wellness

Europe 12:29:00

It's always fun to watch something different, something which doesn't bombard you with tons of shooting scenes, crashed cars and unbelievable special effects. Something which doesn't sell you the impossible love and stereotypical battle with good and evil. If you want to enter an institution which questions your mental well-being, where nothing is what it seems and where there's a mystery reaching a distant past and tradition, have a taste of A Cure for Wellness. Maybe you are also stuck in the prison of career, the building of corporation or a lifestyle without purpose. Maybe you need adventure, fear, and awakening. Enchanting like good gothic tales, this film can offer you a different outlook on health treatment.

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Frankie and Johnny

abuse 06:00:00

Remember that time when everybody was supposed to be a movie star, another it girl and high hopes crashed with the reality of a day job without prospects? Everybody was supposed to achieve something and the same everybody happened to lead an ordinary life with fewer and fewer dreams. But down-to-earth is available to all of us. Little cramped apartments, living from month to month, changing friends, enemies, lovers. Suffering from heartaches and spending boring evenings in front of TV. Pizza not caviar. A weekend at the movies not a luxurious SPA in Kuala Lumpur. This is where life happens not for selected few but for many.
One day you will bump into a woman who is supposed to be the mother of your children. One day you will be crushed by a man who will promise everything but won't keep any of his promises. One day you will find a job which is just fine and you will stick with it for many years to come, despite plans for another career. Instead of prince charming, there will be a man who happens to spend one night in your lonely bedroom and decides to stay for a lifetime. In the ordinary world, an ordinary couple of ordinary people: Frankie and Johnny. Sometimes we need to go back to basics. Enjoy.

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Indecent Proposal

business 02:34:00

How much do you value love? Would you give up your last penny to be with the person you love? Would you resign from the financial security of marriage to be with the person you really care about (romancing for years, but not cutting the final ties with your knotted idea of a marriage which had failed long before)? Kings and vagabonds equally lose their heads for the charm of falling in love. Everything else doesn't seem to matter.
But if you already had love, a beautiful true relationship, passion, and trust, would you let it go for other benefits? Would you choose a better job that requires long-distance travel? Would you have an affair with the benefits of no strings attached? Would you even consider giving your beloved partner for only one night for one million dollars? Is love another business and leasing a beloved can happen without consequences for both sides? Indecent Proposal.

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Freeheld

cancer 08:44:00

It requires a lot of strength to take a step forward. It requires courage to use personal experiences to drag the rest towards a more just, more equal world. Sometimes the greatest tragedy is a precedence that can help others win what is truly theirs from the beginning. Sometimes people need the precedence to make them admit that they were wrong, that there is something faulty in their perception of the world. This is a story of a loving couple who wished for the same rights as everybody else. And a story about real people who learned to accept, support and respect not a theoretical concept, but real human beings, their friends, workmates, and colleagues. Let's wish everybody the same learning process. Freeheld.

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A Beautiful Mind

abuse 23:23:00

Problems are here to overcome them. Life would be dull if we were here only for our uncomplicated, monotonous, perfect lives, surrounded by answers to every question, cures for every illness. But we strive for development, improvement, change. We think hard on matters that would help our people feel better about themselves, help them relieve the pain, travel faster and safer. For this, we need exceptional people. Genius and madness often go hand in hand. Being a prodigy in one area can trigger disability in every other sphere and every other subject. Your brilliance doesn't come without a price, it can cause your family to suffer and the quality of your life diminish. But isn't this life of struggle the reason for someone's work? Doctors help the sick, the sick inspire millions to become doctors. Life poses problems and dilemmas for brilliant minds to have food for thought. In this chain of cause and effect, there was a man who sacrificed a lot to come up with a brilliant theory. There was a man who suffered for someone's benefit and somebody's pain. A Beautiful Mind.

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Passengers/ The Island

action 00:27:00

Have you already thought about the future? Maybe you live day by day, ignorant of the skyscrapers built behind the window of your apartment, magnetic trains cutting the commuting distance to nanoseconds, 3d printers which can produce everything from weapons to clothes and prostheses? Maybe the world dominated by plastic surgery, beauty enhancing procedures, the internet and the development of technology escaped your always absent mind. Look around. Admit that something has changed. Then take a step further.

What would happen if our planet was uninhabitable and the only possibility of saving civilization was billions of kilometers away? What would happen if people had copies of themselves in the case of an accident and fatal disease? Can we plan and preserve everything which is there to perish? Can we devote some human beings for the sake of others? Can we hibernate for decades, allured by the possibility of a better future later in time?

But what if things got a little bit out of control? Where's the thin line between morals of science and technology, and individual consciousness? And who says you don't have the right to live your life as you wish? Two sci-fi adventures, romances and some food for thought. What about your future?

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Room

abuse 09:30:00

There are thousands of women who devoted their lives to their families, being then abandoned by their husbands, replaced by a younger or more attractive model. There are thousands every day dealing with abusive relationship, whether it is physical abuse or psychological one. There are thousands who experienced rape by men who don't take no for an answer, thousands who were molested at work by an abusive boss, whose egotism and wealth took control over his morals. There are some individuals who face the fate which few of us can relate to. They still do, hidden somewhere in the basements of houses, sheds, or expensive mansions of rich entrepreneurs who have problems with dealing with success. For all, there's light at the end of the tunnel. A difficult story of a woman who wished for a better fate and survived isolation, fear, and pain, and about a bond one can have with a child. Sometimes for the greatest horror of your life, you just need a Room.

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Bokeh

end of the world 07:35:00

Those who survived catastrophes always highlight what a lottery they won, how fortunate they were rescued from plane crashes, dangling from the highest tree during floods or tsunamis, how blessed surviving on urine under the debris of earthquakes. There is something special about your fate if your life was sheltered from tragedies others couldn't escape. There's a sense of being selected. But how would you feel if you were the last person alive? If all of a sudden there was no one there but you? Would it be a blessing or would it be a course? Would it allow you to live freely, start a civilization and peacefully wait to your last days? Or would it burden you with the stigma of being the last living being with no sense of purpose? In the beautiful landscapes of Iceland, there happened to be a pair who faced such a dilemma. Bokeh.

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Requiem for a Dream

abuse 05:57:00

Some films you like watching again and again. Whether it is a holiday ritual or an evening relaxation after a hard day at work, you never seem to be tired of same old jokes and repetitive kisses at the sunset. Other films you're likely to watch every once in a while when your TV channel kindly reminds you of their existence, but you don't mind, you know what to expect and rediscovering known areas goes well with your personal growth. This is not such a film.

Being struck with addiction is a problem very few of us can handle. And if you're addicted to sugar, cola, chocolate or internet, you may not yet face the fatal consequences of your problems. Drugs are a completely different matter. If you're in the mood for strong emotions which irritate the borders of your sensitivity, and you haven't seen it yet, find time for this pearl. And decide whether you want to watch it again. Requiem for a Dream.

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Belle Épine

accident 08:21:00

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.

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Unfaithful

crime 03:28:00

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.

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Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

comedy 06:47:00

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.

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Silence

abuse 09:16:00

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.

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360

crime 07:30:00

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.

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Kyss mig/ Kiss me

homosexuality 02:41:00

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.

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Le Week-End

children 10:22:00

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.

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Caprice

acting 07:42:00

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.