Klara Jagovit

Meet the Hitlers

abuse 01:44:00

There are connotations to every name. Sometimes your personal feelings allow you to hate or respect a particular name, taking into account your relationship with your family. At times it's something which makes you ashamed or, by a simple game of words, turns you into a laughing stock at school and later on at work. But one name definitely stands out. Hitler. There were people who inherited a name which forced them to explain their family history to everyone asking. An entertaining get together with people ashamed, proud, distanced and deeply moved by sharing the same name with one of the world's greatest evils. Is it only about a name? Meet the Hitlers.

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Mon ange

fairy tales 08:41:00

Love and friendship are feelings which reach far beyond the lustful cravings of the body and misleading infatuation with fleeting appearance. Love is stronger than death, true love ignores poverty, disease, and disability. You can fall in love with a voice, a touch, a whisper. You can fall in love with the ones whom you don't see at all. Is being invisible an obstacle in the fulfillment of your dreams? Is it a barrier impossible to overcome? If you're in a mood of a modern fairy tale where nothing is what is seems, enjoy Mon ange. Vision is just one of the senses, which thanks to the power of cinema can make invisible visible again.

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Wild

animals 07:39:00

Civilization is an artificial concept which makes everything run clockwork. We sleep on a bed, having for centuries slept on the floor of sticks and grass. We eat portioned and available food, having been used to hunting and gathering for millennia. We switched caves for flats, fires for central heating, furs for nylon and synthetic materials. We turned work at the farm into work in a corporation in front of the computer. We replaced the sun with antidepressants, physical exercise with box diet and sex with porn. Are you happy, then, with the state of affairs? Don't you feel that there's something missing? There was one woman who turned her thoughts into action and broke the bonds with ordered and reasonable life. Wild.

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This Beautiful Fantastic

friendship 04:30:00

Appearances lead us to wrong conclusions. Sometimes the stubbornness, meanness and rudeness are just a cover for a broken soul. Sometimes your stereotypical approach to a person can shade a real past and a true personality. It's important to uncover the prejudice of appearances before you come up to certain conclusions. It's nice to broaden your horizons a little bit more, cross your safety zone and learn that people who surround you are not really what they seem to be. A nice little story of This Beautiful Fantastic. Maybe you also have a neighbor, whom you'd like to get to know better.

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Raw

animals 05:39:00

Remember your college experience? These endless hours of cramming before the exams, social groups dividing themselves according to interests, political views, and financial status? Your first nights away from your parents, your first heart breaks and sexual escapades? Evening classes and lonesome coming back home at 3 am, one-night stands, random acquaintances, and broken friendships? Crazy parties and irrational challenges resembling prison bullying? Well, this is something which brings the college experience to another level. Hungry for another type of education? Are you really hungry? Raw.

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24 Wohen/24 Weeks

abortion 01:59:00

When the tragedy happens, you are always there to give good advice, you know better, it will be all fine in the end. Unwanted pregnancy? Of course, you will manage, a child is such a blessing, even though good pieces of advice tend to disappear at 3 am. when you're alone with a crying alarm clock. Disability? You will deal with it, there are institutions which will help you, social services that will teach you how to live, avoiding depression and euthanasia. Cancer? You cannot give up, you have people to live for.

Good motivational pieces of advice are usually from those who had never experienced the trauma you're dealing with. They are from those who will abandon you sooner or later in their busy world of loud opinions and quiet actions. Having a child is a decision for a lifetime. Not having a child is also something which will stay with you for ever. What would you do if you were pregnant with a child diagnosed with a Down syndrome and a serious heart disease? Would you be brave and give it a go, taking into account your religion, upbringing or hopeful wishes for the future? Would you have an abortion? Would you be strong enough to agree on the life burdened by someone's disability? A very important film about the complexity of making a decision. Don't judge. Such a dilemma might at some point concern you. 24 Weeks.

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John Carter

action 08:42:00

We have so many things to occupy us on this planet, so many problems, challenges, dilemmas, that we forget that there are many more problems, challenges, and dilemmas, which we cannot even comprehend. There might be creatures that don't resemble anything we are familiar with, there might be civilizations which face threats of being extinct, there are conflicts which are not based on earthly problems. The best way to check it is to find the passage to another planet. Let's not reach far, neighboring planets will be just fine. Follow Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel's idea and visit Barsoom. Spectacular and fun: John Carter.

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Before I Fall/The Butterfly Effect

accident 07:51:00

Every single decision leads to something. The way you treat your friends, partners and parents depends on how you will be treated by your friends, partners, and children. The time when you decide on your career will make other life options unavailable. The moment you say something unpleasant will depend on whether you will later regret it or try to make it up to someone. Each time when you don't react will make you reminiscent this moment for ever. It will allow others not to react and in turn be indifferent when you are in need. Karma is a dangerous thing. One positive action can trigger thousands of equally positive. One negative will create a society numb to the needs of many. Two films with over a decade difference. How little things matter, turning every life decision into a life-long outcome, and how can we be a little bit better as humans. Before I Fall and The Butterfly Effect.

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Easy Virtue

Colin Firth 01:47:00

It's great to have a family which supports your every decision, stands by your every dream and is your helping hand in times of your mistakes, failures, and heartbreaks. It makes every family meeting a pleasure and every holiday spent together an event worth waiting for. At least for some. But let's be realistic: if you find yourself among people who visibly don't like you, criticize your every move or share values which you don't believe in, such a meeting might turn into a nightmare. How conventions can destroy a beautiful love, why family looks good only in pictures and why the older we get, the more differences are bound to occur between siblings, parents, and children? Also, why bonds of family and tradition seem to win with even the strongest relationship, and why for some the only way to breathe is to break free? Bitter-sweat and funny: Easy Virtue.

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Sightseeres

adventure 02:38:00

Let's agree on one thing. People are irritating. They disturb your peace of mind in the means of public transport, they seem to be more successful than you, own things that you don't own, attempt to steal from you what you value the most. Oh, the world is such an irritating place, so unfair... Why not push your irritation to the limits and turn your anger into something constructive? Why not get rid of those who annoy you the most? Why not do this indefinitely? Enjoyable catharsis and just a tiny bit disturbing entertainment. Have fun, don't get inspired. Sightseers.

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Death at a Funeral

black comedy 02:28:00

Funerals are usually deeply sad occasions. Families gather to say goodbye to their beloved, eat a dinner dressed with tears, recall the final moments of the deceased, cherish memories, which in time will only fade. It's natural. People die. We will all die, whether we want to avoid it or not. There shouldn't be any taboo surrounding death. But the final day of the deceased on the surface on earth can trigger not particularly expected events, reveal secrets few would like to reveal and make family members behave like patients of a mental institution. Hilariously funny, despite the occasion. Death at a Funeral. Enjoy.

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Casting JonBenet

acting 23:48:00

It's easy to judge when the tragedy doesn't touch us. It's easy to find the guilty ones once we don't have to point fingers at our friends, family members, and workmates. It's, on the other hand, crushing to be in the shoes of people who were touched by an event, which lingered for years, leaving the unperishing sense of loss. The loss which had an impact. Some people were so moved by one famous crime that they tried to use their personal experiences, suspicions, and deductions to solve one buried mystery. But they also did something else. By reenacting one crime they opened gates for much more, revealing that none of us is really innocent and there are layers to every story. In the cloud of mystery, murder and family pathology, something else than just a documentary: Casting JonBenet.

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The Motorcycle Diaries / Diarios de motocicleta

disease 03:06:00

Let's go! Let's set off on a journey across a continent, across cities, mountains, villages, deserts, mines, rivers and historic monuments. Let's skip the school for a while, let's forget about textbooks, parents' words of wisdom, teachers' guidelines. Let's open our eyes and see the unexplored, the wild and the untamed. Let's compare what we think about the world to what the world thinks about us. Let's see the poverty, the injustice, the happiness in simple gestures and suffering due to incurable diseases. Let's appreciate what we have and see what we can do for others to give them a little bit more. Let's go! Let's go on a journey across South America and witness what turned one student of medicine into a revolutionary. Let's follow the footsteps of Che Guevara, at least for a while, and let's see for ourselves. The Motorcycle Diaries.

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Below Her Mouth

homosexuality 08:48:00

In the company of wrong people, there's always something missing. In a bad friendship, there are gaps of honesty, loyalty, and humor. In a bad relationship, there are gaps of happiness, fulfillment, and joy. We meander, changing our jobs, interests and life influences. But if there's something missing we are likely to give up even the biggest efforts, years of devotion and commitment, to find our cup of tea and something that rings true. There are people who gave up their priesthood for the warmth of a woman's body, there are husbands who abandoned wives for the charm of the other woman. There are people who had to reach the bottom to have the strength to come back to the surface. There are women who found each other somewhere in the middle of the way to decide if there's a step back. A pool of sexual pleasures and a good romance for those who still wait for the 'right click'. Below Her Mouth.

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Kinsey

education 04:19:00

Are you attracted to men or women? Both? Neither? Do you fantasize before falling asleep? Do you watch porn? Do you masturbate? How often? How often do you have sex? Do you feel sexually satisfied? Do you have sex without love? Or do you love, not having sex? Do you have sex with your partner? Many subsequent partners? Toys? Pets? Do these questions make you uncomfortable?

Sex. As far as it's not the most important thing on the planet, it's somewhere below our basic need, just after water and food. It makes the puberty the most uncomfortable period of our lives, it also makes us decide what course our lives are going to take. Married? Children? Single? Open relationship? No label?

There's too much shame that surrounds this basic human need and too much discrimination has been put on the fragile sphere of your sexuality. Whether straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, toysexual or weirdsexual, statistically, we're all in the spectrum of nature. From time immemorial. There was someone who wanted to teach us this simple truth of fitting in regardless of social prejudices, discrimination, religion, and tradition. Whatever your prejudices are, people once believed that the Earth was flat and the Sun revolved around it. Kinsey. Sexual education for us all. Where on the scale are you?

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Chi-Raq

crime 09:11:00

War. It takes years to raise a human being. It takes the pain of childbirth to bring a child onto this planet. It takes years of sleepless nights, money for education, food and shelter to raise a human to adulthood. It takes years to save money for a house, to build a family, to start a career.

It takes money to buy weapons. It takes millions to invest into tanks, missiles, biological weapons, bombs, and bullets. It takes millions to provide soldiers with their meals, uniforms, and equipment. It takes millions to train and school how to kill and how to do it well.

It takes seconds to kill a person. It takes seconds to destroy a building. It takes moments to divide nations.

It takes years to learn from mistakes. We've been there. We have sources, historical facts, documents. We know that there were wars which took a toll of millions of innocent citizens. We know that fear, economic instability, hatred, and prejudice triggered tragedies that destroyed a beautiful world and it took decades to rebuild this world again.

War is a waste of money, a waste of life and a waste of time. And still, there is war. There's still violence and crime. There's war in the world and small wars happen every day on the streets of even the smallest cities.

People resort to various means to spread the message of peace. They compose ballads, write poems or books, make films. The greatest strength of women is sex. What if this weapon was used for the higher good? Extremely important: Chi-Raq.

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LOL

daughters 01:20:00

Everything first is a step to the unknown. First bicycle ride makes us look like idiots completely out of control. Then there's adolescence. First kiss, first crush, first love, first sex seem to be equally awkward. There are no guidelines, no certain words of wisdom what to do and what to avoid. There is no guarantee that the first ones are going to be pleasant, successful or even not humiliating. Hormones and emotions push people into silly things, hurt feelings make them say or do what they will later regret. But entering the love game cannot happen without a few bruises here and there. A light but smart film about teenage growing-up. Firsts are just an introduction to a whole sequence of the next, hopefully, more successful, ones. LOL.

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Brokeback Mountain

Ang Lee 07:55:00

Is your family divided between two various concepts of an acceptable lifestyle? Do marriage, tradition, and religion play a big role in major family decisions and celebrations? Have your family members stopped talking to each other due to grudges, prejudices or different political views? It happens to families, and equally, it can divide nations.
There are stories which annoy many. There are taboos which like to be broken by the brave. There are finally films which were loud enough to break rigid and stiff traditions which slowly lost touch with reality. A cowboy: the epitome of strength, fitness, bravery, and manhood. In the lonesome meadows of America, across the grasses surrounded by sheep, there were two: typical studs, representatives of their kind, with the whole world kneeling at their feet. Who would have thought that they could ever fall in love? A love story which not so long before revolutionized the cinema to the extent of being mocked. Still good. Brokeback Mountain.

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Underground

animals 08:10:00

We know so little about the history of our nations. We fail to remember the most important facts from our own history, not to mention the affairs of great empires and building economies. We witness the history happening in front of our eyes to tell our children what it was like to live on the verge of two centuries, but is that enough? Americans are ignorant about European history, Europeans selectively pursue their interests, focusing either on medieval ages, colonialism, war or current affairs. Small countries lose the battle of textbooks' space with big revolutions. Nationalism prevails: Brexit is now a fact, and those more to the West consider themselves better than those in the East.

Do you know anything about Yugoslavia? Can you squeeze almost a hundred of years of political events into one film? Would you like to experience a different (but not worse) perspective and learn something that picked up on events which happened in the country few can even point to the map of the world? Underground. Some nations' revolutions can occur even in the basement.

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Small Town Killers/Dræberne fra Nibe

black comedy 08:20:00

Marriage. It makes people climb the peaks of the highest mountains and falls into the traps of the deepest swamps. What if the butterflies in your stomach turned into bitter irritation and annoyance with your life partner? What if sex was no longer satisfying and, as a matter of fact, it was utterly non-existent? What if at the sheer thought of spending one more year in your marriage, you were struck with dizziness, nausea and a desperate need to set yourself free? What if the only solution to saving money on divorce trials was to avoid divorce at all cost and resort to more practical methods of getting rid of your spouse? Maybe hiring a hitman is at the end of the day not such a bad choice? Small Town Killers.