None of us is immune to the power of imagination. We all fell for stories: those told by our parents when we fell asleep, those told by our teachers which inspired us, those stories of success that made us finish this or that course and choose life vocation. We are puppets in someone's plot, a part of the bigger whole. Stories also help us, make us believe in a better future, better times, and better political systems. They restore our belief in humanity and faith that good will ultimately defeat the evil. They help overcome traumas. Sometimes the gift of imagination makes daily life bearable and allows to pick up the pieces. An extraordinary and real story of survival and psychological struggle, and a gift of a story-telling closed in beautiful-girls-filled, Nazi-occupied and reality-inspired little imaginary Belgian town. Welcome to Marwen.
Sometimes you are so focused on the problems that you forget about a bigger world. There are issues impossible to overcome for many of us but only yours seem so complex and depressing. Don't you appreciate what you have only by seeing that some don't have even half of your possessions? Don't you feel weirdly ashamed that you're fed and have a roof over your head when seeing homeless and hungry? Don't these shifts of attention put your life into perspective and make you learn your lessons?
What if the biggest hypochondriac met a girl who was about to die? Will coming up with a bucket list teach him how to catch the day and live life to the fullest? Can we by accident find our life's best friend and change our outlook on life? A lesson on how to appreciate what is around and make dreams a reality, as nothing is impossible. An art of saying goodbye, humbly taking what's before us and letting go. Then Came You.
The order of things is simple, we are born, occasionally to give birth to others. This order, however, doesn't respect individual cases, the gaps of maturity, the relationships we are in or out and giggles of fate. It might happen that your own mother is as immature as a spoilt teenager and requires your constant attention. It could be that this reckless parent gets pregnant just as soon as you start to grow your own family. In times when the age of the pregnancy is not really certain, exposing us to teenage mums and late mothers, it's fun to see two generations striving for the same: parenthood. For mothers and daughters, to appreciate the fleeting moments when we can still be together and share experiences. Enjoy.
Open the photo album with old pictures from your childhood. Look at your chocolate-smeared face, your awkward glance or beaming smile. Look through your teenage years. Pass kindergarten and primary school. Then cover your teenage years. See how your parents have changed, how time didn't wait for anyone to catch up or save the last glimpses of youth and beauty. See how from the bubbling infant you shifted into a grown person and how much effort it took, how much time, space.
We discovered camera to catch moments and preserve memories in time, we created movies to make our legends and stories infinite, to spread the adaptation of the written word, to close happiness and pain in the jar of indestructible. Some pushed this possibility to another level. Imagine a film which leads you through the whole process of upbringing, allows you to see children grow, people age and change, circumstances shift, political systems and pop-culture obsessions turn around and take over. Imagine that it can be seen just like an old photo album, picture by picture, years after years. Boyhood. Maybe it's also your life preserved within the frames of a film. Enjoy.
In no relationship, you have the naive guarantee that it will last forever. You may wish that one-time fascination will lead to long-lasting happiness, but it is rarely so, taking into account the rate of divorces. You might swallow the bitter pill of realization that your devotion to your husband doesn't make sense and your efforts to make him satisfied are simply futile. He's the one who cheats on you, you know it, you feel less attractive and not desired at all. Will finding an attractive young woman and hatching a plan of his seduction save your marriage, be its biggest downfall, or wake up the long-forgotten eroticism? Or maybe you will fall into your own carefully planned trap? Chloe.
We, humans, are capable of various evils. We have shown over the centuries that hatred, mass-murders, being blinded by religion or philosophy are no strangers to us and form our everyday bread and butter. While being ashamed, we have to admit: we might be the most developed, but we tend to be the cruelest kind of all. But are we the only species inhabiting our planet, living among us, door to door, body to body, usurping our habits and customs? Or maybe some myths and legends are still here because there's no smoke without fire and they contain a substantial pinch of truth? What is the border between the two worlds, the world of humans, and the world or trolls? And looking at our worst crimes, can we tell for sure that we are in fact more human than those we consider the inferior sub-creatures? Food for thought, Border.
Seeing our forever lost ambitions and dreams often causes great pain. If your talent has been wasted along the rational decisions of making ends meet and being the breadwinner of the family, you will be frustrated. Maybe also your relationship decisions were dictated by the rational calculation, fear of being alone or never running into anyone who will meet the expectations of a whirlwind romance. But what if there was a chance for something exciting? A forgotten actress with an abusive husband and a juvenile delinquent of a son, and an artist lover. Will the unexpected visit of a step-daughter ruin the desperate cling to old desires? Wonder Wheel.
We live in times when the discussion of whether or not to have children, (if yes how to raise them, what to buy them, how to protect their privacy, and how to lose the postpartum weight) seems to be on the mouth of everybody. A generation of perfect Instagram parents has been built. Parenthood is hard enough, revolutionizing the lives of everybody to the extent of 3rd world war. But for some, being at the corner of their career, relationship or life situation, it proves to be the greatest gift. What if the life of a party-goer, ladies man, and irresponsible Peter Pan was enriched by the presence of a child? Is it easy to lose something which at first frightened you, but then won your heart? Why one parent cannot play the role of both? Why mother and father relations are often stereotypical and so many courts tend to take the mother's side in the divorce trials? Heart-warming and surprisingly real in its improbability, Two Is a Family.
There's something true in the fact that men come, disturb the peace and leave, and women are the ones to clean the mess. From every side of the spectrum, despite the origin, financial status, and race. If you are a woman, at any time you can be abandoned to keep the world on your shoulders and swipe the dust after the disorder of pain. Two women during a difficult political time, one a servant, the other an employer and mother of four. Two personal dramas, old as time, for all of us, understood and empathically cried over. Why women are the stronger sex? Why for some truths you don't need explanation, color or words? Universal, true, and a tribute to a woman. ROMA.
We love the stories of rich and successful people who created something for all of us to enjoy. People who came up with something outside of the box, from a company of inhibition and established rules spread the wings of independence, excite us. They had the guts to do something many only dream about or are forced to when all else fails, often with mixed results. For some security is more important than following the dream of being one's own boss. For others, family and children, become a bigger priority than their own dreams of success. Others yet, have to fight for their lives and establish the closest relations to be able to start the career of their dreams. Why losing someone means appreciating them twice as much? Where do you get an inspiration and why talent is seen from the youngest years? And why one hundred years ago the life of Astrid Lindgren, the famous children author, an unmarried woman with a child was a tough nut to bite? Becoming Astrid. The greatest stories are often created from the greatest pain.
There's a small percentage of women who are on the board of the biggest companies, a small percentage of film directors and producers, a small percentage of company owners. Thus, when a woman holds the highest position in any organization, she is to be compared to a man. What if she is the ruler of a country? What obstacles does she have to face in her fight for power and independence? Is she able to make her own choices and keep the privileges given to a woman to love and have children? Or is she a victim of men that surround her, advise her, and seem to be loyal to her by the power of love? Is alienation from what is human a clue for keeping the power? Is having it all doomed to the fall of the strongest of women, exposing their weaknesses?
In the world which still fights for equal rights, equal pays, and equal opportunities it's good to peek into the past of two women who were the head of the country. One consciously deciding to live for her role, the other hoping to remain a wife and a mother, and keeping above the surface of power. Elizabeth and Mary hundreds of years ago did what women try to balance nowadays. A whole lot of history and magnificence of lost time, actresses of our generations, inspiration for half of the world's population. Enjoy.
Time flies by so fast that it's difficult to keep track of its flow. What now can be seen in musea was used every day by thousands of us, not even expecting what the future holds and how today will look like. Our present will also be someone else's past, possibly even a distant past. Our fascinations and philosophies will be seen as basic and out-dated, our technology will fill the shelves of galleries and our clothes and food will be the center attention for school trips for children, organized to extend the curriculum of classes if there will be such. How the world will look like hundreds of years from now? How our inventions will influence the inventions from the future? Can you imagine moving cities on wheels on shifted continents and London, being one of these cities, facing a catastrophe caused by flawed and corrupted politics? Based on Philip's Reeve novel, with a bullet of Peter's Jackson film-making capabilities, the adventure of the future. Mortal Engines, enjoy.
A woman without a man can be a dangerous thing. And it's true for every age: a teenager dreaming about a first boyfriend, a young woman with buzzing sexual appetite, a mature experienced one longing for her past and appreciating that she is still active, attractive, and hungry. Once a man enters this all-female environment, true desires are difficult to be kept hidden. What if an enemy soldier was found by a schoolgirl and kept a hostage in a school run by women for girls? Can you pretend love just to survive? Can you form a true bond with literally everybody just because there's no other man home? And what women, whose feelings have been rejected, are capable of? Two film adaptations of one novel almost fifty years apart, proving that emotions do not fade in time, one from 1971 another from 2017. The Beguiled.
Before every teenage girl fell for Edward, the handsome and protective vampire from The Twilight Saga and every girl/woman boosting up her sexual fantasies got herself besotted with Christian Grey from Fifty Shades of Grey, for decades there was another love story which colored the gloomy evenings of romantic souls. It seems that we love the idea of a strong independent woman who, having suffered enough in her life, finally stands for her own happiness. Is there a chance for a happy ending for a mistreated and deprived of love Jane Eyre? What mystery hides behind the walls of Thornfield Hall? And isn't Edward Fairfax Rochester the inspiration for a contemporary ideal man, broken by life and experiences, but able to win our hearts despite the thorny cover? Two adaptations (1996 and 2011) of one great love story, a feast of contemporary acting talents, and a treat for the eye. Jane Eyre.
Sooner or later in life, we take into account the fact that our future might be shaped by a completely different conflict. We consider many doomsday scenarios, we realize that there have been wars of various kinds and at times they were caused by one unfortunate (or stupid) event which led to the perishing of millions. Future is yet unknown but, having witnessed the epidemics of flu, black death, Ebola, and Zika virus, we might not be entirely sure that there will be another kind of virus. And another war will be waged by us against an infected mutation of the humankind that enjoys eating human flesh.
Post-apocalyptic versions of life on the planet populated by blindly unscrupulous killing and eating machine and the lucky few who want and wish to end it all and bring back peace. Is there a place for human feelings in a world which becomes more and more indifferent towards any suffering? How probable are the actions of the military and government against organized evil on a global scale? Can you trust those you should be most cautious of? And are children the ultimate answer? Two films with an epic vision of one potential war against Zombies, The Girl with All the Gifts and World War Z. Are you afraid? Enjoy.
Never underestimate the power of love. You might rationally weigh the pros and cons of forming a relationship, entering into a marriage, conceiving a child and building a house together. But weak feelings fade in time leaving the bittersweetness from Adele songs: gone, insignificant, mundane, awkward. But true love never dies, it's not destroyed by distance or time. It lasts despite obstacles, family conflicts, religious differences, age gap, and war. A romance which fed generations of romantics and lovers of mystery. A young love which conquered death, but broke many innocent lives due to its protagonists' passionate tempers. A pair of characters who enchanted masses and still do between the reality TV shows and fast food meals. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and one memorable adaptation. Enjoy.
History knows many influential women, independent minds who added to the progress of civilization and were strong-minded enough to change the politics, law or culture. Women proved that they don't need men to achieve something and their fate is in their own hands. But tragic lives of those who were sat on the top and taken to the very bottom by the hands of people's will are those we tend to remember the most. Is it easy to be welcomed in a foreign country and put in a position of power? Can a marriage of alliance bring happiness to a young inexperienced woman? Can the society of gossip and entertainment spoil a woman to the extent of being a legend of a shopping spree? And isn't every tragic woman a victim of circumstances? A modern take on history, Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antoinette, which divided the French and fascinated the American youth.
Love is a dangerous game and being too confident in any game can make you lose from your own weapon. While engaging in fleeting romances and appeasing sexual appetite have rather hedonistic values with no guarantee of longevity, playing with feelings can prove to break more than one heart. In the society, which in the past fed on gossip just as now it feeds on gossip columns in internet blogs and flashing covers of blockbuster magazines, is there a chance for true love? Can the most demoralized learn their lessons and is there any good in the most degenerated minds, who seem to have seen it all, done it all and have no boundaries to cross? A beautiful classic based on de Laclos' 18th-century novel, and a modern version of the same story. Can a villain win the purest of hearts? Enjoy.
The greatest lessons are learned by near to death experience. Having it all and losing everything of value makes you reevaluate your life. What was significant for your entire life seems to fade when clashed with the new circumstances: bankruptcy, cancer, the death of the beloved. But can temporary amnesia and being tricked into a normal, hard and from hand to mouth routine change your attitude and make you a better person? From riches to rags with a bonus of a heart-warming family environment in 1987 was funny enough to produce a 2018 remake. A lesson what is really important in life and why in every snobbish bitch and spoilt heir of a substantial fortune there is ultimately a pinch of good. Overboard.
We, humans, are prone to aggression. Hatred like a ticking bomb with every second overflows the taught cultural behavior and we are willing to go on the streets and fight for what we believe in. And approach those who dare to have a different opinion. Technology accumulated this trait and turned it into social media hatred, allowing us to express our opinions anonymously and collectively like and share with others. We agreed to create a bubble of venom. At the same time, we want our private to be private, our sins to be known only to us, and we would like to judge not being judged ourselves. But imagine a small town, in which just like throughout your social network, everybody knows one another well. Imagine all the private conversations leaked, all the gossip spread, all the affairs revealed and people allowed to take action and conduct a personal vendetta for their lost reputation. Something of a cult, rebel, female-power thing, Assassination Nation. Enjoy.

























