CULTURAL
OPEN CITY
A landmark of Italian neorealism often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Rossellini’s portrait of life under the Nazi Occupation remains remarkable for its sheer immediacy, tension and power.
ISLE OF DOGS PG13
ISLE OF DOGS tells the story of ATARI KOBAYASHI, 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by Executive Decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage-dump called Trash Island, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop and flies across the river in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the assistance of a pack of newly-found mongrel frihttps://thinkingfilms.edublogs.org/wp-admin/edit.phpends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire Prefecture.
Volver -R
Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) works and lives Madrid with her husband Paco and daughter Paula. Her sister Sole (Lola Dueñas) lives nearby and they both miss their mother Irene (Carmen Maura), who died several years ago in a house fire along with their father. A former neighbor from their hometown reports that she has seen the ghost of Irene and both daughters do not believe her. After a murder and a family tragedy, Irene’s spirit materializes around her daughters to help comfort them.
MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING
Everyone in the Portokalos family worries about Toula (Nia Vardalos). Still unmarried at 30 years old, she works at Dancing Zorba’s, the Greek restaurant owned by her parents, Gus (Michael Constantine) and Maria (Lainie Kazan). After taking a job at her aunt’s travel agency, she falls in love with Ian Miller (John Corbett), a teacher who is tall, handsome and definitely not Greek. Toula isn’t sure which will be more upsetting to her father, that Ian is a foreigner or that he’s a vegetarian.
BUTTERFLY – R
The heartwarming story of the relationship that develops between a shy young boy and his kind teacher in 1936 Spain. The boy, Moncho, is frightened about starting school, and it is up to the gentle, compassionate Don Gregorio to set the boy’s mind at ease. When the Spanish Civil War erupts on July 18, both individuals’ lives are changed forever. Gomez turns in another memorable performance as the sensitive teacher.
TRAIL OF TEARS
The 1838 Cherokee removal from the southeastern United States is chronicled.
Up the Yangtze
This documentary examine China’s rapidly changing economy by focusing on the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. For the government, the dam stands as a symbol of progress; but it displaces hundreds of families during its creation. Following local teenagers Chen Bo Yu and Yu Shi, who work on one of the Western cruise lines that sails up the Yangtze near the dam, the film details the friction in Chinese society as its citizens struggle with the realities of its new consumer capitalism.
Born into Brothels
Documentary photographer Zana Briski journeyed into Calcutta’s underworld to photograph the city’s prostitutes. In return, she offered to teach the prostitutes’ children the basics of photography so that the kids could document their own lives on the streets of one of the world’s poorest cities. The resulting photographs, often astonishing, were exhibited around the world; many of them are seen in this film, which won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2005.
WATER R
The story of Water begins in 1938 India as an 8 year old girl, who barely even remembers her wedding and has little comprehension of her marriage, has just been widowed. Required by ancient Hindu laws to now leave society, she is brought to a dilapidated widow house or ashram where, according to custom, her hair will be shorn, her clothes exchanged for white robes and the rest of her life, until her death, will be spent in renunciation. But the feisty, precocious, disbelieving Chuyia (Sarala) soon turns the house upside down with her rebellious spark. She begins to have a profound affect on the other women who live there, in particular the devout Shakuntala (Seema Biswas) and the beautiful Kalyani (Lisa Ray) who has been forced into prostitution by the domineering head widow, Madhumati (Manorama). It is Chuyia who leads Kalyani to meet the alluring law student and Gandhi nationalist Narayan (John Abraham), with whom Kalyani falls in love, despite the taboos. What happens next – an attempt at escape fueled by passion and bravery — will change Chuyia forever and bring both tragedy and an unexpected ray of hope to the widow house.