La Chinoise

A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.

On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her.

Michel is a young technician in the fledgling TV industry and is due for military service in two months at the time of the Algerian War. Juliette and Liliane are inseparable best friends, and aspiring actresses, who hang around outside the TV studio. Michel invites them in to watch, flirts with them both, and dates them separately and together. When Michel goes on a holiday to Corsica, just before he is drafted, the girls follow.

While The Rolling Stones rehearse "Sympathy for the Devil" in the studio, an alternating narrative reflects on 1968 society, politics and culture through five different vignettes.

The narrative portrays a plain man who guides the viewer through his life in a bleakly stylised world.

Spain, 1973. Dictator Francisco Franco has ruled the country since 1939 with an iron fist; but he is now a very old and sick man. The future of the weakened regime is in danger. Admiral Carrero Blanco is his natural successor. The Basque terrorist gang ETA decides that he must die to prevent the dictatorship from continuing.

A single middle aged lady working as receptionist and cleaner in a public lavatory for men spends her time between chores reading "Happy Woman" and daydreaming about a loving partner. When an unknown man starts leaving flowers at her desk, she gets excited but also increasingly stressed out trying to figure out who is her secret admirer or, perhaps, the prankster.

A young man shoots hoops in an empty gym. He misses constantly. At the other end of the court, a young woman arrives and starts warming up. She rarely misses. He's white, she's black. From time to time, she glances at him and smiles. He's fully aware of her presence and of his lack of talent. Is there any way he can impress her? His imagination takes over.

An account of the life and work of the famous Mexican journalist Manuel Buendía (1926-84) that seeks to unravel his murder and the links between Mexican politics and drug trafficking.

Night after night, not long before dawn, two young adults, Patricia and Emile, meet on a sound stage to discuss learning, discourse, and the path to revolution. Scenes of Paris's student revolt, the Vietnam War, and other events of the late 1960s, along with posters, photographs, and cartoons, are backdrops to their words. Words themselves are often Patricia and Emile's subject, as are images, sounds, and juxtapositions.

An intimate window into one of the great movements in film history that brought about an evolution in the art of cinema. The documentary portrays the movement with insight on the lives and works of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and other principal players in the New Wave.

The Decalogue Collection is a profound and thought-provoking anthology of ten one-hour films, each inspired by one of the Ten Commandments. Created by acclaimed Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski, this cinematic masterpiece explores complex moral and ethical dilemmas faced by the residents of a housing complex in late 20th-century Poland. The series originally aired on Polish television in 1989 and has since been recognized as one of the greatest achievements in world cinema. Each film in the collection stands on its own as a powerful exploration of human nature and the struggles that arise when faced with challenging life choices. The Decalogue Collection is an essential viewing experience for anyone interested in understanding the depths of human experience, as it delves into themes such as love, faith, guilt, and redemption.

A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.

In search of her mother, a teenager and her eccentric group of companions set off on a journey, trying to avoid the clutches of a wicked woman.

A radical student is adopted by a group of young New Yorkers, serves as a catalyst to alter his and their lives. Gathering in a Manhattan apartment, the group of friends meet to discuss social mobility, Fourier's socialism and play bridge in their cocoon of upper-class society - until they are joined by a man with a critical view of their way of life.

As the city of Paris and the French people grow in consumer culture, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment with her husband and two children takes to prostitution to help pay the bills.

Grégoire Lecomte, the unlucky actor anxious to find a "real job", goes to take a screen test for a role of a killer, but gets to mafiosi by mistake. He takes their don for a producer, and they mistake him for a hitman with whom they had an appointment. Deluded Lecomte signs contract with them. He is supposed to kill gun dealer Otto Krampe at his birthday party in Saint-Tropez by piercing him with a cap of the umbrella with a built-in syringe with potassium cyanide. Lecomte is not aware that it has to be a real murder.

The idea is simple / A married woman and a single man meet / They love, they argue, fists fly / A dog strays between town and country / The seasons pass / The man and woman meet again / The dog finds itself between them / The other is in one, / the one is in the other / and they are three / The former husband shatters everything / A second film begins: / the same as the first, / and yet not / From the human race we pass to metaphor / This ends in barking / and a baby's cries / In the meantime, we will have seen people talking of the demise of the dollar, of truth in mathematics and of the death of a robin." - JLG

Paul, a young idealist trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, takes a job interviewing people for a marketing research firm. He moves in with aspiring pop singer Madeleine. Paul, however, is disillusioned by the growing commercialism in society, while Madeleine just wants to be successful. The story is told in a series of 15 unrelated vignettes.