FR
Cio-Cio-San, a young Japanese geisha, seeks to fulfill her dreams through marriage to an American naval officer. Her faith in their future is shattered by his empty vows and the loss she endures touches something deep within us all.
Nov 1995
A well-off Indian family is paid an unexpected, and rather unwanted, visit by a man claiming to be the woman's long lost uncle. The initial suspicion with which they greet the man slowly dissolves as he regales them with stories of his travels, tales that are at odds with their conventional middle class perspective on the world.
May 1991
Satan tempts Father Dossignan, who is trying to save the soul of a young girl who killed one of her lovers.
Aug 1987
Giacomo Puccini's bittersweet opera of high-spirited bohemians and the doomed love between Rodolfo, the idealistic poet and Mimi, the consumptive flower-maker, is a beautifully balanced series of tableaux depicting the infectious joie de vivre of youth and the tragic waste of disease and separation. The legendary and incomparable partnership of Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti as the two lovers has been captured in this special live recording from stage of the San Francisco Opera. Brian Large has adapted Francesca Zambello's production for video, further illuminating the fascinating interaction of Puccini's characters. Gino Quilico sings Marcello, the colorful and moody painter, whose tempestuous relationship with the flirtatious Musetta (sung by Sandra Pacetti), comically mirrors the more profound love of Rodolfo and Mimi. Nicolai Ghiaurov sings Colline.
Jan 1988
This is 1920: Sophia and Trofim Ivanytch have been living on Vassilievski Island, which is part of Petrograd, for thirteen years. In their house, which looks like a ship wreck, the atmosphere is gloomy. Sophia cannot have children and she is aware that, because of that, she is likely to lose her husband. That is why, when their neighbor dies, she asks Trofim to take in Ganka, his orphaned thirteen-year-old daughter. Trofim agrees and their new life begins...
May 1995
The film tells the story of a love affair between a poor poet and an equally poor seamstress in 19th century Paris.
Mar 1988
The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.
Oct 1989
A short commissioned piece on 'famous last words' set in WWII.
Oct 1988
A possible impostor torments a newly crowned medieval czar who may have ordered the real successor's death.
Dec 1989
The story of Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.
May 1990
After leaving the asylum, Vincent van Gogh settles in the home of Doctor Gachet, where he keeps painting amidst the torments of his failing mental health. He begins an affair with his host’s daughter, however, she soon realizes that he doesn’t love her and that his heart beats only for art.
Oct 1991
Paris, October 1948. Nino, Gilles, Donald, Barbara and their friends are a new breed of spectators. They discover the cinema as art, they are moviegoers. They will try to realize their grand project: to found a film club. "My film first wants to be a testimony of young people who have lived for a passion. Cinema"
When a wealthy patriarch falls ill on his 70th birthday, three of his sons rush in from Calcutta, leading to a reunion filled with painful ironies and lingering disillusionment. As the family—including an addled fourth son who lives with the old man—watches and waits, the static occasion brings out simmering tensions in their family dynamics, from the father’s moral rectitude to the business ambition of two sons and the withdrawal of their siblings.
Nov 1990
A look at the last few days of in the life of composer Frédéric Chopin's professional life.
Jun 1991
Beginning in South Africa under the apartheid regime, the film follows a young girl who flees the country after a violent confrontation with a local white landowner in which her father is killed. She settles in Abidjan, where, ten years later, she has become a university student. As part of her studies, she visits the Taureg tribe on the edge of the Sahara before at last returning to post-Apartheid South Africa.
Jan 1995
A Polish Resistance fighter who survived the Nazi years cannot accept the new Communist power.
Apr 1992
Désiré is a fine servant and butler who regularly seduces the ladies of the house where he works, but then he moves on. This time he is working for Odette, the mistress of the minister of Posts and he is living a new situation. He has fallen in love with with Odette.
Apr 1996
An urban gigolo on the run from a mobster hides out at the remote cabin of a female novelist in this plodding romantic drama. Her neighbors include an elderly man with a penchant for growing sunflowers and an unhappy neighbor girl with emotional problems. Love blossoms for the unlikely couple who somehow realize their liaison is doomed to failure.
Nov 1988
A grizzled, hard-of-hearing cowboy, Slim, and his two friends, Dusty and Pete, capture a mysterious, well-dressed Frenchman.
Each evening, four men – a doctor, a journalist, a professor and a merchant – meet up in a deserted bar to play cards. As they play, the bar’s owner, her downtrodden barman (nicknamed “le paltoquet”) and a strange woman in white watch from a distance. One night, the card game is disturbed when a police inspector suddenly appears and declares that a dead body has been found nearby. Certain that one of the four men is the murderer, the inspector starts his investigation. All the evidence suggests that the doctor did the deed, but we soon learn that nothing is quite what it seems…
Aug 1986