FLARE

A young alcoholic ambient musician locks himself in his apartment on a dangerous seven day bender as he attempts to finish his upcoming album.

Roughly chronological, from 3/96 to 11/96, with a coda in spring of 1997: inside compounds of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist sect led by Shoko Asahara. (Members confessed to a murderous sarin attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995.) We see what they eat, where they sleep, and how they respond to media scrutiny, on-going trials, the shrinking of their fortunes, and the criticism of society. Central focus is placed on Hiroshi Araki, a young man who finds himself elevated to chief spokesman for Aum after its leaders are arrested. Araki faces extreme hostility from the Japanese public, who find it hard to believe that most followers of the cult had no idea of the attacks and even harder to understand why these followers remain devoted to the religion, if not the violence.

Jennifer Dulos, the wealthy, Connecticut mother-of-five who mysteriously vanished.

After participating in a séance, young Laura begins to behave strangely. Alarmed, her parents ask Father Olmedo, one of the few exorcists authorized by the Vatican to intervene in cases of demonic possession, for help.

28-year-old medicine student Malina wakes up disoriented in a locked trunk and realizes, to her horror, that she is missing more than just her memory of what happened. With her phone as the only link to the outside world, the intelligent young woman wages a desperate fight for survival while the vehicle races relentlessly toward a terrible secret.

The true story of a small town, working class father who embarks on a solo walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay.

A curse is placed on grinchy Chuy, who wakes up to find he's lived a full year, but is doomed to remember only Christmas Day. Every year. From now on.

An endearing outlier, Brian lives alone in a Welsh valley, inventing oddball contraptions that seldom work. After finding a discarded mannequin head, Brian gets an idea. Three days, a washing machine, and sundry spare parts later, he’s invented Charles, an artificially intelligent robot who learns English from a dictionary and proves a charming, cheeky companion. Before long, however, Charles also develops autonomy. Intrigued by the wider world — or whatever lies beyond the cottage where Brian has hidden him away — Charles craves adventure.