LA SICILIANA RIBELLE

LA SICILIANA RIBELLE (The Sicilian Girl)

The Story:
Inspired by a true story, on November 5th 1991, Rita Atria (Veronica D'Agostino) when she went to see judge Paolo Borsellino and offered to testify against the mafiosi some of them related to her in her Sicilian village, who were responsible for the murders of her father and brother.

From that moment on, Rita's days are numbered. She only has nine months to live...

Starring:
Veronica D'Agostino, Gérard Jugnot, Giulia Andò, Roberto Bonura, Paolo Briguglia, Francesco Casisa

Directed By:
Marco Amenta

Release:
2009

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WHITE ON RICE

White on Rice

The Story:
Hajime, aka Jimmy (Hiroshi Watanabe), is a 40-year-old odd-jobber and bit-part actor. who moved to the U.S. when his ex-wife stopped taking care of him in Tokyo. Living with tolerant sister Aiko (Nae) and brainiac nephew Bob (Justin Kwong), he's a torment -- even a health hazard -- to his brother-in-law, Tak (Mio Takada).

Jimmy is growing up, or at least he's getting older.He thinks that if only he could get married all his problems would be solved. But when he falls head over heels for Tak's niece Ramona (Lynn Chen) things only go from bad to worse.

Starring:
Hiroshi Watanabe, Nae, Mio Takada, Lynn Chen, James Kyson Lee

Directed By:
Dave Boyle

Release:
2009

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THE LODGER

THE LODGER

The Story:
Set in West Hollywood, California with two converging plotlines.

Overwhelmed by tensions in his personal life, LASD detective Chandler Manning (Alfred Molina) becomes engaged in a complex cat-and-mouse game with a maniacal killer who begins emulating the 100-year old murders of Jack The Ripper along Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. As the crimes multiply, Chandler realizes he may have sent the wrong man to death row some seven years earlier. Now, with the help of his rookie partner, Street Wilkenson, Chandler battles the encroachments of LAPD, the FBI, the media and his own personal demons as he and his rookie partner Street Wilkenson (Shane West) race to find the elusive killer before he disappears for good. However, the case takes an even more bizarre turn when Chandler himself becomes the prime suspect.

Simultaneously, the film follows the growing yet uneasy relationship between a psychologically unstable landlady, Ellen Bunting (Hope Davis) and a handsome stranger, Malcolm Sleight (Simon Baker) , who appears one day and rents her guesthouse in West Hollywood. Trapped in an unhappy marriage with a traumatic past, Ellen’s world exists almost exclusively inside her unusual house. With the arrival of Malcolm, everything changes and she is increasingly drawn to this mysterious lodger. Their relationship takes an unexpected turn, however, as she begins to suspect her lodger of being somehow involved in the same grisly neighborhood murders...

Starring:
Simon Baker, Alfred Molina, Hope Davis, Shane West, Donal Logue, Philip Baker Hall, Rachael Leigh Cook, Rebecca Pidgeon, Mel Harris.

Directed By:
David Ondaatje

Release:
2009

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ALONE

A L O N E (แฝด) (Thailand)

The Story:
Pim (Masha Wattanapanich), was born as a twin, conjoined at the stomach with her sister, Ploy. The twins had an operation to separate them, but Ploy did not survive. Pim left all the sorrow behind and moved to South Korea with Wee (Vittaya Wasukraipaisan) a guy she loved.

Several years later Pim receives a phone call from Thailand that her mother (Ruchanu Boonchooduang) has had a stroke. Pim must return to Thailand and her childhood home, where memories of Ploy come back to haunt her and become frighteningly real.

Starring:

Masha Wattanapanich, Vittaya Wasukraipaisan, Ruchanu Boonchooduang

Directed By:

Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom

Release:

2007

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BEN X

Ben X (Belgium)

The Story:
Ben (Greg Timmermans) is different. He has Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism that prevents normal communication and makes him ideal fodder for all the school bullies. He never speaks, except to his mother and to his little brother. He gets high grades, but is viewed as "Frankenstein" and "the Martian" by classmates at the high school he attends. Ben's only solace is the time he spends playing his favorite online computer game Archlord, where he can be the fearless hero slaying enemies left and right. Ben tries hard to train himself for the real world he lives in. The harsh world of a technical school is for him a daily kind of living hell.

Ben X is a powerful figure in the world of ArchLord. He is everything that the teenage Ben is not. As the horror of being a daily subject to bullying grows, Ben devises a plan. Then Scarlite (Laura Verlinden), the girl he has met in his online game, appears in the real-world to point the way. That wasn't part of the plan... Together, they concoct the ultimate end-game.

To confront the bullies and make them pay for their torment...

Starring:
Greg Timmermans, Laura Verlinden, Marijke Pinoy, Pol Goossen, Titus De Voogdt, Maarten Claeyssens

Directed By:
Nic Balthazar

Release:
2008

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12

1 2 (Russian)

The Story:
A loose remake of 12 Angry Men (1957), set in a Russian school in the war-torn republic of Chechnya.

A Chechen youth (Apti Magamaev) stands accused of stabbing to death his adoptive father, a Russian special forces officer, who rescued the boy after his parents were killed in the fighting, and brought him back to live with him in his Moscow apartment.

12 jurors, all male, retire to an improvised jury room set up in a school gymnasium. The jurors begin to argue, to talk, to reveal more about themselves and gradually, as darkness falls and snow settles in the streets outside, reexamine and even physically rehearse the evidence.

The jurors include a chauvinist anti-Semitic taxi-driver (Sergei Garmash); a charming old Jewish gentleman (Valentin Gaft); a neurotic variety show performer (Michail Efremov); a scientist with a tragic past (Sergei Makovetsky); a successful surgeon, who is himself from the Caucasus (Sergei Gazarov); and an entrepreneur and owner of cable television stations (Yuri Stoyanov), who is so indecisive that he has to be reminded of the last way he voted.

What gradually emerges from their deliberations is a panoramic view of Russia today, with its disappointments, multiple ills, corruption, violent internecine struggles, black humor, sentimentality and enduring hopes.

Starring:
Sergey Makovetsky, Valentin Gaft, Alexey Petrenko, Mikhail Efremov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Apti Magamayev, Sergey Garmash, Yuri Stoyanov, Sergei Gazarov.

Directed By:
Nikita Mikhalkov

Release:
2007

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BROTHERS

B R O T H E R S

The Story:
In a small, snowy Pennsylvania town, A young man Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) comforts his older brother’s wife Grace (Natalie Portman) and children after her husband Sam (Tobey Maguire) goes missing in Afghanistan. While the two are still dealing with the intricate situation, Sam returns home. Carrying the heavy weight of post traumatic stress disorder, he starts suspecting that something happened between his wife and brother when he was away.

Starring:
Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Ray Prewitt, Sam Shepard,

Directed By:
Jim Sheridan

Release:
2009

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