Class Trip

Nicolas is an insecure child plagued by visions of disasters and horrible accidents. In his dreams he sees his father in a car crash, his brother abducted, and his own classmates shot at by men in white masks. His peers tease him, and his teachers are frustrated by his lack of social skills. Nicolas disconnects from the world around him, inhabiting his own friendless, nightmarish realm. On a class trip to the ski country, Hadkann, the class bully, befriends Nicolas and becomes intrigued by his dreams. As the line between reality and hallucination blurs Nicolas´s visions begin to come true. When police find a dead child in the woods, murdered and mutilated, Nicolas knows there is a connection between this crime and his visions, and with Hadkann´s help, he sets out to find it.

From ”Picture This!”

Freedom Is Paradise

Inspired by true events, Freedom is paradise is the harrowing tale of a fiercely independent orphan and his quest for the father he has never known. The first Russian motion picture ever filmed in actual Soviet prisons and reformatories, Freedom is paradise combines a gritty documentary style with poetic lyricism. A riveting journey through the dark underside of the Soviet working class and institutional life, Freedom is paradise captures a boy´s fierce capacity to dream amidst the boldfaced cruelty of circumstance. This Grand Prize winner at the 1989 Montreal Film Festival addresses, with quiet eloquence, the sad irony of children dwelling on the margin.

”F.I.P” is said to be a common tattoo among prisoners.

Original title: ”S.E.R. – Svoboda eto rai”

Awards:

-Wolfgang Staudte Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1990.

-Grand Prix des Amériques at the Montréal World Film Festival in 1989.

This Special Friendship

Directed by Jean dellanoy from Roger Peyrefitte’s controversial 1945 novel,This special friendship is set in a Jesuit school for boys. The school bristles with sexual tension, and the youths are counselled daily to guard themselves against impure friendships. Sixteen-year-old George, a naive new arrival, is shocked to discover that the classmate who first befriended him is having an affair with another boy.

Before long, however, George himself has fallen head-over-heels for Alexandre, a striking 12-year-old in the lower school. They meet in secret, exchange poems and swear eternal friendship in a blood ceremony. Both young men blossom and grow as a result of their first fleeting intimacies, but it is only a matter of time before the nature of their relationship is discovered- with tragic consequences.

Considered scandalous upon its initial French release i 1963, This special friendship remains just as moving and memorable three decades later. Its sensitive handling of controversial subject matter, superb production values, and the haunting, open innocence of Didier Haudepin as Alexandre make this lost classic a cinema landmark.

Black & White.   

From ”Award Films International”

Original title: ”Amitiés particulières, Les”

Glue

In this remarkably inventive and comedic drama set in a small town in vast, empty Patagonia (Argentina), the gawky Lucas, a 15-year-old time bomb of hormones, boredom and family alienation, hangs out with his hunky and horny best friend, Nacho, and bespectacled, mousey, gal pal Andrea. The threesome cope with the trials of burgeoning adolescence by getting high and getting off-mostly with each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Fateless

This directorial début by the cinematographer Lajos Koltai is an adaptation of the Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész’s novel about a young Jewish boy’s deportation in 1944 from Budapest, his struggle to survive in the concentration camps, and his subsequent surrealistic homecoming. Koltai steers away from dramatic climaxes and paroxysms of violence, but he cannot help tipping the balance with the very lushness of his filmmaking. Both the composition and the color of the images are stirringly beautiful, but they feel loaded with symbolism and sentiment: an emaciated man swaying with exhaustion during an interminable roll call appears to be experiencing a kind of transcendent ecstasy, like Joan of Arc on the pyre. Such loaded moments—as well as Ennio Morricone’s insistent score—undercut the deadpan irony and detachment of the screenplay, also by Kertész; nonetheless, the young Marcell Nagy, as the boy, is dispassionate, intelligent, and quietly affecting. In Hungarian, English, and German.

Original title: ”Sorstalansag”.

The Eighth Color Of The Rainbow

When poor young villager Joaozinho finds his sick grandmother Didinha praying to be taken away from her world of suffering, the brave boy decides to sell his only possession of value, his beloved pet goat Mocinha. Furtively stealing away to the capitol to buy the medicine that will save his grandmother’s life, Joaozinho embarks on an odyssey that will remind viewers of classic neorealist drama in both its subject an emotional resonance.

Colegas

Set in Madrid, Colegas is a candid study of contemporary teen friendships. Antonio and Josè, best friends for most of their eighteen years, have drifted into the jobless, idle life-style of the young-in-waiting. They hang around video arcades, getting high and hoping that something-anything-will change. When Antonio’s sister discovers that she is pregnant by Josè, a chain of events is set in motion that will indelibly change all three of their young lives. Directed and coauthored by Eloy de la Iglesia, Span’s most outspoken filmmaker (El Diputado, Los Placeres Ocultos), Colegas is provocative, fast-paced entertainment with believable and sympathetic characters, exotic foreign locales and probing insights into Spain’s new ”lost generation”.