Breaking Plates

Metropolis

February 1927 •German

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Someone to Love

December 1928 •English

A poor but honest sheet-music salesman is parted from his wealthy fiancée when she comes to believe he’s nothing but a golddigger. But circumstance places him on the board of an exclusive girls’ school, where he can prove his integrity as well as his love. This film is believed lost.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

September 1927 •German

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

February 1920 •German

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

Sotapojan heilat

August 1958 •Finnish

A military farce from a rookie with over a hundred female pen pals.

Among Wild Birds

November 1927 •

Finland’s first nature documentary. The filmmakers’ expedition leads them all the way to the Åland Islands and the Karelian Isthmus.

The Oriental Languages' Teacher

September 1918 •Czech

Battleship Potemkin

December 1925 •Russian

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

Nanook of the North

June 1922 •English

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

May 1928 •Russian

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

Together

August 2000 •Swedish

Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.

Wir haben lange geschwiegen

January 1975 •German

After a woman’s silent rage erupts into a fight post-coitus, a women’s group analyzes her refusal to stay passive. Another scene shows a woman’s despair when her lover misses their meeting, prompting the group to reject passive waiting. Together, they combat issues like rape, prostitution, and abortion rights (§218) to reclaim self-determination.

The Cossacks

June 1928 •English

Stirring romance, hard riding, desperate fighting with the Cossacks playing their game of war and chivalry. A mighty picturization of Count Leo Tolstoi's famous novel of the same name.

Vanaprastham

May 1999 •Malayalam

Kunhikuttan, a famous Kathakali dancer, meets Subhadra, a woman from an upper caste family, who falls in love with his character rather than himself.

Nocturne

October 1998 •English

Nocturne is a psychological horror film built on the conflicts of a woman tortured by the ambiguity between reality and illusion, dream and desire. The woman has perhaps murdered her lover and is living in an unstable world when he returns to her at night, in her dreams and into her arms, as witness to the subversive violence of nature, corporeality and desire. (PA)

Ascension

September 2015 •French

In Jacob Sutton’s film “Ascension”, two young dancers soar up from the darkness beneath the stage at Bastille to the sumptuous Grand Foyer and eventually to the rooftop of the Palais Garnier, where they experience moments of heavenly, dreamlike luminosity.

The Waltzing Policemen

May 1979 •English

Two policemen dance the waltz together in an empty grand ballroom.

Two Brothers

March 1926 •German

Two brothers follow very different paths after an accident at the factory where they both work.

Rose Bernd

October 1919 •German

An adaptation of the Gerhart Hauptmann play of the same name. A young farmer's daughter is used and abused by the men in her life.

Witches

March 2023 •English

Three over-looked and under-laid young women, a box of matches and some sage; can the cult leader rid the coven of their sins before it's too late?