Slow Dancing In The Big City

Grand Jete

September 2022 •German

Dance teacher and mother Nadja left her son Mario with her own mother when he was little. Now she has reappeared on his doorstep, seeking a closeness that knows fewer and fewer boundaries. An uncompromising film about family relationships.

A Nutcracker Christmas

December 2016 •English

When her niece is cast in The Philadelphia Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker, a jaded ex-ballerina is forced to come to terms with the life and love she left behind.

Honoo no hada

October 1951 •Japanese

BoxBallet

March 2020 •Russian

Once a fragile ballerina Olya meets a rude and gloomy boxer Evgeny. The contrast between the worlds of the heroes and their worldview is so striking that the very possibility of intersection of heroes appears as a miracle. Are the heroes ready to accept the same timid feeling that arose between them? Will they overcome everything external and superficial, behind which fragile loving souls are hidden.

Black Swan

December 2010 •English

The story of Nina, a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her retired ballerina mother Erica who zealously supports her daughter's professional ambition. When artistic director Thomas Leroy decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice.

Never Let Me Go

March 1953 •English

An American reporter falls in love with a Russian ballet dancer.

Waterloo Bridge

May 1940 •English

On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front.

The Band Wagon

August 1953 •English

A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop.

Margot

November 2009 •English

At the age of forty Dame Margot Fonteyn is considered to be past her best as a prima ballerina and Ninette de Valois is reducing her roles at the Royal Ballet. Then the exciting young Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev, a recent defector to the West, comes into her life and her bed and revitalizes her career. Frederick Aashton creates a new ballet for them and they become the golden couple of the ballet world. However, Margot is married to Roberto 'Tito' Arias, a Panamanian politician of dubious repute who is not sympathetic to her calling and is probably faithless. When he is shot and paralyzed for life Margot must carry on dancing well into her sixties in order to pay for his costly treatment though she still collaborates with Rudolf in the occasional ballet.

The Red Danube

October 1949 •English

A Russian ballerina in Vienna tries to flee KGB agents and defect.

Love Never Dies

October 1916 •English

Love Never Dies was set in France, and convincingly so (which was not often the case in American-made films of this period). It is established in the first reel that hero Felix and heroine Cecile have been sweethearts since childhood. Later on, Fate forces Felix and Cecile to separate, but viewers could take heart in the positive sentiments expressed by the film's title.

Bobbie of the Ballet

June 1916 •English

Wealthy Jack Stimson (Jay Belasco) falls in love with Broadway diva Velma Vrooman (Gretchen Lederer), and for her sake bankrolls the musical production in which she is currently starred. But when Velma proves to be fickle and unreliable, Jack shifts his affections to humble chorus girl Bobbie (Louise Lovely).

Dancing Ghosts

August 1992 •Russian

Choreographic school, young talents are collected here. Behind eight years of study - three months remain before the final performance. And finally, “Giselle” is appointed, roles are distributed, girls are worried - they are afraid of the wording “professionally unsuitable”, but Yulya’s thoughts are different. She fell in love for the first time. And she has to choose between her beloved and the stage.

The Bolshoi

December 2016 •Russian

Young and extremely talented dancer Yulya Olshanskaya from a small mining town draws a “happy ticket”: she is noticed by a former ballet dancer Pototsky and he promises her a future of great ballerina, worthy of the main stage of the country. However, in order to become a diamond, anyone, even the most outstanding brilliant, needs to be cut, and the way to the legendary stage of The Bolshoi Theatre for Yulya lies through the walls of the ballet school, where the more capricious teacher Galina Mikhailovna Beletskaya takes custody of the rebellious provincial. Turning into a prima will require incredible self-denial, and Yulya herself will have to make sure that the big ballet is not only the whiteness of the packs, the gold of the boxes and the slip of silk ribbons. But no obstacles will stop the one who has the big dream.

Dance, Girl, Dance

August 1940 •English

Judy O'Brien is an aspiring ballerina in a dance troupe. Also in the company is Bubbles, a brash mantrap who leaves the struggling troupe for a career in burlesque. When the company disbands, Bubbles gives Judy a thankless job as her stooge. The two eventually clash when both fall for the same man.

The Girl from Petrovka

December 1974 •English

A beautiful Russian ballerina falls in love with an American news correspondent. The KGB is most displeased and does everything it can to break them up.

Runaway

October 2010 •English

A man falls in love with a half-woman/half-phoenix who fell to Earth from the sky.

I Was an Adventuress

May 1940 •English

Posing as the fabulously glamorous Countess Tanya Vronsky, a poor young ballet dancer and her two accomplices are really a team of skilled con artists! They mingle with Europe's high society, always looking for the next wealthy victim to fleece with their fake jewellery scam... Then Tanya meets the dashing young Paul Vernay. At first she wants to rob him. Then she decides she wants to marry him and to leave her criminal past behind her. Her accomplices agree but only if she'll join them in one last, big swindle...

Dance, Subaru!

March 2009 •Japanese

Subaru and her twin brother Kazuma share a dream in becoming ballet dancers, but their passion is discouraged by their father. After Kazuma's death from a hereditary illness, dancing became Subaru's only happiness and she yearns to lose herself in dance. Her life takes a dramatic turn when she runs into cabaret owner Isuzu, who recognizes the talent in Subaru and trains her in her nightspot. But to become a professional ballerina, Subaru has to overcome harsher challenges than merely satisfying the cabaret drunkards. Spurred on by her rivaling dance companions, Subaru enters an international dance competition, to vie for recognition and a scholarship to any top ballet company in the world. Subaru and her companions soon discover that there are more to compete than the championship, and tests of friendship, betrayal and self-worth come one after another. Gradually the youngsters learn about themselves as dancers, as persons and as friends.

The Toll Collector

February 2003 •English

A parable about a thwarted dream. A narrator tells us about a young woman who wants, more than anything, to be a ballerina. Thanks to animation, we see the problem: her legs make up about three-quarters of her height. She sees the impossibility of her dream and moves to a house on an isolated hill where she lives by herself, lonely, practicing her art, and then, in near despair, taking up knitting. Madness seems close at hand, but is there anything that can bring hope and pull her from her solitary, circumscribed life?