Zirkus des Lebens

A Short Story

January 2015 •Bengali

Focusing on the predicaments of those born with genetic defect causing dwarfism, the film is the love story between Khoka and Soma.

The Girl on the Bridge

March 1999 •French

It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform.

Circus Lure

June 1924 •English

Joe Henry, head of a one-ring circus, plays a small town and after the departure of the troupe a young girl, fascinated by the prospects of being a star, follows. She is engaged and her presence causes jealousy on the part of Joe's sweetheart.

1-2-3 Corona

September 1948 •German

Post-war Germany 1945: Two rival gangs of uprooted boys fight each other in the ruins of Berlin, whose business is the black market out of necessity in order to survive. Their respective leaders are Gerhard and Dietrich. A pretty young circus artist named Corona comes to the destroyed city with a traveling circus. She immediately caught the boys' attention. When the latter notice that the circus director is abusing the girl, the two gangs join forces and plot an act of revenge against the tyrant. But with the hustle and bustle caused by this, Corona falls from the trapeze and is seriously injured. When the circus moves on, the boys organize a doctor for the sick artist who has been left behind. Their collectively concern for the blonde beauty makes them forget their enmity. This welds the troops closer together and sets the course for a common, meaningful future.

The Little Clown

March 1921 •English

Mary Miles Minter is the title character. Pat (Minter) is a little orphan who has been raised around the circus. Her foster father is Toto the clown (Neely Edwards). Toto hopes to marry Pat until the day the circus comes to a Southern town and she meets handsome Dick Beverley (Jack Mulhall). Beverley falls in love with Pat and takes a job as trick rider just to be near her. Beverley's aristocratic parents (Winter Hall and Helen Dunbar) find out about his new job and insist that he come home. Two of the five reels survive.

Wings of Desire

September 1987 •German

Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.

L'uomo proiettile

March 1995 •Italian

The Circus Tent

January 1978 •Malayalam

The arrival of a travelling circus sends ripples through the inhabitants of a remote Keralan village.

The Tin Drum

May 1979 •German

Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.

Ie Naki Ko

December 1994 •Japanese

"Don't pity me, just give me money." A smart little girl, Suzu, for the sake of her beloved sick mother, has no choice but to attempt all ways to fork up the money required for the operation. It includes stealing, cheating and almost anything that could yield cash. However, deep within her is a sadness unseen by many.

The Four Devils

November 1920 •German

One out of three silent adaptations of the novella "Les quatre diables" written by Danish author Herman Bang. The most famous one, although unfortunately lost, is without any doubt F.W. Murnau's "4 Devils". This German version, by Danish director A.W. Sandberg, was done eight years prior to Murnau's American one, and was a big success at the time.

If the Father and the Son

August 1955 •German

After Clown Teddy lost his son, he lost his gift for laughter. He opened a joke shop and lives above the shop. His landlady has had a foster son since birth, and Teddy decides to raise the child, who always believed that Teddy was his father. When the mother suddenly appears five years later and wants her son, Teddy decides to run away with the child and goes back onstage with his son. Will the family catch up with them, or will the mother never get her son back?

The Three Kings

November 1928 •English

Drama set around a circus at Blackpool. A clown loves a young housekeeper and saves her from a fire caused by a jealous lion tamer.

The Last Romantic Lover

April 1978 •French

The romance between a lion tamer and a liberated girl.

Mera Naam Joker

December 1970 •Hindi

Raju faces many hurdles and disappointments in matters of the heart throughout his life. But as a clown in a circus, he tries to make his audience laugh at the cost of his own sorrows. Along the way, Raju loves and loses, but must always keep a smile on his face because, in the words of his circus manager, "The show must go on."

Werckmeister Harmonies

February 2001 •Hungarian

A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.

Smalltown Boys

November 2022 •French

A young man seems to be dreaming of a reality different from the business he is about to take over and the married life that goes with it; he is drawn to the spicy life of a queer vaudeville troupe performing in his village.

Son of Ox

August 2024 •Portuguese

João is a lonely boy living in the outback. No friends, no mother, and no bond with his father, he finds a chance to overcome his fears and a possibility to fit in when a small circus arrives in town.

Altas variedades

May 1960 •Spanish

Dixiana

July 1930 •English

A circus performer falls in love with the son of a plantation owner in antebellum New Orleans. When the young man's stepmother objects to the wedding, the couple break apart and go their separate ways for a time. Also in the mix are two circus comics who feud over the heart of another Southern belle.