Winter Journey

A Tree of Palme

March 2002 •Japanese

A Tree of Palme is an interpretation of the Pinocchio tale. It concerns a small puppet, Palme, who was tasked by his creator to look over his ailing wife, Xian. After her passing, Palme is visited by a mysterious woman who he mistakenly believes to be Xian. Shaken out of his sadness, Palme accepts her request to deliver something special to a far-off place known as Tama. This sets Palme off on a journey to discover his own emotions, and what it truly means to be human.

The Champ

July 1979 •English

Billy used to be a great boxer, but he's settled into a hardscrabble life that revolves around drinking, training horses, and the one bright spot in his existence — his young son, T.J. Although Billy has had custody of T.J. since his wife, Annie, left the family years ago, her return prompts a new struggle for the former fighter. Determined to hold on to his son, Billy gets back into the ring to try and recapture his past success.

Monsieur Verdoux

September 1947 •English

The film is about an unemployed banker, Henri Verdoux, and his sociopathic methods of attaining income. While being both loyal and competent in his work, Verdoux has been laid-off. To make money for his wife and child, he marries wealthy widows and then murders them. His crime spree eventually works against him when two particular widows break his normal routine.

St. Louis

October 2019 •German

Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Getting a passage aboard the passenger liner St. Louis seems to be the last hope of salvation for more than nine hundred German Jews who, desperate to escape the atrocious persecution to which they are subjected by the Nazi regime, intend to emigrate to Cuba.

Into Thin Air: Death on Everest

November 1997 •English

An adaptation of Jon Krakauer's best selling book, "Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster". This movie attempts to re-create the disastrous events that took place during the Mount Everest climb on May 10, 1996. It also follows Jon Krakauer throughout the movie, and portrays what he was going through while climbing this mountain.

First Name: Carmen

December 1983 •French

The protagonist is Carmen X, a sexy female member of a terrorist gang. She asks her uncle Jean, a washed-up film director if she can borrow his beachside house to make a film with some friends, but they are in fact planning to rob a bank. During the robbery she falls in love with a security guard. The film intercuts between Carmen's escape with the guard, her uncle's attempt to make a comeback film, and a string quartet attempting to perform Beethoven.

In Country

September 1989 •English

Samantha Hughes, a teenaged Kentucky girl, never knew her father, who died in Vietnam before her birth. Samantha lives with her uncle Emmett, who also served in Vietnam. Emmett hangs around with Tom, Earl, and Pete, three other Vietnam vets who, like Emmett, all have problems of one kind or another that relate to their war experiences. Samantha becomes obsessed with finding out about her father.

Hanussen

May 1988 •Hungarian

A man's story parallels Hitler's rise. Austrian Klaus Schneider, wounded in World War I, recovers in the care of Dr. Emil Bettleheim. Bettleheim discovers that Schneider possesses powers of empathy and of clairvoyance, such that could aid suicidal patients. After the war, with one friend as his manager and another as his lover, Schneider changes his name to Eric Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin, as a hypnotist and clairvoyant performing in halls and theaters. He always speaks the truth, which brings him to the attention of powerful Nazis. He predicts their rise (good propaganda for them) and their violence (not so good). He's in pain and at risk. What is Hanussen's future?

Kanal

April 1957 •Polish

During the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising following World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra, but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.

Divided We Fall

March 2000 •Czech

In 1943, a childless couple, the Čížeks, decide to hide a Jewish refugee, David Wiener, the son of Čížek's former employer, in the secret pantry of their apartment. Čížek is aware of the danger into which he has brought his household and his neighbours, but he takes helping his fellow man in need for granted. But at the same time, as a largely unheroic hero, he is dying of fear. His personal situation is greatly complicated by the approaching end of the war, when he faces danger from both the Germans and his "honest" fellow Czechs...

Close-Up

May 1990 •Persian

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

Žofka z Janovic

December 1984 •Czech

Carnival in Flanders

December 1935 •French

Flanders, Hispanic Monarchy, 1616. The inhabitants of the small town of Boom are busy organizing the annual local festivities when the arrival of the Duke of Olivares, who rules the country on behalf of the King Philip III of Spain, is announced. While the male citizens cowardly surrender to panic like rats on a sinking ship, the brave female citizens, led by the bold wife of the burgomaster, decide to become the best hosts the Spaniards can ever meet.

The Work and the Glory III: A House Divided

November 2006 •English

Joshua Steed returns to Missouri a wealthy man with a beautiful wife; however, the past has a way of catching up. Soon Joshua is tangled in a web of rumors, deception and betrayal that threatens to tear his family apart. Back in Kirtland, financial trouble riddles the foundations of the fledgling Church causing a division, and questioning of the Prophet Joseph Smith's divine calling. Has he lost his prophetic gift? Hundreds of Saints immigrate to Missouri, where Governor Boggs raises an army - with Joshua at its head - to address the "Mormon Problem." When the militia receives orders to attack the Mormon settlement, only Joshua can save his family from the gathering mob.

A Yank in Libya

July 1942 •English

American correspondent Mike Malone uncovers a Nazi plot for an uprising of the Arab tribes in Lybia. Pursued by Sheik David and his men, Mike takes refuge in the suite of Nancy Brooks, who is in the British Intelligence. He asks her to hide a gun and escapes through a window. Reporting the affair to British Consul Herbert Forbes, the latter tries to discourage him from further investigation, as the British are aware of the plot and are planning on staging a coup. He goes with Mike to Nancy's apartment, and she denies having ever seen him before. Sheik Ibrahim, next in command of the Arab tribe to Sheik David, is plotting with Nazi agent Yussof Streyer to kill David who is friendly with the British. Mike and Nancy have gone to David's camp, escape from Ibrahim's henchmen, and get back to El Moktar before the Arabs attack the garrison.

The Russians Are Coming

February 1968 •German

It’s the spring of 1945 in a small resort town on the Baltic. Günter is 16 and firmly believes that the Germans will win the war. During the hunt for a forced labourer who is on the run, Günter catches him and watches as he is shot to death. He proudly accepts the award of an Iron Cross before being shipped to the nearby front as part of the last contingent of troops. He is quickly captured by Soviet soldiers, but manages to escape and return home. When the town is occupied by the Red Army, Günter is arrested for the murder of the forced labourer. The film was banned in 1968 before it was completed, and a large portion of the negative was later destroyed.

I Invite You to My Execution

October 2019 •French

As Russian writer Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) thinks it is impossible that his novel Doctor Zhivago is published in the Soviet Union, because it supposedly shows a critical view of the October Revolution, he decides to smuggle several copies of the manuscript out of the country. It is first published in 1957 in Italia and the author receives the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, which has consequences.

Silja – nuorena nukkunut

April 1956 •Finnish

In the 1910s, beautiful young Silja loses both parents and ends up working as a maid at wealthier farms around her village. She is courted by a number of bachelors, ranging from simple farmhand Väinö to sophisticated young student Armas whom she meets when working for a charming old professor. However, Silja's health starts to deteriorate, and when the Finnish Civil War breaks up in 1918, she is inadvertently involved in a small incident after which her loyalties are questioned by both the Reds and the Whites.

Viola

May 1986 •Czech

Hope and Glory

September 1987 •English

A middle-aged man recalls his childhood growing up in and around London during World War II.