The Binocle

Luz, Câmera, 50 Anos: Presença de Anita - O Filme

January 2015 •Portuguese

Adapted from the series aired in 2001. Looking for inspiration during the holidays, Nando sees Anita as the ideal character for his novel. She lives in a townhouse where a passionate crime happened in the past. Intense, Anita seduces Nando and awakens to

Freedomland

February 2006 •English

A black police detective must solve a strange case of a kidnapped boy and deal with a big racial protest.

Blonde

September 2022 •English

From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

May 2007 •French

The true story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.

Alone

October 2004 •German

Maria is a student at the university of Essen, Germany, living and working in a gray, unpleasant, and anonymous environment. While she has little problem finding someone for a one night stand, she rebuffs her lovers in such a rude way that they actually don't know what's going on. But what seems to be a negative attitude at first glance is in fact much worse: Maria is suffering from borderline syndrome, a serious psychotic disease that makes her fail to develop a continuous, reliable personality, from her own perspective as well as from the perspective of those she meets. Then one day, she bumps into Jan, a student who falls in love with her without delay. He's awaiting a hard time when he has to learn how hard it is to stay loyal and faithful to a person who, in her own words, "has a different world inside of her head" and who feels that "there is something inside of me that eats me up."

The Phantom of the Opera

November 1998 •Italian

A series of terrifying accidents and brutal murders leave a bloody trail into the subterranean caverns of an Opera house. Below the theatre stalks a man raised by creatures of the underworld.

Marie Antoinette

May 2006 •English

The retelling of France’s iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette. From her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI at 15 to her reign as queen at 19 and ultimately the fall of Versailles.

Daisy Miller

May 1974 •English

Despite mixed emotions, Frederick Winterbourne tries to figure out the bright and bubbly Daisy Miller, only to be helped and hindered by false judgments from their fellow friends.

For Love Alone

May 1986 •English

Teresa is a spirited young girl chafing under the oppressive attitudes of 1930s society, and her father in particular. She fancies her poverty-stricken Latin tutor Johnathan Crow, without realising he merely considers her a pleasant diversion and nothing more, and eventually follows him from Sydney to London. En route she meets the gentle banker James Quick. Whilst navigating her relationships in London, including with a political poet bound for the Spanish Civil War, she experiences a transformation in her understanding of love. Based upon Christina Stead's best-selling Australian novel.

Family

January 1953 •

"Family" (1953), which launched the Union Film legacy, "Spring" (1953) and "Autumn" (1954) are adaptations of Ba Jin's highly regarded novel "Torrent Trilogy". In "Family", director Ng Wui skilfully condenses the voluminous first part of the novel into an emotionally powerful and intellectually focused story of youngsters struggling to survive oppression and repression in a feudalistic family. This well-received film quickly established the company's reputation.

Wuthering Heights

May 1958 •English

Mistreated foundling Heathcliff and his stepsister Catherine fall in love, but when she marries a wealthy man, he becomes obsessed with getting revenge, even well into the next generation. [Originally aired on CBS's DuPont Show of the Month.]

There's No Business Like Show Business

December 1954 •English

Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Youngest son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.

Torrents of Spring

January 1960 •

Sojourning in Macau, Su Erning by chance helps Pan Meiniang resuscitate his younger brother and fends off the thug. In her admiration, Pan calls off the engagement arranged by her mother to exchange vows with Su despite having known him for only three days. To raise the money for the wedding, Su plans to sell his family yacht to the rich wife of his classmate Lu Zuhua in Hong Kong and promises to buy Pan a pearl necklace. The promiscuous Mrs Lu seduces Su on the yacht and then dumps him. 18 years later, Pan's daughter is getting married. Su prepares a wedding gift—a stolen pearl necklace—for the bride but is too ashamed to show himself.

Oshidori kenkagasa

May 1957 •Japanese

The Juggler

May 1953 •English

A Holocaust survivor moves to Israel and experiences difficulty adjusting to life.

Autumn

January 1954 •

Hak-ming heads the Ko Family, but he and his brothers, Hak-ting and Hak-on, and the second wife of the late Master Ko quarrel. Young Cousin Mui, who has tuberculosis, is forced by to marry an older woman. Kok-sun is guilty of being unable to stop the marriage. Sun and maid Chui-wan are wary of their feelings for each other due to class difference. Cousin Mui dies of illness. Hak-ting has his eyes on Wan. His wife, Wong, complains to their daughter, Shuk-ching, who cannot take it and commits suicide. Wong blames herself for her death. Undergone these tragedies, Cousin Kam's mother let Kam have a modern wedding with Kok-man. When Ming is ill, Ting and On want to sell the ancestral home. Hak-ming dies of angst. When the fifth uncle of Sun forces Wan to be his concubine, Wan tries to kill herself but is intercepted by Sun. Pressurised by people of the house over the issue of inheritance, Sun protests by declaring his love for Wan and leaves the family, with his mother, brother Man and Wan.

Spy No. 13

November 1964 •

During World War II, spy Wu Lai-sheung is instructed by her superior Fan Yeung-shan to murder spy number 13 Cheung Chi-ping. While Wu establishes a relationship with Sakei, the assistant general of the Japanese army, she also gets acquainted with Cheung. Cheung and Wu fall in love. Wu recommends Cheung to become Sakei's driver. Cheung pretends to court the Japanese spy Siu-kuen, but Siu-kuen arranges to kill the spies contacting with him. Cheung has seen through Kuen's identity for long. When Kuen is going to kill Wu, Cheung kills Kuen, Fan compels Wu to kill Cheung. Wu follows the instruction to murder Cheung. After the murder, Wu disappears. After the war, Fan discovers Wu ends up in asylum. When he visits Wu, he tells her of Cheung's innocence. This breaks Wu's heart. Cheung turns out to have seen through Wu's identity for a long time and pretended to have been killed to cover up his identity and facilitate his work. With the truth known and the war ended, Cheung and Wu married.

Sweet Mud

September 2006 •Hebrew

Set in mid-70's, 12-year old Dvir Avni navigates between the equality values of his home-born Kibbutz and the relationship with his undermined mother, whom the Kibbutz members will to denounce.

Black Daruma

September 2023 •English

All filmed from the warped perspective of a doll, Black Daruma is a dark-humoured psychological horror film about an unemployed man who buys a Japanese 'luck doll' to improve his fortunes, only for his life to unravel in disturbing ways.

Jons und Erdme

March 1959 •German

Adaptation of Hermann Sudermann's novel about the troubled relationship between the strong willed Erdme and her irascible husband Jons in the Lithunian moors.