The Daughters of Fire

Dive

July 2015 •English

George's reflection has turned its back on him and he'll go to great depths to get it back.

100m Freestyle

June 2013 •Spanish

Polo and Domingo spend their last days together between Ciudad Mendoza and Cordoba, in Veracruz, Mexico, before Domingo moves to another city for college. Domingo has to say goodbye to his girlfriend, Mina; while Polo deals with his feelings towards his best friend in the little time they have left.

The Summer House

April 2010 •English

A young girl flees to France to forget her boyfriend; first his letters pursue her, then he himself follows her there. During a party to celebrate the moon landing she takes her own small step...

Islands

May 2017 •French

A sexual reverie unfolds over the course of one ethereal night. Characters wander through an erotic maze of love and lust, blurring the lines between wet dream and lucid nightmare as a macabre, erotic stage performance sends a ripple of lustful desires through its audience and performers.

Gabriela

October 2023 •English

It's the summer after high school graduation and Gabriela, a young undocumented Guatemalan woman, pursues her dream of swimming for an illustrious Country Club swim team. Despite her single-minded determination, Gabriela is continually confronted with her overprotective mother’s ears, limitations on her economic and legal status, and self-judgment. As she questions her self-worth against the structures of contemporary American Southern life, Gabriela embarks on a quest towards personal freedom and self-acceptance.

Stop for Bud

December 1963 •Danish

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

Cardinal Wolsey

January 1912 •English

King Henry VIII smitten with Anne Boleyn wishes to displace his estimable Queen Catherine for her. He appeals to Cardinal Wolsey to set aside the tenets of the Church and consent to his divorce from the Queen. The cardinal absolutely refuses to do anything so inimical to his office, as representative of the Holy See. Angered King Henry induces the Archbishop of Canterbury to call a special council through which he divorces himself from Queen Catherine. In punishment for his refusal to accede to the king's wishes, the cardinal is exiled to Leicester Abbey where he dies three days afterward, conscious that he had sustained the sacredness of his office, a martyr to his faith and of service to his king.

Martha the Monster

October 2017 •English

Shy teenage monster making new friends in a new place. In a world where humans live alongside monsters, Martha finds herself stuck with a major identity crisis.

Tour Eiffel

June 2006 •French

Christmas Eve

November 1915 •English

A child stops a sacked thief from shooting her father.

Soft Like Me

March 1996 •English

On a secluded prairie farm, adolescent boys labor in wheat fields for a sexually predatory warden and his farmhands, who threaten to feed them to a voracious beast if they ever disobey. The newly arrived Linus instantly catches the warden's eye, and begins to receive secret visitations from a mysterious girl. The other boys tell Linus the legend of a special boy who fled the farm and became a glorious angel that will one day return to free them all. When Linus asks the girl if she is the angel, her answer is enigmatic. After the warden's favorite boy dies, Linus is poised to become the next victim. The girl reappears and promises to help him escape, but with hope comes punishment.

Sanzhyra

April 2001 •Kyrgyz

Lyrical tragicomedy. The eyes of the young hero, who will go through the rite of circumcision, shows the life of a Kyrgyz village on a holiday day.

Wednesdays

November 2011 •Dutch

Every Wednesday, 8 year old Kris accompanies 28 year old Willem to the swimming pool. They swim, go down the slide and have a lot of fun. But one Wednesday Willem confronts Kris with a frightening request...

The Dog Lover

January 1962 •English

Jack is the fastidious manager of a local supermarket. The harmless but disruptive actions of his customers frequently give him headaches, which he remedies by holding a can of frozen juice against his forehead. At home, however, Jack is consistently kind, loving, and patient with his wife and daughter. One day the child brings home a stray dog, and his life is turned upside down.

The Art of Darts & Dying

January 2009 •English

A celebrated darts player and die-hard drinker is visited by death at the pub. The two soon find themselves locked in an epic game of darts with Terry's soul and status at stake.

Regimiento 7 regresa a casa

September 2014 •Spanish

A former soldier reunites with his comrades, who are unaware that they are dead.

Una tarde en la vida de dos niños kelpers

September 2014 •Spanish

Mi mar adentro

September 2014 •Spanish

The Making of a Superhero Musical

August 2015 •English

A mockumentary following the troubled production of Clockmen: The Musical, focusing on a cosplayer-turned-actress who reacts to the stress of the production in a rather unusual way.

The Idyll

June 2016 •English

A modern adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story about a man and a woman sharing an unexpected encounter on a train as it travels through a beautiful and surreal landscape.