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One of the great late period films by Sacha Guitry — the total auteur who delighted (and scandalised) the French public and inspired the French New Wave as a model for authorship as director-writer-star of screen and stage alike. In every one of his pictures (and almost every one served as a rueful examination of the war between the sexes), Guitry sculpted by way of a rapier wit — one might say by way of “the Guitry touch” — some of the most sophisticated black comedies ever conceived… and La Poison is one of his blackest.Michel Simon plays Paul Braconnier, a man with designs on murdering his wife Blandine (Germaine Reuver) — a woman with similar designs on her husband. When Braconnier visits Paris to consult with a lawyer about the perfect way of killing a spouse — that is, the way in which he can get away with it — an acid comedy unfolds that reaches its peak in a courtroom scene for the ages.From the moment of Guitry’s trademark introduction of his principals in the opening credits, and on through the brilliant performance by national treasure Michel Simon (of Renoir’s Boudu sauvé des eaux and Vigo’s L’Atalante, to mention only two high-water marks), here is fitting indication of why Guitry is considered by many the Gallic equal of Ernst Lubitsch. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to introduce Sacha Guitry into the catalogue with La Poison for the first time on video in the UK in a dazzling new Gaumont restoration.

Adult brothers Mark and Colin Pollock still live with their parents Frank and Mavis Pollock in a small apartment in the projects of London's east end in what is a collective depressed and unhappy existence. The three men of the household are all on the dole, each doing little to find gainful employment. Between the brothers, Mark is the smart aleck, who calls his parents by their given names to irk them, and who hangs out with a bunch of hooligans as he refers to himself and his friends, such as a skinhead named Coxy. Although never medically diagnosed as such, Colin is seemingly emotionally slow. Colin likes to hang out with Mark and his friends in his want to be accepted, especially as Mark tells him that a neighborhood girl named Hayley is interested him. The family rarely socializes with Mavis' sister and brother-in-law, Barbara and John, who live a middle to upper middle class and seemingly perfect existence in the suburbs of Chigwell. Although not telling them to their face, John dislikes his relations by marriage, believing especially Mark to be brash and trashy. A unilateral act by Barbara leads to many issues within the extended family coming to the surface, most specifically the true happiness of the marriage between Barbara and John, and what Colin is truly looking for to be happy in life.

Fishing boat captain Harry Morgan charters his boat. Due to strained finances, he is none too careful as to whom he does business with. Real trouble erupts when Harry hires out his boat to transport four men who turn out to be criminals on the lam from a racetrack heist.

A husband and wife in their 30s decide to quit their jobs, live as free spirits and cruise America in a Winnebago.

London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.

Honoré Panisse is dying, cheerfully, with friends, wife, and son at his side. He confesses to the priest in front of his friends; he insists that the doctor be truthful. But, he cannot bring himself to tell his son Cesariot that his real father is Marius, the absent son of César, Cesariot's godfather. Panisse leaves that to Fanny, the lad's mother. Dissembling that he's off to see a friend, Cesariot then seeks Marius, now a mechanic in Toulon. Posing as a journalist, Cesariot spends time with Marius and leaves believing tales he is a petty thief. Only after the truth comes out can Marius, Fanny, César, and Cesariot step beyond the falsehoods, benign though they may be.

Marius has left, signed up for a five year hitch on a ship bound for the Indian Ocean. In his few letters to his father César, he hardly mentions Fanny. When she finds she is pregnant, she considers her options: suicide, to raise the child on her own, to wait for Marius, or to marry Honoré Panisse, the older merchant who seeks her hand. These choices are emotional: to raise a bastard, to trust in Marius' eventual return, to believe he'll want to marry her, to save her mother from shame, to fool Panisse, to give her child a name. In scenes dramatizing Fanny's honesty, she talks to her mother, then Panisse, César, and later Marius, and she makes her choices.

Marius is faced with a choice whether to fulfill his passion by sailing the seas or stay and marry the woman he loves.

In the '30s, three prisoners flee from a state prison farm in Mississippi. Among them is 23-years-young Bowie, who spent the last seven years in prison and now hopes to be able to prove his innocence or retire to a home in the mountains and live in peace together with his new love, Kitty. But his criminal companions persuade him to participate in several heists, and soon the police believe him to be their leader and go after "Bowie the Kid" harder than ever.
Written by Tom Zoerner {[email protected]}

1985 film directed by Edward Yang

Life at the border is very tough. The land is stony and dry, farmers plough fields of sand and illegal trafficking seems to be the only way to make a living. In Deliviran, a village near Urfa close to the Syrian border, Hidir’s chief is involved in smuggling and gets shot. Hidir tries to stay out of illegal activities but circumstances contrive to push him in the opposite direction until he accepts to take a herd of sheep across the border. Amidst poverty and the landmines Hidir struggles to keep his dream and his young son alive.

In a rage, a teacher murders a girl. Her brother is bred, for one sole purpose: to avenge his sister’s death. Kazakh master Ermek Shinarbaev’s close collaboration with the Korean-Russian writer Anatoli Kim yielded three great films, the most remarkable of which is this beautiful, profoundly unsettling film. A true odyssey, geographically and psychologically. One of the greatest films to emerge from the Kazakh New Wave, and one of the toughest.

A camera crew travels through Thailand asking villagers to invent the next chapter of an ever-growing story. A TV-obsessed boxer, a group of schoolkids, a lonely rubber-tree tapper and feuding food vendors all add to a tale that includes witches, tigers, surprise doublings, and impossible reversals.

This controversial film was the first Filipino film invited to Cannes. Insiang endures abuse from her mother and betrayal from her lover. The town scamp Dado moves in with her mother to get to Insiang and eventually rapes her. But her mother blames her instead. Her innocence scattered, Insiang plans some unpredictable vengeance. With a realistic view on the lower depths of the Philippines, pioneer director Lino Brocka presents an astonishing cinematic experience in which a simple story flows richly to a dramatic twist.

Two quirky, cynical teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives after high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls' friendship.

Three war-torn strangers posing as a family flee Sri Lanka’s civil war to start over in a troubled Paris suburb, but their past traumas resurface as they struggle to survive in their new environment.

1951 film by Orson Welles

Rusty James, an absent-minded street thug, struggles to live up to his legendary older brother's reputation and longs for the days when gang warfare was going on.

1942 film by George Stevens

In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.