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This film, which has been shown twice in France on the Arte channel but is, I believe, not available on video, is one of the most impressive films from one of the francophonic world's greatest directors. Beginning in South Africa under the apartheid regime, it follows a young girl who flees the country after a violent confrontation with a local white landowner in which her father is killed. She settles in Abidjan, where, ten years later, she has become a university student. As part of her studies, she visits the Taureg tribe on the edge of the Sahara before at last returning to post-Apartheid South Africa. This is a vastly ambitious film, attempting as it does to deal with a number of cultures and countries of contemporary Africa, each with its own history, language, and political and social conflicts. At its center are two immensely impressive performances by the actresses who play the heroine, first as a young girl, and later as an adult. Thus it manages to be at once an intimate portrait of a young woman, and a vast fresco of much of a continent.

If you're not familiar with French movies, this is an excellent one with which to start. The minor roles played by individuals such as Charlotte Gainsbourg (as herself, and seen recently in 'My Wife Is An Actress' directed by her husband, playing in English opposite Terence Stamp) is just one of many exemplary, comic performances in this droll, and very original comedy.

1994 film by Patrice Chéreau

A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam.

A poor, rural Cambodian family slowly disintegrates during the cycle of a single rice crop.

1994 film by Giuseppe Tornatore

The legendary life of Mexican singer Lucha Reyes is the basis of this fictionalized biography ( or as director Arturo Ripstein puts it "an imaginary biography"). Lucha Reyes was an unconventional, and sexually liberated woman, most famous for her "cancion ranchera" style singing. Her story begins in 1939, where at 33 she still lived at home with her mother, Dona Victora, the madame of a renowned Mexico City whorehouse. Lucha marries the liberal Pedro Calderon and then buys a beggar's daughter. She becomes the mother to this child, Luzma. Lucha craves lasting love like junkies crave heroin. But for her loyal daughter, she never finds it and in the end no one can help her.

Assia lives in a small Russian village, populated by useless alcoholics. She sells eggs and alcohol to her neighbors, and everybody is happy. But one day, her hen lays a golden egg, and Assia may have a golden opportunity. Now her life becomes miserable, because of her jealous neighbors.

Riyo, an orphaned 17-year old, sails from Yokohama to Hawaii in 1918 to marry Matsuji, a man she has never met. Hoping to escape a troubled past and start anew, Riyo is bitterly disappointed upon her arrival: her husband is twice her age. The miserable girl finds solace with her new friend Kana, a young mother who helps Riyo accept her new life.

Dorothy Parker remembers the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table, a circle of friends whose barbed wit, like hers, was fueled by alcohol and flirted with despair.

The year is 1919 and it's forest rangers versus poachers in the Dolomite mountains in this Italian drama based on a morality tale by Dino Buzzati. The first scene, which contains no dialog, depicts the murder of a young ranger in the snowy peaks. Barnabo is a taciturn young ranger new to the mountains. He is a pacifist and is uncomfortable carrying his rifle. Upon his hand is a stigmata that periodically bleeds. The poachers murder another ranger. This time it is the commanding officer. The rangers organize a patrol to find them, but they are unsuccessful. It is Barnabo who locates them. They escape because he is unable, or afraid to shoot them. He is dishonorably discharged and now finds it hard to escape the label of coward. He leaves the mountains and becomes a farm-hand. While he labors, he reflects upon the experience and those of his life. A internal moral struggle ensues as he tries to make sense of it all and find some inner peace.

Orlanda, Liuccia, Milù, Blu Blu and Veronica are five women in Palermo, Sicily, each different from the other. But, along with transvestite Kim and young man Maurizio, they all share something: they're "buttane", hookers, who spend the day between the streets and home; some got children, some got problems with the pimps, some with the clients...

Ariel, a young French Jew, decides to leave his family to go to Israel and secretly become an agent of Mossad, the Israeli secret service. After years of training, his first mission is in Paris to steal secrets from Remy Prieur, a French atomic scientist.

Andrew Crocker-Harris is an embittered and disliked teacher of Greek and Latin at a British prep school. After nearly 20 years of service, he is being forced to retire for 'health reasons', and perhaps may not even be given a pension. The boys regard him as a Hitler, with some justification. His unfaithful wife Laura tries to hurt him in any way she can. Andrew must come to terms with his failed life and at least regain his own self-esteem.

1994 film

In 1925 Romania, young Marie-Therese Von Debretsy refuses the flirtatious advances of her husband's commanding officer. As a result, the cosmopolitan family is reassigned to a brutally bleak and dangerous outpost on the Bulgarian/Romanian frontier where both their relationship and humanity are severely tested.

A widow's grief for her husband provides the focus in this tender Indian drama. Ramayyar was the joy of Ananpoorna's life. His recent death literally drained all color from Ananpoorna's life. The movie is a combination of her memories and her present situation. Before her husband died, the two owned a small cafe in Kerala, their home village. The remote little town is connected to the world by passing trains en route to the city of Trivandrum. When the funeral is finished, Ananpoorna finds herself destitute and unable to support her teenage son and daughter. To pay her debts, her cafe is sold and razed. Afterwards she moves in with her brother-in-law. Her son, Kannan, must decide whether to join the military, at the advice of the stationmaster, or join his friend who journeys to the Middle-East.

1993 film by Wim Wenders

Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to more and more questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.

1993 drama film directed by Bartabas