60m; U.K.
Director: John Baxter
Synopsis (IMDB): Young Peter wants so badly to be an engineer that he starts to work on an invention. To raise money, he and his friend Tim wash windows. However, Tim needs the money they earn to go to Ireland to visit his grandfather who is very ill, so Peter gives him all the money they have made. Everything works out well for Peter in the end when he is praised as a young genius
75m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Carol White, Ray Brooks and Winifred Dennis
Synopsis: From the BBC’s influential ‘Wednesday Play’ series. This tells the bleak tale of Cathy, who loses her home, husband and eventually her child through the inflexibility of the British welfare system. A grim picture is painted of mid-sixties London, and though realistic the viewer cannot but realise that a political point is being made. One of the consequences of this film was the enormous public support for the housing charity ‘Shelter’, whose public launch came shortly after the programme was first shown.
94m; Iran
Director: Majid Majidi
Synopsis: Immigrant construction workers in Tehran through the eyes of a young child worker.
Trailer
110m; UK
Director: Stephen Daldry
Cast: Jamie Bell, Julie Walters and Jean Heywood
Synopsis (IMDB): County Durham, during the endless, violent 1984 strike against the Thatcher closure of British coal mines. Widower Jackie Elliot and his firstborn, fellow miner Tony, take a dim view of 11 year-old second son Billy’s poor record in boxing class, which worsens when they discover he sneakily transferred to the neighboring, otherwise girls-only-attended ballet class. Only one schoolmate, closet-gay Michael Caffrey, encourages Billy’s desire, aroused by the teacher, who judged him talented enough for private lesson, to train and try out for the world-renowned Royal Ballet audition. Only the prospect of a fancy career unimagined in the pauper quarter may twist pa and big brother’s opposition to indispensable support.
Trailer
104m; U.S.
Director: Russ Mayberry
Cast: Linda Lavin, Richard Jaeckel, and Nicholas Pryor
148m; India
Director: Vasanthabalan
Synopsis: Jyothi Lingam (Mahesh) is a bright student and son of a mason who leads a happy life in his village near Tirunelveli. One day tragedy strikes as his father the only earning member dies in an accident while crossing an unmanned railway gate and the young boy now has to look after his mother and two sisters. Mahesh, along with hundreds of others, works at the Senthil Murugan Stores run by the big Annachi where 50 to 60 sales boys and girls work in pitiable conditions from early in the morning to late at night, without any rest. He meets Kani (Anjali), a fiery, independent girl. Angadi Theru is about how these two survive in concentration camp-like conditions and what happens when fate smiles cruelly at them. This film is considered to be a milestone in Tamil cinema due its raw content.
113m; China
Director: Xiaoshuai Wang
Cast: Lin Cui, Xun Zhou, Bin Li
Synopsis (IMDB): A seventeen-year-old country boy working in Beijing as a courier has his bicycle stolen, and finds it with a schoolboy his age.
84M; U.S.
Director: Peter Lord/Nick Park
Cast: Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha and Phil Daniel
Synopsis (IMDB): Having been hopelessly repressed and facing eventual certain death at the chicken farm where they are held, Rocky the rooster and Ginger the chicken decide to rebel against the evil Mr. and Ms. Tweedy, the farm’s owners. Rocky and Ginger lead their fellow chickens in a great escape from the murderous farmers and their farm of doom.
Trailer
113m; Spain
Director: Fernando Leon de Aranoa
Cast: Javier Bardem, Luis Tosar and José Ángel Egido
Synopsis (IMDB): 2001: men without jobs, in the port city of Vigo. Six men worked in a shipyard, now shuttered. They pass the time at La Naval, a bar opened by one of them after the yard closed. They face their futures in makeshift ways: Rico has his bar and a sharp 15-year-old daughter, Reina has become a watchman and a moralizer, Lino fills out job applications, Amador drinks heavily and talks of his wife’s return; José is married to Ana, who works at a cannery and tires of being the breadwinner amidst José’s emasculated moodiness; Santa, the group’s conscience and troublemaker, occasionally fantasizes about Australia. In truth, all are joined like Siamese twins, adrift.
Contact: distributor: Lions Gate Films Alyssa Chinn Ph: 310 314-9597 Fax: 310 396-6041 achinn@lgecorp.com
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