84m; U.S.
Director: John Ford
Cast: Charley Grapewin, Gene Tierney and Marjorie Rambeau
Synopsis (IMDB): Shiftless Jeeter Lester and his family of hillbilly stereotypes live in a rural backwater where their ancestors were once wealthy planters. Their slapstick existence is threatened by a bank’s plans to take over the land for more profitable farming; subplots involve the affairs and marriages of son Dude and daughter Ellie May.
81m; France
Director: Jean Renoir
Cast: Charles Blavette, Celia Montalván and Jenny Hélia
Synopsis (IMDB): In the 1920s, the Provence is a magnet for immigrants seeking work in the quarries or in the agriculture. Many mingle with locals and settle down permanently – like Toni, an Italian who has moved in with Marie, a Frenchwoman. Even a well-ordered existence is not immune from boredom, friendship, love, or enmity, and Toni gets entangled in a web of increasingly passionate relationships. For there is his best pal Fernand, but also Albert, his overbearing foreman; there is Sebastian, a steady Spanish peasant, but also Gabi, his young rogue relative; there is Marie, but there is also Josefa.
139m; East Germany
Director: Frank Beyer
Cast: Manfred Krug, Krystyna Stypulkowska and Jutta Hoffmann
Synopsis (IMDB): Hannes Balla is the foreman of a group of building construction workers at the large construction site “Schkona” in the GDR. They spend most of their time working hard and drinking harder – to some they are fun, to some they are a public nuisance. Things get more complicated when the good-looking Kati Klee is employed as a young technician, and the ambitious new Party Secretary, Werner Horrath, aims to boost work efficiency and downsize Balla’s ego. Kati slowly warms up to Werner, but is also attracted to Balla’s nonconformity. A contemporary movie about work, love, and everything in between.
116m; U.S.
Director: John Landis
Cast: Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd and Ralph Bellamy
Synopsis (IMDB): Louis Winthorpe is a businessman who works for commodities brokerage firm of Duke and Duke owned by the brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke. Now they bicker over the most trivial of matters and what they are bickering about is whether it’s a person’s environment or heredity that determines how well they will do in life. When Winthorpe bumps into Billy Ray Valentine, a street hustler and assumes he is trying to rob him, he has him arrested. Upon seeing how different the two men are, the brothers decide to make a wager as to what would happen if Winthorpe loses his job, his home and is shunned by everyone he knows and if Valentine was given Winthorpe’s job. So they proceed to have Winthorpe arrested and to be placed in a compromising position in front of his girlfriend. So all he has to rely on is the hooker who was hired to ruin him.
59m; U.S.
Director: Salome Chasnoff
Cast: Joanne Archibald, Brandy Baldwin and Juan Barbieri
Synopsis (IMDB): Turning a Corner tells the stories of people involved in sex work and their efforts to raise public awareness of systemic injustice and promote needed reforms. Created with 15 members of Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART), this groundbreaking film recounts their struggle with homelessness, violence, and discrimination, and gives rare insights into the harsh realities of Chicago’s sex trade industry
108m; U.S.
Director: Raymond De Felitta
Cast: Michael Rispoli, Kelly Macdonald and Kathrine Narducci
Synopsis (IMDB): An unseen narrator looks back to 1956, on Staten Island, when Buddy, an Italian guy with big dreams, buys a house planning to live upstairs with his wife Estelle and run a bar downstairs. The first problem is Estelle’s lack of confidence in Buddy. Then, Irish tenants upstairs refuse to move and won’t pay rent; plus, the woman upstairs is about to have a baby. The next problem is the baby: once he’s born, it’s clear his father was Black. The Irish guy splits; Buddy evicts mother and child, then feels guilt and sets her up in a flat while she sorts out an adoption. Estelle’s lack of faith, the Irish lass’s spirit, Buddy’s dream, racial prejudice, and the baby’s fate play out.
100m; Brazil
Director: José Joffily
Cast: Guy Camilleri, Roberto Bomtempo and Theodoris Castellanos
Synopsis: Two Brailizans trade lack of opportunity in Brazil for illusion of the American Dream.
67m; U.S.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Vivienne Osborne and Guy Kibbee
Synopsis (IMDB): Allen claims he his being executed for the wrong murder. Flashbacks show him working with Clark as a riveter. When he makes a killing on the horses he meets Shirley and gets married. When Clark tells him Shirley is unfaithful they fight and Clark falls to his death. Later he finds that Clark was telling the truth.
91m; Italy
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio and Lina Gennari
Synopsis (IMDB): Umberto Ferrari, aged government-pensioner, attends a street demonstration held by his fellow pensioners. The police dispense the crowd and Unberto returns to his cheap furnished room which he shares with his dog Flick. Umberto’s lone friend is Maria, servant of the boarding house. She is a simple girl who is pregnant by one of two soldiers and neither will admit to being the father. When Umberto’s landlady Antonia demands the rent owed her and threatens eviction if she is not paid, Umberto tries desperately to raise the money by selling his books and watch. He is too proud to beg in the streets and can not get a loan from any of his acquaintances. He contracts a sore throat, is admitted to a hospital and this puts a delay on his financial difficulty. Discharged, he finds that his dog is gone and, following a frantic search, locates him in the city dog pound.
88m; U.S.
Director: Sidney M. Goldin, Aubrey Scotto
Cast: Maurice Schwartz, Judith Abarbanel and Mark Schweid
Synopsis (IMDB): “Uncle” Moses is a wealthy garment store owner in the Lower East Side. He lords his wealth and its attendant power over the neighborhood, dispensing noblesse oblige and conducting casual affairs with numerous women. When he falls in love with the beautiful young daughter of one of his employees, he discovers what it is like to be beholden to another person. He convinces her to marry him, but she does so out of financial and social obligation, and Moses’ love remains distressingly unrequited. At the same time, the growing labor movement attacks him for his exploitative employment conditions, and Moses begins to doubt the truth of the American Dream he thought he had achieved.
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