FC Venus

Or (My Treasure)

Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.

Away from Her

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.

11’09”01—September 11

Filmmakers from all over the world provide short films – each of which is eleven minutes, nine seconds, and one frame of film in length – that offer differing perspectives on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Me and My Sister

Louise, who has just written a novel, comes to Paris to meet with a potential publisher. While in the city, she stays with her older sister, Martine, who in many ways is the exact opposite of Louise: she lives in a fashionable neighborhood, is cold to others, and has snobby friends, while Louise lives in a small town and is thoroughly unpretentious. Louise's apparent happiness -- and similarities to their mother -- gradually gets on Martine's nerves.

Hanna's Journey

A German girl travels to Israel to help people with disabilities, where she learns a lot about the role of her grandparents in WWII and meets a man who wants to move to Berlin.

Notes on a Scandal

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.

Rita

The Horses of McBride

When Nicki finds two horses stranded deep in the Rocky Mountain snow, she makes it her mission to find a way to get them to safety. With no other options, she picks up a shovel and starts to dig out the mile-long path, inspiring her father, Matt, and the rest of the community to join together and save the horses in the spirit of Christmas.

All Five Eyes

Set in a small English village in 1967, liberated Marion is exploring the new social freedoms enjoyed by women in the late 1960s while conscientious and self-conscious Cecily runs the local girls school and is Willa’s main carer. Their differences reach a boiling point over their relationship with Willa, which leads to each sister making their own decision on what it means to have a life worth living.

Heaven-Bound Travelers

Heaven-Bound Travelers (circa 1935) was discovered among the rolls of film in the Gist collection at the Library of Congress by S. Torriano Berry during the recent restoration of Hell-Bound Train. Eloyce Gist takes a central role onscreen as a wife and mother who is wrongfully accused of adultery by her husband and is left to fend for herself and their daughter in the world. As she struggles to sustain them, the husband becomes riddled with guilt and struggles with his decision, and the social realism of the drama shifts to an allegorical struggle between the devil, appearing to tempt humanity to sin, and the angels. The film does not exist in complete form but the fragments show a project of ambitious scope. Presented with a score composed and performed by Dr. Samuel Waymon.

Verdict: Not Guilty

Part religious allegory and part church pageant, it presents the heavenly trial of a woman who has died giving childbirth out of wedlock. The jailer wears a mask death's head mask and a nun's habit with a skull and crossbones on the front and God sits on an altar, flanked by angels, while the devil attempts to convict the woman for her sins. Shot with a handheld camera that doesn't always remain steady or keep the scene in frame, it is full of religious imagery and evocative folkloric elements, with flashbacks to the woman's life that provide a realism in sharp contrast to the allegorical pageantry. It shows its amateur origins, the texture, the pageantry, and the allegorical and ritualistic elements also looks forward to the American Underground cinema of Kenneth Anger, Curtis Harrington, and others in the 1950s and 1960s.

American Splendor

An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.

Rumor Has It...

Sarah Huttinger's return home with her fiance convinces her that the sedate, proper, country-club lifestyle of her family isn't for her – and that maybe the Huttinger family isn't even hers – as she uncovers secrets that suggest the Huttingers are neither sedate nor proper.

An Angel at My Table

Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.

Royalteen: Princess Margrethe

In the wake of her prom scandal, Princess Margrethe longs for normalcy as she struggles to maintain her perfect facade while dealing with family drama.