Forestback Summer

A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.

When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.

After her fiancee admits to infidelity while on a business trip in France, a woman attempts to get her lover back and marry him by traveling to Paris despite her crippling fear of flying. On the way she unwittingly smuggles something of value that has a charming crook chasing her across France as she chases after her future husband.

With a keen sense of visual beauty, director Markku Lehmuskallio has created a thought-provoking, aesthetic film about a married couple and an old man living in a remote part of Finland. The young husband goes out hunting but only to support himself and his wife, not to kill off hordes of animals. He sets traps, and that gets him in trouble with the police who proceed to ticket him for using the devices. The forest cycles themselves are intimated when an old tree is shown falling to earth -- perhaps a reflection on the old man's passing years. In contrast to these few people living off the land and basically keeping the ecological balance intact, a highway construction crew is shown at work felling trees. Soon the antagonism grows between encroaching civilization and the quiet life of the young couple and elderly man.

An anthology of 7 Mexican short films, all created by 5 up-and-coming independent filmmakers, with a common thread: to explore themes of human relationships. In order, A Hand Beneath the Snow (Una mano bajo la nieve), Friendship (Amistad), The View from Up Above (La vista desde arriba), The Short Film (El cortometraje), Silvestre (Silvestre), Cocktails For Two (Cóctel para dos) and When I Hear You Sing, I Forget (Cuando te escucho cantar, olvido).

Beautiful, sad story told from multiple perspectives. A man picks a dahlia before entering his home. His dog senses something is wrong. The housekeeper makes tea before seeing the tragedy. Slowly the elements slot into place.

A documentary about a funeral director and her views on life and death.

A young couple grieving the recent death of their daughter move to the countryside where they are haunted by their tragedy and a sinister darkness.

When a girl picks a forbidden flower for her sick mother, she triggers a curse of misfortunes, forcing her to confront her grief and reconcile with nature.

Set in the frozen steppes of Mongolia, a young nomad is confronted with his destiny after animals fall victim to a plague which threatens to eradicate nomadism.

A saga of class relations and changing times in an Edwardian England on the brink of modernity, the film centers on liberal Margaret Schlegel, who, along with her sister Helen, becomes involved with two couples: wealthy, conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth, and the downwardly mobile working-class Leonard Bast and his mistress Jackie.

Antoine Sforza, a thirty-year-old young man, left his village ten years before in order to start a new life in the big city, but now that his father, a traveling grocer, is in hospital after a stroke, he more or less reluctantly accepts to come back to replace him in his daily rounds.

Due to negligence that caused the death of a family cow, an extremely poor but handsome young man Iva must obey his father's demands to marry an unattractive and limping daughter of wealthy villagers.

Young lion prince Simba, eager to one day become king of the Pride Lands, grows up under the watchful eye of his father Mufasa; all the while his villainous uncle Scar conspires to take the throne for himself. Amid betrayal and tragedy, Simba must confront his past and find his rightful place in the Circle of Life.

The wild and wanton Francisca, known as "The Tigress," is the eldest of three sisters, who are bosses of a farm in Ecuador. A medicine man tells Francisca and Juliana that their youngest sister Sara must remain a virgin to protect their land. A travelling salesman, engaged to Sara, tells the police that she is being kept locked up by her older sisters.

A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the glacial Siberian woods.

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During a walk in nature, a young hiker finds a notebook. Soon after curiosity gets the better of her, she finds out that it is not just a notebook that crossed her path.

Magali, forty-something, is a winemaker and a widow: she loves her work but feels lonely. Her friends Rosine and Isabelle both want secretly to find a husband for Magali.

Clara (Karin Viard) is a stripper with a high-strung, jealous boyfriend with the curious name of Loockeed (Antoine Chappey). The couple are friends with the even-temperred, almost saintly Max (Gerald Laroche), an auto mechanic. The three of them set out from their home in the north to journey to the Alpine mountains near Switzerland and Italy, where they will help a fourth friend take care of his pleasure boat business at Lake Annecy while he is in military service. As the trio attempt to establish some sort of equilibrium in their new lives, Max must constantly deal with Loockeed's testy, jealous barbs. Despite this, the three of them remain friends.