"Tales that will take you to the edge... If you dare..."
A compendium of three short science-fiction films, each with a decidedly feminist slant.
Social & External
The people behind it
John Goodman
The Dean (segment "Happy Birthday")
Sydney Tamiia Poitier
Hannah (segment "Happy Birthday")
Beverly D'Angelo
Bag Lady (segment "Happy Birthday")
Christopher Lloyd
Attorney Bum (segment "Happy Birthday")
David Hyde Pierce
Barney (segment "Happy Birthday")
Caroline Rhea
Monica (segment "Happy Birthday")
Jenica Bergere
Sally (segment "Happy Birthday")
Ken Hudson Campbell
Security Guard (segment "Happy Birthday")
Roman Danylo
Donald (segment "Happy Birthday")
Kimiko Gelman
May Lee Ha (segment "Happy Birthday")
When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big—he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight. But he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.
Mr. Gray is the new Resident in Charge of the Welcome Islands in the Indian Ocean. The Islands are full of life, but the only other Europeans are the "sanctimonious, psalm-singing" brother-sister missionary team of Martha and Owen Jordans, and the Honourable Ted - a hard-drinking, womanizing social outcast whose English family pays him to stay away. Martha and Ted become an unlikely team when cholera threatens the islands and they must do their best to stop its spread.
A strange woman arrives from the North to a prehistoric village bringing some bad news...
This drama follows the dilemma of a young, unwillingly pregnant wife who gives her child up for adoption by a businesswoman. Anna doesn't need another mouth to feed. She can barely afford to care for the two she already has so when she discovers that she is six weeks pregnant she readily accepts the cash offer from Terez, her tough boss at the store where she works. If she will isolate herself throughout the pregnancy, secretly bear the child and immediately allow Terez to sign for it, Anna will receive $50,000. Most of the story then focuses upon Anna's emotional processes as she evaluates her choice. Included are dream segments and shots an unborn baby in the womb.
Set amongst the sparse landscape of an isolated farming community, 5 adolescent girls band together to escape their desolate lives. By reclaiming an abandoned farmhouse as their own, they form an intense and obsessive bond that leads them to a dark place where their innermost fears and desires destroy their only safe place.
Mary and Joseph make the hard journey to Bethlehem for a blessed event in this retelling of the Nativity story. This meticulously researched and visually lush adaptation of the biblical tale follows the pair on their arduous path to their arrival in a small village, where they find shelter in a quiet manger and Jesus is born.
A couple invites Shannon for the company with them to take part in immersing themselves in virtual reality. She experiences a fantastically believable illusion of sex with Roger. And after that they both have an irresistible desire to do it in reality.
Aided by an ex-military officer, a young woman becomes an unwitting fugitive after discovering that her son's catatonic state may be at the heart of a global conspiracy.
After traveling hundreds of miles, a woman must wait another twenty-four hours before she can get an abortion.
Toni is a wedding coordinator who at 25 is considered an old maid by her family and friends. Lorenz is a photographer who does not believe in happy endings. A bet brings the two together and leaves them questioning their feelings for each other.
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
Buenos Aires at the outskirts of XIX century. A society rigid in patriarchal rules. A war between brothers of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Two young and very much in love youngsters, fight for their right to be together. Obeyance and fear sets them apart along more than ten years. When they are finally reunited, will they be able to overcome the pain and tragedy that haunts them?
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.
A young woman raised in the US returns to her birth country in Eastern Europe after a devastating tragedy. Questioning her sanity and her sexuality, she starts believing she possesses supernatural powers.
A comic study of 20th-century history, reconstructing the life of writer, creator and professional prisoner Tulse Luper. Born in 1911 Newport and last heard of in 1989, Luper’s life is pieced together from the evidence found in 92 suitcases scattered across the globe. In the first of three parts, we follow Luper through three distinct episodes: as a child during the First World War; as an explorer in Mormon Utah; and as a writer in Belgium during the rise of fascism.
A comic study of 20th-century history, reconstructing the life of writer, creator and professional prisoner Tulse Luper. Born in 1911 Newport and last heard of in 1989, Luper’s life is pieced together from the evidence found in 92 suitcases scattered across the globe. In the second of three parts, we follow Luper as he works in a cinema, giving him ample opportunity to cross paths with virtually every artistic device and dramatic character known to man.
A comic study of 20th-century history, reconstructing the life of writer, creator and professional prisoner Tulse Luper. Born in 1911 Newport and last heard of in 1989, Luper’s life is pieced together from the evidence found in 92 suitcases scattered across the globe. In the final installment, Luper continues his adventures as a professional prisoner during the later years of the Second World War and the Cold War.
A comic study of 20th-century history, reconstructing the life of writer, creator and professional prisoner Tulse Luper. Born in 1911 Newport and last heard of in 1989, Luper’s life is pieced together from the evidence found in 92 suitcases scattered across the globe. A Life in Suitcases condenses the six-hour trilogy into a single two-hour feature, and in doing so, accentuates the project as a filmic essay in multiple narratives, listings, sidebars, footnotes, commentaries and anecdotes; a project for an Information Age ready to understand that there never is a phenomenon called History, there can only be Historians, gatekeepers to vested interests.
In the wake of their parent's separation, three siblings spend the summer in the south of France with their estranged Grandfather. In less than 24 hours, a clash of generations has occurred between the teenagers and the old man. During this turbulent summer, both generations will be transformed by one another.
A high school outcast pays a cheerleader to pose as his girlfriend so he can be considered cool.
In a story that spans billions of years, a buoy and a satellite meet online long after humanity’s extinction. As they learn what life was like on Earth, they discover themselves and what it means to be alive and in love.
When her rather explicit copy is rejected, magazine journalist Kate is asked by her editor to come up with an article on loving relationships instead, and to do so by the end of the day. This gets Kate thinking back over her own various experiences, and to wondering if she is in much of a position to write on the subject.
Set to the intoxicating rhythms of Brazil, "Woman on Top" is a spicy, sexy comedy about the magic of food, love and music. Meet Isabella, a sultry enchantress born with the special gift of melting the palates and hearts of men everywhere. When she decides to break free from her rocky marriage and the stifling kitchen of her husband's restaurant in Brazil, she spirits off to San Francisco in pursuit of her dreams of a real culinary career.
David Hyde Pierce, playing an alien (credited as infinity-cubed in the opening credits), narrates a courtship in a late-20th century American city as an extraterrestrial nature documentary. The relationship "footage" is played straight, while the voice-over (with its most often wildly inaccurate theories) and elaborate visual metaphors add comedy.
In 1860s Paris, a young woman, Therese, is trapped in a loveless marriage to the sickly Camille by her domineering aunt, Madame Raquin. She spends her days behind the counter of a small shop and her evenings watching Madame play dominos with an eclectic group. After she meets her husband’s alluring friend, Laurent, she embarks on an illicit affair that leads to tragic consequences. Based on Emile Zola’s novel, Thérèse Raquin.
Cynthia Rand is a buttoned-up New Yorker married to a brilliant professor 25 years her senior. She begins feeling the effects of her husband’s advancing age on their relationship, just as her world is turned upside down by the arrival of sharp but chronically underachieving security guard Stan Olszewski in this smart rom-com that reunites Bacon and Sedgwick on screen for the first time in 20 years.
A young man is plunged into a life of subterfuge, deceit and mistaken identity in pursuit of a femme fatale whose heart is never quite within his grasp.
Lu, a conformist woman in her forties, learns that her 15-year partner has been having extramarital affairs. Starting from scratch, she gets involved in an unexpected relationship with a young womanizer.
Three friends begin a dangerous three-way relationship that spirals out of control, leading to dire consequences that haunt them ten years later.
A Mexican-American master chef and father to three daughters has lost his taste for food but not for life.
On a Tuesday night, five couples have separate sexual adventures. Matt and Kris, friends for years, want to have an only-once, no-strings good time. Abby and Andrew, married, celebrate his birthday, but it's marred by angst and miscommunication. Mia and Eric are exes, making sure they are over each other. Jaime and Ken work together and this is a first date. Inez and Gord invite his roommate, Dave, to join them. By the time each couple has gone through a prelude, foreplay, sex, an interlude, orgasm, and afterglow, they've answered basic questions: can sex be anonymous, are we bored, is our marriage really finished, does anyone tell the truth, and how do we make someone happy?
When young loner Anna is hired as the surrogate for Matt, a single man in his 40s, the two strangers come to realize this unexpected relationship will quickly challenge their perceptions of connection, boundaries and the particulars of love.
Clay Kincaid hates the nickname 'Saint', he got for being too kind to stray animals and desperate people. Especially when it comes to women. With a rough and damaged past that has left him jaded, he doesn't do committed relationships. This is before he meets Samantha Jamieson, an heiress turned runaway in need of help. When she starts to work as a waitress at his bar, he discovers that she is someone truly special and amazing… someone that could warm his damaged heart.
When her all-male house-cleaning business gets out of control, a mature woman must embrace her own sexuality, if she is to make a new life for herself.
Ted Morgan has been treading water for most of his life. After his wife leaves him, Ted realizes he has nothing left to live for. Summoning the courage for one last act, Ted decides to go home and face the people he feels are responsible for creating the shell of a person he has become. But life is tricky. The more determined Ted is to confront his demons, to get closure, and to withdraw from his family, the more Ted is yanked into the chaos of their lives. So, when Ted Morgan decides to kill himself, he finds a reason to live.
Womanising, right-wing Dan Hanson and quiet, liberal Lorie Bryer work for the Baltimore Sun. Rivals for the job of new writer of a vacant column, the paper ends up instead printing their very different opinions alongside each other, which leads to a similarly combative local TV show. At the same time their initial indifference to each other looks like it may evolve into something more romantic.
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
A dirty bomb goes off in Los Angeles, jamming freeways and spreading a toxic cloud.
Nora Wilder is freaking out. Everyone around her is either in a relationship, married, or has children, while she's in her thirties, alone with job she's outgrown and a mother who constantly reminds her of it all. Not to mention her best friend Audrey's "perfect marriage". But after a series of disastrous dates, Nora unexpectedly meets Julien, a quirky Frenchman who opens her eyes to a lot more than love.
