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Adrift
Vietnam, 2009, 110 min.
This poetic, languidly sensual story of tangled loves in modern Vietnam illustrates changing values in a traditional society as it explores sexual awakening, lesbian desire and marital infidelity.... more
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Air Doll
Japan, 2009, 116 min.
The internationally acclaimed director of Nobody Knows and After Life returns with a romantic fantasy that explores the complexities of love, loneliness and loss through the story of a life-size inflatable doll who comes to life and begins exploring what it means to be human.... more
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Breathless
South Korea, 2009, 130 min.
Song-hoon is a violent, foul-mouthed enforcer for local gangster Man-shik. But things change when an unlikely bond develops between him and wayward schoolgirl, Han Yeon-hee. This semi-autobiographical, often brutal look at cyclical violence shows how love might just redeem a lost soul.... more
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Dark Resonance
Bangladesh, 2009, 105 min.
If a child is sent to university by parents who are beggars, is she an emancipated person who can choose her destiny or only the literate daughter of beggars? This sensitive first feature comes from award-winning painter Khalid Mahmood Mithu.... more
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The Happiness of Kati
Thailand, 2009, 105 min.
With the impending death of her mother, a young girl living with her adoring grandparents completes the puzzle of her past and discovers the reason that her mother gave her up as a baby. A delicate and touching adaptation of one of Thailand's most beloved novels.... more
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Kimjongilia
France, 2009, 75 min.
N.C. Heikin's documentary gives long overdue voice to those who've suffered under Kim Jong-il's reign. The film maintains a furious tone as it playfully mixes interviews, dance performances, propaganda films and animation. The result is a devastating indictment of one of the world's worst dictators.... more
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Mother
South Korea, 2009, 128 min.
Korean master Bong Joon-Ho's follow-up to The Host is an equally exhilarating and blackly humorous work, this one a jaw-dropping melodrama about an obsessive mother fighting to prove that her emotionally stunted son is innocent of the brutal murder of a local girl.... more
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Nobody to Watch over Me
Japan, 2009, 118 min.
Ryoichi Kimizuka's riveting exploration of the Japanese media's feeding frenzy focuses on a15-year-old girl forced into police protection to escape from the journalistic hordes after her brother is arrested for murder. It plays out like a propulsive edge-of-your-seat thriller.... more
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Prince of Tears
Hong Kong, 2009, 123 min.
Yonfan's sumptuously made drama looks back to 1950s Taiwan, when anti-communist feeling was at an all-time high, to tell the fairy-tale-like story of two young sisters whose parents are arrested as communist spies. Stunning cinematography, luscious set design and a plot with more than a few twists.... more
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The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's Struggle for Freedom
India, 2009, 79 min.
With unusual intimate access, filmmakers Sonam and Sarin find a unique perspective on the Dalai Lama's trials and tribulations and follow him over an eventful year, including the 2008 protests in Tibet, the long march in India, the Beijing Olympics and the breakdown of talks with China.... more
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Villon's Wife
Japan, 2009, 114 min.
This enticing period melodrama depicts a long-suffering woman's relationship with her brilliant but self-destructive writer husband in postwar Tokyo. Based on a semi-autobiographical 1947 novel by Osamu Dazai.... more
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