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Baarìa
Italy, 2009, 150 min.
A family fresco set in Sicily during the last century, Baarìa is a tribute by Giuseppe Tornatore to his land and its people. With its richness and perfection of style, this film is the Cinema Paradiso of his maturity.... more
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The Balibo Conspiracy
Australia, 2009, 111 min.
In 1975, five young Australian TV journalists covering the invasion of East Timor by the Indonesian army disappeared at the border village of Balibo. Their story, denied and covered up for more than 30 years, is grippingly recreated in this tense and moving film from Robert Connolly.... more
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Berlin '36
Germany, 2009, 100 min.
With Berlin facing boycotts if Jewish athletes aren't allowed to participate in its Olympic Games, the Nazis bully a Jewish expat into training for the German high jumping team -- but they're also waging a covert campaign to defeat her.... more
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The Big Dream
Italy, 2009, 101 min.
A three-way love story between Laura, a college student, Libero, the leader of the student movement, and Nicola, a policeman, set against the background of the student demonstrations of 1968. A look at a generation, in the tradition of The Best of Youth.... more
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Cooking History
Austria, 2009, 88 min.
Proving the maxim an army marches on its belly, this playful documentary inventively uses the field kitchen as a prism through which to view 20th-century European history. Winner, Best Documentary, Chicago Film Festival.... 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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Dawson, Island 10
Chile, 2009, 117 min.
After the 1973 coup that deposed Allende and brought Pinochet to power in Chile, the former members of his cabinet are imprisoned on Dawson Island, the world's southernmost concentration camp. Veteran filmmaker Miguel Littin follows the ordeal of these men who are determined to survive.... more
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Draft Dodgers
Luxembourg, 2009, 97 min.
When the Nazis annex Luxembourg, François must make a choice: either be conscripted and fight the Allies on the Russian front, or become a draft dodger living underground. This gritty psychological drama depicts a world in which his fascist father and shackled nation are weapons in a war.... more
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Forgotten Transports: To Poland
Czech Republic, 2009, 90 min.
From a forbidden love affair to participation in the Sobibor uprising, those who escaped Nazi ghettos, labor and death camps speak out, some for the first time. This is the final entry in a monumental quartet of documentaries that meticulously trace the history of these Czech Jews.... more
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The Front Line
Italy, 2009, 100 min.
The fictionalized story of Sergio Segio and Susanna Ronconi, a modern-day Marxist Bonnie and Clyde who terrorized Italy in the 1970s through their extreme left-wing terrorist organization Primea Linea. An insightful examination of the terrorist mind.... more
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Inside Hana's Suitcase
Canada, 2009, 90 min.
The delivery of a battered suitcase to the Tokyo Holocaust Museum launches a quest to learn the fate of the owner, Hana Brady. The voices of children from Japan, Canada and the Czech Republic telling Hana's story are woven around the dramatic search, creating a film of astonishing power and hope.... more
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John Rabe
Germany, 2009, 134 min.
When the Japanese launch the 1937 Rape of Nanking, German businessman John Rabe fights to set up a secure zone for his workers and their families, opposed by those who despise his Nazi leanings. This stirring epic is the story of "China's Oscar Schindler."... more
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Landscape No. 2
Slovenia, 2009, 90 min.
A killer representing an ugly, unresolved and nearly forgotten chapter of post-WWII history confronts a cynical, amoral Everyman in Landscape No. 2. Played realistically yet with a wink to Grand Guignol theatrics, this audacious, superbly crafted, contemporary horror film spiced with humor.... more
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The Last Station
United Kingdom, 2009, 110 min.
Michael Hoffman's wonderful look at the later years in the life of legendary Russian novelist and social reformer Leo Tolstoy features Christopher Plummer as the great writer, Helen Mirren as his wife Sofya, and Paul Giamatti as his secretary and friend Vladimir.... more
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Lucky Country
Australia, 2009, 96 min.
A gripping thriller set in 1902 in the wild Australian outback, where a desperate family on the brink of ruin find themselves turning on each other after three strangers arrive at their farm with rumors of gold.... more
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Max Manus
Norway, 2009, 118 min.
This rousing widescreen historical epic celebrates the deeds of one of Norway's most daring WWII-era resistance fighters: Max Manus, a man with no formal education, who led a life of derring-do that seems tailor-made for the movies.... more
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The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
USA, 2009, 94 min.
On October 1, 1969, Daniel Ellsberg began smuggling a top-secret report about the history of the Vietnam War out of a safe in his office and, ultimately, into the pages of The New York Times. This gripping documentary explores the profound political and legal consequences that followed.... more
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Mugabe and the White African
Namibia, 2009, 94 min.
The tribulations of white farmer Mike Campbell and his family in Mugabe's Zimbabwe are brought to chilling life in this riveting Academy Award-shortlisted documentary. After Mugabe's "land reform" announcement led to farmers being assaulted and chased from their land, the Campbell clan fight.... more
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My Neighbor, My Killer
USA, 2009, 80 min.
Since 2001, the Gacaca Tribunals in Rwanda have tried to reconcile the victims and the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide; Anne Aghion has been there documenting things from the beginning. Here she shows predominantly female survivors confronting the men who murdered their families.... more
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North Face
Austria, 2008, 126 min.
Based on a 1936 attempt by two Germans and two Austrians to be the first to scale the near-vertical Eiger North Face, the most dangerous unconquered rock face in the Alps, this grippingly staged mountain movie boasts plenty of white-knuckle thrills.... more
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On These Shoulders We Stand
USA, 2009, 75 min.
Not everything began with Stonewall. On These Shoulders We Stand is a historical account of early gay life and activism in Los Angeles told by the people who lived it.... 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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Protektor
Czech Republic, 2009, 98 min.
Notable for its fresh approach and unusual art direction, this fateful love story is set in Prague during the late 1930s and subsequent Nazi occupation. It focuses on radio journalist Emil, who is deeply in love with his glamorous movie star wife Hana, a Jew.... more
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Reverse
Poland, 2009, 101 min.
A darkly comic story of three generations of Polish women and the mysterious young man whose presence sparks a series of surprising events that change all of their lives. Best Film, Actress, and Cinematography, Gdynia Film Festival; FIPRESCI Award, Warsaw Film Festival.... more
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Sergio
USA, 2009, 94 min.
In late 2003, a bomb blows up the UN headquarters in Iraq, trapping the head of the UN's mission -- an extraordinary diplomat named Sergio Vieira de Mello -- and dozens of others inside. This expertly paced, Oscar-shortlisted documentary tells what happened on that fateful day.... more
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Soundtrack for a Revolution
USA, 2009, 82 min.
Relive the American civil rights movement through the soul-stirring folk songs that fortified protestors struggling for equality. This powerful documentary pairs modern renditions with footage from the bitter days of segregation and emotional interviews with the people who fought through it.... 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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Time of the Comet
Albania, 2008, 103 min.
Romantic, tragic and profoundly hilarious, this period epic, set shortly before WWI and based on the novel by Nobel Prize winner Ismail Kadare, marries the absurdity of war to the utter absurdity that was once Albania.... more
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Vincere
Italy, 2009, 128 min.
Before Mussolini was Il Duce, he was a struggling political outsider. Beautiful Ida Dalser was his early financier, lover and mother to his son, but decades later she was shunned and imprisoned by the dictator.... more
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Waking Sleeping Beauty
USA, 2009, 86 min.
Don Hahn's engaging look at the resurgence of the Disney company's animation tradition features head honcho (at the time) Michael Eisner, animation guru Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy E. Disney, and future geniuses Tim Burton and John Lasseter, all holding forth on the company's slide and rebirth.... more
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The World is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner
Bulgaria, 2009, 105 min.
This sweet intergenerational drama about an amnesiac helped toward recovery by his charismatic grandfather encompasses over 30 years of social and identity crises, with backgammon as a metaphor for life.... more
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