2014 Films
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty)
Journalist Jep Gambardella (the dazzling Toni Servillo, Il divo and Gomorrah) has charmed and seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades. Since the legendary success of his one and only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city’s literary and social circles, but when his sixty-fifth birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
Her
Set in the Los Angeles of the slight future, “Her” follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Samantha,” a bright, female voice, who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson’s new film, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend.
The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune — all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.
Mood Indigo
Eminently inventive auteur Michel Gondry finds inspiration from french novelist Boris Vian’s cult novel to provide the foundation for this visionary and romantic love story starring Audrey Tautou (Amélie, Coco Before Chanel) and Romain Duris (The Beat My Heart Skipped).
Set in a charmingly surreal Paris, Duris plays wealthy bachelor Colin, whose hobbies include developing his pianocktail (a cocktail-making piano) and devouring otherworldly dishes prepared by his trusty chef Nicolas (Omar Sy, The Untouchables, X-Men: Days Of The Future Past). When Colin learns that his best friend Chick (Gad Elmaleh, The Valet), a fellow acolyte of the philosopher Jean-Sol Partre, has a new American girlfriend, our lonely hero attends a friend’s party in hopes of falling in love himself. He soon meets Chloé (Tautou) and, before they know it, they’re dancing to Duke Ellington and plunging headfirst into a romance that Gondry rapturously depicts as only he can. Their whirlwind courtship is tested when an unusual illness plagues Chloe; a flower begins to grow in her lungs. To save her, Colin discovers the only cure is to surround Chloe with a never-ending supply of fresh flowers.
The Zero Theorem
The Zero Theorem stars two-time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds) as Qohen Leth, an eccentric and reclusive computer genius plagued with existential angst. Living in isolation in a burnt-out church, Qohen is obsessively working on a mysterious project personally delegated to him by Management (Matt Damon) aimed at discovering the meaning of life – or the lack thereof – once and for all. Increasingly disturbed by unwanted visits from people he doesn’t fully trust, including the flirtatious Bainsley (Mélanie Thierry), Management’s wunderkind son Bob (Lucas Hedges), his unpredictable colleague Joby (David Thewlis), and would-be digital therapist Dr. Shrink-Rom (Tilda Swinton), it’s only when he experiences the power of love and desire that he’s able to understand his own reason for being.
Little England
One house, one secret, one man, two sisters.
The action takes place on the island of Andros, where Orsa, 20 years old, and her younger sister, Moscha, live. Orsa is deeply in love with Spyros Maltabes, a lieutenant, but she has never revealed her secret to anybody. On the other hand, Moscha dreams of leaving Andros and escaping women’s fate of marrying sailors, who are usually away from their families. Their mother, Mina, married to a captain, considers love a trouble and, overriding their emotions, wants her daughters to make wealthy marriages. As a result, Orsa marries captain Nikos Vatokouzis, and Moscha to Spyros Maltabes, a captain now with whom her sister is in love. The two women live in the family’s duplex home and the forbidden love will harm their lives.
The film is based on the novel of the same name published by Kastaniotis.
Miele (Honey)
Irene lives alone a pretty isolated life. Her clandestine job is to help terminally-ill people to die with dignity by giving them a drug. One day she supplies a new “client” with a fatal dose, only to find out he’s perfectly healthy. Irene is determined not to be responsible for his suicide. From this moment, Irene and Grimaldi are locked unwillingly in a tense and unusual relationship which will change Irene’s life forever.
From Tehran to London
Irene lives alone a pretty isolated life. Her clandestine job is to help terminally-ill people to die with dignity by giving them a drug. One day she supplies a new “client” with a fatal dose, only to find out he’s perfectly healthy. Irene is determined not to be responsible for his suicide. From this moment, Irene and Grimaldi are locked unwillingly in a tense and unusual relationship which will change Irene’s life forever.
Exhibition
Exhibition is an intimate, austere and engrossing portrait of a marriage and a revealing investigation into memory, architecture and the artistic process.
When artists D (Viv Albertine) and H (Liam Gillick) decide to sell the home that they have loved and lived in for two decades, they begin a difficult process of saying goodbye. The upheaval has caused anxieties to surface and D struggles to control the personal and creative aspects of her life with H.
Dreams, memories and fears have all imprinted themselves on their home, a container for their lives and an axis of their marriage. How will their relationship – and their art – exist without its confines?
Free Birds
In this hilarious, adventurous buddy comedy for audiences of all ages, directed by Jimmy Hayward (Horton Hears a Who!), two turkeys from opposite sides of the tracks must put aside their differences and team up to travel back in time to change the course of history – and get turkey off the Thanksgiving menu for good.