Contemporary Movies Catalogue

The Night Of The 12th | 7 x Time Cesar Award Winner | On DVD and Digital

WINNER | Best Film | Cesar Awards 2023
WINNER | Best Director| Cesar Awards 2023
WINNER | Best Writing -Adaptation | Cesar Awards 2023
WINNER | Best Sound | Cesar Awards 2023
WINNER | Best Supporting Actor | Cesar Awards 2023
WINNER | Most Promising Actor | Cesar Awards 2023
WINNER | Highschool Students Cesar | Cesar Awards 2023
WINNER | Best Film | Lumiere Awards 2023
WINNER | Best Screenplay | Lumiere Awards 2023

In the corridors of the criminal police, it is said that all the investigators have a crime that haunts them. One day or another, they come across a case hurting them more than the others, without always knowing why. It starts spinning in their heads to the point of obsession. Young and ambitious Captain Vivés has just been appointed group leader at the Grenoble Criminal Squad when Clara’s murder case lands on his desk. Vivés and his team investigate Clara’s complex life and relations, but what starts as a professional and methodical immersion into the victim’s life soon turns into a haunting obsession.

The Sketch Artist on DVD and On Demand

Eve Garance is a remarkable sketch artist capable of “reading” people. In the Investigation Unit of the Police Department, she uses her talents to create composite sketches to catch criminals. Her colleagues include Maryse Ferron, the methodical director whose disability has never stopped her; Bernard Dupin, the seasoned investigator who keeps the dark regions of his life under wraps, and Anthony Kamal, the new technician who doesn’t know what he is getting into. This is the team assigned to solve a laundry list of sordid crimes. They will tackle also cold cases – even if old wounds are opened in the process.

The return of Eve’s ex will force her to reopen a very personal cold case: that of the disappearance of their son William, then six months old. For five years, Eve has been secretly imagining and sketching the faces that her son could have today in the hope of finding him one day.

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Drive My Car | Academy Award WINNER | Out DIGITALLY and on DVD

Dir. by Ryusuke Hamaguchi | 2021 | Japan | MA15+

Based on the Haruki Murakami story.

*WINNER of Best Foreign Film at The 2022 ACADEMY AWARDS*

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR charts a winding road trip through love, loss, truth and peace.
Two years after his wife’s unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theatre festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900.

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Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi | 2021 | Japan | 121 Mins | MA15+

WINNER of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize –  71st Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival)

An unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction trap and an encounter that results from a misunderstanding. WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY explores three female-centred short stories thematically linked by coincidence, regret, and imagination.

“In the place where dialogue and words usually end, the dialogue of this film only begin. That’s when they go deeper, so deep that, amazed and troubled, we ask ourselves: How much deeper can it go? The words of Hamaguchi are substance, music, material. At first it looks almost minor: a man and a woman, sometimes two women, stand in a room with white walls. Then the scene moves forward, and as it advances you feel that the whole universe, including yourself, is standing there with them inside this simple room.”
BERLINALE JURY STATEMENT

★★★★”Ingenious, playful, sparklingly acted and thoroughly entertaining”
THE GUARDIAN

★★★★★”wondrous, searching and loquacious”
THE UPCOMING

★★★★“The writer-director’s greatest gift is wringing intense emotion from each moment”
TIME OUT LONDON

“A playful triptych of self-contained vignettes… that are bound together by a shared fascination with memory, coincidence, and the deep truths that shallow lies tend to uncover.”
INDIEWIRE

“Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is another aching, beautiful film from Hamaguchi, and plays like the visualisation of an obscure literary collection begging for rediscovery.”
IONCINEMA.COM

“Hamaguchi writes forensically flawed female characters with empathy and unsentimental honesty.”
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“The geometry of desire is elegantly plotted in “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” a wistful, moving, outwardly unassuming movie.”
NEW YORK TIMES

“This is a film you surrender to, appreciating every move as it reminds you of past loves and regrets.”
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

“Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is an emotionally resonant and beautifully therapeutic piece of cinema.”
AMOVIEGUY.COM

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn…

Dir. Radu Jude | 2021 | Romania | 106 Mins | R18+

Winner of the prestigious Golden Bear at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, BAD LUCK BANGING (OR LOONEY PORN) is an outrageous Romanian comedy satirising the sensitivities of modern culture.

Emi (Katia Pascariu), a school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat when a personal sex tape is leaked to the Internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, Emi refuses to surrender to their pressure.

Director Radu Jude (Aferim!) delivers an incendiary mix of unconventional form, irreverent humor and scathing commentary on hypocrisy and prejudice in our societies in a film of three loosely connected parts: a walk in the city of Bucharest, a playful essay on obscenities, all culminating in an incendiary comic confrontation.

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Three Summers

Dir. by Sandra Kogut | 2019 | Brazil | 94 mins | PG

Set in Rio De Janerio over three summers, Mada (Regina Case) a housekeeper sees a window of opportunity when her employers become caught in a major corruption scandal.

Directed by Sandra Kogut THREE SUMMERS is a brilliant comedy about gross class disparity and the infinite resourcefulness of those who can never take anything for granted.

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Wild Things: A Year on the Frontline of Environmental Activism

Dir. by Sally Ingleton | 2020 | 89 mins | M

Wild Things spends a year on the frontline with environmental activists hell-bent on saving their futures from the ravages of climate change. Armed only with mobiles phones, this growing army of eco-warriors are mobilising against forces more powerful than themselves and saying, enough.

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The Trouble With Being Born

Dir. Sandra Wollner | Austria/Germany 2020 | 94 min | Drama/ Sci-Fi

Elli is an android and lives with a man she calls her father.   Together they drift through the summer. She shares his memories and anything else he programs her to recall. Memories that mean everything to him but nothing to her. Yet, one night she sets off into the woods following a fading echo.  The story of a machine and the ghosts we all carry within us.

Let The Child Be The Guide

Curious to see how the Method works first hand, filmmaker Alexandre Mourot sets his camera up in the oldest Montessori school in France (with kids from 3 to 6) and observes. The teacher remains discreet.  Alexandre was warmly welcomed in a surprisingly calm and peaceful environment, filled with flowers, fruits and Montessori materials. The children guided the film director throughout the whole school year, helping him to understand the magic of their autonomy and self-esteem – the seeds of a new society of peace and freedom, which Maria Montessori dedicated her life work to.

Watch this space for screenings and info on how you can book the film for your own group screenings.

It Must Be Heaven

Dir. Elia Suleiman | 97 mins | Comedy | Palestine 2019 | M in Aus | PG in NZ

Elia Suleiman escapes from Palestine seeking an alternative homeland, only to find that Palestine is trailing behind him. The promise of a new life turns into a comedy of errors: however far he travels, from Paris to New York, something always reminds him of home.

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Screwdriver

After fifteen years of imprisonment, Ziad struggles to adjust to modern Palestinian life as the hero everyone hails him to be. Unable to distinguish reality from hallucination he unravels and forces himself to go back to where it all began.

Working Woman

Dir. Michal Aviad, (female director) Israel 2018 | 93 min | Drama

Life at work becomes unbearable for Orna. Her boss appreciates and promotes her, while making inappropriate advances. Her husband struggles to keep his new restaurant afloat, and Orna becomes the main breadwinner for their three children. When her world is finally shattered, she must pull herself together to fight, in her own way, for her job and a sense of self-worth.

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The Third Wife

Dir. Ash Mayfair | Vietnam. 2018. | 97 min | Drama | MA 15+

In 19th-century rural Vietnam, 14-year-old May becomes the third wife of wealthy landowner Hung. Soon, she learns that she can only gain status by asserting herself as a woman who can give birth to a male child. May’s hope to change her status turns into a real and tantalizing possibility when she gets pregnant. Faced with forbidden love and its devastating consequences, May finally comes to an understanding of the brutal truth: the options available to her are few and far between.

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RocKabul

Dir. Travis Beard | Australia 2017 | 90 min | Documentary | M

ROCKABUL by Melbourne based director Travis Beard, follows Afghanistan’s first rock band District Unknown in the war torn capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, where Rock music is forbidden by Islam.

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