The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Overview:
On a turn-of-the-20th-century northern Italian farm, a group of sharecroppers eke out a threadbare existence. A priest advises Batisti and his wife Batistina that their young son Minec should be formally educated, so they sacrifice his help in the fields and send him to school. When Minec's wooden shoe breaks one day, Batisti--in an act of desperation--puts the family's future at risk to replace the clog.
Recommendations for you
Happy as Lazzaro
Purehearted teen Lazzaro is content living as a sharecropper in rural Italy, but an unlikely friendship with the marquise’s son will change his world.
The Piano Lesson
A brother and sister's battle over a prized heirloom piano unleashes haunting truths about how the past is perceived — and who defines a family legacy.
Fences
In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.
I Never Sang for My Father
A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.
Mr. Church
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
Skin
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
The Winter Guest
It's winter in a small Scottish village near the sea, and multiple lives intersect in a day. Frances has just lost her husband to an early death, so her mother, Elspeth, travels to Frances' house to reconnect with her daughter and grandson, Alex. Meanwhile, old women Chloe and Lily go to a funeral, youngsters Sam and Tom cut class, and Alex gets a crush on tomboy Nita.
It's a Wonderful Life
George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.
American Fable
When 11-year-old Gitty discovers that her father, Abe, a good and beloved farmer, is holding a wealthy man hostage in their abandoned silo in order to save their suffering farm, she befriends the captive in secret. As the truth unfolds about who he is and what will happen if he escapes, Gitty chooses to confront the thin line between reality and fiction.
Dancer in the Dark
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her young son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life becomes increasingly difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
The Children's Train
In late 1940s Italy, a mother makes the difficult decision to send her son to the north, where he catches glimpses of a new life away from poverty.
The Secret Garden
When a spoiled English girl living in 19th century India loses both parents in a cholera epidemic, she is sent back to England to live in a country mansion. The lord is a strange old man-- frail and deformed, immensely kind but so melancholy. She wishes to discover what has caused him so much sorrow and to bring joy back to the household. It all must have something to do with the screams and wails which echo through the house at night and no one wants to talk about.
Detachment
A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.
God's Creatures
In a windswept fishing village, a mother is torn between protecting her beloved son and her own sense of right and wrong. A lie she tells for him rips apart their family and close-knit community.
BUtterfield 8
Gloria Wandrous, a promiscuous fashion model, falls in love with Weston Liggett, the hard drinking son of a working class family who has married into money.
The Hummingbird
Everyone in Marco's life seems constantly restless, from his brilliant but unhappily married parents to his own wife Marina, or even Luisa, the real love of his life, a girl he met during a fateful summer in the '70s and always stayed in touch with. Tragedy and fate seem to haunt him, yet he somehow manages never to get ensnared in the chaos—like his namesake, “the hummingbird”, he focuses all his energy at standing still.
A Taste of Honey
While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.
Cabrini
Italian immigrant Francesca Cabrini arrives in 1889 New York City and is greeted by disease, crime, and impoverished children. Cabrini sets off on a daring mission to convince the hostile mayor to secure housing and healthcare for society's most vulnerable. With broken English and poor health, Cabrini uses her entrepreneurial mind to build an empire of hope unlike anything the world had ever seen.
The Judge
A successful lawyer returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral only to discover that his estranged father, the town's judge, is suspected of murder.
The Jazz Singer
A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the original film musical.