Waking Life is a 2001 American animated film written and directed by Richard Linklater. The film explores a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of reality, dreams and lucid dreams, consciousness, the meaning of life, free will, and existentialism. It is centered on a young man who wanders through a succession of dreamlike realities wherein he encounters a series of people who engage in insightful philosophical discussions.
Beau Travail is a 1999 French film directed by Claire Denis that is loosely based on Herman Melville's 1888 novella Billy Budd. The story is set in Djibouti, where the protagonists are soldiers in the French Foreign Legion. Parts of the soundtrack of the movie are from Benjamin Britten's 1951 opera based on the novella.
Peter Watkins is an English film and television director. He was born in Norbiton, Surrey, lived in Sweden, Canada and Lithuania for many years, and now lives in France. He is one of the pioneers of docudrama. His films present pacifist and radical ideas in a nontraditional style. He mainly concentrates his works and ideas around the mass media and our relation/participation to a movie or television documentary.
Together is a Swedish comedy-drama film, which was released to cinemas in Sweden on 25 August 2000. It is Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's second full-length film. Set in a Stockholm commune called "Tillsammans" in 1975, it is a satirical view of socialist values and a bittersweet comedy. Moodysson filmed a sequel titled Together 99 in 2022. It is set to be released in 2023.
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for The Chicago Reader from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has contributed to such notable film publications as Cahiers du cinéma and Film Comment.
George Washington is a 2000 American drama film written and directed by David Gordon Green in his directorial debut. Its story centers on a group of children in a depressed small town in North Carolina who band together to cover up a tragic mistake.
The Wind Will Carry Us is a 1999 Iranian film written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami. The title is a reference to a poem written by the modern Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. In the film, a journalist posing as a city engineer arrives in a Kurdish village to document the locals' mourning rituals that anticipate the death of an old woman. However, she remains alive, and the journalist is forced to slow down and appreciate the lifestyle of the village.
Yi Yi is a 2000 Taiwanese drama film written and directed by Edward Yang. It centers on the struggles of an engineer, NJ, and three generations of his middle-class Taiwanese family in Taipei.
Bean is a 1997 comedy film directed by Mel Smith and written by Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll. Based on the British sitcom series Mr. Bean created by Rowan Atkinson and Curtis, the film stars Atkinson in the title role, with Peter MacNicol, Pamela Reed, Harris Yulin, Sandra Oh and Burt Reynolds in supporting roles. In the film, Bean works as a security guard at the National Gallery in London before being sent to the United States to talk about the unveiling of James Abbott McNeill Whistler's 1871 painting Whistler's Mother.
Springtime in a Small Town is a 2002 Chinese film directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang. The film is a remake of director Fei Mu's 1948 film and its original screenwriter is Li Tianji, Spring in a Small Town. Though the two movies are referred to by different English titles, they share the same title in Chinese.
Flight of the Red Balloon is a 2007 French-Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. It is the first part in a new series of films produced by Musée d'Orsay, and tells the story of a French family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese student. The film was shot in August and September 2006 on location in Paris. This is Hou's first non-Asian film. It references the classic 1956 French short The Red Balloon directed by Albert Lamorisse.
Silent Light is a 2007 film written and directed by Carlos Reygadas. Filmed in a Mennonite colony close to Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua State, Northern Mexico, Silent Light tells the story of a Mennonite married man who falls in love with another woman, threatening his place in the conservative community. The dialogue is in Plautdietsch, the Low German dialect of the Mennonites. The film was selected as the Mexican entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 80th Academy Awards, but it did not make the shortlist. The film was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 24th Independent Spirit Awards. It gained nine nominations, including all major categories, in the Ariel Awards, the Mexican national awards.
Lake of Fire is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Tony Kaye that graphically depicts abortion in the United States. It features Noam Chomsky, Peter Singer, Alan Dershowitz, Nat Hentoff, Randall Terry and Norma McCorvey, among others. Footage of Paul Jennings Hill, who murdered physician Dr. John Britton and Britton's bodyguard James Barrett in 1994, was also featured.
Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Petit's 2002 book, To Reach the Clouds, released in paperback with the title Man on Wire. The title of the film is taken from the police report that led to the arrest of Petit, whose performance lasted for almost an hour. The film is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside re-enactments and present-day interviews with the participants, including Barry Greenhouse, an insurance executive who served as the inside man.
Almayer's Folly is a 2011 drama film directed by Chantal Akerman and starring Stanislas Merhar, Aurora Marion and Marc Barbé. It is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 1895 debut novel Almayer's Folly, and tells the story of a Dutchman searching for pirate treasure in Malaysia. The setting has been relocated to the 1950s. The film was a coproduction between companies in France and Belgium. It received four Magritte Award nominations.
Andrew Haigh is an English filmmaker. He is best known for writing and directing the films Weekend (2011), 45 Years (2015), Lean on Pete (2017), and All of Us Strangers (2023). He also wrote and produced the HBO series Looking (2014–2015) and its film sequel Looking: The Movie (2016), as well as the BBC Two limited series The North Water (2021).
The Prefab People is a 1982 Hungarian black-and-white drama film directed by Béla Tarr. Although the film was made in 1982, it was not shown in Russia until July 4, 2011. The film earned special mention in the 1982 Locarno International Film Festival. The film has several run times, and is shot in 35 mm.
Casual is an American television comedy-drama series that premiered on October 7, 2015, on Hulu. Created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman, it centers on Valerie, a newly divorced single mother living with her brother Alex and her daughter Laura. The cast also includes Frances Conroy and Nyasha Hatendi.
Everything Is Copy — Nora Ephron: Scripted & Unscripted is an American documentary film that premiered on March 21, 2016 on HBO. Directed and written by Jacob Bernstein and Nick Hooker, the film explores the life and legacy of legendary writer and film director Nora Ephron.
A Bread Factory is a 2018 American two-part indie comedy drama film written and directed by Patrick Wang. It features an ensemble cast and depicts a fictional community arts center in a small upstate New York town that struggles under economic and social pressures. It received critical acclaim. The second part was Brian Murray‘s final role prior to his death.
