The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 30 films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dynamic style, strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it; he was involved with all aspects of film production.
Ran is a 1985 epic historical action drama film directed, co-written, and edited by Akira Kurosawa. The plot derives from William Shakespeare's King Lear and includes segments based on legends of the daimyō Mōri Motonari. The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-period warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons.
John Rhys-Davies is a Welsh actor known for portraying Sallah in the Indiana Jones franchise and Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, with one win, and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay he co-wrote with Shinobu Hashimoto. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura, it follows various people who describe how a samurai was murdered in a forest. The plot and characters are based upon Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story "In a Grove", with the title and framing story taken from Akutagawa's "Rashōmon". Every element is largely identical, from the murdered samurai speaking through a Shinto psychic to the bandit in the forest, the monk, the assault of the wife, and the dishonest retelling of the events in which everyone shows their ideal self by lying.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film critic, author, actor, and professor at Tokyo University of the Arts.
Michelle Suzanne Dockery is an English actress. She is best known for starring as Lady Mary Crawley in the ITV television period drama series Downton Abbey (2010–2015), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She reprised her role in the films Downton Abbey (2019) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022).
Isabella Lilias Trotter was a British artist and a Protestant missionary to Algeria.
"Where Love Is, God Is" is a short story by Russian author Leo Tolstoy. The title references the Catholic hymn Ubi Caritas. One English translation of this short story as translated by Nathan Haskell Dole uses the alternate title translation of "Where Love Is, There God Is Also". It was published in the United States under Crowell Company's "Worth While Booklet" Series. It was written in 1885.
Trucker is a 2008 independent drama film by Plum Pictures written and directed by James Mottern, and produced by Scott Hanson, Galt Niederhoffer, Celine Rattray and Daniela Taplin Lundberg. It stars Michelle Monaghan, Nathan Fillion and Benjamin Bratt.
Gimli is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, appearing in The Lord of the Rings. A dwarf warrior, he is the son of Glóin, a member of Thorin's company in Tolkien's earlier book The Hobbit. He represents the race of Dwarves as a member of the Fellowship of the Ring. As such, he is one of the primary characters in the story. In the course of the adventure, Gimli aids the Ring-bearer Frodo Baggins, participates in the War of the Ring, and becomes close friends with Legolas, overcoming an ancient enmity of Dwarves and Elves.
Amreeka is a 2009 independent film written and directed by first-time director Cherien Dabis. It stars Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Joseph Ziegler, and Miriam Smith.
Restless is a 2012 British TV adaptation of William Boyd's espionage novel Restless (2006). Directed by Edward Hall, the film features Hayley Atwell, Rufus Sewell, Michelle Dockery, Michael Gambon and Charlotte Rampling. The two parts first aired on 27 and 28 December 2012 on BBC One.
Effie Gray is a 2014 British biographical film written by Emma Thompson and directed by Richard Laxton, starring Dakota Fanning, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters, David Suchet, Derek Jacobi, James Fox, Claudia Cardinale, Greg Wise, Tom Sturridge, and Robbie Coltrane, in his final film appearance before his death in 2022. It is based on the true story of John Ruskin's marriage to Euphemia Gray and the subsequent annulment of their marriage.
Mr. Turner is a 2014 biographical drama film based on the last 25 years of the life of artist J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). Written and directed by Mike Leigh, the film stars Timothy Spall in the title role, with Dorothy Atkinson, Paul Jesson, Marion Bailey, Lesley Manville, and Martin Savage.Describing Turner as "a great artist: a radical, revolutionary painter", writer/director Leigh explained, "I felt there was scope for a film examining the tension between this very mortal, flawed individual, and the epic work, the spiritual way he had of distilling the world".
Journey to the Shore is a 2015 Japanese romantic drama film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, starring Tadanobu Asano and Eri Fukatsu. It is adapted from Kazumi Yumoto's novel Kishibe no Tabi. It screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where Kurosawa won the prize for Best Director. It was released in Japan on 1 October 2015.
The Sense of an Ending is a 2017 mystery drama film directed by Ritesh Batra and written by Nick Payne, based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Julian Barnes. The film stars Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Harriet Walter, Billy Howle, Emily Mortimer and Michelle Dockery.
The Happys is an American narrative film written and directed by Tom Gould and John Serpe, commercially released in 2018 after screening at a dozen film festivals in the United States, winning the Alternative Spirit Award at Rhode Island International Film Festival, the Best Narrative Feature award at the Durango Independent Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Anchorage International Film Festival, and a nomination for the Best Feature Award at the Naperville Independent Film Festival in Naperville, Illinois. The movie's public premiere took place in California on March 16, 2018.
The Phantom of the Open is a 2021 British biographical comedy-drama film directed by Craig Roberts, about the exploits of Maurice Flitcroft. The screenplay by Simon Farnaby was based upon the biography The Phantom of the Open: Maurice Flitcroft, The World's Worst Golfer by Farnaby and Scott Murray. The film stars Mark Rylance, Sally Hawkins, Rhys Ifans, Jake Davies, Christian and Jonah Lees, Mark Lewis Jones and Johann Myers.
Boy Kills World is a 2023 dystopian action comedy film directed by Moritz Mohr, in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers, based on a story by Arend Remmers and Moritz Mohr. The film stars Bill Skarsgård, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Yayan Ruhian, Andrew Koji, Sharlto Copley, with Famke Janssen and features the voice of H. Jon Benjamin. The plot revolves around a campaign of vengeance enacted by a martial arts expert, rendered deaf-mute by an attack that killed his entire family, whose thoughts are presented as an inner voice derived from a childhood video game.
