Macário

Fortress

2019 · ★ 4.5

Filmed entirely inside Civitavecchia prison, with the inmates themselves as protagonists and co-authors, Fortezza is the reinterpretation of one of the most important novels of the 1900s: The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati. Three soldiers arrive at a solitary military garrison which no longer serves any defensive function. Here, time is at a standstill and is marked by strict regulations, power dynamics, engrained idleness and habit. Waiting in vain for an enemy that will not arrive, the military officers are consumed by the need to give their stay meaning, and resist the attraction that this place holds for them.

La gitanilla

★ 10

A love story between a gypsy woman and a nobleman, who disguises himself as a gypsy under the name Andrés Caballero to test the sincerity of her declarations of love. Based on the novel of the same name by Miguel de Cervantes.

Rio de Clarice

2026 · ★ 4

Film based on five short stories by Clarice Lispector (“A Bela e a Fera”, “Amor”, “Feliz Aniversário”, “Preciosidade” e “Mal-estar de um Anjo”).

Pareidolia

2020 · ★ 10

A lonely girl feels that there is a paranormal presence trapped in the walls of her house.

The Pedlar

1982 · ★ 9

The Pedlar is a dramatic film based on the short story by W.D. Valgardson, A Place of One's Own. Tired of the rootless, lonely existence of a travelling merchant, a man searches for a place to settle down, and someone to share his life.

The Natural Son

1959

Chor Yuen started his directorial career with a bang. From its very first image, The Natural Son establishes Chor as a filmmaker of stylistic flourish, which would be sustained in various forms throughout his long tenure. Adapted from '30 cents' pulp fiction, it is a Kong Ngee melodrama made in the studio's mould, with Westernised characters and trendy middle-class lifestyles. Yet, Chor's first film is not exempt from the social urgency that characterises the Cantonese cinema of his father, Cheung Wood-yau. The film cloaks its entertainment in a moral deliberation on blood ties, its story about the raising of a bastard child a head-on challenge of archaic family values. An ostentatious start for a colourful and eventful career.

Celestina

1976 · ★ 6

An adaptation of the tragicomedy "Calisto y Melibea", attributed to Fernando de Rojas.

A Leaf of Winter

2023 · ★ 10

We all carry our leaves, some of winter, some of spring and summer. But all leaves grow, breathe and wither with time; and so do we.

The Atrocity Exhibition

1998 · ★ 4.7

A doctor in a mental research institution is driven insane by the spectacle of the horrors of the twentieth century.

Oliver Twist

1933 · ★ 5.1

An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.

The Bell Jar

A young woman's summer in New York includes working for a Mademoiselle-like magazine, her return home to New England, and subsequent breakdown all amidst the horrors of the 1950s, from news of the Rosenbergs' execution to sleazy disc jockeys and predatory college boys.

The Judgment

2016

Adapted from the short story by Franz Kafka, The Judgment is a psychological drama exploring themes of alienation, memory, and the lines between fantasy and reality. The film follows Georg Bendemann, a young merchant living 1900s Prague, who is struggling to maintain balance in an ever changing world. As his situation deteriorates due to complicated familial relationships, we are compelled to question the very nature of what we are seeing.