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7 Days in Heaven (Mandarin)
Adapted from Essay Liu's tearjerking autobiographical essay that won Taiwan's top literacy award, Seven Days in Heaven is a sentimental and insightful comedy about the formalities of death. Mei's father just passed away. She and relatives domestic and abroad set off for their home village to attend the 7-day traditional mourning ritual hosted by a Daoist priest in rural Taiwan.
Director: Essay Liu, Yu-Lin Wang
Starring: Garance Li-Wen Wang, Pong Fong Wu, Jia-xiang Chen
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African Violet (Persian)
When Fereydoun's children put him in a nursing home, his ex-wife Shokoo takes him to her house although her new husband does not quite approve.
Director: Mona Zandi Haqiqi
Starring: Fatemah Motamed Aria, Saeed Aghakhani, Reza Babak, Mehdi Hosseininia, Neda Jebraeili, Maryam Shirazi
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Baby (Portuguese)
After being released from a juvenile detention center, 18-year-old Wellington finds himself alone and adrift on the streets of São Paulo, without any contact from his parents and lacking the resources to rebuild his life. He encounters Ronaldo, a mature man, who teaches him new ways of surviving. Gradually, their relationship turns into a conflicting passion.
Director: Marcelo Caetano
Starring: Joao Pedro Mariano, Ana Flavia Cavalcanti, Bruna Linzmeyer, Luiz Bertazzo, Marcelo Varzea
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Barakat (Afrikaans)
An aging matriarch aims to bring together her fractured, dysfunctional family over Eid al-Fitr to announce her new romance. Includes English audio track.
Director: Amy Jephta
Starring: Joey Rasdien, Vinette Ebrahim, Mortimer Williams, Danny Ross, Bonnie Mbuli
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Before Summers End (French)
After five years of studying in Paris, Arash has struggled to adapt to life in France and has decided to return to Iran. In the hope of changing his mind, his two friends take him on one last trip across France.
Director: Maryam Goormaghtigh
Starring: Arash, Ashkan, Hossein
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Beyond Beauty Taiwan From Above (Mandarin)
Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above is the first film documenting Taiwan through aerial photography. Through the lens of veteran aerial photographer Chi Po-Lin and his team, we can explore Taiwan from such a height and angle that has never been seen before. Through the various environmental themes and connected chapters, we transform into birds, soaring above Taiwan, to witness the island's beauty and sorrow together. The film is executive produced by Hou Hsiao-Hsien and narrated by Wu Nien-Jen, with original music composed by acclaimed Singaporean composer Ricky Ho, which garnered a nomination for Best Original Score at the 50th Golden Horse Awards, where the film won Best Documentary Feature. With a production budget of NT90million, the film has grown to over NT200 million at the Taiwan box office, making it the most successful documentary film ever to be released there. The film's success sparked a wave of social environmental movements which led to several measures implemented by the Taiwanese government and various environmental agencies to take effective action to curb environmental pollution.
Director: Chi Po Lin
Starring: Wu Nien Jen, Xiang Hong, Cing-Soong Lai, Nolay Piho
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His Master's Voice (Hungarian)
When Péter, a Hungarian journalist, glimpses his missing-for-decades father in a documentary about a mysterious incident in Colorado that has long obsessed conspiracy theorists, he travels to America to investigate, and becomes embroiled in strange events involving secret government programs, Cold War politics, and, perhaps, extraterrestrial contact.
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Jibril (Arabic)
Maryam is an independent, divorced mother of three. An accidental encounter with Jibril, who is serving time in prison and whom she barely knows, makes her aware of what is missing in her life. They elope, grappling with the co-idealization.
Director: Henrika Kull
Starring: Susana AbdulMajid, Malik Blumenthal, Doua Rahal, Emna El-Aouni
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Kryptonita (Spanish)
Tordo is a doctor who works with the nurse Nilda and covers all shifts possible in exchange for extra money. So much so that he uses drugs to stay awake. One night, his routine changes with the arrival at the hospital of a deadly wounded criminal who has superpowers.
Director: Nicanor Loreti
Starring: Diego Velazquez, Juan Palomino, Jon Seda, Karen Black
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Natatorium (Icelandic)
Lilja stays with her estranged grandparents while she auditions for a performance group. When her dad and aunt find out, a sense of panic arises. Dark secrets emerge from the household that threaten to destroy her future career and her life.
Director: Helena Stefansdottir
Starring: Ilmur Maria Arnarsdottir, Elin Petersdottir, Stefania Berndsen
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Our Love Story (Korean)
A fine arts student meets an attractive bartender, and the two women begin an intimate relationship.
Director: Hyun-ju Lee
Starring: Lee Sang-hee, Ryu Sun-young, Park Keun-rok
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Red Island (French)
Living on one of the last remaining military bases amidst a hedonistic group of French armed forces in 1970s Madagascar, ten-year-old Thomas begins to find cracks in the surface of his family's blissful existence on the idyllic island. Taking inspiration from his comic book hero Fantomette, Thomas spies on those around him, discovering the hidden and tangled political and sexual lives of the colonizers and the colonized. As relocation looms, Thomas questions whether the memories he has made are ones he should remember fondly.
Title is in French and Malagasy with French being the main language. Also includes English subtitles.
Director: Robin Campillo
Starring: Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Quim Gutiérrez, Charlie Vauselle, Sophie Guillemin
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Samurai Fury (Japanese)
In the 15th century, as famine and plague decimated Japan, the ruling powers watched as the country fell into chaos. Seeing the hellish landscape, a rebellious wanderer with lethal sword skills and wits, rallied a band of outlaws and martial arts experts in a deadly uprising against the corrupt Shogunate and its army.
Director: Irie Yu
Starring: Oizumi Yo, Tsutsumi Shinichi, Nagao Kento, Matsumoto Wakana, Endo Yuya
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Souleymane's Story (French)
Racing through the streets of Paris making food deliveries on his bicycle, Guinean immigrant Souleymane is struggling to stay afloat. In two days, he must report for an asylum application interview, where he must plead his case to an immigration officer (Nina Meurisse) who will determine his future in France. As he rides, he repeats his story. But Souleymane is not ready. Drawing inspiration from Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and evoking the humanist films of the Dardennes, Boris Lojkine's urgent, propulsive third feature never leaves Souleymane's side in a deeply affecting account of the daily trials and uncertain futures faced by migrants in France and around the world.
Director: Boris Lojkine
Starring: Abou Sangare, Nina Meurisse
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The Concierge (Japanese)
Concierge-in-training Akino is learning that clientele of the Hokkyoku Department Store can be a little wild. From the furry to the feathered, each animal customer has needs that must be met. But with a gentle push, she'll confidently serve with a smile!
Director: Yoshimi Itazu
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The Shepherd (Hungarian)
A period film set in the rural and isolated countryside of Hungary in 1944. An elderly man meanders through his morning routine before taking his sheep out for the day. The environment is cold, desolate, and filled with the man's isolation and loneliness. However, off in the distance, gunfire and commotion pierce the still air. He runs towards the expansive woods, and although this invites great personal danger, he finds a wounded Jewish prisoner, and decides to do anything he can to save her.
Director: Laszlo Illes
Starring: Miklos Szekely B., Akos Horvath, Agnes Jokai
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The Story of a Summer Lover (Romanian)
A coming-of-middle age romantic comedy. Carefree college professor Petru is a 42-year-old man-child, in an open relationship with Irina....until she gets pregnant. Petru must now change his ways and grow up. A charmingly funny exploration of middle-aged male arrested development.
Director: Paul Negoescu
Starring: Alexandru Papadopol, Radu Romaniuc, Rolando Matsangos, Nicoleta Lefter, Crina Semciuc
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Those Who are Fine (Swedish)
While call center employee Alice finds herself successful in scamming the elderly on phone, her scheme has a ripple effect across the people and places of Zürich.
Director: Cyril Schäublin
Starring: Sarah Stauffer, Margot Gödrös, Liliane Amuat
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Toshkua (Spanish)
A woman travels from Honduras to the United States border in search of her son, a migrant kidnapped in Mexico. She discovers that the crisis of disappearances in the region is more widespread than she had imagined.
Director: Ludovic Bonleux
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Universal Language (Persian)
An absurdist triptych of seemingly unconnected stories finds a mysterious point of intersection in this tale set somewhere between Winnipeg and Tehran.
Director: Matthew Rankin
Starring: Matthew Rankin, Pirouz Nemati, Amir Amiri, Faraz Anoushah Pour, Bernard Arene, Rojina Esmaeili, Danielle Fichaud, Sobhan Javadi
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Uzumaki (Japanese)
Everything in this town is turning into spirals! In an attempt to escape the curse of the spirals, a high school girl Kirie decides to leave her hometown, but can she succeed? A horror manga masterpiece by Junji Ito is finally transformed into anime!
Director: Hiroshi Nagahama, Yuji Moriyama
Starring: Uki Satake, Shin'Ichiro Miki, Robbie Daymond
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Warboy (Romanian)
It's the fall of 1944. World War 2 is closing to an end. Nicu, a teenager, embarks on a journey through the wilderness of the Apuseni Mountains, trying to save his family's horses.
Director: Marian Crisan
Starring: Daniel Balis, Reginald Ammons
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Él - Criterion Collection (Spanish)
Spanish surrealist master Luis Buñuel's fiendish tale of love gone wrong is among the most perverse and unsettling films he made during his two decades of exile in Mexico. Folding his own neuroses into an adaptation of Mercedes Pinto's autobiographical novel, Buñuel crafts an expressionistically stylized nightmare in which a young woman discovers that the outward sophistication of her new husband masks disturbing depths of jealousy and paranoia. A characteristically raw indictment of religious and social hypocrisy, Él stands as the director's greatest excursion into melodrama, a vivid portrayal of society's inability to restrain the irrational urges of the human id.
Director: Luis Bunuel
Starring: Arturo De Cordova, Delia Garces, Aurora Walker
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Mercer County Library System
2751 Brunswick Pike Lawrenceville, New Jersey 08648 609-882-9246
https://mcl.org
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