Orlando, a man of ideal nobility starts his search for love, poetry, a place in society and a meaning in life, in and around the court of historical England in the late 16th century. The blessing of eternal life from Queen Elizabeth I enables him a long and deep philosophical quest, accompanied by the features of “noble” English life with a good taste for irony. Both sides of the coin are shown when Orlando, partly fed up and disgusted with how men think and act, returns from his ambassadorship in the Far East as exactly the same person, let alone his sex. Orlando, a woman of ideal nobility continues her journey to realize the truth about life, love, and approaching one’s own sex in the late 18th century England. For one who lived four hundred years and haven’t aged a day, finding humanity’s forgotten need for androgynity as the key to the happiness of her own as well as her daughter’s. Sally Potter’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando not only tells the story on film with brilliant visual design, but also tries to extend the plot as Woolf would have, had she lived to the end of the twentieth century.

“The summer I was eight years old, five hours disappeared from my life. Five hours, lost, gone without a trace…” These are the words of Brian Lackey (’Brady Corbet’ (qv)), a troubled 18 year-old, growing up in the stiflingly small town of Hutchinson, Kansas. Plagued by nightmares, Brian believes that he may have been the victim of an alien abduction. Local Neil McCormick (’Joseph Gordon-Levitt’ (qv)) however, is the ultimate beautiful outsider. With a loving but promiscuous mother (’Elisabeth Shue’ (qv)), Neil is wise beyond his years and curious about his developing sexuality, having found what he perceived to be love from his Little League baseball coach (played by ‘Hal Hartley’ (qv) veteran ‘Bill Sage’ (qv)) at a very early age. Now, ten years later, Neil is a teenage hustler, nonchalant about the dangerous path his life is taking. Neil’s pursuit of love leads him to New York City, while Brian’s voyage of self discovery leads him to Neil - who helps him to unlock the dark secrets of their past. Based on the acclaimed novel by ‘Scott Heim (II)’ (qv), “Mysterious Skin” explores the hearts and minds of two very different boys who come to find the key to their future happiness lies in the exorcism of their collective demons.

“Chris Marshall met the girl he was going to kill on a warm night in early June, when of the colleges in Oxford was holding its summer ball.” A chance meeting with Jenny at an Oxford party leaves seventeen-year-old Chris with hope for a summer romance - and no premonition of trouble. Busy with his job and soon in love with Jenny, whose cheerful surface belies the dark uncertainty of her past, Chris misses all the signs of danger. Before he knows it, he’s caught in the sinister web of a criminal whose desire for revenge crushes those who stand in his way.

In 1944, in the occupied Holland, the Jewish Rachel Stein is hiding from the Nazis in a house of a Christian family. When her hiding place is bombed, Rachel escapes by chance, but she is found by a stranger called Van Gein that invites her to join a group of Jews in a boat to escape to Belgium on the next night. He advises her to bring money and jewels for her survival and very few luggage. Rachel visits lawyer and friend of her family Wim Small that gives her a large amount for her travel. When she meets the refugees, she finds that her family is in the group. While crossing the swamp, a Nazi patrol boat arrives and kills the fugitives, but Rachel is the only one to survive. Later she joins a cell of resistance leaded by the Dutch Gerben Kuipers under the identity of Ellis de Vries; after meeting the Nazi Officer Ludwig Müntze in a train, Kuipers proposes Ellis to work as a spy seducing Müntze. During her assignment, Rachel recognizes Günther Franken as the commander of the attack to the boat of refugees and later she discovers that the murders are part of a scheme with a traitor in the resistance team.

The story of the rise and fall of the Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar, born July 13, 100 B.C., and starting his career as a young Roman with visions of greatness for the Eternal City. When Sulla conquers Rome with his troops, Caesar is one of the very few to stand up against the despotic dictator. This impresses Pompeius, Sulla’s general, and he protects the young man, who is a nephew of Marius, a well known veteran, against the wrath of Sulla. After Sulla’s death, Caesar returns from exile and starts his political career. Caesar’s daughter Julia marries general and senator Pompeius, and Caesar takes Pompeius’ troops in order to simply safeguard the borders to Gaul, but instead conquers the whole country. His final victory takes place at the fortress of Alesia, where the Germanic troops under Vercingetorix capitulate. Back in Rome, Ceasar is not trusted anymore, since the troops are loyal to him alone and it is feared by Pompeius and Cato that he will use the troops to conquer Rome and declare himself King, including the establishing of a inheritbale right to the throne. Instead, Caesar does none of that and sets off to Egypt in order to ensure a constant delivery of agricultural goods to the Roman Empire. After a glorious return to Rome, his former friends Pompeius and Cato are dead, their deaths blamed on Caesar, and his personal life is in ruins since he could not resist the temptation of beautiful Egyptian empress Cleopatra. Being inveigled and aided by a group of rebellious and untrusting senators around Cassius, his nephew Brutus finally kills Julius Caesar at March 15, 44. B.C. (the Ides of March) at the age of 55, starting an era of civil wars.

With the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth in 2006, NIGHTWATCHING is truly a feast for the senses. Extravagant, suspenseful and sensuously beautiful, the mystery behind the extraordinary artist’s infamous painting is perfectly explored by one of the most iconic Directors of our time - Peter Greenaway. The year 1642 marks the turning point in the life of the famous Dutch painter, Rembrandt, turning him from a wealthy respected celebrity into a discredited pauper. At the insistence of his pregnant wife Saskia, Rembrandt has reluctantly agreed to paint the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia in a group portrait that will later become to be known as The Nightwatch. He soon discovers that there is a conspiracy afoot with the Amsterdam merchants playing at soldiers maneuvering for financial advantage and personal power in, that time, the richest city in the Western World. Rembrandt stumbles on a foul murder. Confident in the birth of a longed-for son and heir, Rembrandt is determined to expose the conspiring murderers and builds his accusation meticulously in the form of the commissioned painting, uncovering the seamy and hypocritical side to Dutch Society in the Golden Age. Rembrandt’s great good fortune turns. Saskia dies. Rembrandt reveals the accusation of murder in the painting and the conspirators plan revenge. They set out to discredit him at home and abroad. They plant a treacherous mistress, Geertje, to seduce him. They try to blind him. They plan his social and financial ruin, and to create the circumstances for his slide into penury, insult his young mistress Hendrickje, conspire to destroy his son, and bring Rembrandt to his knees. The bold and courageous painting of the Nightwatch, exceptional in aesthetics and content, is Rembrandt’s most celebrated painting, it consolidated his reputation as a master-painter but it also destroyed him socially and financially.

The wife of a barbaric crime boss engages in a secretive romance with a gentle bookseller between meals at her husband’s restaurant. Food, colour coding, sex, murder, torture and cannibalism are the exotic fare in this beautifully filmed but brutally uncompromising modern fable which has been interpreted as an allegory for Thatcherism.

The future seems bright for Kevin Burke (Ulrich), a security expert for the large multi-national company Jorgensen Financial. He’s just been promoted and is about to propose marriage to his girlfriend Rosalind (Catherine Orr). But that all changes when Rosalind is murdered before his eyes by a professional hitman. While tracking down her killers Kevin finds himself chased by mob hit-woman Tessa (Kristy Swanson), his co-workers Junior (Antonie Kamerling) and Mr Ficks (Serge Henri Valcke) and the police (Thom Hoffman). Burke’s mentor and employer Karl Jorgensen (Derek de Lint), enigmatic though supportive, seems to hold the key to the mystery.

In 1933, after leaving Dogville, while traveling with her father (Willem Dafoe) and his gangsters to the south of USA, Grace Margaret Mulligan (Bryce Dallas Howard) sees a slave ready to be punished in a property called Manderlay. The slavery had been abolished seventy years ago, and Grace becomes revolted with the attitude of the owners of Manderlay, keeping slaves in their cotton fields and following predetermined despicable rules called “Mam’s Law”. Grace decides to stay with some gangsters in Manderlay and give notions of democracy to the slaves and to the white family. When harvest time comes, Grace sees the social and economical reality of Manderlay.