The Witness Chair

The Girl of Lost Lake

August 1916 •English

It Happened in Honolulu

June 1916 •English

Story of a pretty girl whose ambitious mother wants to marry her off to an English nobleman. The girl, however, loves a plain American, the son of a wholesale fish dealer. The girl's ineffectual father likes the young American too, but his wife overrides him and the family heads for Honolulu, where the matriarch hopes her daughter will wed the nobleman.

The City of Tears

June 1918 •English

Chorus girl Rosa Carillo (Carmel Myers) finds herself in dire straits when the troupe she works with is disbanded and her last fifty dollars is stolen. Artist Billy Leeds (Earl Rodney) offers to take care of her, but she's leery of his proposition. Instead she finds work with an Italian grocer, Tony Bonchi (Edwin August). One of the other ex-members of the troupe has Tony arrested on a trumped up charge. Rosa returns to Billy and offers herself to him if only he'll get Tony out of jail.

Come to My Voice

December 2014 •Turkish

In a snowy Kurdish mountain village, in the east of Turkey, an old woman Berfé and her granddaughter Jiyan are distressed. The only man in the household, Temo, the son of one and the father of the other, was arrested by the Turkish military. The commanding officer has been told that the villagers are hiding weapons, so he arrested all the men and announced that they will be kept in prison until their families hand over the weapons. The problem is that there are no weapons in the village. Desperate, Berfé and Jiyan embark on a long journey, in search of a gun which they could exchange for their beloved Temo. Will the old woman and her innocent granddaughter find a way out of the inextricable Kurdish identity conflict?

Unspoken Truth

October 2024 •Dutch

Short film depicting the genuine challenges of stuttering, wrapped in a fictional office drama. By stuttering director Irmo Stijnberg.

House Arrest

September 2021 •Russian

David, a university professor, takes to social media to criticize his city’s administration. But instead of the mayor’s dodgy dealings being investigated, David is himself accused of embezzlement and placed under house arrest. Despite the overbearing surveillance, double-crossing acquaintances, and growing media interest, David remains defiant and will not apologise. With the court case drawing ever nearer, does David have any hope of winning this battle against Goliath?

Pink

September 2016 •Hindi

A sexual assault victim, unjustly tried for the attempted murder of her attacker, is defended by a retired lawyer who challenges India's rape culture.

Children of Paradise

March 1945 •French

In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.

Holes

April 2003 •English

A wrongfully convicted boy is sent to a brutal desert detention camp where he must dig holes in order to build character. What he doesn't know is that he is digging holes in order to search for a lost treasure hidden somewhere in the camp.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

November 2004 •English

Bridget Jones is working as a TV host and still dating her new love, barrister Mark Darcy, for a perfect six weeks. But Bridget is jealous of the time Mark spends with a gorgeous co-worker Rebecca and, despite a vacation meant to smooth things over, ends their relationship. On assignment in Thailand with her disreputable ex, Daniel Cleaver - claiming to be a reformed man - they have a short dalliance, and she is arrested at the airport and temporarily jailed on the false accusation of drug smuggling before Mark, seemingly indifferent, comes to the rescue.

Platoon

December 1986 •English

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

The Accusation

December 2021 •French

The Farels are a power couple: Jean is a prominent French pundit and his wife Claire an essayist known for her radical feminism. Together they have a model son, Alexandre, who is a student at a prestigious American university. During a brief visit to Paris, Alexandre meets Mila, the daughter of his mother’s new partner, and invites her to a party. The next day, Mila files a complaint against Alexandre for rape, destroying family harmony and setting in motion an inextricable media-judicial machine that posits opposing truths.

Stowaway

March 1932 •English

On her first night as a dockside dancer, Mary Foster loses her job when she tries to fend of the advances of first mate Groder. On the street and being pursued by a Policeman who thinks she is a prostitute, Mary seeks shelter on an old freighter. She is soon discovered by second mate Tommy and they quickly fall in love, but with first mate Groder lurking around will their lives work out in the end?

Homeland

March 2014 •Japanese

Jiro Sawada is a sophomore in high school when a false accusation drives him out his hometown: a small village in Fukushima Prefecture. The entire village is abandoned after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, but Jiro returns there to live. Before long, members of his family come and join him.

Seven Years in May

April 2019 •Portuguese

One night seven years ago, Rafael came home after work and discovered that people he did not know had come looking for him. He immediately fled, without looking back. From that moment on, his life changed, as if that night had never ended. One evening, around an improvised fire near a factory, he decides to confide his journey to a stranger. Rafael’s intimate account meets the collective testimony of an entire nation oppressed by poverty, police repression and institutional corruption.

The Legend of Billie Jean

July 1985 •English

Average Texas teen, Billie Jean Davy, is caught up in an odd fight for justice. She is usually followed and harrased around by local boys, who, one day, decide to trash her brother's scooter for fun. The boys' father refuses to pay them back the price of the scooter. The fight for "fair is fair" takes the teens around the state and produces an unlikely hero.

Salem Witch Trials

December 2002 •English

Salem, Massachusetts. A small town—with no clear governing body—became embroiled in a scandal that forever stands as one of the darkest chapters in American history. For those accused of witchcraft by their neighbors and friends, there was little chance of clearing their names; the mass paranoia that ravaged through the community took the lives of 19 innocent men and women.

In the Heat of the Night

August 1967 •English

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Silver Streak

December 1976 •English

A somewhat daffy book editor on a rail trip from Los Angeles to Chicago thinks that he sees a murdered man thrown from the train. When he can find no one who will believe him, he starts doing some investigating of his own. But all that accomplishes is to get the killer after him.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

December 1956 •French

Paris, 1482. Today is the festival of the fools, taking place like each year in the square outside Cathedral Notre Dame. Among jugglers and other entertainers, Esmeralda, a sensuous gypsy, performs a bewitching dance in front of delighted spectators. From up in a tower of the cathedral, Frollo, an alchemist, gazes at her lustfully. Later in the night, Frollo orders Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer and his faithful servant, to kidnap Esmeralda. But when the ugly freak comes close to her is touched by the young woman's beauty...