The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine

The Wave

March 2008 •German

A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.

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.

Salvador (Puig Antich)

May 2006 •Catalan

The story of Salvador Puig Antich, one of the last political prisoners to be executed under Franco's Fascist State in 1974.

Memoirs of a Geisha

December 2005 •English

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

November

September 2003 •Spanish

Impelled by a spirit which still preserves a patina of idealism, Alfredo arrives to Madrid with the intention to create "a performance that is free, straight from the heart, capable of making people feel alive". His concept of what acting should be begins beyond the stage, out in the streets face to face with the public. Outdoors, in any town square, in a park or in the city's most commercial street, Alfredo and his troupe November start the show; demons to provoke passers-by, displays of social conscience, actions taken to the extreme to put the forces of law and order on full alert. There are no limits, no censorship; only ideas which are always valid so long as the public ceases to be the public and becomes part of the show swept by surprise, fear, tears or laughter. Theater as life, life as theater… there is no longer any difference.

The Strategy of the Snail

December 1993 •Spanish

A group of tenants living in an old house are confronted with having to move out due to a renovation project the city has undertaken. The tenants decide to unite and come up with a strategy, but in the process—while the landlord and his aggressive attorney are chasing them—the tenants transform into the opposite of who they once were.

Loft

June 1985 •German

In an apocalyptic future world, a young upper class couple is visiting an exhibition of surrealistic paintings, presented by a group of young anarchists in their loft flat where they trap and torture their high society guests.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

November 1984 •English

George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Slacker

July 1991 •English

Austin, Texas, is an Eden for the young and unambitious, from the enthusiastically eccentric to the dangerously apathetic. Here, the nobly lazy can eschew responsibility in favor of nursing their esoteric obsessions. The locals include a backseat philosopher who passionately expounds on his dream theories to a seemingly comatose cabbie, a young woman who tries to hawk Madonna's Pap test to anyone who will listen and a kindly old anarchist looking for recruits.

The Nada Gang

February 1974 •French

Nada, named after a gang of Spanish anarchists, is a small, confused band of French terrorists. They kidnap the American ambassador after one of his regular visits to an exclusive brothel. The gang starts to quarrel amongst themselves as to the diplomat's fate, while the police purge suspects in their attempts to destroy the Nada faction. As the violence escalates on both sides, the States and the terrorists are forced to use one another's methods in an increasingly desperate and relentless conflict.

Wakanohana: The Story of the Devil of the Dohyō

December 1956 •Japanese

A film about sumo wrestler Wakanohana Kanji I. He was nicknamed "Devil of the dohyo" due to his excellent fighting spirit and endurance.

Sacco & Vanzetti

March 1971 •Italian

Boston, 1920. Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are charged and unfairly tried for murder on the basis of their anarchist political beliefs.

Cosmopolis

May 2012 •English

Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo during a riot in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager's life begins to crumble.

Anarchist from Colony

June 2017 •Korean

Based on the life of the Korean anarchist Park Yeol, the film shows his struggle to counter the massacre of Koreans by the government during the 1923 great Kanto earthquake, focusing on his activities as the leader of the anti-Japanese organization Bulryeongsa and his relationship with Japanese comrade Fumiko Kaneko.

Children Hand in Hand

March 1964 •Japanese

A Matter of Size

April 2009 •Hebrew

Four overweight friends from the Israeli city of Ramle are fed up of dieting and the dieting club they belong to. When Herzl (155 kilos), the main protagonist, loses his job as a cook and starts working as a dishwasher in a Japanese restaurant in Ramle he discovers the world of Sumo where large people such as himself are honored and appreciated. Through Kitano (60 kilos), the restaurant owner, a former Sumo coach in Japan (who is supposedly hiding from the Yakuza in Israel), he falls in love with a sport involving "two fatsos in diapers and girly hairdos". Herzl wants Kitano to be their coach but Kitano is reluctant - they first have to earn their spurs. "A MATTER OF SIZE" is a comedy about a ‘coming out’ of a different kind - overweight people learning to accept themselves.

Land and Freedom

April 1995 •English

David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.

Sound and Fury

June 1988 •French

This drama depicts the misery of neglected children in big cities. 13 years old Bruno is of a good family, but since the death of his grandmother he spends most of his time alone, in a phantasy world, while his mother is away at work. But then he befriends the violent Jean-Roger, who's from a severely disturbed family, where nobody cares what he's doing. In school Jean-Roger drives their teacher into despair just for fun. To separate the two boys, she starts to stimulate Bruno's interests by giving him extra lessons. When Jean-Roger fears loosing his one and only friend, he becomes even more aggressive.

Manuel, le fils emprunté

February 1990 •French

Juan Alvarez, a Spanish refugee in Canada, shoemaker, picks up at his home Manuel, a 12-year-old Portuguese teenager, whom he teaches to read, to assert his rights and who speaks of the Spanish civil war.

Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven

July 1975 •German

After a worker kills a superior and commits suicide, each of his family members attempts to forge a path forward in life.