Aisha

National Theatre Live: The Boy With Two Hearts

October 2021 •English

When a young mother speaks out against the Taliban, she and her husband are forced to flee their home and country with their three sons. Embarking on a long and terrifying journey across Russia and through Europe, they seek final refuge in the UK. But, as their eldest son’s life-threatening heart condition worsens and requires urgent surgery, their escape soon becomes a race against time. Amit Sharma directs this widely acclaimed stage version of The Boy with Two Hearts (BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week). Based on extraordinary real-life experiences, it is a powerful story of hope, courage, and humanity – and a heartfelt tribute to the NHS.

Quills

November 2000 •English

A nobleman with a literary flair, the Marquis de Sade lives in a madhouse where a beautiful laundry maid smuggles his erotic stories to a printer, defying orders from the asylum's resident priest. The titillating passages whip all of France into a sexual frenzy, until a fiercely conservative doctor tries to put an end to the fun.

Blindness

May 2008 •English

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

Spider

November 2002 •English

A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.

King of Hearts

December 1966 •French

An ornithologist mistaken for an explosives expert is sent alone into a small French town during WWI to investigate a garbled report from the resistance about a bomb which the departing Germans have set to blow up a weapons cache.

True True Lie

January 2006 •English

After 12 years in an asylum, as she is reunited with friends and family, Dana begins to realize the events that led to her stay there may not have been imaginary.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

December 2007 •English

The infamous story of Benjamin Barker, a.k.a Sweeney Todd, who sets up a barber shop down in London which is the basis for a sinister partnership with his fellow tenant, Mrs. Lovett. Based on the hit Broadway musical.

Alter Ego

January 2016 •Armenian

A film about the great Komitas, one of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, who wasn't killed, but went crazy and kept silence for 20 years

Ghost Stories

January 2018 •English

Professor Philip Goodman devotes his life to exposing phony psychics and fraudulent supernatural shenanigans. His skepticism soon gets put to the test when he receives news of three chilling and inexplicable cases -- disturbing visions in an abandoned asylum, a car accident deep in the woods and the spirit of an unborn child. Even scarier -- each of the macabre stories seems to have a sinister connection to the professor's own life.

The Story of Piera

February 1983 •Italian

Piera is a young woman who grows up under the parentage of two extremely original overseers: both her mother and father have incestuous relations with her before they are committed to insane asylums. A special connection, between a mother and her daughter, full of sensuality and complicity, has allowed to portray a family full of fears, rather unbalanced, but nevertheless searching infinite love.

The Time of the Beginning

October 1974 •Italian

A "symbolic" character traces the path of man in search of salvation in this world within his own ghosts and deformations.

Last Resort

February 2000 •English

Tanya leaves Moscow with her street-wise 10-year-old son Artiom to meet her English fiancée in London. But after he fails to turn up at the airport, Tanya, intent on staying in England, is forced to apply for political asylum and transferred to Stonehaven, a grimy former seaside resort where refugees are housed. Tanya gradually develops a relationship with an amusement arcade manager, who helps them escape. She must then decide whether to stay with him or return to Russia.

The Ruling Class

September 1972 •English

When the Earl of Gurney dies in a cross-dressing accident, his schizophrenic son, Jack, inherits the Gurney estate. Jack is not the average nobleman; he sings and dances across the estate and thinks he is Jesus reincarnated. Believing that Jack is mentally unfit to own the estate, the Gurney family plots to steal Jack's inheritance. As their outrageous schemes fail, the family strives to cure Jack of his bizarre behavior, with disastrous results.

Posology

April 2023 •Portuguese

The Judge and the Assassin

March 1976 •French

France, 1893. Joseph Bouvier attempts to shoot his love who refused to marry him and to commit suicide. Upon release from the filthy asylum where he was placed, with bullets still remaining in his head, he wanders the country roads and rapes and murders many teenagers over years. The judge Rousseau captures him, but to serve his ambition seeks to avoid that Bouvier is simply declared insane.

Bell from Hell

July 1974 •Spanish

When John is released from a psychiatric center where he has been hospitalized for a long time, he decides to move into the house of his dead mother, whose inheritance is in dispute.

Splendor in the Grass

October 1961 •English

A fragile Kansas girl's unrequited and forbidden love for a handsome young man from the town's most powerful family drives her to heartbreak and madness.

Strait-Jacket

January 1964 •English

After a twenty-year stay at an asylum for a double murder, a mother returns to her estranged daughter where suspicions arise about her behavior.

Veronika Decides to Die

May 2009 •English

After a frantic suicide attempt, Veronika awakens inside a mysterious mental asylum. Under the supervision of an unorthodox psychiatrist who specializes in controversial treatment, Veronika learns that she has only weeks to live.

Unlikely Heroes

November 2014 •German

In order to win the respect of her friends and family, divorced housewife Sabine decides to perform Wilhelm Tell with a group of Asylum seekers in the Swiss mountains.