Beyond Borders

In tiny Anarene, Texas, in the lull between World War Two and the Korean Conflict, Sonny and Duane are best friends. Enduring that awkward period of life between boyhood and manhood, the two pass their time the best way they know how – with the movie house, football, and girls. Jacey is Duane's steady, wanted by every boy in school, and she knows it. Her daddy is rich and her mom is good looking and loose. It's the general consensus that whoever wins Jacey's heart will be set for life. But Anarene is dying a quiet death as folks head for the big cities to make their livings and raise their kids. The boys are torn between a future somewhere out there beyond the borders of town or making do with their inheritance of a run-down pool hall and a decrepit movie house – the legacy of their friend and mentor, Sam the Lion. As high school graduation approaches, they learn some difficult lessons about love…

Taboo takes you on a journey beyond the comfort zones and across cultural borders to explore rituals and customs that are acceptable in some cultures, but forbidden, illegal or, reviled in others. Understand seemingly bizarre and shocking practices from around the world.

Danzig, Germany, 1924. Oskar Matzerath is born with an intellect beyond his infancy. As he witnesses the hypocrisy of adulthood and the irresponsibility of society, Oskar rejects both, and, at his third birthday, refuses to grow older. Caught in a baffling state of perpetual childhood, Oskar lashes out at all he surveys with piercing screams and frantic poundings on his tin drum, while the unheeding, chaotic world marches onward to the madness and folly of World War II. Honored with the Palme d’Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and the 1979 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) is a truly visionary adaptation of Nobel laureate Günter Grass’s acclaimed novel, an unforgettable fantasia of surreal imagery, striking eroticism, and unflinching satire.

In tiny Anarene, Texas, in the lull between World War Two and the Korean Conflict, Sonny and Duane are best friends. Enduring that awkward period of life between boyhood and manhood, the two pass their time the best way they know how – with the movie house, football, and girls. Jacey is Duane's steady, wanted by every boy in school, and she knows it. Her daddy is rich and her mom is good looking and loose. It's the general consensus that whoever wins Jacey's heart will be set for life. But Anarene is dying a quiet death as folks head for the big cities to make their livings and raise their kids. The boys are torn between a future somewhere out there beyond the borders of town or making do with their inheritance of a run-down pool hall and a decrepit movie house – the legacy of their friend and mentor, Sam the Lion. As high school graduation approaches, they learn some difficult lessons about love, loneliness, and jealousy. Then folks stop attending the second-run features at the …

After the successful bank robbery Micky hopes to take back his girlfriend Mary who has been taken from him by the brothers Venin. On the way to Paris he meets one Leon, a neurotic and dreamer, whom he and his associates consider an idiot. Leon can hardly understand what Micky is up to but he follows him everywhere and soon falls in love with Mary. This strange love triangle resolves in a tragic ending. Strange it may seem but the credits tell us that "The film is inspired by Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot" and intended as a homage to the great writer".

leischman, a thirty-year-old hotel porter, lives a lonely life full of frustrations and strange rituals. The Grand Hotel, where he works and lives, is as lonely and as isolated as his small town on the Czech-German border. His only friends are the lost souls and incurable eccentrics who work and visit the hotel. Fleischman's dreams are modest–finding a girl to love and venturing past the borders of his small town–but he has failed to realize them despite his many attempts. To survive the everyday dreariness, Fleischman snoops on the hotel guests and engages in his peculiar fetishes. And in order to finally attain his dreams, he secretly works on building a hot-air balloon that in the spirit of Jules Verne will finally transport him across the city border, and beyond.

This unforgettable documentary presents the figure of one of the most renowned and respected leaders of the twentieth century: the difficult beginnings in Poland, the arrival on the world stage as the first non-Italian pope in more than 400 years, until his mission around the world in the guise of human rights advocate.

Historical documentary featuring colourised archive footage charting the First World War's aftermath in Europe and beyond once celebrations marking the end of hostilities had ceased.