Imaginary

In rural Sweden of the early 1950s, little Elina goes to school again after recovering from tuberculosis, the same illness that has killed her father a few years earlier. Elina's family belongs to Finnish-speaking Finns frowned upon by a staunch schoolmistress who starts hounding Elina for questioning her authority. Elina's mother, sister, and a liberal young male teacher all try to mediate the ensuing battle of wills between Elina and Miss Holm. Elina finds consolation in wandering out on the dangerous marshlands to have imaginary conversations with her dead father.

It's the morning after John and Mary's first sexual encounter with each other, which took place in his New York City loft apartment. They had only met for the first time the previous evening at a crowded trendy pick-up bar. They are both uncomfortable with the situation but don't want to show that discomfort to the other. They both realize that they don't know anything substantial about the other - including not even knowing each other's name - as each tries through whatever secret means to find out with who he/she just slept. As they slowly find out more about the other, they inject their own perception into the information, which is sometimes not quite reality.

An out-of-work L.A. chef (writer/director Jon Favreau) opens a food truck in a bid to realize his culinary potential and reconnect with his estranged family in this indie ensemble comedy co-starring Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sofía Vergara, John Leguizamo, and Bobby Cannavale.

Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda's sequel to his immensely well-received Man of Marble covers some of the same ground: the relationship of labor leaders to their communist political masters and the difficulties the media encounters in covering that story. But it adds an exceptionally timely element: footage from the real-life Solidarity movement strikes led by Lech Walesa that were taking place during the film's production are woven into the dramatic story. There are a few glimpses of Walesa, and he even pops up as a guest at the wedding of the fictional story's hero. That man, Tomczyk, is the son of Birkut, the labor leader profiled in Man of Marble, and he's played by the actor Jerzy Radziwilowicz, who played Birkut in the first film.

London 1846. Singer Gloria Vane has a resounding success at the Adelphi Theater. While she throws a brilliant party, her lover, Sir Albert Finsbury, an army commanding officer, prepares to leave England for Australia, leading one of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's regiments. But Finsbury is also a compulsive gambler and, being unable to repay his debts, he commits a fraud that could cost him his career. Out of love for Albert, Gloria claims responsibility for his crime and his sentenced to penal labor in a camp in Australia, Paramatta. She is 'saved' by good-natured farmer Henry Hoyer who chooses her in a wedding market. But Gloria is not made for farming and soon realizes that she can't stand her new life.

An Innuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles.

As the final masterwork of Ingmar Bergman, the world's most revered cinematic craftsperson, Saraband embodies the sequel to the director's five-hour Scenes from a Marriage, produced and directed 30 years after that original epic. Here, Bergman revisits the two characters from that film, divorcees Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann), after years of estrangement from one another. Marianne now lives alone; of her two middle-aged daughters from the marriage to Johan, one lives in Australia, while the other suffered a mental breakdown. Marianne has contact with neither. After leafing through an assemblage of old photographs and waxing nostalgic, Marianne decides to revisit the now-wealthy Johan, who lives in the country with an adjoining cottage and two descendants: his 61-year-old widower son, Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt of I Am Curious (Yellow)), and Henrik's 19-year-old daughter, Karin (Julia Dufvenius).

Elina - Som om jag inte fanns / Elina: As If I Wasn't There - Randa Chahal Sabag (2002)

In rural Sweden of the early 1950s, little Elina goes to school again after recovering from tuberculosis, the same illness that has killed her father a few years earlier. Elina's family belongs to Finnish-speaking Finns frowned upon by a staunch schoolmistress who starts hounding Elina for questioning her authority. Elina's mother, sister, and a liberal young male teacher all try to mediate the ensuing battle of wills between Elina and Miss Holm.