Movies: Despair

In July 1942, during the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup of Jewish families in Paris, 13 year old Tauba Birenbaum and her parents, who are Polish Jews, find refuge in a tiny room for the next 765 days. Living conditions are tough and they fear being discovered a...

The true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah....

The lives of five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation is debating the passage of an anti-prostitution law....

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still a...

Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty....

A death row inmate turns for spiritual guidance to a local nun in the days leading up to his scheduled execution for the murders of a young couple....

Lilya Michailova lives in poverty, dreaming of a better life. Her mother moves to the United States and abandons her to her neglectful aunt. Desperate for money, Lilya starts working as a prostitute, and meets Andrei, who offers her a good job in Swe...

Birdee Pruitt has been humiliated on live television by her best friend, Connie, who's been sleeping with Birdee's husband, Bill. Birdee tries starting over with her daughter, Bernice, by returning to her small Texas hometown, but she's faced with pe...

Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization....

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members....

Jack Early is a photographer who will stop at nothing to climb his way to the very top of the success ladder. On the strength of his sheer tenacity, he gets a job with a major newspaper, and it's not long before he's made a name for himself by charmi...

In Edo Period Japan, a noblewoman's banishment for her love affair with a lowly page signals the beginning of her inexorable fall....

A pastor of a small church in upstate New York starts to spiral out of control after a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife....

Jasna, a beautiful teenager, leads a crude life in post-war Serbia. She goes on a spree of sex, drugs and partying until she finds love and tenderness in a harsh environment....

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband....

The tale of two brothers with serious financial woes. When a third party proposes they turn to crime, things go bad and the two become enemies....

When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US....

Adapted from the video game series of the same name, NiNoKuni follows high school peers Yuu and Haru who must travel between two separate yet parallel worlds to help save their childhood friend, Kotona, whose life is in danger. In this magical quest ...

This film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused...

Budny, a secret service officer, secretly surveils Bishop Karol Wojtyla for 20 years. An unreciprocated bond forms between Budny and the unaware Wojtyla, leading to an obsessive, pathological relationship from Budny's perspective....