Times Devoid of Fairy Tales

Forbidden Games

1952

Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.

Ashes and Diamonds

1958

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

Requiem

1982

When a young boy comes in to see a doctor abourt a red mark on his face, the doctor's wife welcomes him into the consulting room instead. As they talk, she offers him something to eat and then notes that his manner of eating is just like that of her previous husband, who died in prison many years earlier. It turns out that the young man had been his cell mate for a year, and he tells her the story of how her husband died. She then remembers (in flashbacks) how she had helped her first husband rid himself of his sexual repression, and how she had promised him she would marry her current husband if she were widowed. It seems her doctor-husband was a man who could remain untouched through any political climate, and was much admired by her first husband. Now that her memories have been awakened by the young man's account, she ignores the repeated phone calls of her current husband and decides to rid this young man of his own sexual repressions.

Barefoot Gen 2

1986

Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.

Perseverance

2017

The stories narrated by the film bring together individuals all over the world, spanning over sixty years and thus symbolically covering the approximate period of a single human life. Each of the stories is based on true accounts and events, summed up from newspaper articles, statements, and media announcements. Through internal monologues the collage makes up a whole which transcends any individual story.

Our Daily Bread

1949

A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society. Karl does not understand Ernst's visions, instead he confides in his other son Harry. However, Harry becomes involved in illicit business and Karl quickly realizes that it would be best to join his son Ernst in the citizen-owned factory.

Germany, Year Zero

1948

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.

How Many Years, How Many Winters!

1966

The Juggler

1953

A Holocaust survivor moves to Israel and experiences difficulty adjusting to life.

Love Is the Ruin of Us All

1987

At the end of the last century hunters who hunted wild roosters, while waiting for prey to show up, were killing time with storytelling. The first story is about Jernac that had a fight with Tomas because of Rezika. Another story tells about Tincek, limp foundling, who spent his youth with the Komar family, where he fell in love with their Lencka. The third is the story of a rich Miholac whose attention was grabbed by poor Polonca, a romance that was opposed by his father. The central theme of all stories is love that eventually everybody die of.

Pugowitza

1981

World War II is over and Heinrich, a young German boy, influenced by the Russians, starts to act according to Communist principles in a small German village.

Life in Kajzar

1952

A post-WW2 story about the village largely involved in wine-making business. The peasants who claimed possessions of lands, woods, and churches after communist party seized the power hold a party where a member of so-called reactionary forces (kulaks, clergy and Axis collaborators) tries to break in and stop it.

Transgression

1980

A TV journalist making a documentary in a factory finds out that the workers have been on strike and tries to analyze the strike in his film, but is thwarted by the TV company. His failure at his job is interwoven with his failed marriage.

Late Chrysanthemums

1954

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant portrait of a quartet of aging geishas contemplating their troubles with men and money.

Man Down

2015

When a U.S. Marine returns home from Afghanistan, he finds that the place he once called home is no better than the battlefields he fought on overseas. Accompanied by his best friend, he searches desperately for the whereabouts of his estranged son and wife. In their search, the two intercept a man carrying vital information about his family.