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In The Land Of The Deaf

Second Rund DVD 001

The films and methods of Nicolas Philibert, maker of Etre et avoir, have shown him to be one of contemporary cinema’s most acclaimed documentarists. In The Land of the Deaf is an elegantly spare and thoughtful portrait of the rich, diverse, but often isolated culture of the deaf community.

Street date: 8/1/2005

UPC: 5051083000109

Nighthawks

Second Rund DVD 002

OUT OF PRINT

Nighthawks is the story of Jim, a geography teacher at a London comprehensive school. Living alone in a cramped flat, his sexuality a half open secret to everyone but his pupils and his parents, he spends the evenings at gay bars and discos looking vainly for 'Mr Right'.

Street date: 8/8/2005

UPC: 5051083000116

Strip Jack Naked (Nighthawks II)

Second Rund DVD 003

OUT OF PRINT

Strip Jack Naked is a companion piece to Ron Peck's ground-breaking Nighthawks. Made thirteen years after Nighthawks, it is an autobiographical film that tells not only of the struggle to make Nighthawks but also of the director's life as a gay man growing up in late 20th century Britain.

Street date: 8/8/2005

UPC: 5051083000123

Love (Szerelem)

Second Rund DVD 004

Makk's haunting, atmospheric and beautifully performed film, brilliantly shot by Janos Toth, captures exactly the fear and uncertainty of the time. It is, above all, a treatise on how such times affect fidelity, faith, illusion, love. It deals specifically with Hungary but has an absolutely universal appeal... completely unsentimental, but catches precisely what its characters face and how they feel... an outstanding film.

Street date: 8/15/2005

UPC: 5051083000130

03/29/2009

Mother Joan Of The Angels (Matka Joanna od Aniolow)

Second Rund DVD 005

One of the landmarks of Polish cinema, this film is based on the documented story of the ‘possession’ of a group of nuns that led to the burning of a priest at the stake in Loudun, France in 1634. Mother Joan of the Angels is a spare, visually rigorous, and profoundly disturbing exploration of faith, repression, fanaticism, and eros. Anyone who is a fan of classics of the strange will find much to savour in Mother Joan of the Angels.

Street date: 8/8/2005

UPC: 5051083000147

Catalog: Second Rund DVD 005

Audition/Talent Competition (Konkurs)

Second Rund DVD 006

Konkurs is Milos Forman's debut film and is considered to be the film that launched what became known internationally as the Czech New Wave. It was originall made as two separate 'featurettes' - but the style and themes were very similar and so they were released as one film.

Street date: 8/15/2005

UPC: 5051083000154

Interrogation (Przesluchanie)

Second Rund DVD 007

Based on a true story reflecting the Stalinist terror of the early 1950s, Ryszard Bugajski’s harrowing film was banned under martial law in Poland and only became available on underground VHS through a copy smuggled out by the director at great risk. Tonia (Krystyna Janda), a singer in a sleazy cabaret, is imprisoned without explanation. Days become weeks become months, varied only by the persuasion, intimidation and torture of interrogation. Janda’s outstanding depiction takes you to places few films are willing to explore.

Street date: 10/3/2005

UPC: 5060114150003

Another Way (Egymasra Nezve)

Second Rund DVD 008

The clash of sexuality and politics provide the basis for this tragic love story set in Hungary, 1958. In the offices of magazine The Truth, two female journalists tentatively embark on a clandestine, highly-charged affair, knowing that they face the wrath of the Stalinist regime if discovered. A brave and significant portrait of the effect totalitarianism has on the most intimate aspects of life, this film cleverly undercuts the expectations aroused by its milieu.

Street date: 10/3/2005

UPC: 5060114150010

Intimate Lighting (Intimní Osvêtlení)

Second Rund DVD 009

This wonderfully subtle comedy is the debut film of a great director and a signature work of the Czech New Wave. Ivan Passer's film concerns the dreams of two musician friends, one of whom, having left their small hometown to become successful, returns to visit the other who stayed behind at the local music school. Focussing on the humour of the ordinary and routine and expertly shot by Miroslav Ondricek, it shows true affection and understanding for all its characters to become that very rare thing in comedy.

Street date: 1/30/2006

UPC: 5060114150027

Portrait Of Jason

Second Rund DVD 010

Portrait of Jason is the raw record of a confessional conversation with an African-American gay hustler recounting his life and times. A distrubing and fascinating document, it unflinchingly observes Jason Holliday - conversing, performing, confessing, dissolving.

Street date: 10/3/2005

UPC: 5060114150034

David Holzman's Diary

Second Rund DVD 011

Shot in 1967, 'David Holzman's Diary' is a milestone in contemporary film history. Brilliantly conceived and executed, it manages to simultaneously be very much of its time and very many years ahead of its time. The film tells the story of David Holzman, a young man infatuated with film and film-making. Newly unemployed and beset with doubts and worries, Holzman thinks that filming his everyday existence will 'bring life into focus'. Staged to seem like a documentary of a real person's life, Holzman’s filming of his life starts to take over his life.

Street date: 1/30/2006

UPC: 5060114150041

The Ear (Ucho)

Second Rund DVD 012

Although made in 1970, The Ear (Ucho) was immediately banned by the Czech authorities and remained unseen for twenty years, being finally released only after the Velvet Revolution took place in Czechoslovakia. This landmark film is an extraordinary mix of one of the most direct indictments of life under an oppressive totalitarian system and a not-so-private examination of a disintegrating marital relationship.

Street date: 10/3/2005

UPC: 5060114150058

Blissfully Yours (Sud Sanaeha)

Second Rund DVD 013

Innovative and enigmatic, Blissfully Yours is a languid celebration of the pleasures of the moment. In Apichatpong’s heady, sensual and playful film, a leisurely road trip and a picnic in the jungle give way to uninhibited emotion and eroticism.

Street date: 5/1/2006

UPC: 5060114150065

The Red and The White (Csillagosok, Katonák)

Second Rund DVD 014

Set in 1919, during the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Miklós Jancsó’s The Red and the White is a war film unlike any other.

In the brutal Civil War which took place, Hungarian volunteers supported the ‘Red’ revolutionaries in a war of attrition against the ‘White’ counter-revolutionaries who were seeking to restore the old Czarist order. Through its stylistic virtuosity, ritualistic power and sheer beauty, Jancsó invites us to study the mechanisms of power almost abstractly and with a cold eroticism that clearly portrays the utter futility of war. Although the film was an Hungarian-Russian co-production, the Russian authorities banned it from being shown anywhere in the Soviet Union.

Street date: 3/27/2006

UPC: 5060114150072

The Cremator (Spalovac Mrtvol)

Second Rund DVD 015

Juraj Herz’s film The Cremator has been described in many ways - as surrealist-inspired horror, as expressionist fantasy, as a dark and disturbing tale of terror.

This brilliantly chilling film, a mix of Dr Strangelove and Repulsion, is set in Prague during the Nazi occupation. It tells the story of Karl Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrusínský), a professional cremator, for whom the political climate allows free rein to his increasingly deranged impulses for the ’salvation of the world’.

Street date: 4/10/2006

UPC: 5060114150089

Every Little Thing (La Moindre Des Choses)

Second Rund DVD 016

The protagonists in this film are the patients and staff at the La Borde psychiatric institute in France. Each summer they perform a play on a stage set in the beautiful grounds of the chateau. The film charts the passage of this magical event and allows the viewer a glimpse at life in one of the world’s most highly regarded psychiatric institutions.

Street date: 5/1/2006

UPC: 5060114150096

Marketa Lazarová

Second Rund DVD 017

Voted the best Czech film of all time, Marketa Lazarová is a powerful and passionate medieval epic set in the 13th Century. Based on avant-garde writer Vladislav Vancura’s novel, it follows the rivalry between two warring clans and the doomed love affair of Mikoláš Kozlík and Marketa Lazarová.

Street date: 12/3/2007

UPC: 5060114150096

Passenger (Pasazerka)

Second Rund DVD 018

Described as "one of the most audacious fictions ever made about the Holocaust", Passenger is a classic of Polish cinema. Director Munk died, aged just 39, in a car crash in the middle of filmimng. His friend and colleague Witold Lesiewicz decided to complete the film to what he believed were Munk's intentions and assembled it using the existing footage, Munk's photographs and a voice-over narration.

Street date: 9/25/2006

UPC: 5060114150119

Knights of the Teutonic Order (Krzyzacy)

Second Rund DVD 019

Considered as one of the greatest and most popular Polish films of all time, this epic is a spectacular historical romance and war film set in the Middle Ages. Based on the best-selling book by Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz (Quo Vadis), the epic scope of Knights compares with the best in Hollywood epics and is a film for viewers of all ages.

Street date: 10/26/2006

UPC: 5060114150126

The Party and the Guests (O Slavnosti A Hostech)

Second Rund DVD 020

Distinguished by being 'banned forever' in its native Czechoslovakia, Nemec's film is a masterpiece of barbed, darkly sinister wit. As a biting satire of authoritarianism and conformity and with its astute observations of human nature, the film's universal relevance continues to this day.

Street date: 3/19/2007

UPC: 5060114150133

A Long Weekend in Pest and Buda (Egy hét Pesten és Budán)

Second Rund DVD 021

A Long Weekend in Pest and Buda reunites Károly Makk with Mari Törõcsik and Iván Darvas, who starred in his classic film Love which was made over 30 years ago. With them, Makk recreates that finely tuned sense of place, history, and intimate human stories that characterize his best films, showing a director still working at the height of his talent. Emotionally mature and profoundly moving, the film reveals how, despite our best efforts, we can never quite escape the past.

Street date: 11/17/2006

UPC: 5060114150140

Avenge But One of My Two Eyes (Nekam Achat Mishtey Eynay)

Second Rund DVD 022

Shot in the Occupied Territories by Israeli director Avi Mograbi, this controversial documentary film draws parallels between the Israeli - Palestinian situation today and the enduring myths of Samson and Masada. Mograbi offers a powerful, at times chilling, lament of the continuing cycles of violence rooted in the past and threatening to engulf everyone's future. With the roots of so much real-world conflict left unexamined by today’s restless media, this film reminds us just how vital filmmakers like Avi Mograbi are.

Street date: 11/13/2006

UPC: 5060114150157

The Third Part of the Night (Trzecia Czesc Nocy)

Second Rund DVD 023

Andrzej Zulawski is one of the true mavericks of European cinema and his wild, imaginative and unique films have won awards at many international film festivals over the years. A nightmarish and surreal masterpiece, The Third Part of the Night is his highly influential debut feature film. Set during the time of the Nazi-occupation of Poland and rich with multilayered symbolism and apocalyptic imagery, it shows one of Europe's most uncompromising and visionary directors at his best.

Street date: 5/14/2007

UPC: 5060114150164

My Way Home (Így jöttem)

Second Rund DVD 024

In the final days of World War 2, a young Hungarian is making his way home, through countryside full of the debris of war, when he is captured and imprisoned by Russians. Left in the custody of a young Russian soldier, the two youths form a friendship in spite of not speaking each other's language. The Hungarian's attempts to continue his journey homeward provide the framework for this powerful film, considered Miklos Jancsó's first masterpiece.

Street date: 10/1/2007

UPC: 5060114150171

Diary For My Children

Second Rund DVD 025

Set in Hungary during the turbulent years between 1943 and 1956. Jan Nowicki plays a dual role as the factory-worker friend of revolutionary journalist Anna Polony, and as the political-prisoner father of teen-aged heroine Zsusza Czinkoczi. It is Czinkoczi's involvement with both of the men played by Nowicki, which bridges the film's time-frame. Writer/director Marta Meszaros based the events of DIARY FOR MY CHILDREN on her own wartime experiences (her father was a Communist artist who died under mysterious circumstances during a Stalinist purge).

Street date: 9/7/2009

UPC: 5060114150188

Palms (Ladoni)

Second Rund DVD 026

Palms is Aristakisyan's astonishing portrait of people who live on the margins of life and exist outside normal society. Profound, spiritual and hallucinatory, Palms is remarkable at every level and one of the most visionary films of recent years.

Street date: 8/27/2007

UPC: 5060114150195

Rat-Trap (Elippathayam)

Second Rund DVD 027

Arguably the true heir to Satyajit Ray, Adoor Gopalakrishnan is regarded as one of India’s most outstanding filmmakers and Rat-Trap was the first film to bring him widespread international acclaim. Remarkable for its focus on characterization and detail, Rat-Trap is set in rural Kerala. Its story concerns Unni, the last male-heir of a feudal and decaying joint family. His inability to accept the socio-economic changes of a new society result in his gradual withdrawal into a metaphorical rat-trap sprung from his own isolation and paranoia.

Street date: 6/23/2008

UPC: 5060114150201

Romeo, Juliet and Darkness (Romeo, Julia a tma)

Second Rund DVD 028

UPC: 5060114150218

The Round-Up (Szegénylegények)

Second Rund DVD 029

A profound influence on filmmakers from Sergio Leone to Béla Tarr, The Round-Up is widely acknowledged as a masterpiece of world cinema. Set in a detention camp in Hungary in 1869, at a time of guerilla campaigns against the ruling Austrians, Jancsó deliberately avoids conventional heroics to focus on the persecution and dehumanisation manifest in a time of conflict. Filmed in Hungary's desolate and burning landscape, Jancsó uses his formidable technique to create a remarkable and terrifying picture of war and the abuse of power that is still very relevant today.

Street date: 3/17/2008

UPC: 5060114150225

Partition

Second Rund DVD 030

The tumultuous events surrounding the sub-continent's partition in 1947 into India and Pakistan are re-imagined in Ken McMullen's complex and visually striking film. A lunatic asylum in the city of Lahore becomes a mirror image of events in the outside political world, with the same actors playing both inmates and rulers. Adapted by Tariq Ali and McMullen from famous Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto s short story Toba Tek Singh , Partition speaks for the countless millions that the usual British Raj films sweep out of sight. Released to mark the 60th anniversary of the partition of the Indian sub-continent, this is the film's first-ever release on DVD.

Street date: 1/21/2008

UPC: 5060114150232

Black Sun

Second Rund DVD 032

Gary Tarns remarkable film Black Sun, winner of many international awards and presented and produced by Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, Children of Men) and John Battsek (One Day in September), tells the story of Hugues de Montalembert, a French artist and filmmaker living in New York, who was blinded during a violent assault in 1978.

Street date: 11/12/2007

UPC: 5060114150256

Black Snow

Second Rund DVD 033

Chinese drama directed by Xei Fei. After being released from prison, ex-con Li Huiqian (Jiang Wen) arrives back in his native Beijing to face the harsh realities of life. With no family, friends or job prospects he soon becomes susceptible to the lure of his previous underworld contacts who try to tempt him back into a life of crime, and a doomed affair with a nightclub singer brings little solace.

Street date: 3/8/2010

UPC: 5060114150263

Tropical Malady (Sud Pralad)

Second Rund DVD 034

Garlanded with awards, Apichatpong’s visionary film exists in dual realms, exploring connected themes of love and desire in a radically different way. A fractured love story is interrupted by a feverish night-time odyssey into the heart of the jungle where shape-shifting spirits and tigers abound.

Street date: 7/28/2008

UPC: 5060114150270

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Valerie a týden divu)

Second Rund DVD 035

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders mixes horror, fairytale, surrealism and Freudian symbolism to depict the fantastical world inhabited by a young girl on the threshold of adulthood. Haunting and dreamlike, beguiling and magical, the film is a work of pure imagination, and has become a cult classic.

Street date: 8/25/2008

UPC: 5060114150287

Fighters / Real Money

Second Rund DVD 036

Fighters is often cited as the definitive documentary film on the subject of boxing. It brilliantly captures both the romanticism and the agonising, sweat-dripping discipline inherent in this hardest game of all. Real Money is an improvised drama film, acted by the boxers who appear in Fighters. It tells the parallel stories of young boxers lured into lives of crime and easy money, the trainer who is determined to help them, and the ruthless gangster who pulls the strings.

Street date: 10/27/2008

UPC: 5060114150300

Divorce Iranian Style / Runaway

Second Rund DVD 037

Divorce Iranian Style: A hilarious, tragic, stirring, fly-on-the-wall look at several weeks in an Iranian divorce court. It provides a unique window into the intimate circumstances of Iranian women's lives. Runaway: Set in a refuge for girls in Tehran and follows the stories of five young runaway girls who arrive there, having fled their homes due to domestic discord. The film explores their experiences of male authority, their longing for freedom and respect, and their hopes for a more positive future.

Street date: 1/26/2009

UPC: 5060114150317

Celia

Second Rund DVD 038

Set in mid 1950s Australia, with the fear of communism in the air and the country's farmlands overrun by a plague of rabbits, the film depicts a long hot summer seen through the eyes and over-active imagination of nine year old Celia.

Street date: 3/30/2009

UPC: 5060114150324

Daisies (Sedmikrásky)

Second Rund DVD 039

Two young women, both named Marie, revolt against a degenerate, decayed and oppressive society, attacking symbols of wealth and bourgeois culture. Defiant feminist statement? Nihilistic, avant-garde comedy? It remains a cinematic enigma and its influence is still felt today - from the extreme Baise-Moi to the mainstream Thelma & Louise and in the films of (amongst others) Jacques Rivette, Bertrand Blier, Catherine Breillat and Gregg Araki.

Street date: 6/1/2009

UPC: 5060114150331

The Valley Of The Bees (Údolí Vcel)

Second Rund DVD 40

Medieval drama from Polish director Frantisek Vlacil. Cast out by his father, young Ondrej (Petr Cepek) joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk, Armin (Jan Kacer). After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Armin now not only assumes control of his fathers properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother.

Street date: 3/22/2010

UPC: 5060114150348

Adelheid

Second Rund DVD 041

Shortly after World War II's end, a former soldier becomes the caretaker for a Czechoslovakian manor occupied by a German family who emigrated during the war. The soldier falls madly in love with the daughter, a maid. His heart is torn in two with indecision over the love for this girl and his national identity and sympathies. This moving drama was an important work of the Czech New Wave Cinema.

Street date: 8/23/2010

UPC: 5060114150355

Lift / Travellers / Calais: The Last Border

Second Rund DVD 042

All three of these films – Calais: The Last Border, Lift, Travellers – are based in transitional areas, pinch points, places through which people travel to go somewhere, or hope to. It is in these places that Isaacs sows questions that take people off-guard, reconnecting them with the deeper motivations and themes of their lives.

Street date: 6/29/2009

UPC: 5060114150362

Blood (O Sangue)

Second Rund DVD 043

Filmed in startling monochrome and demonstrating a love and knowledge of classical Hollywood and European art cinema, Blood is a lushly stylized romantic fable. It explores the plight of two brothers coming to terms with the death of their father and the legacy of violence and debt he has left behind. Languid and unsettling, beautiful and intimate, with echoes of Tourneur, Bresson, Ray and Straub-Huillet, Blood is both elusive and utterly mesmerising.

Street date: 9/21/2009

UPC: 5060114150379

Gaea Girls / Shinjuku Boys

Second Rund DVD 044

Two documentaries from directors Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams that show unusual sides of female sexuality in Japan. 'Shinjuku Boys' follows three 'onnabes' - women who live their lives as men - as they work at Tokyo's New Marilyn club. 'Gaea Girls' focuses on the exploits of a group of female Japanese wrestlers.

Street date: 1/25/2010

UPC: 5060114150386

Diamonds Of The Night (Démanty Noci)

Second Rund DVD 045

The debut feature from Jan Němec (director of The Party and the Guests, recently voted by New York Critics as one of the best films of the 60's), Diamonds of the Night is one of the most thrilling and startlingly original works of cinema. Told almost without dialogue, it chronicles the tense and desperate journey of two teenage boys who are trying to stay alive after escaping from a German train bound for a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

Street date: 5/10/2010

UPC: 5060114150393

Hungarian Masters Collection

Second Rund DVD 048

Diary Of My Children

orphaned teenager Juli (Zsuzsa Czinkoczi) and her grandparents return from exile in Russia to Budapest after World War II. Unfortunately Juli's hopes of happiness in her homeland are gradually eroded by the strictures of a disciplinarian society.

My Way Home

A starkly atmospheric tale of friendship in the final days of World War II. Joska (Andras Kozak) is a young Hungarian making his way home, through countryside full of the debris of war, when he is captured and imprisoned by Russians. Left in the custody of a young Russian soldier, Kolya (Sergei Nikonenko), the two youths form a friendship in spite of not speaking each other's language.

Love

The story of a young woman whose husband has been arrested by the secret police. Unable to tell his ailing mother the truth about his imprisonment, the woman weaves a fantastic story that her son is in America, where he has become a successful film director.

Street date: 6/21/2010

UPC: 5060114150423

The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen)

Second Rund DVD 049

An unflinching study of a young girl caught up in a complicated adult world, The Unpolished explores the consequences of a counterculture gone bad. Stevie (Céci Chuh), a wild but fiercely intelligent teenage girl, must cope with the instabilities of her drop-out parents (Birol Ünel & Pascale Schiller). Whilst they spend their days getting high, hooking up deals and escaping their responsibilities, Stevie takes control of her own life, making the journey towards maturity and independence that her parents ought to have made years ago.

Street date: 7/12/2010

UPC: 5060114150430

Morgiana

Second Rund DVD 050

Morgiana, based on a short story by Aleksandr Grin, (the 'Russian Poe'), is the story of two sisters, Klara and Viktoria, who live a life of decadent excess stranded somewhere between the mid-19th and early 20th century. Klara is blonde and beautiful, whilst Viktoria is ugly, sadistic, bursting with hate and jealousy - and hatches a terrible revenge by slowly poisoning her more popular sister. As the poison takes hold, Klara begins to lose grip on her sanity.

Street date: 9/27/2010

UPC: 5060114150447