January 2021
Latvia's Official Submission to the Academy Awards
lizzard of Souls pays stark witness to the horrors and brutality of the First World War, as seen through the eyes of an innocent 17-year-old farm-boy turned soldier. Though he is underage, and his dad, a former marksman, is overage for the army, they are both conscripted into one of Latvia’s first national battalions. The thrill of training is soon followed by reality, as shells burst around them in the endless mud. He grows up on the battlefield, fighting at the side of his father and brother, their lives are constantly in jeopardy.
Adapted from the book by Aleksandrs Grins, which was banned in the U.S.S.R., the story was based on Grins’ own war experiences in a Latvian battalion, and the film is the biggest box office success in Latvia in the past 30 years.
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Win the Ultimate Valentine’s Dream Date
Valentine’s Day, 2021: You and your guest park in front of the WHBPAC in a rock star packing space. The marquee is lit with your names or your declaration of love. We whisk you off to the stage for a romantic, candlelit dinner for two, complete with a bottle of champagne. After eating, snuggle in together in our deluxe velvet seats for a private viewing of a movie of your choice. We’ll provide you with movie snacks, but our guess is you’re not going to be interested in food at this point. (We promise the projectionist won’t peek.)
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Virtual Cinema
Filmmaker Lance Oppenheim cracks the manicured facade of The Villages — a massive, self-contained retirement community located in Central Florida. Behind the gates of this utopia lie a small group of Villages residents and one interloper who are unable to find happiness within the community’s pre-packaged paradise.
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Switzerland's Official Submission to the Academy Awards
Lisa, once a brilliant playwright, no longer writes. She lives with her family in Switzerland, but her heart remains in Berlin, beating in time with that of her twin brother Sven, the famous theatre actor. Since Sven has been suffering from an aggressive type of leukaemia, the relationship between them has become even closer. Lisa does not want to accept this blow of fate, she does everything in her power to bring Sven back on stage. For her soulmate she neglects everything else and even risks losing her husband. Her marriage goes awry, but Lisa only has eyes for her brother, who reflects her deepest longings and awakens in her the desire to be creative, to feel alive again.
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Because you may be by yourself, but you're not alone
Join WHBPAC as we watch the wicked and the wacky, the worldly and the woebegone – together! This bi-weekly assemblage of patrons and staff will leave you warm, well-rounded, and – on the whole – well prepared to weather whatever the fates might weave for us next.
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This powerful documentary about the role of Native Americans in contemporary music history – featuring some of the greatest music stars of our time – exposes a critical missing chapter, revealing how indigenous musicians helped shape the soundtracks of our lives and, through their contributions, influenced popular culture.
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Sudan's Official Submission to the Academy Awards
Winner of the Lion of the Future Award for best Debut Feature at the Venice Film Festival, YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY is visually sumptuous “coming-of-death” fable. During her son’s naming ceremony, a Sheikh predicts that Sakina’s child will die at the age of 20. Haunted by this prophecy, Sakina becomes overly protective of her son Muzamil, who grows up knowing about his fate. As Muzamil escapes Sakina’s ever-watchful eye, he encounters friends, ideas and challenges that make him question his destiny. Sudan’s first Oscar submission, YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY is an auspicious debut and a moving meditation on what it means to live in the present.
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Ukraine's Official Submission to the Academy Awards
A prize-winner at the Venice Film Festival and Ukraine’s official selection for the 2021 Academy Awards, Atlantis is a gorgeous and visionary sci-fi drama. Eastern Ukraine, 2025. A desert unsuitable for human habitation. Water is a dear commodity brought by trucks. A Wall is being build-up on the border. Sergiy, a former soldier, is having trouble adapting to his new reality. He meets Katya while on the Black Tulip mission dedicated to exhuming the past. Together, they try to return to some sort of normal life in which they are also allowed to fall in love again.
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Virtual Cinema
Rembrandt, the grandmaster of intimacy, rocks the art world; 350 years after his death, many people, even entire nations are obsessed with his paintings. Aristocrats cherish, experts rule, art dealers investigate, collectors hunt, museums battle. The epic documentary MY REMBRANDT dives deep into the art world of Old Masters, exploring the motives of its elite.
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Japan's Official Submission to the Academy Awards
After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a child. Over the next six years, the middle-class couple and their young son Asato settle into a comfortable, albeit routine, life. The family’s orderly existence is shattered by the arrival of Hikari, a young woman claiming to be Asato’s biological mother, demanding his return. As tensions mount, Satoko grows more and more emboldened to defend her family.
Weaving together multiple timelines and genres with a contemplative pacing and keen sense of place, hallmarks of Kawase’s work, TRUE MOTHERS is “is a deeply touching celebration of women who assume duties of love, support and compassion” (Awards Watch).
Find Out MoreFebruary 2021
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Hunted by mysterious forces, a young woman who has supernatural abilities must go on the run when her powers are discovered. With nowhere else to go, she flees back to her family and the farmhouse she abandoned long ago. There, while being pursued by the local sheriff, she begins to mend the broken relationships with her mother and daughter and learns that the power she needed was inside her all along.
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France's Official Submission to the Academy Awards
Nina and Madeleine, two retired women, have been secretly deeply in love for decades. From everybody’s point of view, including Madeleine’s family, they are simply neighbors living on the top floor of their building. They come and go between their two apartments, sharing the tender delights of everyday life together. Until the day their relationship is turned upside down by an unexpected event leading Madeleine’s daughter to slowly unveil the truth about them.
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“Stuffed” is a documentary feature film about the surprising and unique world of taxidermy. Through the eyes and hands of passionate renowned artists across the world, the film allows the audience to dip into & explore this diverse subculture, where sculptors must also be scientists. It is a genre of art, formed by a collection of people who have a fanaticism for nature, matched only by their desire to protect it. They love animals and see life where others only see death. In an unexpected twist, “Stuffed” reveals the importance of preserving nature, using taxidermy as its unlikely vehicle, and the taxidermist as its wild driver.
Find Out MoreMarch 2021
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Lauren Greenfield’s postcard from the edge of the American Empire captures a portrait of a materialistic, workaholic, image-obsessed culture. Simultaneously autobiographical and historical essay, the film bears witness to the global boom-bust economy, the corrupted American Dream, and the personal costs of late stage capitalism, narcissism, and greed.
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This feature-length documentary film follows the artist as she prepares for what may be the most important moment of her life: a major retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. To be given a retrospective at one of the world’s premiere museums is, for any living artist, the most exhilarating sort of milestone. For Marina, it is far more – it is the chance to finally silence the question she has been hearing over and over again for four decades: ‘But why is this art?’
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A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women’s complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.
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