Starring: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam
The light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary, working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut.
Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital–head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)–plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia’s film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment.
Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquility of a seaside village with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and by the camera with a lyrical naturalism that occasionally drifts into dreamlike incandescence. All We Imagine as Light is a soulful study of the transformative power of friendship and sisterhood, in all its complexities and richness.
Starring: Abdullah Miniawy, Souhir Ben Amara, Khaled Ben Aissa
S is a young soldier in the Tunisian desert. When his mother dies, he gets a week’s leave and goes back home. But he never returns to the barracks and becomes the target of a manhunt through the backstreets of his working-class neighborhood, before vanishing into the mountains. Several years later, F, a young woman married to a rich businessman finds out that she’s pregnant. One morning, she leaves her luxurious villa and disappears into the forest.
Starring: Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall, John Schuck, Bert Remsen, Louise Fletcher, Ann Latham, Tom Skerritt
In this Robert Altman period drama, Bowie (Keith Carradine) is an escaped convict who embarks on a crime spree with fellow former prisoners Chicamaw (John Schuck) and T-Dub (Bert Remsen). While in hiding between bank robberies, Bowie meets a young woman named Keechie (Shelley Duvall), and the two quickly fall in love. A life of crime doesn’t sit well with Keechie, however, so she and Bowie try to settle down, but the law is determined to bring him to justice.
Starring: Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson, David Arkin, Jim Bouton
Print courtesy of the Robert Altman Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive
Private detective Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is asked by his old buddy Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) for a ride to Mexico. He obliges, and when he gets back to Los Angeles is questioned by police about the death of Terry’s wife. Marlowe remains a suspect until it’s reported that Terry has committed suicide in Mexico. Marlowe doesn’t buy it but takes a new case from a beautiful blond, Eileen Wade (Nina van Pallandt), who coincidentally has a past with Terry.
Starring: Lily Tomlin, Andie MacDowell, Julianne Moore, Tim Robbins, Bruce Davison, Jack Lemmon, Zane Cassidy, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Lyle Lovett
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot (Lily Tomlin) accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy’s grandfather (Jack Lemmon) tells his son, Howard (Bruce Davison), about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker (Lyle Lovett) starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy’s birthday cake.
Starring: Susannah York, Rene Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi
A schizophrenic (Susannah York) confuses her husband (Rene Auberjonois) with her lovers and her self.
Starring: Bud Cort, Shelley Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, William Windom, Rene Auberjonois, Stacy Keach
Brewster McCloud (Bud Cort) isn’t your normal sort of boy. He resides in a nuclear fallout shelter in the Houston Astrodome. He labors to make on a set of wings that he hopes will allow him to fly, and is supported in his oddball mission by the maternal Louise (Sally Kellerman). But when the boy’s enemies start dying off — including a national anthem singer and Brewster’s penny-pinching boss — he becomes the object of an investigation by Police Det. Lt. Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy).
Starring: Carol Burnett, Amy Stryker, Desi Arnaz Jr., Geraldine Chaplin, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Lillian Gish
Friends and family of the bride (Amy Stryker) and groom (Desi Arnaz Jr.) carry on at a mansion before, during and after the ceremony.
Starring: Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, Calvin Lockhart, Judy Pace, Redd Foxx
Harlem’s African-American population is being ripped off by the Rev. Deke O’Malley (Calvin Lockhart), who dishonestly claims that small donations will secure parcels of land in Africa. When New York City police officers Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) and Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) look into O’Malley’s scam, they learn that the cash is being smuggled inside a bale of cotton. But the police, O’Malley and lots of others find themselves scrambling when the money goes missing.
