Fourteenth Wellington Film Festival

A Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him.

It was only after her death that the work of New Zealand writer, Katherine Mansfield, became well known, thanks to her editor and husband, John Middleton-Murry. She had left New Zealand to travel around France, and she died there from tuberculosis. Thirty three years later, Middleton-Murry is invited to France to approve a new edition of her collected letters and journals, and there he meets a young woman, Marie Taylor (also from NZ) who reminds him strongly of his dead wife. As the two become friends, Marie starts reading old correspondence between Mansfield and her husband, and discovers the true nature of their relationship and that Mansfield's dying wishes regarding her writings have been ignored by the manipulative, and less-than-honest, Middleton-Murry.

The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies, and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.

A landowner's wife emerges from seclusion through education, defying social norms. Her newfound freedom leads to political awakening when her husband's old friend brings revolutionary ideas to their door.

Jacques d'Amboise, a noted former American ballet star who had dancing roles in such films as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Carousel (1956), and who later became a New York dancing instructor.

Director Derek Hart takes us where we've never been and shows us what we've never seen backstage at St. Petersburg's famed Kirov Ballet--arguably the best classical ballet troupe in the world. The company was responsible for producing Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker as well as Baryshnikov, Makarova, Nureyev, Pavlova and Nijinsky.

In a 1966 New Jersey high school, Jill and new student Sheik from the other side of the tracks make their way in a first love romance.

A collection of everyday awkward and embarrassing moments, each with an uneasy familiarity.

An elderly painter whose son visits with his family on the weekends, is also surprised by a visit from his still-single daughter.

A confrontation between Paris' cultural "monster" on the plateau Beaubourg and the enigmatic-smile lady down the street. Looks at the architecture of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and its unconventional approach to art display. Parisiens and tourists voice favorable and unfavorable opinions as they are shown viewing the museum's modern art collection.

In this intimate film portrait, artist Paul Cadmus, makes a nude drawing of his long time companion, demonstrates his mastery of egg tempera painting and recounts his past as a prominent American scene painter and controversial social satirist.

Burroughs: The Movie explores the life and times of controversial Naked Lunch author William S. Burroughs, with an intimacy never before seen and never repeated. The film charts the development of Burroughs' unique literary style and his wildly unconventional life, including his travels from the American Midwest to North Africa and several personal tragedies. Burroughs: The Movie is the first and only feature length documentary to be made with and about Burroughs. The film was directed by the late Howard Brookner. It was begun in 1978 as Brookner's senior thesis at NYU film school and then expanded into a feature which was completed 5 years later in 1983. Sound was recorded by Jim Jarmusch and the film was shot by Tom DiCillo, fellow NYU classmates and both very close friends of Brookner's.

A British TV crew interviewing a Catholic Belfast family gets some controversial footage, which headquarters destroys.

The story of Anne Devlin, who was caught up in the revolt of the Irish under Robert Emmett in 1803, told exclusively from the woman's point of view.

A married farmer falls under the spell of a sophisticated woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

Three intertwined tales. On the eve of the First World War, Count Forbek starts to build a fantastic castle in the Ardennes forest. After the war he uses it to start a utopian society by brainwashing his friends, including his former fiancee, Livia, and her husband. In the present day, the castle is being used as an alternative school and, in the summer holidays, for an educational conference. At the conference, the American Nora Winkle bets Claudine that the ernest public school teacher Elisabeth Rousseau will be enticed into the bed of Robert Dufresne, even though the principal speaker, Walter Guarini, is obviously interested in Elisabeth. Meanwhile, the children staying at the castle over the holidays invent their own medieval tale about freeing prisoners from the dungeons.

A mother shoots the murderer of her daughter in the courtroom.

A Vietnam veteran's widow and family still live under the clouds of war.

A young man fraught with guilt longs to defect from the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is drawn to the widow of a slain Protestant policeman but must hide his secret that he was involved in her husband's murder and evade the authorities.

Five stories by Luigi Pirandello set in turn-of-the-century Italy.

Hollywood mogul funds low-budget film to boost girlfriend's confidence. First-time producer/director duo create promising project despite constraints. Actress develops chemistry with unknown male lead during filming.

After their family is killed in a government massacre, siblings Enrique and Rosa flee Guatemala and embark on a perilous journey to "El Norte": the United States.

A shy, introverted young girl takes a summer job at a seaside resort in Wales. She finds the staff, the owners and patrons unlike anyone she has ever met before.