Kingyo

A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.

After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.

In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.

Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.

A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

A war criminal in hiding forms a relationship with his only connection to the outside world - his maid.

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.

Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.

An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.

A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

Kyôko, a traumatized young Japanese girl, finds herself struggling with her self-confidence in her adult life. Growing up in a family without her mother and her sister, she constantly questions the rationale of sex and the notion of liberty in modern Japanese society.

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death.

In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.

In 1930s England, a group of pretentious rich and famous gather together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.

Meduzot (the Hebrew word for Jellyfish) tells the story of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a young child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a young bride who breaks her leg in trying to escape from a locked toilet stall, which ruins her chance at a romantic honeymoon in the Caribbean. One of the guests is Joy, a Philippine chore woman attending the event with her employer, and who doesn't speak any Hebrew (she communicates mainly in English), and who is guilt-ridden after having left her young son behind in the Philippines.

Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field

Upon his release from a mental hospital following a nervous breakdown, the directionless Anthony joins his friend Dignan, who seems far less sane than the former. Dignan has hatched a harebrained scheme for an as-yet-unspecified crime spree that somehow involves his former boss, the (supposedly) legendary Mr. Henry.

Five maids in São Paulo are observed in this episodic, impressionistic film. The women interact with each other, ride busses, work, and have longings: Rai for a husband, Créo for her lost daughter, Roxane for a career in modeling. Quitéria is naive, a gull for thieves. Cida has a husband and also a lover. While each woman gets what she wishes for (more or less), it doesn't always make things better.

Marisa Ventura is a struggling single mom who works at a posh Manhattan hotel and dreams of a better life for her and her young son. One fateful day, hotel guest and senatorial candidate Christopher Marshall meets Marisa and mistakes her for a wealthy socialite. After an enchanting evening together, the two fall madly in love. But when Marisa's true identity is revealed, issues of class and social status threaten to separate them. Can two people from very different worlds overcome their differences and live happily ever after?

Sophie, a quiet and shy maid working for an upper-class French family, finds a friend in the energetic and uncompromising postmaster Jeanne, who encourages her to stand up against her bourgeois employers.

In early 19th-century France, the Marquis de Sade is confined to an asylum where his forbidden writings continue to circulate beyond its walls. As the authorities tighten control, a clash unfolds between the Marquis’ unyielding imagination, the reformist ideals of the Abbé in charge, and the repressive measures of a doctor sent to silence him. Desire, power, and censorship collide in a battle over freedom of expression.

After being discharged from a mental institution, a man is tasked by his mother to revive a struggling supermarket in Limoges. He must navigate unexpected responsibilities and the challenges of managing the store's staff.

A doctor opens an ordination in the abandoned house of his parents which is supposedly haunted by ghosts, as claimed by its only tenants - the old servant and two maids. He starts having nightmares in which a pretty and young girl shows up.

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

A fight to get through the gridlock becomes a fight for survival for Amanda as her body comes to a standstill.

Set in Tokyo's otaku mecca Akihabara, "Akihabara@DEEP" tells the story of five otaku who drop out of society and end up founding their own successful IT venture called Crook. But Nakagomi, president of an influential electronics company called Digital Capital, will do anything to get his hands on Crook.

This film, adapted from a work of fiction by author Tracy Chevalier, tells a story about the events surrounding the creation of the painting "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. A young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works.

Two couples, in the same room, try to keep it together. The human couple fare differently to the pair of Goldfish in their fish tank. An artful piece exploring choice in life and love. The humour is derived from the wistful musings, in Cantonese, of the male fish and narrator.

Three wacky sisters try to save their inheritance from their supposedly gay brother, who suddenly appears with a fiancé in tow. If he gets married, their father's will stipulates that he gets the family hotel in Portugal. So the sisters put aside their personal differences and set out to stop the wedding at all costs.

As she reaches her mid-thirties and quits her lucrative job, singleton Olivia finds herself unsure about her future and her relationships with her successful and wealthy friends. She begins to envy the security of her richer friends and, although their lives may seem easier, Olivia's friends have their problems too: screenwriters Christine and Patrick are unable to collaborate on their latest project, Jane and Aaron have lost the romance in their relationship, and Franny and Matt have difficulties handling the demands of parenthood.

A native of Sennwald, Anna Göldi arrived in Glarus in 1765. For seventeen years, she worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, a physician. Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means. Göldi at first escaped arrest, but the authorities of the Canton of Glarus advertised a reward for her capture in the Zürcher Zeitung on February 9, 1782. Göldi was arrested and under torture, admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. She withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced on June 18, 1782 to execution by decapitation. The charges were officially of "poisoning" rather than witchcraft, even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning.

A piano composer's family moves into a new house; when his pregnant wife collapses from working to support the family, he hires a housemaid to help with housework.

Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers in 19th Century Pittsburgh. Her family objects when she goes to work as a maid for the wealthy Scott family which controls the mill. Mary catches the attention of handsome scion Paul Scott, but their romance is complicated by Paul's engagement to someone else and a bitter strike among the mill workers.