Language: English

Duration: 1 hr 51 min

Director: Arthur Penn

Screenplay: Robert Benton & David Newman

Academy Award Nominations: Best Picture, Director (Arthur Penn), Actor (Warren Beatty), Actress (Faye Dunaway), Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), Supporting Actor (Michael J. Pollard), Screenplay & Costume Design

Academy Award wins: Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons), Cinematography

Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Wilder, Denver Pyle, Evans Evans

A landmark American film that uniquely combined European art-house aesthetics with mainstream Hollywood cinematics.

The film came with the tagline:"They’re young. They’re in love. They rob banks...’ It is a film containing dynamic power that stays fresh with each viewing !

Warren Beatty stars in this gangster film as small-time bank robber Clyde Barrow who joins up with Faye Dunaway as bored small-town waitress Bonnie Parker, to embark on a series of violent robberies in the Depression-era American Mid-West. Their legendary crime spree captures the newspaper headlines and catches the imagination of the American public. Both seemed to have the knack of entertaining people. Bonnie wrote ballads and mailed them in with pictures Clyde took with his Kodak. They seemed to consider themselves public servants, bringing a little sparkle to the poverty and despair of the Dust Bowl during the early Depression years. In the public's eye they were celebrated specifically as heroic bank robbers and were seen as a modern-day version of Robin Hood's gang.

The film is a milestone in the history of American movies and one of the definitive films of the 1960s. It paved the way not only for more realistic crime drama but also for a more open and mature interpretation of life and crime.

Language: French (with English subtitles)

Duration: 1 hr 58 min

Director: Stéphane Demoustier

Screenplay: Stéphane Demoustier & Pascal Garbarini

César Award: Best Actress (Hafsia Herzi)

Cast: Hafsia Herzi, Moussa Mansaly, Louis Memmi, Michel Fau, Pablo Pauly

Rating: PG-13

A breathtaking and captivating film is inspired by true events.

The film attempts to explore the thin line between good and evil and how sometimes dire life circumstances tip a person over to the dark side.

A prison guard Mélissa (Hafsia Herzi) is transferred to Borgo penitentiary center on the island of Corsica. She is accompanied by her husband and two children. The prison is composed mainly of Corsican inmates and operates under an open regime. Namely, the prisoners can freely roam as they please all day long, playing football, cards or doing bodybuilding. She manages to integrate into this unusual set-up thanks to a young inmate who seems to have influence there. However, when this inmate is released from prison he contacts Mélissa again to ask for a favour, which sets a dangerous plot in motion where she finds herself implicated in a double murder for which she is suspected of complicity.

• In collaboration with Alliance Francaise d' Islamabad

Language: French (with English subtitles)

Duration: 1 hr 48 min

Director: Gabriel Le Boumin

Screenplay: Gabriel le Boumin & Valérie Ranson-Enguiale

César Award Nominations: Best Actor (Lambert Wilson), Production Design, Costume Design

Cast: Lambert Wilson, Isabelle Carré, Olivier Gourmet, Catherine Mouchette, Sophie Quinton, Tim Hudson, Pierre Hancisse, Gilles Cohen

Rating: PG-13

The film looks at the life of one of the 20th century's most important leaders, French President Charles de Gaulle (Lambert Wilson). The screenplay covers only the briefest of periods- albeit an important one- namely from April to June 1940. This was the time when the french government was considering negotiating an armistice with Nazi Germany but General de Gaulle refused to capitulate and sought help of England to come to his country's aid.

The film also examines de Gaulle's loving relationship with his family. He is the father of three childten, and the youngest has a severe mental disability. He is a devout Catholic and along with the unwavering love and support from his wife Yvonne (Isabelle Carré), he faces all manners of adversity.

• In collaboration with Alliance Francaise d'Islamabad

Language: English

Director: Woody Allen

Screenplay: Woody Allen

Academy Award Nominations: Best Film, Director (Woody Allen), Production Design & Editing

Academy Award Wins: Supporting Actor (Michael Caine), Supporting Actress (Dianne Wiest), Screenplay (Woody Allen)

Cast: Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Max von Sydow, Dianne Wiest, Sam Waterston, Lloyd Nolan, Maureen O'Sullivan, Carrie Fisher

There is a profoundly old-fashioned, almost moral message behind the film and its themes of love, fidelity, hope, and the fragility of happiness which underpin the drama at the centre.

This is Woody Allen's most successful film - a dramatic comedy, influenced by Anton Chekov, with a sharp and witty script enhanced by superb performances. The plot follows the overlapping stories of three sisters as they drift in and out of each other's lives with increadingly disastrous consequenses. The youngest (Barbara Hershey) lives with her spiritual guru (Max von Sydow), a witty intellectual recluse bitterly disillusioned with modern life. The middle sister (Dianne Wiest) is a frantically neurotic girl-about-town chasing after money and success. The eldest (Mia Farrow) is an apparently stable actress married to a wealthy accountant ( Michael Caine) and reigning over a warm nuclear family. Her previous husband (Woody Allen) is a hypochondriac, and now romantically involved with the neurotic sister.

The film slowly progresses and exposes the layers of illusion which are lifted off to display the emotional fragility, betrayal, and tragedy underneath.

• In collaboration with Alliance Francaise d'Islamabad

Language: French (with English subtitles)

Director: François Truffaut

Screenplay: François Truffaut, Suzanne Schiffman & Jean-Claude Grumberg

César Awards: Best Film, Actor (Gérard Depardieu), Actress (Catherine Deneuve), Director (François Truffaut), Screenplay, Production Design, Cinematography, Music, Editing, Sound

Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Jean Poiret, Heinz Bennent, Andréa Ferréol, Paulette Dubost, Jean-Louis Richard, Sabine Haudpin, Maurice Risch, Richard Bohringer

Endearing and uplifting film shuns politics, it simply entertains and brings back sharp memories of Hollywood films about World War II, which were shot on sound stages inside studios.

Truffaut's film is set during the German occupation of Paris and the screenplay revolves around a theatre troupe rehearsing a play. An actor (Gérard Depardieu), who secretly works for the Resistance, is cast as the leading man in a new play being put up at a famous theatre. His leading lady (Catherine Deneuve) is not only the owner of the theatre but also the star actress. Her husband (Heinz Bennent), the theatre's director and a German jew, has escaped Nazi Germany and is now secretly hiding in the basement of the theatre from where he gives notes on the production to his wife who is the only person who knows he is there. The colourful characters surrounding the two actors are a flamboyant director (Jean Poiret), the young ingénue (Sabine Haudpin) who will do anything to get a part in the play, the stage manager (Maurice Risch), a temperamental costume designer (Andrea Férréol) and a powerful, extremely nasty pro-Nazi critic (John-Louis Richard).

The film not only deals with anti-semitism but is also a plea for tolerance as we witness the romantic intrigues, suspenseful moments with the Gestapo and a flourishing love triangle between the actress and the two men - her leading man on stage and her husband residing below the stage.

• In collaboration with Alliance Francaise d'Islamabad

Language: English

Director: James Ivory

Screenplay: Ruth Prawar Jhabvala, based on the book by Kazuo Ishiguro

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Christopher Reeve, James Fox, Peter Vaughn, Ben Chaplin, Patrick Godfrey, Lena Heady, Michel Lonsdale, Hugh Grant

Ruth Prawar Jhabvala's exquisite adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's book becomes a sumptuously produced film by the Merchant-Ivory team with the story taking on the form of a road trip and becoming a memory piece as a butler tries to amend his past by seeking someone he admired a long time back.

A rigid butler (Anthony Hopkins) and a housekeeper (Emma Thompson) circle each other with deeply repressed feelings while in the employ of Lord Darlington (James Fox) at his huge estate. The screenplay covers in great detail the fascinating heirarchy and workings of staff at a huge estate. The formal relationship between the butler and the maid is the crux of the story. Hopkins' sad eyes convey vast depths of sadness as he rigidly goes about his job working for a Nazi sympathiser without letting politics cloud his propensity to serve his master. Thompson, with a sharp tongue and a no-nonsense manner, falls in love with the butler but she holds back her feelings because he too fails to reciprocate. Twenty years on after she had left her job and having gotten married, he seeks her out to try and get her to return to Darlington Hall now owned by a rich American (Christopher Reeve).

Quietly introspective film harbours an emotionally wrenching core at its center about repressed emotions, misplaced politics and sticking to a regimental way of life without thinking about life's consequences.

• In collaboration with Alliance Francaise d'Islamabad

Please Note: (MPA) Film Rating: NC-17.

Film: Memories of Murder (2003) - South Korea

Language: Korean with English subtitles

Director: Bong Joon Ho / Screenplay: Bong Joon Ho, based on the play by Kwang-rim Kim

Cast: Song Kang-ho, Kim Sang-Kyeung, Kim Roe-ha, Song Jae-ho, Byun Hee-Bong

Memories of Murder is a South Korean neo-noir crime thriller film based on the 1996 play Come to See Me. In the film, detectives Park Doo-man (Song) and Seo Tae-yoon (Kim) lead an investigation into a string of rapes and murders taking place in the late 1980s. The film is based on the real life serial murders. It is also inspired by detective fiction and elements of Bong's personal life.

It has received numerous awards and nominations, and is widely considered one of the greatest films of the 21st. Century!

A tense old-school crime story with a dark edge. This fictionalized but daring and nuanced film is about the investigation of the man reported to be South Korea's first serial killer.The film raises some troublesome questions about the nature of justice and the fallibility of investigative police methods before DNA testing. A refreshingly mature thriller that succeeds in its ambitious attempt to blend comedy and drama...

When a series of brutal murders begin in a South Korean village an inexperienced detective is completely overwhelmed. No one in the police department seems to have any idea what to do and the screenplay, without exaggerated comedy or melodrama, captures how investigations can be bungled not so much through ineptitude but by something closer to apathy...

Film: Theeb (2014) - Jordan

Language: Arabic & Turkish with English subtitles

Director: Naji Abu Nowar

Screenplay: Naji Abu Nowar & Bassel Ghandour

Awards: Academy Award Nomination: Best Foreign Language Film

Cast: Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat, Hassan Mutlag Al-Maraaiyeh, Hussein Salameh Al-Sweilhiyeen, Jack Fox, Marjji Audeh

A coming-of-age story about a Bedouin boy who must survive in the wide-open Wadi Rum desert in Jordan.

While war rages in the Ottoman Empire, two brothers grow up in a traditional Bedouin community that is isolated by the vast, unforgiving desert. Their quiet existence is suddenly interrupted when a British Army officer and his guide ask the older brother to escort them to a water well along the old pilgrimage route to Mecca. While he agrees to lead them on the long and treacherous journey his younger, mischievous brother, Theeb, secretly chases after them. They soon find themselves trapped in the midst of a threatening terrain riddled by Ottoman mercenaries, Arab revolutionaries, and outcast Bedouin raiders.

Hypnotic story beautifully captures the sprawling emptiness of the desert and its chilly, inhumane beauty while depicting the changing way of life in the desert.

• In collaboration with Alliance Francais d'Islamabad

Film: Mustang (2015) - a Turkey / France film.

Language: Turkish with English subtitles

Director: Denis Gamze Ergüven

Screenplay: Denis Gamze Ergüven & Alice Winocaur

Awards: Academy Award Nomination: Best Foreign Language Film

Cast: Günes Sensoy, Doga Zeynap Doguslu, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elir Esclan, Ilayda Akdogan

The film is a fearless celebration of womanhood and a timely exploration of patriarchy and conservatism.

Set at an unspecified time in the 2010s in a remote Turkish village, Mustang depicts the lives of five young orphaned sisters and the challenges they face growing up with extended family as girls in a conservative society.

The sisters begin their summer break from school by frolicking at the beach with their male classmates while walking home. Their alarmed guardians - grandmother and uncle -sequester the girls in a systematic campaign to break their unity and tame them into traditional female roles. They are locked up behind closed doors and potentially corrupting influences like computers and phones are removed, and they are outfitted in shapeless dung-colored frump dresses for rare outings in the village. The girls are given instruction by local women in traditional cooking and homemaking as their grandmother sets out to arrange marriages for each of them. The girls' instinct for survival and self-preservation kicks in as they strike back against their enforced captivity binding them even closer together.

The story's quiet power comes from its sensitive observation of the characters as normal, emancipated young modern women with healthy desires and curiosities, whose supposed transgressions are imagined and then magnified in the judgemental minds of others.

• In collaboration with Alliance Francais d'Islamabad.

Film: L'insulte / The Insult (2017) - Lebanon / France

Language: Arabic with English subtitles

Director: Ziad Doueri / Screenplay: Ziad Doueri & Joelle Touma

Awards: Academy Award Nomination: Best Foreign Language Film

Adel Karam, Kamel El Basha, Camille Salameh, Diamand Abou Abboud, Rita Hayek

The film was nominated for an Oscar, the first from Lebanon.

A powerful film is inspired by the Lebanese Civil War, it speaks a universal truth about humans who- in the absence of a sense of closure- are unable to control their political hatred and prejudice which continues to grow and fester in their souls. The film also shows the positive and modern emergence of empowered womanhood in the mainly patriarchal Middle East.

The story, set in Beirut, could apply to any neighborhood of the globe dealing with prejudice and hatred. A minor altercation between two men - a Christian and a Palestinian refugee - escalates gradually from a single slur (the "insult") to a physical assault to more heated words involving racial prejudice which result in two heated court sessions. The matter then moves from physical skirmishes between people attending the trial to outright riots in the streets of Beirut. The high profile trial becomes less about the insult and bodily injury and more about a nation in the grip of a deep rooted morass gestating within like a festering wound which erupts time and again with violence.

Although the film has a rather simplistic ending - imploring to move on and find a way to make mutually respectable peace and not allow wounds to fester - it still manages to provide good drama and an important message nonetheless.

• In collaboration with Alliance Francais d' Islamabad