Beth is a modern matriarch doing her best to raise her teenage daughter Annie whilst enjoying the best of an easy-going marriage to Frenchman JP. When younger sister Vicki returns from abroad and moves into the household she is instantly drawn to the ideal family structure and develops a longing for what is missing in her own life. As Beth takes a trip with her dad she leaves JP and sister Vicki behind, unaware of the smoldering love triangle that...

The provocative and darkly comic story of a young man's return, after a ten year absence, to his childhood home in rural Nova Scotia. Arriving on the day of his sister's wedding, he struggles to reclaim his place on the family tree and finally bury the ghosts of his past.

20 HOME: Refuge, shelter, or prison? Sharmila Tagore narrates the story of home on screen in the great films of Edith Carlmar, Lynne Ramsay, Mai Zetterling, Liu Jiay-in, Forough Farrokhzad, Antonia Bird and others. 21 RELIGION: Narrator Sharmila Tagore takes us on a global tourof great films about religion. We start in America in the 1910s, go to Sri Lanka in the 70s, and dip into thework of Lucretia Martel, Jessica Hausner and Marjane Satrapi. 22...

29 TENSION: Thrillers, but much more. We look at gripping scenes in films as diverse as Joel DeMott’s documentary Demon Lover Diary, Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel, Carol Morley’s Dreams of A Life, Mimi Leder’s Peacemaker, and Marleen Gorris’ remarkable A Question of Silence. 30 STASIS: Cinema is an action art, isn’t it? Or is it? Directors Angela Schanelec, Anouk Leopold, Kira Muratova, Chantal Akerman, Sharon Lockhart, and Pakistan’s...

12 ADULT/CHILD: The famous movie genres – war pictures, westerns, etc – are about adults, but in this chapter Jane Fonda narrates the story of 18 films about children in film, from Germany, Belgium, Mongolia, Sweden, Russia, Canada, Senegal, Argentina and Scotland. 13 ECONOMY: We’ve all seen overblown films, but what are the visual and story lessons we can learn from Claire Denis, Maria Louisa Memberg, Kinuyo Tanaka, Agnes Varda, Valeska Grisbach...

23 POLITICS: Another aspect of everyday life. From silent cinema to the 21 st Century, movies from the visually astonishing The Enchanted Desna to Divorce Iranian Style to Bigelow’s Strange Days have gained their energy and attack from their politics. 24 GEAR CHANGE: We like to be taken by surprise in films. This short chapter, narrated by Sharmila Tagore, looks at such surprises. 25 COMEDY: Is comedy universal? Who have been the great comedy filmmakers...

15 POV: Is cinema the art of point of view? Jocelyn Moorhouse, Ida Lupino, Norway’s Edith Carlmar, Sofia Coppola, Italy’s Liliana Cavani, Kelly Reichart, the great Larisa Shepitko, Jennifer Kent and other great directors demonstrate the art of POV in films. 16 CLOSE UP: If close ups give movies their intensity, films from Belgium, Hungary, Australia, Finland, China, America, France, Germany and Ukraine, shot over ten decades, show how best to...

03 BELIEVIBILITY: Easy to spot, but not so easy to understand. Believability is about simple human stories, truth about life, real emotions, responding to the world. Howdo directors create a reality without it feeling fake? True stories can help, but what’s the trick? Here are some answers, with a masterclass in believability from Lois Weber’s The Blot to Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann. 04 INTRODUCING CHARACTER: Going to a house, overhearing people,...

26 MELODRAMA: A genre as popular as comedy, but what are some of the great scenes in melodrama? Sharmila Tagore narrates a story that takes us from the silent American film Shoes, to Kira Muratova’s brilliant Chekov’s Motifs, to Binka Zhelyazkova’s visually remarkable We Were Young. 27 SCI-FI: Kathryn Bigelow, the Wachowski siblings, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, Lori Petty’s Tank Girl, the TV version of Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s tale....

The true-life story of Janet Frame, New Zealand's most distinguished author. The film follows Frame along her inspiring journey, from a poverty-stricken childhood to a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia and electroshock therapy to, finally, literary fame.