Movies: Despair

Harris and Penny, a cab driver and his fare, engage in flirtatious banter during their brief ride on a desolate road…until Penny abruptly vanishes from the back seat, leaving Harris mystified....

The lives of five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation is debating the passage of an anti-prostitution law....

It’s 1974 and Sam Bicke has lost everything. His wife leaves him with his three kids, his boss fires him, his brother turns away from him, and the bank won’t give him any money to start anew. He tries to find someone to blame for his misfortunes and ...

Alex has a disturbing hobby of following strangers...until one night he gets caught. Instead of calling the police, the couple--fascinated by Alex's resemblance to their dead son--asks him to stay, and Alex finds himself trapped in a horrifying exist...

A penniless middle-aged spinster scrapes by giving piano lessons in the Dublin of the 1950s. She makes a sad last bid for love with a fellow resident of her rundown boarding house, who imagines she has the money to bankroll the business he hopes to o...

Outcast by his co-workers and living alone, Koistinen is a security guard who works the night shift in a luxury shopping mall in Helsinki. But when icy blonde Mirja approaches him, the lonely Koistinen falls helplessly for her, unaware she is manipul...

Arthur Dichter thinks he is dying of insomnia, but the reality is much more frightening. In this surreal puzzle film, Dichter turns from his wife to a private journal to record his deepest fears. Anna knows her husband lives in a waking nightmare whe...

Sophie and Otto Bentwood are a middle-aged, middle class, childless Brooklyn Heights couple trapped in a loveless marriage. He is an attorney, she a translator of books. Their existence is affected not only by their disintegrating relationship but by...

Set in 1912, inside a dive bar named The Last Chance Saloon, its destitute patrons eagerly await the arrival of Hickey, who arrives annually and props everyone up with free drinks and spirited stories of his travels. However, when Hickey does show up...

Nina, an end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems, starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni. They fell in love with each other, but soon Toni starts betraying Nina. In the meantime, Francoise is picked up at a psychic department of ...

Jack Early is a photographer who will stop at nothing to climb his way to the very top of the success ladder. On the strength of his sheer tenacity, he gets a job with a major newspaper, and it's not long before he's made a name for himself by charmi...

When Martin, a former GDR citizen, is released from jail, he lately becomes confronted with the consequences of the German re-unification....

After a phone call ends in despair, a young woman faces a fatal decision....

The lives of a matriarch, her two sons, and her niece are never the same again as they come to terms with an indiscretion in the family. A pivotal decision is made and a downward spiral ensues wherein the outcome can be no less than earth-shattering....

An innovative and charismatic influencer is suddenly exiled from her community of creative partners and colleagues when she states an opinion that she did not know was “unacceptable” in their eyes....

A group of people believe the city is a maze and are obsessively searching for the lost exit....

Keiser, the lead singer of a former rock group won't put up with approaching old age and decides to call his old band members together. Keiser's ambition is to return to the big stage with his buddies. Despite the initial resistance of other fellows,...

Lichter is an episodic tale from Hans-Christian Schmid about the life on the border between Germany and Poland. The film sheds light on the everyday stories of escape and desperateness....

Runaway teen Lexi find herself alone and pregnant on the streets. Seemingly beyond hope, she must turn to Devon, a woman with her own demons, to help her find a way back from her past mistakes....

Reece tries to find the courage to come out to his family and friends....