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Divan

May 1, 2003

1h 16m

★ 2.0

Overview

Pearl Gluck travels to Hungary to retrieve a turn-of-the-century family heirloom: a couch upon which esteemed rabbis once slept. En route for the ancestral divan, Pearl encounters a colorful cast of characters who provide guidance and inspiration.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Palinka Pictures

Zeitgeist Films

Divan Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Herself

Pearl Gluck

Ten years after winning a world title in bodybuilding in Russia and becoming a star of said discipline in Mexico, Antonio Osta (43) leads a life of austerity in the Uruguayan rural town where he grew up. He resides there with his son Juanjo (17), a sensitive teenager who keeps him company and confronts him openly. Suffering from acute kidney disease which keeps him from competing professionally, Antonio is stuck in limbo, halfway between his glorious past and the impossibility of being who he once was. However, he is unwilling to give up his lifestyle, even if it kills him. In an attempt to reinvent himself, and seeking a better future for his son, Antonio plans a comeback to the Mexico bodybuilding scene, where he may relive his glory days.

6.0

Into Our Own Hands

Oct 6, 2010

When confronted with their lingerie factory (Starissima) going bankrupt, the employees attempt to take it over by forming a cooperative. Soon questions about fundamental economic and social issues pop up amidst the bras and panties. Through this adventure together they discover a new freedom.

6.9

My Name Is Salt

Nov 24, 2013

Year after year, just after the monsoon season has finished, thousands of families travel to a bleak desert in Gujerat, India, where they will stay for an endless eight months and extract salt from the earth, using the same painstaking, manual techniques as generations before them. Director Farida Pacha spent a season with one of these families, observing the very particular rhythms of their lives.

6.4

The Decent One

Feb 9, 2014

Through previously undiscovered private letters, photos and diaries that were found in the Himmler family house in 1945, the "The Decent One" exposes a unique and at times uncomfortable access to the life and mind of the merciless "Architect of the Final Solution" Heinrich Himmler.

6.3

Yugoslavia: How Ideology Moved Our Collective Body

Apr 1, 2013

A research-based essay film, but also a very personal perspective on the history of socialist Yugoslavia, its dramatic end, and its recent transformation into a few democratic nation states.

7.2

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser

Oct 25, 1988

A documentary film about the life of pianist and jazz great Thelonious Monk. Features live performances by Monk and his band, and interviews with friends and family about the offbeat genius.

4.9

Chicken Ranch

May 1, 1983

Documentary on the "Chicken Ranch," a legal Nevada brothel.

0.0

Nose and Tina

Jan 1, 1980

Nose and Tina are a couple in love. The film captures the domestic details of their life together and documents their hassles with work, money and the law. The unusual bit: He is employed as a brakeman, and she as a sex worker.

7.0

A Place Called Chiapas

Feb 20, 1998

In 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, made up of impoverished Mayan Indians from the state of Chiapas, took over five towns and 500 ranches in southern Mexico. The government deployed its troops and at least 145 people died in the ensuing battle. Filmmaker Nettie Wild travelled to the country's jungle canyons to film the elusive and fragile life of this uprising.

0.0

Lens in the box

Mar 16, 2024

"If all these cameras start talking to you.." A short documentary on a vintage camera museum, established by an archivist and photographer Mr. Aditya Arya

0.0

Mein Herz sieht die Welt schwarz - Eine Liebe in Kabul

Feb 7, 2009

Hossein and Shaima have loved each other since childhood. As teenagers they were separated by war. They meet again in Kabul in the late 90s. Poverty forces Hossein to fight in the war. A shell splinter leaves him paralyzed. Shaima is sold into marriage with a man 40 years her senior and falls pregnant. Since Shaima's husband still owes half the dowry to her father he brings her back into the constraining patriarchal fold of the family, where she lives with her 5-year-old daughter. This situation doesn't prevent the two from seeing each other, even though this means going against their families' hard rules. In constant fear of revenge on the part of the male members of both families, they struggle to hold on to their love.

8.0

The Diplomat

Aug 6, 2013

This film chronicles how figure skater Katarina Witt fought for her future in socialist East Germany, how she faced the changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall and how she ended up both a beneficiary and victim of the East German regime.

6.0

Lettre d'Alain Cavalier

Jan 1, 1982

A movie director attemps to film the way he writes a screenplay.

6.7

Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa

May 20, 2008

Twenty-Five miles from town, a million miles from mainstream society, a loose-knit community of eco-pioneers, teenage runaways, war veterans and drop-outs, live on the fringe and off the grid, struggling to survive with little food, less water and no electricity, as they cling to their unique vision of the American dream.

0.0

Double Quotes

Invalid Date

"Double Quotes" delves into a filmmaker's journey of self-discovery as he navigates through the intricacies of India's Constitution, uncovering the absence of a definition for "untouchability" in Article 17. Through encounters with legal experts and introspective reflections, the documentary explores the implications of this omission on societal perceptions and the persistent challenges of caste-based discrimination.

7.2

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

Oct 1, 2009

In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.

7.0

The Best Thing You Can Do with Your Life

Feb 17, 2018

How does it feel when your brother, someone you felt to be the dearest, brightest and most important person in the world, suddenly decides to join an ultraconservative Catholic religious order? Whilst the two siblings had spent time at Christian summer camps – he at the Legionarios and she with the Consagradas – the members of both orders had always seemed rather odd to them. Her brother swore he would never join the Legionaries and that it didn’t interest him at all. Why did he break this pact, what happened to him?

6.0

Everywhere We Are

Oct 11, 2018

Heiko, 29, is a fun-loving dance teacher from Berlin. For the past seven years he has battled with a fatal illness. Just when his family and his friends had begun to get used to Heiko’s continued survival in spite of all the prognoses, he receives the diagnosis that he does not have much longer to live. He decides to return to his parents’ house to die. But even now, Heiko and especially his father, Jürgen, refuse to give up hoping for a miracle.

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0.0

A Tour of Contour

Jan 1, 2006

A behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of Contour, an independent martial arts comedy made for only $6,000.

0.0

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

Mar 13, 1985

Nan Goldin's slide show “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” converted, mixed and screened as a film by the artist, portraying the American underground culture, the no wave scene, post-Stonewall gay subculture, among others.

Divan

Overview

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