griggs's - Juniversal 2025: (Ranked) List

Charlie (Michael A. Goorjian) escapes the Armenian genocide as a boy by fleeing to the United States, but he returns as an adult and is arrested. He watches an Armenian couple from his prison cell, finally learning about his homeland.

Show moreShow less

A visceral cinematic experience like no other, 'The Tribe' is a story that needs no translation. Deaf mute Sergey becomes embroiled in the illegal activities of the fearsome gang that rule the specialised boarding school he attends.

His burgeoning love for a fellow student however, soon leads him on a collision course with the gang's hierarchy.

Show moreShow less

Komona (Rachel Mwanza) is only 12 years old when she is kidnapped by rebel soldiers and enslaved to a life of guerrilla warfare in the African jungle.

Forced to commit unspeakable acts of brutality, she finds hope for survival in protective, ghost-like visions (inspiring a rebel chief to anoint her "War Witch"), and in a tender relationship with a fellow soldier named Magician (Serge Kanyinda). Together, they manage to escape the rebels' clutches, and a normal life finally seems within reach. But after their freedom proves short-lived, Komona realizes she must find a way to bury the ghosts of her past.

Show moreShow less

Manga and Sory are still students when they fall in love. They don't mind that their classmates make fun of them. But when they tell their parents about their love, they are met with rejection and incomprehension.

Sory's father, a respected businessman, wants his son to follow in his footsteps and ensures that the two lovers are placed in separate classes. Manga's mother also sees all her hopes for her only son dashed. Under pressure, both boys try to fight against their homosexuality. Manga seeks help from a traditional healer to 'cure' his love, and later unsuccessfully enters into a relationship with a young woman. Sory also moves in with a woman and becomes a father. But in the end, the two young men realize that they were only escaping from each other, and their love triumphs against all odds.

Show moreShow less

The year is 1929 and dictator Benito Mussolini is still faced with the 20-year long war waged by Bedouin patriots to combat Italian colonisation and the establishment of "The Fourth Shore".

Mussolini appoints General Rodolfo Graziani as his sixth governor to Libya, confident that the eminently accredited soldier can crush the rebellion and restore the dissipated glories of Imperial Rome. Omar Mukhtar - a teacher by profession, guerilla by obligation, fights against his oppressors and commits himself to a war that cannot be won in his lifetime. With Omar Mukhtar as their inspirational leader, the Bedouin troops fight on horseback against the tanks and planes of the Italian Army. As the conflict between the two implacable enemies deepen, the Bedouin suffer crippling losses, but still they fight on...

Show moreShow less

Tamara (Anna Starchenko), a young lady consumed by trauma, searches for her missing son, Timka, in a small town dominated by riots and violence.

In a desperate attempt to get him back, she teams up with an amoral former police investigator (Berik Aitzhanov) whose methods prove to be frequently cruel and sadistic. Quietly determined, Tamara decides to complete the mission with the nihilistic detective, no matter the cost, as the pair embark on a bloody and bullet-riddled road trip in their combined search for salvation.

Show moreShow less

"The Silence of the Forest" is both the story of a revolt and a quest. That of a man, Gonaba (Eriq Ebouaney), who rebels against the way the new elites manage the post-colonization period.

Above all, that of this regional primary school inspector who decides to abandon everything in order to seek a reason to hope for his country, his continent, to go to the heart of the forest to help the Pygmies free themselves through education. A journey that will ultimately lead him to question the meaning of his own existence. A love song for a people of origins, a culture discriminated against within the very nation that shelters it.

Show moreShow less

A visually stunning, culturally fascinating, politically timely film based on the director's own childhood, 'The Clay Bird' has been called one of the most important works to come out of the Muslim world.

Set against the backdrop of Pakistan during the turbulent 1960's, a family is ripped apart by religious beliefs and civil war. Anu (Nurul Islam Bablu), a shy young boy from rural East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) is sent away by his father Kazi, an orthodox Muslim, to a Madrasah. Far from his family and the warmth of his region's vibrant Hindu festivities, Anu struggles to adapt to the Islamic school's harsh monastic life. As the political divisions in the country intensify, a split develops between moderate and extremist forces within the Madrasah. In the village, these same tensions create a growing divide between the stubborn Kazi (Jayanto Chattopadhyay) and his increasingly independent wife, Ayesha (Rokeya Prachy). 'The Clay Bird' is an authentic and loving portrait of Bangladesh, showing the country in all its colour and complexity - its seasonal beauty, rich folkloric traditions, extraordinary music, and pluralistic culture. Touching upon themes of religious tolerance, cultural diversity, and the complexity of Islam, Tareque Masud's poignant and moving film has a universal relevance that should not be missed.

Show moreShow less

After his sister-in-law dies in a freak motorcycle accident in Saigon, Thien (Le Phong Vu) is bestowed the task of delivering her body back to their countryside hometown. It is a journey in which he also takes his nephew Dao (Nguyen Thinh) (5), who miraculously survived the crash.

Amidst the mystical landscapes of rural Vietnam, Thien begins a search for his older brother who vanished years ago to hand Dao over to him - a journey which deeply questions his faith.

Show moreShow less

The story of a woman (Bia Gomes) who searches through the country for her husband (Tunu Eugenio Almada), a resistant, while the war for independence is raging. She finds him at last and saves his life.

When peace finally arrives, they have to learn how to be together again and start living in a destroyed land.

Show moreShow less

A story within a story. Young Muidinga is desperate to find the family he lost while his country, was in civil war. He finds a diary that recounts the story of a woman on a ship who is searching for her son.

Muidinga, convinced that he is her son, decides to find her with the help of wise guardian Tuahir. Kindzu, travels up the coast, in search of the 'naparamas', a counter-insurgency movement in the North of a country at war. He meets and falls in love with the beautiful Farida, and begins a quest to try and find her son, Gaspar, lost in the chaos of war.

Show moreShow less

Against the sunny landscape of a Bosnian summer, two enemy soldiers are trapped in a trench in no man's land. The world's press watch as a French UN sergeant battles with a British colonel to negotiate their safety.

And the only people who speak the same language are the men fighting each other for survival in the trench. Surprisingly funny, strikingly moving, 'No Man's Land' is a portrait of the petty normality, not only of one particular war, but of all conflicts everywhere.

Show moreShow less

Said (Kais Nashif) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) are walking time bombs. With explosives strapped to their bodies, the two young Palestinians slip into Israel, planning a suicide mission in Tel Aviv.

Can anything or anyone change their minds? Paradise Now - sweepingly powerful and intricately detailed, highly acclaimed and widely controversial - tells the story of these two lifelong friends and their mission of doom. Hany Abu-Assad directs, shooting this harrowing thriller in locations made equally harrowing by real-life missile attacks, exploding land mines, suspicious Palestinian factions and Israeli occupied forces, and the kidnapping of a crew member. The result is a film that knows its topic up close and provides no easy answers. Instead, 'Paradise Now' lays bare the humanity and the horror for all to see, to ponder...and perhaps to change.

Show moreShow less

William Kamkwamba (Maxwell Simba) is a thirteen-year-old boy who lives in a village in Malawi suffering from severe drought and famine. He is the first of his family to attend secondary school but is thrown out because his family can no longer afford to pay the fees.

When he sees the suffering of his family and his village, he sneaks back into his school's library and learns how to build a windmill and saves his family and his village from starvation.

A carefree young Rastafarian named Miguel, a.k.a. Djon África, is prompted to go on a search for his father, who he never met. All he knows is what his grandmother tells him: that his father was deported long ago to Cape Verde, where Miguel goes on a quest to find his roots.