Part 1 of Wajda's trilogy of wartime films, the hopeful one, is set in Wola, a working-class area of Warsaw in 1942, and deals with the graduation of a bunch of semi-delinquent street kids, through individual acts of defiance and courage, into a youth resistance group. The heroism is not simple, neither loyalties nor self-sacrifice are assured, but united they will be. find out more...

Winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, 1997, this charming Czechoslovakian comedy-drama features the most edibly adorable child star ever in Andrej Chaliman as five year old Kolya. Abandoned after his love-struck mother flees to Germany, Kolya is left at the mercy of confirmed bachelor and child-phobic cellist Louka, who's foolishly entwined himself in a marriage of convenience with the kid's mum. The political background, while necessary, never becomes too bogged-down, and indeed provides t find out more...

Andres Wood's semi-autobiographical film is set in Chile in 1973, when General Pinochet's military coup seized power from President Allende's democratically elected government. It follows the unexpected friendship of two 11-year-old boys - Gonzalo, who comes from a wealthy middle class neighbourhood, and Pedro Machuca, who lives in a nearby shanty town. They meet when an idealistic priest admits children from poor families to an elite private school and, as they learn about each other's very dif find out more...

Alan Clarke's work is renowned for it's starkly realistic and often disturbing portrayal of British society, and this is no exception. Tim Roth is outstanding as the snarling anarchistic skinhead car-thief who has no wish to be "saved" by his concerned social worker. Black, bleak and brilliant. find out more...

A wonderful tale of a girl's passage from childhood to adulthood, a time that coincided with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and his replacement by the tyranny of a fundamentalist theocracy. find out more...

Set in the summer of 1984 – Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is on strike. At the Gay Pride March in London, a group of gay and lesbian activists decide to raise money to support the families of the striking miners. But there is a problem. The Union seems embarrassed to receive their support. But the activists are not deterred. They decide to ignore the Union and find out more...

During the making of "Soundtrack to War" director Gittoes asks soldier Elliot Lovett how it feels to be in Iraq getting shot at, Elliot replies "man, I get shot at less here in Baghdad than at home in Miami". Amazed and intrigued by the statement Gittoes heads to Brownsville Miami to find out what is so bad about ‘Brown Sub'. What Gittoes finds stands testament to an America at odds with its own lofty values, a world few want to acknowledge and none want to experience first hand. find out more...

After antiwar activists Annie and Arthur Pope blew up a napalm lab in 1971, they became lifelong fugitives. They and their children have stayed just one step ahead of the law, running from state to state, job to job, identity to identity, but now eldest son Danny wants to stop running from a past that isn't his. And to do so, he might never see his on-the-lam family again. A sensitive and thoughtful coming of age drama. find out more...

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Bernardo Bertolucci paints another ravishing (if slightly too lush) portrait of adolescent awakenings and youthful exuberance. Set in Paris, 1968, amid the social turmoil and student protests, the film charts the relationship of three characters: Isabelle and Theo (sister and brother) and American student Matthew. Their mutual obsession for film of all forms and periods brings them together, and a lot of the films pleasure (for movie fans, anyway) derives from find out more...