A stirring and emotionally dramatic epic revolving around the ideal of the Hindu mother figure. The defiant heroine battles famine, flood, a fiendish moneylender and sundry tragic accidents in the ceaseless struggle to raise her sons and retain the family's few acres. Perhaps THE classic early Bollywood and representing a male dominated world that succeeds in being considerably more positive in its depiction of women than beliefs at the time might lead you to expect. find out more...

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko, played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine, who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern post-war Ginza district. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. A profoundly moving masterpiece. find out more...