Spinning Into Butter (2009)

Struggling to overcome cycles of betrayal, revenge and violence, the Traoré brothers continue to fight for a brighter future in a seedy Paris suburb.

Jae-wan, a successful lawyer, takes on the case of a rich executive's son, who has purposely run over and killed a man and left his daughter seriously injured. It's Jae-wan's job to defend a murderer, just another rung on his career's golden-stepped ladder. His younger brother, on the contrary, is a scrupulous and upstanding paediatrician, who always puts the health of his patients over profit and money, often contravening the rules of the private clinic where he works. The brothers meet once a month with their wives for fine dining in expensive restaurants, but when an unexpected situation involving their teenage kids arises, their consciences are questioned and their usual dinner conversation takes an unexpected turn.

Aissa, a young officer of Algerian origin, tragically loses his life during a fresher initiation ritual at the prestigious French military academy of Saint-Cyr. As the death tears through his family, controversy arises over Aissa’s funeral plans when the Army refuses to take responsibility. Ismael, his older, rebellious brother, tries to keep the family united as they fight to win justice for Aissa.

A high school student suffers from a strange amnesia, causing her memories to only last a week. After she befriends a new student, his kindness and persistence make her gradually open up.

With his uncouth manner, Professor Pohl doesn’t enjoy the best reputation at the university where he works. To make matters worse, he makes a racist remark when student Naima arrives late for his lecture. Unfortunately for him, a video of his verbal outburst spreads like wildfire on the Internet, and the university’s president, Lambrecht, is called to deal with the incident. But Pohl is not dismissed. Instead, he is put to the task of helping Naima prepare for an important debating competition. The lecturer and the student could not be more different, yet they are thrown together to work as a team.

As Islamic morality squads stage arbitrary raids in Tehran and as fundamentalists seize hold of the universities, Azar Nafisi, an inspired teacher, secretly gathers six of her most committed female students to read forbidden western classics. Unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, they soon removed their veils, their stories intertwining with the novels they read: just like the heroines of Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James or Jane Austen, the women in Nafisi’s living room dare to dream, hope and love as we experience the complexity of the lives of individuals facing political, moral and personal siege.

In 1944 Dean Barry, an American sailor, 23, arrives in Naples, a city destroyed by bombing after the liberation of Italy. Dean meets Lucia, a young and very poor girl with whom he falls madly in love. Two years later, at the end of his service, Dean has to return to New Jersey and Lucia remains in Naples, alone and pregnant.

Three middle school parents are summoned by the principal after their children are implicated in a serious incident. In the gym, transformed into an impromptu courtroom, they wage a fierce battle of denials and obfuscations to suppress the truth.

A film between fiction and reality, highlighting questions about group dynamics and established hierarchies. A group of people meet for their high school reunion 20 years later. One of them talks about her being bullied and outcast and soon the former classmates fall back to the roles they used to have back in school. But this is just half of the film.

A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.