National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art

National Theatre Live’s 2010 broadcast of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The Habit of Art, with Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour, returns to cinemas as part of the National Theatre's 50th anniversary celebrations. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. Alan Bennett’s play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion’s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.

Last Call

Last Call is a fictional account of the final days of exuberant and notorious Welsh poet Dylan Thomas as he sets out on a final poetry tour of New York. Desperate for money and with a wife and three children dependent on him, Thomas accepts a job believing it is beneath him. He spends his time in the city drinking at the White Horse Tavern and becoming increasingly ill between poetry readings. Everything comes to a head when he goes on a bender so extreme he cannot perform the last lecture, makes a scene at the bar, and has his final drink while ruminating on life, death, and the concept of love.

All About Eve

From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.

Aladdin

In the boorish city of Agrabah, kind-hearted street urchin Aladdin and Princess Jasmine fall in love, although she can only marry a prince. He and power-hungry Grand Vizier Jafar vie for a magic lamp that can fulfill their wishes.

The Mayor

For the first time in Korean history, the mayor of Seoul attempts a third term in office, with his entire campaign team ready to soil their hands.

Shanghai Express

A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.

Lord, Give Me Patience

An ultraconservative family father must spend a weekend with his dysfunctional children for the burial of his wife.

Can't Say Goodbye

Carla gets a call from the small town where she grew up in the South of Spain. Her father, who she hasn't spoken with in many years, is very ill. She refuses to face it and decides, against everyone's opinion, to take him to Barcelona, where she is convinced they'll be able to save him.

Neckan

Holy Goalie

A young priest coaches a team of uncoordinated monks in order to win a soccer tournament and save their monastery from being turned into a hotel.

¡Ay, mi madre!

When her estranged mother suddenly dies, a woman must follow the quirky instructions laid out in the will in order to collect an important inheritance.

The Exchange

They are on their way and Eva is still insecure. Her deep love and devotion for Jaime has led her to accept a special offer: swinging in order to arouse their marriage after fifteen years. Jaime seems doubly confident: a curvy 19-year-old Brazilian is waiting for him, while Eva has to resign herself to an uninspiring and unattractive partner. What looked like a night of playing, liberation and revitalization for this husband and wife becomes a mess inside four walls when Jaime discovers that their partners for the evening are not who they said they were.

Ana by Day

Ana, a young Spanish woman from a bourgeois family, is about to finish her studies and get married, but she is not happy. After a very unlikely event happens, her life turns around and everything changes.

Toc Toc

A group of patients meet at a prestigious psychologist's office. Apart from the day and time of the appointment, something else unites them all: all six suffer from OCD. But the plane bringing the doctor is unexpectedly delayed, which forces them to spend an endless wait until the doctor shows up. Will they be able to keep their manias, impulses, convulsions, obsessions and rituals at bay during the wait?

The Motive

Álvaro, a man obsessed with the idea of writing what he brands as “high literature,” manipulates the lives and feelings of the people around him to write about the consequences caused by his devious acts.

Hippocrates

Benjamin is meant to be a great doctor, he’s certain of it. But his first experience as a junior doctor in the hospital ward where his father works doesn’t turn out the way he hoped it would. Responsibility is overwhelming, his father is all but present, and his co-junior partner, a foreign doctor, is far more experimented than he is. This internship will force Benjamin to confront his limits… and start his way to adulthood.

The Torture Club

The "Torture Club" is an official after-school activity at the private school Saint Honesty Gakuen. Yuzuki has no idea about the club when she enrolls, and gets abducted by the club members and hauled off the club-room. There, she finds out that upper-class student Aoi, her secret idol, is in the club, and decides to join, but…

Maiden's Cheek

Young teacher Floras arrives to teach a class at a girls’ high school in Athens. His students, daughters of rich Athenian families, are very spoilt making his and the other teachers work difficult. When he starts implementing discipline in his class, the girls use every means to get rid of him. But the most undisciplined, Lisa Papastavrou, falls in love with him.

Na Quebrada

In the ghettos of the greatest metropolis in Brazil, a midst flying bullets, love and any number of hurdles, young people's stories mingle and collide in the search for dreams and choices. Inspired by true stories, the feature film 'Broken Town' reveals the struggle faced and the choices made by teenagers who have always been surrounded by weapons, crime, and hardship.

Princess Kaiulani

Ka'iulani, a 19th-century Hawaiian princess, is raised in England but determined to maintain her people's independence from aggressive American businessmen. After being sent to England as a child by her Scottish father, Ka'iulani returns to Hawaii and becomes a political activist who fights to retain her throne, even though she must leave her English paramour.

Six A.M.

After drinking all night, Monty and his friend try to get home, but it turns out to be not easy. The next day, Monty tries to win the heart of a theater actress.

Test

Entranced Earth

Eldorado, a fictitious country in America, is sparkling with the internal struggle for political power. In the eye of this social convulsion, the jaded journalist Paulo Martins opposes two equally corrupt political candidates: a pseudopopulist and a conservative. In this context, Paulo is torn between the madness of the elite and the blind submission of the masses. But, in this complex tropical reality, nothing really is what it seems to be.

Close Your Eyes

Years after his mysterious disappearance, Julio Arenas, a famous Spanish actor, is back in the news thanks to a television program.

Noblesse: The Beginning of Destruction

820 years ago, Mujaka, the lord of werewolves finally visits Raizel after a long journey. But the werewolf Maduk interferes in a war of human plotting some scheme. Raizel and Mujaka fall into a hand of tragic destiny, fighting with each other desperately leaving their friendship behind.

The Inner Scar

A composition of symbolic, surreal and almost mystic images.

The Princess and the Warrior

Young nurse Sissi lives a secluded life entirely devoted to her patients at Birkenhof asylum. Her first encounter with ex-soldier and drifter Bodo has a lasting impact. He causes an accident in which he provides first aid, Sissi wonders if he may be the man of her dreams. But when she finds him weeks later she is rejected, as Bodo is stuck somewhere between a traumatic past and a criminal future.

Liverleaf

The story follows Nozaki Haruka, a middle school student who transfers to a new school in a small town because of her father's work. Unfortunately, she becomes a victim of horrific bullying, but since the school will be closing in 2 months after graduation, no one is willing to help her.

'o Re

One of the key factors in Italian unification was the overthrow in 1860 of Francesco, the King of Naples and the two Sicilies, who went into elegant but impoverished exile in Rome with his Queen, Maria Sofia. This seriocomic drama follows the deposed royals as they adapt to their new lives. The former king has recognized the political finality of his deposition, but his queen has taken to traveling in men's clothing all over Italy trying to foment an uprising to restore them to the throne. She is also frantic to have a baby, an heir, but the king has become celibate as a kind of homage to his beloved mother; he spends all his time lobbying the Vatican to get her declared a saint.

1:11

Tomek is a young doctor specialised in obstetrics sonography. He lives lost among the women around him. One night he is abruptly woken up by a dead call from his father. This seemingly unimportant event gradually gains significance.

Our Hospitality

A young man falls for a young woman on his trip home; unbeknownst to him, her family has vowed to kill every member of his family.

L'Atalante

Capricious small-town girl Juliette and barge captain Jean marry after a whirlwind courtship, and she comes to live aboard his boat, L'Atalante. As they make their way down the Seine, Jean grows weary of Juliette's flirtations with his all-male crew, and Juliette longs to escape the monotony of the boat and experience the excitement of a big city. When she steals away to Paris by herself, her husband begins to think their marriage was a mistake.

Major Dundee

During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.

Rio Lobo

After the Civil War, a former Union colonel searches for the two traitors whose perfidy led to the loss of a close friend.

Gertrud

Hopeless romantic Gertrud inhabits a turn-of-the-century milieu of artists and musicians, where she pursues an idealized notion of love that will always elude her. She abandons her distinguished husband and embraces an affair with a young concert pianist, who falls short of her desire for lasting affection. When an old lover returns to her life, fresh disappointments follow, and Gertrud must try to come to terms with reality.

Mainline

The uneasy relationship between a mother and daughter is made all the more turbulent by drug abuse in this downbeat drama from Iranian filmmakers Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab

Life, and Nothing More…

After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.

Cine Gibi 8: ...Tá Brincando?

There are eight episodes in stories full of adventure and play in the neighborhood of Limoeiro, with a new car ride, lost treasure, art exhibition in the square, puppet theater, an unexpected escape from Cascão (again?), Characters Saltimbancos and a lot more.

Alexandria, Private

When a woman is accused of a high-profile murder, a young lawyer takes on her defense, only to uncover a web of secrets, deceit, and hidden motives. As he digs deeper, the case becomes more personal—and far more dangerous than he ever expected.