Virtual Films Showing Now

Martin Eden

Director: Pietro Marcello
(2019 – 129 minutes – Not rated)

Adapted from a 1909 novel by Jack London, yet set in a provocatively unspecified moment in Italy’s history, Martin Eden is a passionate and enthralling narrative fresco in the tradition of the great Italian classics. Martin (played by the marvelously committed Luca Marinelli) is a self-taught proletarian with artistic aspirations. He hopes that his dreams of becoming a writer will help him rise above his station and marry a wealthy young university student (Jessica Cressy). The dissatisfactions of working-class toil and bourgeois success lead to political awakening and destructive anxiety in this enveloping, superbly mounted bildungsroman. Winner of the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Heartworn Highways

Director: James Szalapski
(1972 – 97 minutes – R)

In the mid-‘70s, filmmaker James Szalapski documented the then-nascent country music movement that would become known as “outlaw country.” Inspired, in part, by newly-long-haired Willie Nelson’s embrace of hippie attitudes and audiences, a younger generation of artists including Townes Van Zandt, David Alan Coe, Steve Earle and Guy Clark popularized and developed the outlaw sound. It borrowed from rock, folk and bluegrass, with an edge that was missing from mainstream Nashville country. This newly-restored documentary includes rarely-captured performances of the aforementioned musicians as they perfected this then-new style and helped change the course of country music history.

My Little Sister

Director: Stéphanie Chuat
(2020 – 99 minutes – Not Rated)

In German and French with English subtitles

Lisa (Nina Hoss), once a brilliant playwright, no longer writes. She lives with her family in Switzerland, but her heart remains in Berlin, beating in time with that of her twin brother Sven (Lars Eidinger), the famous theatre actor. Since Sven has been suffering from an aggressive type of leukemia, the relationship between them has become even closer. Lisa does not want to accept this blow of fate, she does everything in her power to bring Sven back on stage. For her soulmate she neglects everything else and even risks losing her husband. Her marriage goes awry, but Lisa only has eyes for her brother, who reflects her deepest longings and awakens in her the desire to be creative, to feel alive again.

Acasa, My Home

Director: Radu Ciorniciuc
(2020 – 86 minutes – NR)

In Romanian with English subtitles

In the wilderness of the Bucharest Delta, an abandoned water reservoir just outside the bustling metropolis, the Enache family lived in perfect harmony with nature for two decades, sleeping in a hut on the lakeshore, catching fish barehanded, and following the rhythm of the seasons.When this area is transformed into a public national park, they are forced to leave behind their unconventional life and move to the city, where fishing rods are replaced by smartphones and idle afternoons are now spent in classrooms.

As the family struggles to conform to modern civilization and maintain their connection to each other and themselves, they each begin to question their place in the world and what their future might be. With their roots in the wilderness, the nine children and their parents struggle to find a way to keep their family united in the concrete jungle. With an empathetic and cinematic eye, filmmaker Radu Ciorniciuc offers viewers, in his feature debut, a compelling tale of an impoverished family living on the fringes of society in Romania, fighting for acceptance and their own version of freedom.

The Reason I Jump

Director: Jerry Rothwell
(2020 – 82 minutes – NR)

Based on the best-selling book by Naoki Higashida, later translated into English by author David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas), The Reason I Jump is an immersive cinematic exploration of neurodiversity through the experiences of nonspeaking autistic people from around the world. The film blends Higashida’s revelatory insights into autism, written when he was just 13, with intimate portraits of five remarkable young people. It opens a window for audiences into an intense and overwhelming, but often joyful, sensory universe.

There is also a livestream Q/A on Sunday, January 10th at 2 pm ET with filmmaker Jerry Rothwell and subjects from the film, moderated by Katelyn Flint, reporter/anchor from NBC 10 Boston and NECN. 

Beanpole

Director: Kantemir Balagov
(2019 – 137 minutes – NR)

In Russian with English subtitles

In post-WWII Leningrad, two women, Iya and Masha (astonishing newcomers Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina), intensely bonded after fighting side by side as anti-aircraft gunners, attempt to readjust to a haunted world. As the film begins, Iya, long and slender and towering over everyone — hence the film’s title — works as a nurse in a shell-shocked hospital, presiding over traumatized soldiers. A shocking accident brings them closer and also seals their fates. The 28-year-old Russian director, Kantemir Balagov, won the Un Certain Regard Best Director prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for this richly burnished, occasionally harrowing rendering of the persistent scars of war.

Coup 53

Director: Taghi Amirani
(2019 – 119 minutes – Not Rated)

In the summer of 1953, fellow WWII victors Prime Minister Winston Churchill and new U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower agreed to a secret plot to oust the recently elected president of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh ironically, had been named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” in 1951 for banishing the foreign oil companies and, as Britain feared, positioning Iran to become another India.