Elena Rainn

Kyrsten Iris

Fede Bonino

_ eshago@uw.edu

Watashi Wa Jigabudesu

Roman Bryzhatiy

Karl Halmos-Westram

Ljsly Bernard

Ruby Brown

Dimitri Nuri

Tim M

George Balaskas

Abducted on a rainy night in 1988, the obnoxious drunk, Oh Dae-Su, much to his surprise, wakes up locked in a windowless and dilapidated hotel room, for an unknown reason. There, his invisible and pitiless captors will feed him, clothe him, and sedate him to avert a desperate suicide--and as his only companion and a window to the world is the TV in his stark cell--the only thing that helps Oh Dae-Su keep going is his daily journal. Then, unexpectedly, after fifteen long years in captivity, the perplexed prisoner is deliberately released, encouraged to track down his tormentor to finally get his retribution. However, who would hate Oh Dae-Su so much he would deny him of a quick and clean death?

On the brink of the new Millennium in the bustling City of Mexico, one horrible car accident intertwines inextricably the lives of three perfect strangers. Octavio, a rebellious adolescent who is secretly in love with his sister-in-law, dreams of escaping his miserable life, and for this reason, he enters reluctantly the obscure world of dog fighting with his lethal dog Cofi. And then unexpectedly, Valeria, a stunning woman and famous supermodel, will cross paths with Octavio, while in the meantime, her pampered little dog Richie manages to vanish into thin air in the confined space of her apartment. Lastly, Chivo, an ex-guerrilla vagabond, after abandoning his little daughter, unable to make up for lost time, he channels his love to the city's strays and a mortally wounded Rottweiler. In the end, even though all the weary characters, men and beasts, wish for a bright future, in this life-changing journey in the pursuit of love, sometimes infidelity, sin and death can get in the way.

2000 film by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Condemned to a miserable life of prostitution, addiction, and abuse, the young streetwalker, Bunny, spends her days fishing for customers in exchange for drugs and alcohol. In desperate need of help, while stuck in a perpetual loop of dependency, the drug-addled woman finds herself hopelessly trapped in a bleak world of self-degradation, unable to feed her immeasurable addictions. As a result, this vicious cycle will eventually lead Bunny to the brutal semi-truck driver, Hog, who kidnaps her in broad daylight, and then, chains her up in the back of his dark trailer. Now, hell-bent on breaking Bunny's will, the pitiless tormentor has all the time in the world to submit his helpless prey to unfathomable physical and mental tortures which aim to dehumanize her, and, ultimately, destroy her. Then, when the grisly "Bunny Games" are over, the body will be stripped of the soul. Has anyone ever escaped from the clutches of Hog?

In New York City middle-aged Sophie, married to well-off businessman Andrew has been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant. Her husband's family, devout Korean Catholics, prays for the couple. His failure to have a child is deeply shameful to him, so when he attempts suicide, she tries something extreme: she follows Jihah - an undocumented Korean immigrant who resembles her husband - from a fertility clinic to his apartment where she proposes to hire him to sire her child. She offers $300 per session and $30,000 if she gets pregnant. After several sessions, neither is able to keep emotion out of the arrangement. Where can this relationship go, and what about her husband? Will her actions save him and their marriage?

Alice awakens from a terrible sleep to find her worst fears realized--the bloodthirsty Undead, which she and the now-annihilated squad of elite military fought to destroy, have been unleashed on the city that surrounds the secret facility of the Umbrella Corporation. Discovering she was an Umbrella experiment, Alice has been bio-genetically enhanced with new strengths, senses and dexterity--and she will need them. In the heart of the ravaged Raccoon City, a small group of uninfected people, including Jill Valentine, a recently demoted member of Raccoon City's elite Special Tactics and Rescue Services team, and Umbrella Corporation Security Officer Carlos Oliveira, fight for their lives against swarms of Undead and the deadlier and faster Lickers. Running out of luck and resources, the group is rescued by Alice, and they begin to wage an exhilarating battle to survive and escape before the Umbrella Corporation erases its experiment from the face of the earth. Their only hope lies somewhere within Raccoon City--Dr Charles Ashford, one of the leading scientists for the Umbrella Corporation, will help Alice and the others escape the city safely--if they find his daughter. Angie Ashford became separated from her father and now hides in fear. Alice, Jill and Carlos will have to fight their way through an army of Undead to save her. All the while, a secret weapon code-named Nemesis has been experimentally altered with greater modifications than Alice and has been programmed to track and destroy them. They will need all their strengths and skills to fight the battle of their lives against the mindless evil that has infected the city and the powerful forces that unleashed it on mankind.

A virus has escaped in a secret facility called "The Hive," turning the staff into hungry zombies and releasing the mutated Lab "Animals" that they were studying. The complex computer shuts down the base to prevent infection. The parent corporation sends in an elite military unit, where they meet Alice, who is suffering from amnesia due to exposure to nerve gas. The military team must shut down the computer and get out, fighting their way past zombies, mutants, and the computer itself, before the virus escapes and infects the rest of the world. Alice must also come to terms with her slowly-returning memories.

2002 film directed by Paul W. S. Anderson

Xander "XXX" Cage is a thrill seeker who until now has been deemed untouchable by the law. NSA Agent Gibbons forces XXX to cooperate with the government to infiltrate an underground Russian crime ring, and avoid going to prison. Gibbons sends XXX to enter this world of crime undetected where others have failed, using his natural athletic prowess and a whole lot of attitude. Xander must combat an organization led by a clever, ruthless and nihilistic Yorgi whose first target is the city of Prague.

In a future where Detroit's most dangerous criminals occupy the city's deserted brick mansions, an undercover cop joins forces with an ex-convict to defeat the notorious drug kingpin who has taken the mayor hostage. Detroit has fallen to crime, and in an effort to contain it, authorities have sealed up the inner city with a massive wall. Once you're inside, you never get out. Lino (David Belle) is an ex-con who's trying to make the best of life in this urban penitentiary when his girlfriend is abducted by ruthless drug lord Tremaine (RZA). Meanwhile, as undercover cop Damien Collier (Paul Walker) contends with deep-rooted corruption within the police department, Tremaine imprisons the mayor, and threatens to detonate a powerful weapon unless he's paid millions in ransom. Despite their differences, Lino and Collier are the only men capable of entering the city, and defeating Tremaine's gang. With the clock ticking, this mismatched duo must now prevent Detroit from being completely decimated by a maniac who holds the entire city in the palm of his hand..

A young Russian intelligence officer is assigned to seduce a first-tour CIA agent who handles the CIA's most sensitive penetration of Russian intelligence. The two young officers collide in a charged atmosphere of trade-craft, deception, and inevitably forbidden passion that threatens not just their lives but the lives of others as well.

In Tokyo, Shigeharu Aoyama is a widower that grieves the loss of his wife and raises his son Shigehiko Aoyama alone. Seven years later, the teenage Shigehiko asks why his middle-aged father does not remarry and Shigeharu meets his friend Yasuhisa Yoshikawa, who is a film producer, and tells his intention. However, Shigeharu has difficulties to approach to available women to date and Yasuhisa decide to organize a sham audition for casting the lead actress for the fake movie. They receive several portfolios of candidates and Shigeharu becomes obsessed by the gorgeous Asami Yamazaki. Despite the advice of the experienced Yasuhisa, Shigeharu calls Asami to date and he falls for her. But who is the mysterious Asami?

A royal prince and heir shows little interest in politics or marriage, so his royal parents stage a ball to find a (somewhat) suitable match. His (junior) Highness prefers prancing at the hunt in fields and woods with his courtier buddies. Hunting, he's fascinated by a mysterious cocky youth crossbow-sharpshooter who keeps outclassing them in tree-climbing--and keeps eluding his royal party. It turns out to be tomboy Popelka (Cinderella), whose stepmother shares nothing of the inheritance with her and has reduced her to being an unpaid servant at the lucrative estate manor. Cinderella's closest friend is her father's stallion, who helps her greatly, as do the wishes granted by three magical hazelnuts. When her stepmother and stepsisters cruelly crush her hopes to attend or at least watch the ball, she manages to intrude veiled and is followed how by the prince, who can't resist such an atypical hunt.

1973 Czechoslovak/East German fairy-tale film directed by Václav Vorlíček

Seven seemingly unconnected fairy tales - glued together only by folklore, mood, color and light - make up this Czech collection of visual poetry. The original piece of literature, written by Karel Jaromír Erben in 1853, contained twelve tales.

A more horrific and gloomy version of The Beauty and the Beast. Julie is a bankrupt merchant's daughter who as the only one of the three daughters chooses to save her father's life by going to the Haunted Wood's Castle where she meets Netvor. He wants to kill her, but her beauty prevents him from that. Although she is forbidden to see him she starts to love him and the love rescues him from his curse.

Krabat, a beggar boy, is lured to become an apprentice to an evil, one-eyed sorcerer. With a number of other boys, he works at the sorcerer's mill while learning black magic. Every Christmas one of the boys has to face the master in a magical duel, where the boy never stands a chance because the master is the only person who is allowed to use a secret spell: The Koraktor.

Czech Karel Kopfrkingl enjoys his job at a crematorium in the late 1930s. He likes reading the Tibetan book of the dead, and espouses the view that cremation relieves earthly suffering. At a reception, he meets Reineke, with whom he fought for Austria in the first World War. Reineke convinces Kopfrkingl to emphasize his supposedly German heritage, including sending his timid son to the German school. Reineke then suggests that Kopfrkingl's half-Jewish wife is holding back his advancement in his job.

Mikolás and his brother Adam rob travelers for their tyrannical father Kozlík. During one of their "jobs" they end up with a young German hostage whose father escapes to return news of the kidnapping and robbery to the King. Kozlik prepares for the wrath of the King, and sends Mikolás to pressure his neighbor Lazar to join him in war. Persuasion fails, and in vengeance Mikolás abducts Lazar's daughter Marketa, just as she was about to join a convent. The King, meantime, dispatches an army and the religious Lazar will be called upon to join hands against Kozlik. Stripped-down, surreal, and relentlessly grimy account of the shift from Paganism to Christianity.

Set in the Southern United States, 'Monster's Ball' is a tale of a racist white man, Hank, who falls in love with a black woman named Leticia. Ironically Hank is a prison guard working on Death Row who executed Leticia's husband. Hank and Leticia's interracial affair leads to confusion and new ideas for the two unlikely lovers.

Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry (and forcing her to say the same).

A contemporary, ensemble drama telling the complex tale of six high school students whose lives are interwoven with situations that so many of today's youth are faced with. The story takes place during a normal school day. At precisely 2:37 a tragedy will occur, affecting the lives of a group of students and their teachers. As the story unfolds, the individual stories of the six teenagers are revealed, each with its own explosive significance. An unwanted pregnancy unravels a terrible, dark secret; all is not as it appears for the seemingly confident school football hero; an outcast must deal with everyday taunts from his peers; a beautiful young girl battles an eating disorder; a stellar student constantly struggles to win his parents' approval; while another uses drugs to escape from his own demons.

As the wavering cry of the foghorn fills the air, the taciturn former lumberjack, Ephraim Winslow, and the grizzled lighthouse keeper, Thomas Wake, set foot in a secluded and perpetually grey islet off the coast of late-19th-century New England. For the following four weeks of back-breaking work and unfavourable conditions, the tight-lipped men will have no one else for company except for each other, forced to endure irritating idiosyncrasies, bottled-up resentment, and burgeoning hatred. Then, amid bad omens, a furious and unending squall maroons the pale beacon's keepers in the already inhospitable volcanic rock, paving the way for a prolonged period of feral hunger; excruciating agony; manic isolation, and horrible booze-addled visions. Now, the eerie stranglehold of insanity tightens. Is there an escape from the wall-less prison of the mind?

The life of the Russian Empress Ekaterina II (Catherine the Great), a German born princess who came to Russia as bride for the young Peter III, chosen by his aunt Elisabeth, and who, once she came into power, transformed the Russian empire.

TV series about Catherine the Great, a Russian ruler in the 18th century

The rise to power, and start of a dynasty, of the Borgia family. Rodrigo Borgia ascends within the Catholic Church, becoming Pope Alexander VI. The position brings with it many enemies, internal and state-based, and he has to use all of his abilities of diplomacy, ruthlessness, charm, and the power of the church to stay in power, and alive. Luckily, his children are equally ambitious.

Fast-talking New Yorker and brand-new doctor Zoe Hart has it all figured out: after graduating top of her class from medical school, she'll follow in her father's footsteps and become a cardio-thoracic surgeon. But when her dream falls apart, Zoe decides to accept an offer from a stranger, Dr. Harley Wilkes, to work with him at his small practice in Bluebell, Alabama. Zoe arrives in this small Gulf Coast town only to find that Harley has passed away and left his half of the medical practice to her in his will.

At once deeply observed and intriguingly elusive, The Affair explores the emotional effects of an extramarital relationship. Noah is a New York City schoolteacher and budding novelist with a wife of twenty years and four children. Alison is a young waitress and wife from Montauk at the end of Long Island, trying to piece her life back together in the wake of a tragedy. The provocative drama unfolds separately from multiple perspectives, using the distinct memory biases of each character to tell the story. Created by Sarah Treem.

Based in 1970s New York, this show gives a raw and gritty portayal of the prostitution business that was so publicly executed at that time. As a result of police crack-down, the characters are forced to venture towards relatively safer and more discrete forms of the same work.

A psychotherapist questions his abilities and gets help by reuniting with his old therapist, whom he has not seen for ten years.

Narcos tells the true-life story of the growth and spread of cocaine drug cartels across the globe and attendant efforts of law enforcement to meet them head on in brutal, bloody conflict. It centers around the notorious Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura) and Steve Murphy (Holbrook), a DEA agent sent to Colombia on a U.S. mission to capture him and ultimately kill him.

American-Colombian-Mexican crime drama television series

An innovative look at the life of fictional Mafia Capo Tony Soprano, this serial is presented largely first person, but additional perspective is conveyed by the intimate conversations Tony has with his psychotherapist. We see Tony at work, at home, and in therapy. Moments of black comedy intersperse this aggressive, adult drama, with adult language, and extreme violence.

When chemistry teacher Walter White is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given only two years to live, he decides he has nothing to lose. He lives with his teenage son, who has cerebral palsy, and his wife, in New Mexico. Determined to ensure that his family will have a secure future, Walt embarks on a career of drugs and crime. He proves to be remarkably proficient in this new world as he begins manufacturing and selling methamphetamine with one of his former students. The series tracks the impacts of a fatal diagnosis on a regular, hard working man, and explores how a fatal diagnosis affects his morality and transforms him into a major player of the drug trade.

Twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed, Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

American TV series based on the video game The Last of Us

Executive Producer and Writer Gwyneth Hughes' adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's literary classic is set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, and follows Becky Sharp (Olivia Cooke) as she attempts to claw her way out of poverty and scale the heights of English Society. Her story of "villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting, and dancing", takes her all the way to the court of King George IV, via the Battle of Waterloo, breaking hearts and losing fortunes as she goes.

Narcos: Mexico exploring the origins of the modern drug war by going back to its roots, beginning at a time when the Mexican trafficking world was a loose and disorganized confederation of independent growers and dealers. Witness the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s as Félix Gallardo takes the helm, unifying traffickers in order to build an empire. When DEA agent Kiki Camarena moves his wife and young son from California to Guadalajara to take on a new post, he quickly learns that his assignment will be more challenging than he ever could have imagined. As Kiki garners intelligence on Félix and becomes more entangled in his mission, a tragic chain of events unfold, affecting the drug trade and the war against it for years to come.

A cocaine shipment makes its way to Europe, starting from the moment a powerful cartel of Italian criminals decides to buy it, to its journeys through Mexico, to its shipment across the Atlantic Ocean.

crime drama television series created by Stefano Sollima, Leonardo Fasoli and Mauricio Katz

Based on the popular diary of the anonymous sex worker known only as Belle de Jour.

Nathan, Kelly, Simon, Alisha and Curtis were expecting their community service to be boring. However after a freak thunderstorm they discover that it is anything but dull. Bestowed with strange powers, the five very different teens realize they have a lot more to worry about than just picking up litter, especially as they discover that they are not the only ones who have been given strange powers. Secrets will be revealed, feelings brought to the surface and relationships formed and broken. But hey, its only 12 weeks of community service; what's the worst that could happen?

Set in the Prohibition era of the 1920s Boardwalk Empire is the story of Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, the treasurer of Atlantic County, Atlantic City, New Jersey. Due to his relationships with mobsters as well as political contacts, the Federal Government start to take an interest in him. His lavish lifestyle seems at odds with his position, and as well as his connections, there is prolific bootlegging in the area.

American TV series set in Atlantic City during the Prohibition era

Explores a group of siblings who, as children, grew up in what would go on to become the most famous haunted house in the country. Now adults, and forced back together in the face of tragedy, the family must finally confront the ghosts of their past, some of which still lurk in their minds while others may actually be stalking the shadows of Hill House.

Each year hundreds of women are taken from their homes and forced into a life of prostitution and sexual slavery. This is the story of ten of them. A Belgian criminal gang head east to Lithuania to recruit young women desperate to leave their impoverished lives. Promising a glamorous life as members of a stage dance troupe, the girls are eager to sign up. From the training in Cyprus, to the strip clubs and illegal brothers in Belgium, the girls from the start are forced into a life of rape, abuse, murder and misery. The police are slow and corrupt, and the gangsters are always one step ahead of the law.

During the First World War, Kitty Trevelyan tries to put the past troubles behind her as she joins two other girls to volunteer at one of the busy war hospitals in northern France.

Young and beautiful Lara is loved by three men: a revolutionary, a mogul, and a doctor. Their lives become intertwined with the drama of Russian revolution. Doctor Zhivago is about to get married to another when he first lays eyes on Lara. Their love story is unfolding against the backdrop of revolution which affects the doctor's career, his family, and his love to Lara.

2002 miniseries directed by Giacomo Campiotti

music

movies

shows

Active tastebuds