31st of March "the Dinner Game" (France,1998)

"Le Diner de Cons" or the dinner game is the story of Pierre Brochant, a Parisian publisher, attends a weekly "idiots' dinner", where guests, who are prominent Parisian businessmen, must bring along an "idiot" who the other guests can ridicule. At the end of the dinner, the evening's champion idiot is selected.
With the help of an "idiot scout", Brochant manages to find a "gem", François Pignon, a Finance Ministry employee whose passion is building replicas of landmarks with matchsticks. When Brochant starts to suffer from a bad back, his wife, Christine, leaves him shortly before Pignon arrives at his apartment. Brochant initially wants Pignon to leave, but instead becomes reliant on him, because of his back problem and his need to resolve his relationship problems.
He solicits Pignon's assistance in making a series of telephone calls to locate his wife, but Pignon gaffes each time, including revealing the existence of Brochant's mistress, Marlene Sasseur, to his wife Christine and inviting Lucien Cheval, a tax inspector, to Brochant's house where, in an attempt to disguise his tax evasion, Brochant is forced to quickly hide most of his valuables.
In the meantime, Brochant is able to make amends with an old friend, Just LeBlanc, from whom he stole Christine, and through the evening's events is forced to reassess his mistakes.

 Director: Francis Veber

Writer: Francis Veber

Stars:Thierry Lhermitte, Jacques Villeret and Francis Huster

24th of March "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966, USA)

"Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is about a bitter aging couple with the help of alcohol, use a young couple to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other.


This is the only film to be nominated in every eligible category at the Academy Awards. Each of the four actors was nominated for an Oscar but only Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis won, for Best Actress and Supporting Actress, respectively. The film also won the Black and White Cinematography award for Haskell Wexler's stark, black-and-white camera work (it was the last film to win before the category was eliminated) and for Best Art Direction (Richard Sylbert, George James Hopkins). It was the first film to have its entire credited cast be nominated for acting Oscars, a feat only accomplished twice more with Sleuth in 1972 and Give 'em Hell, Harry! in 1975.

The film received the BAFTA Award for Best Film from any Source.
In AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ranked #67.

Director: Mike Nichols
Writers: Edward Albee (play), Ernest Lehman (screenplay)
Stars:Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and George Segal
For more information click here.

17th of March "Ju Duo" (China, 1990)

Ju Dou takes place in the early 20th century in rural China. The story begins as Yang Tianqing (the regular Zhang collaborator Li Baotian) is returning from a trek to sell silk for his adoptive uncle, Yang Jinshan (Li Wei). Jinshan, whose trade is dyeing fabrics, is known for his cruelty and treats Tianqing with much scorn. Upon returning, Tianqing learns that Jinshan has just recently purchased a new wife, having beaten two previous wives to death after they failed to produce a son, the cruel irony being that Jinshan is in fact impotent.

Directors: Fengliang Yang, Yimou Zhang
Writer: Heng Liu
Stars:Li Gong, Wei Li and Baotian Li
For more information click here.

10th of March "Fire" (India, 1996)

Fire is the first in the thriology of  Fire (1996), Earth (1998), and Water (2005).
Plot: Ashok runs a family business that sells takeout food that also has a video rental store at the side. Ashok's extended family includes his wife Radha, his brother Jatin, their ailing mother Biji and their manservant Mundu, all living under the same roof. Jatin, at the insistence of Ashok and their mother, Biji, agrees to marry the beautiful Sita in an arranged marriage, although he is actually in love with Julie, a Chinese-Indian. At first glance, you see a happy middle-class family going through the normal paces of everyday life. However, as the layers are slowly peeled back, we find a simmering cauldron of discontent within the family, with almost every family member living a lie. Both marriages in the family turn out to be emotionally empty, without love or passion. While Ashok is an ascetic who has taken a vow of celibacy, Jatin is a handsome ladies' man who is still openly seeing Julie even after his marriage to Sita. Ashok has pledged his total devotion to a religious holy man, a swami, in order to purge his life of worldly desires and temptations. Radha, bound by her sense of duty to her husband, agrees to go along with his wishes. As you can imagine, with both husbands ignoring their spouses' emotional and sexual needs (albeit with reasons that are totally opposite from each other), it is only a matter of time before Radha and Sita look to one another for comfort and to satisfy their own passions. In this environment, it is only natural that Sita and Radha become fast friends, and, in time, much more than that. But their love is not without its share of painful obstacles.

Director: Deepa Mehta

Writer: Deepa Mehta
Stars:Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das and Karishma Jhalani

3rd of March "Red Sorghum" (China, 1988)

"Red Sorghum" marked the directorial debut of internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yimou, and the acting debut of film star Gong Li. With its lush and lusty portrayal of peasant life, it immediately vaulted Zhang to the forefront of the Fifth Generation directors.

In the 1930s China, an old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows a new.

For more about the plot click here.

Director: Yimou Zhang
Writers: Jianyu Chen, Yan Mo
Stars: Li Gong, Wen Jiang and Rujun Ten

Hosted by Zhuozhi.

24th of Fabruary "Lives of Others" (Germany, 2006)

The Lives of Others (German: Das Leben der Anderen) is a 2006 German drama film, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

The Lives of Others won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film had earlier won seven Deutscher Filmpreis awards – including best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best supporting actor – after having set a new record with 11 nominations. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards. The Lives of Others cost 2 million USD and grossed more than 77 million USD worldwide as of November 2007

.In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives. 

For more about the plot click here.

Director: 

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Writer: 

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Stars:

 Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck and Sebastian Koch