Kazuo Ishiguro

A rule bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude. (imdb)

It's 1933 in Winnipeg and the Great Depression is in full bloom. Beer Baroness Lady Port-Huntly (Rossellini) announces a global competition to determine the saddest music in the world, and musicians from across the globe pour into town to vie for the whopping $25,000 prize. Part musical melodrama, part tongue-in-cheek social satire, Guy Maddin's expressionistic film achieves a level of lunacy rarely seen since the Marx Brothers. (IFC Films)

Shanghai, 1936 was a crossroads for political intrigue, refugees escaping turmoil, gathering military forces, international business and underworld culture. Two people caught in this maelstrom forge a bond on the brink of the Japanese invasion: a beautiful Russian countess (Richardson), reduced by circumstances to supporting her family as a bar girl and taxi dancer, and a blind former diplomat (Fiennes)... (Sony Pictures Classics)

As children, Ruth, Kathy and Tommy, spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults, they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other, while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them.

An English-language adaptation of the script of "Ikiru" (1952), set in London in the 1950s.