When Stuart Shorter - a homeless alcoholic with a violent past - meets writer and charity worker Alexander Masters, they strike up an unlikely friendship. As Alexander learns more about Stuart's complicated life and traumatic childhood, he asks if he can write his story and Stuart advises him to tell the story backwards, so that it's \More exciting - like a Tom Clancy murder mystery\. As their remarkable alliance develops, Stuart gradually recounts his life story in reverse, his resilient personality and dry sense of humour giving the story an almost tragi-comic edge. Through post office heists, attempts at suicide and spells inside numerous institutions, Alexander is given a glimpse into a totally alien world and begins to understand how Stuart's life spiralled so badly out of control.
An inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who becomes a fugitive in his home country in the late 1940s for joining the Communist Party.
In 1857, at the height of his fame and fortune, novelist and social critic Charles Dickens meets and falls in love with teenage stage actress Nelly Ternan. As she becomes the focus of his heart and mind, as well as his muse, painful secrecy is the price both must pay.
Capote is the biographical film about writer Truman Capote and his assignment for The New Yorker to write the non-fiction book In Cold Blood. Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Capote.
Born out of wedlock early in the last century, Violette Leduc meets Simone de Beauvoir in postwar Saint-Germain-des-Pres. An intense lifelong relationship develops between the two women authors, based on Violette's quest for freedom through writing and on Simone's conviction that she holds in her hands the destiny of an extraordinary writer.
True story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimers disease.
When bestselling celebrity biographer Lee Israel is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception, abetted by her loyal friend Jack.
Amélie, a young Belgian woman, having spent her childhood in Japan, decides to return to live there and tries to integrate in the Japanese society. She is determined to be a real Japanese before her year contract runs out, though it precisely this determination that is incompatable with Japanese humility. Though she is hired for a choice position as a translator at an import/export firm, her inability to understand Japanese cultural norms results in increasingly humiliating demotions. Though Amelie secretly adulates her, her immediate supervisor takes sadistic pleasure in belittling her all along. She finally manages to break Amelie's will by making her the bathroom attendant, and is delighted when Amelie tells her the she will not renew her contract. Amelie realizes that she is finally a real Japanese when she enters the company president's office with fear and trembling, which could only be possible because her determination was broken by Miss Fubuki's systematic torture.
The story of the last days of Oscar Wilde. This great man of letters, once one of the most famous authors in England, is now a superstar on the skids. As Oscar lies on his death bed, the past comes flooding back to him, transporting him to other times and places.
Explore the formative years of the orphaned author as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school. This takes him into the outbreak of World War I, which threatens to tear the “fellowship” apart. All of these experiences would inspire Tolkien to write his famous Middle-Earth novels.
When Astrid Lindgren was very young something happened that affected her profoundly, and this combination of both miracle and calamity came to shape her entire life. It was an event that transformed her into one of the most inspiring women of our age and the storyteller a whole world would come to love. This is the story of when a young Astrid, despite the expectations of her time and religious upbringing, decided to break free from society's norms and follow her heart.
The story takes us back to 1930 and centres around Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, an Airmail pilot in Argentina. When his best friend who happens to be Airmail’s best pilot Henri Guillaumet disappears in the Andes, Saint-Ex decides to set out in search of him, against all odds. This impossible quest forces him to push beyond his limits, turning his capacity to dream into his greatest strength...
Regarding Susan Sontag is an intimate study of one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the 20th century. Endlessly curious and gracefully outspoken throughout her career, Susan Sontag became one of the most important literary, political, and feminist icons of her generation. Nancy Kates’ in-depth documentary tracks Sontag’s seminal, life-changing moments through archival materials, accounts from friends, family, colleagues, and lovers, as well as her own words, as read by Patricia Clarkson.
A young man ushers an older woman into a dark exploration of her past - back to the time when, as a young girl, she met a stranger who affected her life forever.
Paulo Coelho is the world’s most translated living author, his books having sold over 165 million copies. But he was not always the inspirational global phenomenon he is today. Like the heroes in his spiritual classics THE ALCHEMIST and THE PILGRIMAGE, he long-searched for his calling, flirting with death, escaping madness, falling in love, and making rock ’n’ roll history in Brazil, all-the-while striving for success as a writer. A wild ride through a lifetime of stranger-than-fiction adventures, PAULO COELHO’S BEST STORY is a profoundly moving film that goes straight to the heart of the most beloved literary guru of our time, revealing the most incredible wonder of all: the man behind the masterpieces.
In a small Turkish town, two young tuberculous poets try to survive while publishing their poems. As they both fall in love, their life would never be the same.
Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19th century, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Minor.
The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'
Before Dawn charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the right attitude towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home.
Movie|United Kingdom|09/15/2006|Biography|Kings and Queens
The Queen is an intimate behind the scenes glimpse at the interaction between HM Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair during their struggle, following the death of Diana, to reach a compromise between what was a private tragedy for the Royal family and the publics demand for an overt display of mourning.
Control is the biography of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, taking his story from schoolboy days of 1973 to his suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980.
Biopic about 1970s British marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.
Movie|United Kingdom|09/09/2007|Biography|Kings and Queens
This movie is a Sequel to the First Elizabeth movie from 1998, and takes place in the 15th century, following the virgin queen of England, and her epic battle against the Spanish fleet
The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country into war.
