Agnieszka Holland

A former athlete seek a second chance in life through the game he abandoned years ago in this drama from Poland. Jacek (Marcin Dorocinski) used to be a talented soccer player who had earned a position on the national team. But when a serious injury put Jacek's career on hold, his life fell apart; he developed a serious drinking problem, his wife left him, and he was beaten up by toughs. Now homeless, Jacek spends his days panhandling in a rail station in Warsaw, where he becomes friends with a handful of other down-and-outers. One of Jacek's new comrades tells him about the Homeless World Cup, an international football tournament designed to give marginalized citizens a chance to prove their talent through sport. When his friends learn that Jacek was once a rising star on the soccer field, they convince him to coach the local homeless soccer team, and as this handful of alcoholics and addicts begin to respond to Jacek's leadership, he regains the self-respect and sense of purpose he lost when he had to quit the game. Directed by Kasia Adamik, Boisko Bezdomnych (aka The Offsiders) also stars Rafal Fudalej, Marek Kalita and Piotra Jagielski. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Stringer's frustrations with construction hassles are assuaged by Sen. Davis (Isiah Whitlock Jr.); Avon turns his attention to Omar; Brianna meets with McNulty; Prez's sleuthing provides concrete evidence for the detail; Cutty imagines a different career path. ~ Joe Friedrich, All Movie Guide

This gripping drama is based on the real-life story of Mikal Gilmore, a respected journalist whose brother Gary Gilmore was a felon convicted of murder. In 1977, after he was sentenced to death, Gary Gilmore generated international controversy when he demanded that his lawyers call off all attempts to appeal his sentence and requested that his execution be carried out as quickly as possible. As activists for and against the issue of capital punishment debated Gilmore's demand, his brothers Frank and Mikal stepped forward to request a stay of execution, in hopes of forestalling their brother's death despite his public requests. Based on the book of the same name by Mikal Gilmore, Shot in the Heart examines the close, if uneasy, bond between the Gilmore brothers, and the family history of abuse and violence that Mikal believed helped shape his brother into a killer. Shot in the Heart stars Giovanni Ribisi, Eric Bogosian, Lee Tergesen, Amy Madigan, and Sam Shepard; produced for the premium-cable service HBO, Shot in the Heart first aired on October 13, 2001. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This historical drama, directed by Agnieszka Holland, focuses on the rocky relationship between the renowned 19th century French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a teenage wunderkind known for his rebelliousness against conventional society and his surrealistic writing. He disrupts the life of Verlaine (David Thewlis), a more conventional writer who is older and married to a dutiful young wife, Mathilde (Romane Bohringer). The drunken Verlaine is unkind to Mathilde, even though her father is providing him with a house and an income to live on while he pursues his writing. Rimbaud overwhelms Verlaine, mocking his conventionality, constantly disrupting his domestic life, and somehow attracting the maniacal love of the older man. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

The 1993 remake of The Secret Garden is a beautifully produced rendition of the classic Frances Hodgon Burnett novel about a young girl (Kate Maberly) who discovers an abandoned garden on her uncle's large Victorian country estate, as well as an invalid cousin she didn't realize she had. With the help of a local boy, the girl sets out to restore the garden and, once it is blooming again, she discovers it has magical powers. After it has flowered, she brings her cousin to the garden, and he is magically healed. Although this version of The Secret Garden isn't quite as strong as the original 1949 movie, the story is nevertheless moving in any format and the production is very beautiful to look at. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Olivier, the nine-year-old son of a country veterinarian, vanishes one afternoon on the way to his grandmother's house. The emotional aftermath of his disappearance sends his father packing from France to Africa and nearly destroys his mother, who clings to her remaining child, Nadine, and her devoted neighbor, Marcel. Several years later, having relocated to the city, the police investigator who handled the case meets a Paris rent boy whom he believes to be the missing Olivier. Once he returns to his rural home, the teenaged Olivier tries to assuage his mother's now-entrenched grief and heal the rift between his reunited parents. Meanwhile, he must overcome his brooding, adolescent sister's jealousy and doubts about his identity and reconcile his sleazy street life with his picturesque new surroundings. Questions about the tight-lipped Olivier's true motivations continue to crop up, however, threatening to send his mother over the edge for good. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

The life of Polish pediatrician Janusz Korczak (Wojtek Pszoniak) is the subject of Andrzej Wajda'a docudrama. Also known as an author who wrote primarily for young readers, Korczak's name became legend as a result of the Jewish orphanage he established in Warsaw. When the invasion of the Nazis in 1939 forced him to move his students to the ghetto, he struggled on without provisions or adequate space, refusing to give in to Nazi pressures. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

This political drama is taken from the classic story from Feodor Dostoyevsky, but liberties have been taken and many secondary characters eliminated. The author's condemnation of a godless society and his disdain of those who follow blindly to popular political causes remains intact. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Anna's early scenes concentrate upon Czech refugee Krystyna (Paulina Porizkova), who arrives in New York in search of her idol, famed actress Anna (Sally Kirkland), who was denied reentry to her native country after the 1968 communist invasion. Unable to recapture her celebrity in New York, Anna is forced to go through a series of humiliating auditions conducted by insensitive directors who have no inkling who she is. She must also endure marriage to a self-involved music video director (Robert Fields). When Krystyna and Anna finally meet, each draws strength from the other, enabling both women to survive whatever indignities life has to offer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a non-fiction bestseller of the same name by Rolf Hochhuth, Eine Liebe In Deutschland is about a tragic and forbidden love affair between Stanislaw, a Polish POW (Piotr Lysak) and Paulina (Hanna Schygulla) a fruit-and-vegetable vendor in a small town in Germany along the border with Switzerland. Their affair would have gone undetected except for the busybody women of the village, and when Stanislaw is picked up by a German stormtrooper (Armin Müller-Stahl) and brought in for a mock trial, he is given a chance to prove his racial purity and so perhaps escape execution. As for Paulina, she is ostracized by the villagers and imprisoned for consorting with someone who was not of the same high Aryan caste as herself. Depressing, yet politically relevant to Poland of the early 1980s, this film by acclaimed director Andrzej Wajda) is an effective and emotional statement on the nature of oppression. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In 1982, legendary Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda fled his homeland and relocated in France to direct this powerful story about the ethical boundaries of power and leadership, which had many parallels to Poland's volatile political situation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Danton (Gérard Depardieu) and Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak) were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies. Wajda remained in France until 1989, when the collapse of Communist rule made it possible for him to return to his homeland. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Irena (Maria Chwalibog) bears one burden each day as she delivers the mail and several others when she goes home to continuing penury after her divorce from an alcoholic husband. She also has the chore of caring for a dying relative, accomplished partly out of compassion and partly on the hope that she will inherit a little cash when the woman dies. Her son is the only bright spot in her existence, an existence they spend together in an unfurnished, rundown apartment with no running water and the noise of the trains traveling along the nearby track. Then one day she meets Jacek (Boguslaw Linda), an equally lonely bachelor, as she is delivering him his disability pension -- he is lame from a mining accident. It was hardly a planned occurrence. Irena faints as she hands the surprised Jacek his envelope, and the two kindred spirits have a shared understanding that grows when they continue to see each other. Irena becomes frustrated at times with her son, who has a tendency to get into trouble, and that situation gets worse instead of better. Then her boss tells her that her mail route may be taken away from her, and when her dying relative finally succumbs, Irena is not only left without an inheritance, but faced with a funeral bill. In desperation she steals the pensioners' money that she is supposed to deliver, puts her son in a boarding home, buys an old car to make a dash for West Berlin and gets ready to escape her home, her life, and her poverty. At this point, the story has shifted gears as it heads into a narrative warp that signals a surprise ending. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide