Keyword Misery

Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1996.

The story of a donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.

In the late 19th century, a former high school teacher turned unionist tries to organize workers laboring with inhuman conditions at a textile factory.

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

Two women get on the highway heading to Santa Fe. Marilyn dreams of winning a contest held by a famous belly dancing company, while her friend, Mona, has a darker secret.

A boy, abducted and abused for eight years returns home to find that the experience remains an indelible part of him.

Do you have to be miserable to be funny? More than sixty comedians—including stand-ups, writers, actors, and directors from the US, Canada, and abroad—take on this question, sharing anecdotes and insights with lively enthusiasm.

A young journalist interviews an elderly woman about being forced into prostitution in Borneo at a brothel called Sandakan No. 8.

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.

In 1960, Martín and Marcos are forced by their difficult personal circumstances to travel to Switzerland in search of work, leaving their families in the Madrid of Franco's Spain. But they undertake more than a simple journey; they begin the road to a new life.

Portrayal of a family’s attempt to change the spending habit of the indulgent and hedonistic patriarch, Alfredo. The family decides to try to fool him into spending less by telling him that his large fortune is gone.

Hanna secretly joins a group called The Onania Club. Its members, strong independent L.A. women, get aroused by the misery of others. Hanna meets more misery than she could ever hope for and in the process loses everything she cares for.

Pedro Gonzalez first gets into trouble as part of a criminal gang and then works honourably to become rich. Money is his undoing allowing him to become a womanizer and drinker, almost losing his wife. Finally he rejoins her, they have a son and he pays for his mistakes.

Flower Buds tells the story of the gradual breakdown of a family living in a small town. Each character lives according to his or her own ideals. Agata wants a happy life far from home, fully aware that her only hope is to escape and therefore betray those close to her. Honza believes in the purity and power of love, regardless of the circumstances under which it is born. Kamila looks confidently to the future and does not intend to accept the misery of the present. The only Jarda knows that he will not change the world or himself. Aware of his weakness, he does not even try. In his mind, of course, his addiction to slot machines, which has led to a nearly impossible situation, is as certain as most gamblers' belief of an imminent win. The real and convincing attempt to rescue his family comes when it is too late. It is just a futile gesture, a desperate last ditch effort.

In another indictment of the flaws of our so-called civilization, this satire from the late director Marco Ferreri features Christopher Lambert as Michel, a miserable man who has failed at love and finds solace in a mechanical key holder.

The struggle to survive, for a generation, torn between wanting to leave its country, yet bound by blood to home.

Alone on the moon, a dying astronaut faces his past regrets and lost love as the earth sets over the horizon.

A snapshot of the state of the Danish nation: in one of the stories, a woman enters a pole-sitting contest in a desperate bid to reinvent herself. Another is about Erik, whose wife has been lobbying a Better Homes and Gardens type magazine to do a spread on their perfect home. When the editors finally relent, she makes Erik sip his red wine in the laundry room lest he stain their cream-colored couches. Svend, the last remaining Marxist in Copenhagen, is the impassioned organizer of a political mass meeting where no one shows up. Finally, Jens, a pizza and porno connoisseur, connives his way to some booty by convincing Gry the model that he lives with his mentally challenged brother. Over the course of a week, their paths cross and nothing, and nobody, is ever quite the same again.

A Swiss nun falls in love with a Japanese engineer.

The film is a controversy on democracy. Is our society really democratic? Can everyone be part of it? Or is the act of being part in democracy dependent to the access on technology, progression or any resources of information, as philosophers like Paul Virilio or Jean Baudrillard already claimed?

One Foot in the Grave is a BBC television sitcom series The series features the exploits of Victor Meldrew and his long-suffering wife, Margaret. The programmes invariably deal with Meldrew's battle against the problems he creates for himself. Living in a typical household in an unnamed English suburb, Victor takes involuntary early retirement. His various efforts to keep himself busy, while encountering various misfortunes and misunderstandings are the themes of the sitcom. The series was largely filmed on location in Walkford, near New Milton in Hampshire, although several clues show that the series may have been set in Hampshire – possibly Winchester. Despite its traditional production, the series supplants its domestic sitcom setting with elements of black humour and surrealism.