Set in the mountains for International Mountain Day

 

1943. With the family preparing for Christmas, old man Temnikar hears the sound of a trumpet. The patriarch sees it as his calling to follow – and kill – the White Guardists who visited his mountain farm looking for wounded Partisans.

“The mattress is soft and there're hangers in the closet and stationary with “Bates' Motel” printed on it in case you want to make your friends back home envious.”

– Norman Bates

Celebrating human rights on Human Rights Day: the right to work

“Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”

– Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations General Assembly

A Mauritanian immigrant (Robert Liensol) too starts anew in Paris. But first, he'll need a job.

On a cruise, from [OP] Cinn’s bucket list. Well, not in the context of today's film pick*

 

1960. On a luxury line, former prisoner Marta and her warden Liza meet again. Things had happened years before, in Auschwitz. This new confrontation reverses their roles.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for December has a few dateless themes. This is one of them.

Lights on water for the final day of Féte des Lumiéres, 2025

“In Sicily, Italian is not the language of the poor.”

– title card

A special soldier for National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (USA)

“They sent me out by plane to a boarding school. But I ran away. There's a war on. I can't cram some stupid stuff when it's a war.”

– Ivan

A twelve-year old boy works as a scout for the Soviet army. His age and size make him an inoffensive figure in the war-scarred landscape. But inside, he's brooding for revenge.

“If that's Americanism, it's very hyphenated.”

– narrator