Presented as the work of a French TV crew sent to cover the Bobby Sands 1981 hunger strike, '81 is, in fact, a fictional look at two Belfast families: one catholic and nationalist, one protestant and unionist.
The dynamic PR-agent Hannah is starting up her dream-job in the Hochstedt Company producing toys and soon falls in love with her firm's junior executive director, Wolfgang.
Director Mohsen Makhmalbaf claims to have never seen a movie before making his first film. Doubtful as it sounds, this boast matches perfectly with the controversial artist's personae.
When Ashtray moves to South Central L.A. to live with his father (who appears to be the same age he is) and grandmother (who likes to talk tough and smoke reefer), he falls in with his gang-banging cousin Loc Dog, who along with the requisite pistols and Uzi carries a thermo-nuclear warhead for self-defense.
Isolated in the bell tower of Notre Dame, Quasimodo longs to experience the world beyond the cathedral walls, despite the wishes of his stern guardian, the Judge of Paris Claude Frollo.