After recording an Italian-American religious festival in Boston’s North End with her video camera, filmmaker Beth Harrington’s neighbors tell her that they see a miracle on the videotape — a statue of the Virgin Mary blinking its eyes. To Harrington’s amazement, and in spite of her lapsed religious beliefs, she must admit that her life has been transformed by the event. And when the press gets a hold of the story what ensues is a funny and touching look at what it means to believe and to belong.
Set on May 18, 1993—the day on which Denmark voted to join the European Union, just a few months after they'd voted not to do so—the film follows eight or so disparate Danes (an escaped mental patient, a newly-famous singer, a business executive, and their assorted families and cohorts) as they unwittingly alter one another's lives, for better and for worse.
BEAUTIFUL FUNERALS is a hand-painted double-step-printed film composed of 1) dense blackness variously punctuated by brilliantly colored jewel/flower-like shapes AND 2) interruptive white sections which are fuzzily dotted with blurred whites and criss-crossed by black "brushstrokes" and hard-edge straight black and white lines.
Mari is a high school teacher who is earnest and somewhat cold. Tired of her monotonous days, she discovered a secret game: wandering around Roppongi at night and seducing men.
A family, trying to pull themselves together after losing their infant son, moves into a new home, where, almost immediately, the mother begins experiencing paranormal phenomena.
Teenager, Clare Steves, is kidnapped by an old boyfriend, Eddie Spencer, who demands $250,000. The ransom is paid and Clare is released, but when the kidnapers are caught, they claim that the whole scheme was Clare's idea as a way to punish her father.
