Student Seduction

The story of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the eyes of 8-year-old Anar Usubov, a boy from the town of Khojaly. The film opens during the collapse of the Soviet Union and chronicles the tragedies of the war and its aftermath. The film features moving interviews and straightforward historical facts to educate world audiences about the continuing conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Sallie is a beautiful Kentucky girl who belongs to a family of Union sympathizers. Her brother is a lieutenant in the Union army, and on a visit home brings Major Rushton, his superior officer, who falls in love with Sallie, "the little Yank." Lieutenant James Castleton encourages his sister to make hospital supplies for the wounded soldiers. While the two Union officers are at the Castleton home, the house is surrounded by Confederates, but Sallie utilizes a clover ruse in helping her brother and the Major to escape. She herself starts through the Confederate lines to carry her supplies to the wounded Unionists. She is assisted by Captain Johnny, a handsome young Confederate. Lieutenant Castleton is captured by the Confederates after a battle in which he has been injured, and Sallie goes to the enemy's camp to nurse him. While there she falls in love with Captain Johnny. Meanwhile Major Rushton has become a spy, following the Confederates as a sutler. He learns of the attraction between Sallie and Captain Johnny, and decides to break it up. He returns to the Union lines and sends Captain Johnny a note, presumably from Sallie, asking him to meet her at a trysting place. Johnny is captured, evidence is "planted" on him, and he is condemned to death. Sallie learns of the perilous situation, and. going to Rushton's headquarters, flirts with him, so that attention is diverted from her Confederate lover, and he is enabled to escape. Shortly after hostilities cease and a long lifetime of happiness dawns for Sallie and Captain Johnny.

Captivating images from pastoral northern Iran serve as a backdrop for Mohammad-Ali Talebi's enchanting tale of a boy rendered mute after losing his mother in the Iran-Iraq war. Ostracized by his classmates but doted over by his loving sister, eight-year-old Sahand--whose wan face and haunted eyes evince the unspeakable horrors he's witnessed--becomes obsessed with a wounded white goose. Making wondrous use of classic fantasy elements (the climax unfolds in a misty, magical forest), Wind and Fog is humanist film making at its most affecting.