Billie Holiday

For Billie and Nico, life with their father is a roller-coaster ride of playfulness and unease. When he is in the grip of alcohol, tears flow and their apparently idyllic family life collapses. Their mostly absent and irresponsible mother is not much help either. But their friendship with Malik, a boy of Billie’s age, frees them from their shackles. Together they embark on a journey full of intense moments of freedom. The colourful, emotional world of the three young people is depicted in kaleidoscopic black and white imagery, which opens space for their own notions of childhood. Alexandre Rockwell's tale portrays a profound sense of solidarity and deep love: for cinema and Billie Holiday, and also for risk and adventure.

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday, beginning with her traumatic youth. The story depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay, her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday's brightest moments is the vocalist's severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life.

Unscrupulously ambitious, Brutus Jones escapes from jail after killing a guard and, through bluff and bravado, finds himself the emperor of a Caribbean island.

Here's a perfect chance to compare and contrast a clutch of the greatest jazz divas in the history of the genre. "Sassy" Sarah Vaughan appears along with her fellow pop-jazz queens, sultry Lena Horne, Ella "The First Lady of Song" Fitzgerald, gorgeous Dorothy Dandridge and Billie "Lady Day" Holiday. Rarely has there been more outstanding vocal talent compiled on a single disc.

A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others.

Between porn theaters, soda fountains in downtown Santiago, romantic movies and an episode of "Caso Cerrado", María Isabel tells her granddaughter a story from her youth about an impossible love affair with a married man.

Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday integrates film and video performances, recordings, words from her controversial autobiography (read by actress Ruby Dee) and interviews with artists who played with her (pianist Mal Waldron, trumpeter Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison), Milt Gabler (owner of Commodore and a producer at Decca), author Albert Murray and vocalists Carmen McRae and Annie Ross.