Vernon Dobtcheff Filmography

An American Haunting

Actors: Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, James D'Arcy, Matthew Marsh

Synopsis: The wind whispers ominous warnings of death before a malevolent entity arrives to claim the life of a young girl as director Courtney Solomon brings author Brent Monahan's chilling, fact-based tale of supernatural murder to the screen in this tale of terror starring Donald Sutherland and Sissy Read More

Infinite Justice

Actors: Kevin Collins, Raza Jaffrey, Jennifer Calvert, Constantine Gregory, Renu Setna

Merci Docteur Rey!

Actors: Dianne Wiest, Jane Birkin, Stanislas Merhar, Bulle Ogier, Karim Saleh

Synopsis: After making a living by providing English subtitle translation to numerous French films, American filmmaker Andrew Litvack makes his debut as a writer/director with the Merchant Ivory production Merci Docteur Rey. Set in Paris, this farcical comedy involves the troubles of young gay man Thomas (Stanislas Merhar Read More

Before Sunset

Actors: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy

Synopsis: Richard Linklater directs the romantic drama Before Sunset, a sequel to Before Sunrise (1995). Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) were strangers who spent a loquacious night together in Vienna. Nine years later, Jesse has written a book about the encounter. During his accelerated Read More

Pontormo- un Amore Eretico

Actors: Joe Mantegna, Galatea Ranzi, Toni Bertorelli, Laurent Terzieff, Sandro Lombardi

Evilenko

Actors: Malcolm McDowell, Marton Csokas, Ronald Pickup, Frances Barber, John Benfield

Synopsis: The psychological thriller Evilenko tells the story of arguably the most infamous serial killer in the history of the Soviet Union. Malcolm McDowell portrays Andrei Evilenko, a man responsibly for the deaths of about 50 kids. An intrepid cop and a gifted psychological profiler team up to try and Read More

Festival In Cannes

Actors: Jenny Gabrielle, Greta Scacchi, Kim Kolarich, Rachel Bailit, Zack Norman

Synopsis: The romance, intrigue, and industry politics of the world's biggest film festival -- which is also the world's biggest film marketplace -- provides the backdrop for this typically understated comedy-drama from director Henry Jaglom. Alice Palmer (Greta Scacchi) is a well-known American actress who Read More

Red Siren

Actors: Jean-Marc Barr, Alexandra Negrao, Asia Argento

Synopsis: Oliver Megaton's action thriller Red Siren, an adaptation of Maurice G. Dantec's La Sirene Rouge, concerns the unusual friendship that develops between a 12-year-old girl, Alice (Alexandra Negrao) and a jaded, 40-year-old hired killer, Hugo (Jean-Marc Barr), who finds, in her, a new lease on life. Read More

White Teeth

Actors: Om Puri, Philip Davis, Naomie Harris

Synopsis: Originally telecast in the United Kingdom, the two-part miniseries White Teeth was based on Zadie Smith's 2000 bestseller about the perils of cultural assimilation in modern day North London. Taking place in the years 1974 to 1992 and set in the melting-pot community of Willesden Green, the story Read More

Broceliande

Actors: Elsa Kikoine, Cylia Malki, Alice Taglioni

Synopsis: When an archeology student unearths some ancient Celtic stones in a mysterious forest, she comes face to face with the malevolent supernatural presence behind a spate of recent deaths at her nearby university. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Body

Actors: Antonio Banderas, Olivia Williams, John Shrapnel, Derek Jacobi, Jason Flemyng

Synopsis: In this religious drama concerning the struggle between science and faith, Olivia Williams plays Sharon Golban, an Israeli archeologist who discovers a skeleton within a tomb in Jerusalem. After an intensive study and the accumulation of more information, the bones begin to resemble the remains of Read More

David Copperfield

Synopsis: Hot on the heels of the BBC's multipart 1999 adaptation of Charles Dickens' semiautobiographical novel David Copperfield came this American-financed version, prepared for the TNT cable network as part of the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Child actor Max Dolbey and adult performer Hugh Dancy share the Read More

Spanish Fly

Actors: Daphna Kastner, Toni Canto, Martin Donovan, Danny Huston, Marianne Sägebrecht

Synopsis: Daphna Kastner directed this romantic comedy-drama, set in Spain. Interviewing Madrid men, journalist Zoe (Kastner) intends to expand her magazine article into a book. Her own experiences with men, however, haven't exactly made her an expert, but possibilities arise when she meets straight-talking Read More

Hilary and Jackie

Actors: Emily Watson, Rachel Griffiths, James Frain, David Morrissey, Charles Dance

Synopsis: Perhaps inspired by the success of biopics like Shine and Amadeus, this film based on a true story -- and a book (entitled A Genius in the Family) -- also focuses on the destructive forces of being a musical genius. Hilary and Jacqueline du Pré are gifted sisters who grow up in England in the Read More

Merlin

Actors: Sam Neill, Isabella Rossellini, Miranda Richardson, Martin Short, Rutger Hauer

Synopsis: This four-hour fantasy miniseries, elaborating on the Arthurian legend and filmed in England and Wales, offers a portrait of the wizard Merlin (Sam Neill), following his life as a youth (Daniel Brocklebank) to his later conflicts with the evil Queen Mab (Miranda Richardson) and his love for Nimue (Isabella Rossellini Read More

Anna Karenina

Actors: Sophie Marceau, Sean Bean, Alfred Molina, Mia Kirshner, James Fox

Synopsis: Leo Tolstoy's classic novel is brought to the screen once again in what was the first American-based production of this story to be filmed on location in Russia. Anna (Sophie Marceau) is married to Alexei (James Fox), but while their relationship is not outwardly unhappy, it's clear that neither Read More

Deja Vu

Actors: Stephen Dillane, Victoria Foyt, Vanessa Redgrave, Glynis Barber, Michael Brandon

Synopsis: Los Angeles store owner Dana (Victoria Foyt) is shopping in Israel where a meeting with a mysterious woman leads her to Paris and the White Cliffs of Dover, an appropriate spot to fall in love with English painter Sean (Stephen Dillane) who is married. Soon, however, Dana is off to London to Read More

England, My England

Synopsis: This British biopic attempts to chronicle the life of 17th-century tunesmith Henry Purcell. The filmmakers have had to do much speculating about Britain's first great composer, as little is known about his life back then. It is known that Purcell had been a chorister as a child and then became the Read More

Before Sunrise

Actors: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy

Synopsis: Richard Linklater's third feature -- set, like his other works, over the course of one 24-hour period -- Before Sunrise is a sweet, intelligent romantic comedy filmed primarily in Austria. It stars Ethan Hawke as Jesse, a young American travelling through Europe. On a train he meets Celine, a Read More

Jefferson in Paris

Actors: Nick Nolte, Greta Scacchi, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Simon Callow, Seth Gilliam

Synopsis: Best known for their historical epics that examine class and social issues in British life through a thick lens of tasteful production design and good manners, director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant set their sights on an American protagonist for a change with Jefferson in Paris. As the Read More

Mademoiselle O.

Actors: Maite Nair, Yelena Safonova, Alexandre Arbatt, Vernon Dobtcheff, Anton Mineshkin

Frankenstein

Actors: Patrick Bergin, Randy Quaid, John Mills

Synopsis: Filmed in Eastern Europe, this direct-to-cable adaptation of Mary Shelley's iconographic monster tale features Patrick Bergin as Victor Frankenstein, a medical genius obsessed with the secret of creating life, who uses a bizarre cloning apparatus to grow a complete human being (Randy Quaid) from Read More

The Advocate

Actors: Colin Firth, Ian Holm, Donald Pleasence, Nicol Williamson, Lysette Anthony

Synopsis: In France in 1452, the dark superstition of the Medieval era was beginning to give way to the more enlightened attitudes of the Renaissance. But the changes were slow in coming, as Richard Courtois (Colin Firth) learns when he moves to the country village of Abbeville, owned and ruled by the Read More

M. Butterfly

Actors: Jeremy Irons, John Lone, Ian Richardson, Annabel Leventon, Shizuko Hoshi

Synopsis: David Cronenberg's cinematic intensity eviscerates this adaptation of David Henry Hwang's passionate stage production. Based on a true incident involving a French diplomat who carried on an affair for 18 years with a man the diplomat thought was a woman, M. Butterfly begins in 1964 Beijing when Read More

Venice / Venice

Actors: Nelly Alard, Henry Jaglom, Suzanne Bertish, Daphna Kastner, David Duchovny, Melissa Leo

Synopsis: For sheer abject self-indulgence this side of an Eric Schaeffer movie, one need look no further than the films of Henry Jaglom. Jaglom's vanity productions require an intense Stalin-like loyalty to the filmmaker and his films going in, otherwise a viewer is lost. So when, in Venice/Venice, Henry Jaglom Read More

Toutes Peines Confondues

Actors: Jacques Dutronc, Patrick Bruel, Mathilda May, Bruce Myers, Vernon Dobtcheff

Synopsis: In this tedious and excessively complicated thriller, a cop (Patrick Bruel) who has been sent to investigate the corruption in a small French town, encounters a mysterious rival (Jacques Dutronc), who is trying on his own to investigate the murder of his father. Michel Deville demonstrates a whole Read More

A Season of Giants

Actors: Mark Frankel, John Glover

Synopsis: Season of Giants succeeds more in ambition than in execution. This 195-minute TV movie proposes that a great professional rivalry existed between Renaissance geniuses Michelangelo (Mark Frankel) and Leonardo da Vinci (John Glover). While the Florentine and Roman scenery is authentic, certain Read More

Prisoner of Honor

Actors: Richard Dreyfuss, Oliver Reed, Peter Firth, Jeremy Kemp, Brian Blessed

Synopsis: Directed by Ken Russell, Prisoner of Honor is a made-for-cable retelling of the 1894 court-martial of French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus. The historical drama stars Richard Dreyfuss (no relation) as the head of counter-intelligence who uncovers several damning pieces of evidence. It turns out that Read More

Near Misses

Actors: Judge Reinhold, Casey Siemaszko, Cecile Paoli, Rebecca Pauly, Muriel Combeau

Synopsis: A lusty executive for a high-tech company tries to juggle his life between two disparate wives and his mistress. He is also in the Army Reserves and it is while serving his annual two weeks that he gets into big trouble. Actually, he is not actually serving; instead, he convinced his buddy to Read More

The Krays

Actors: Billie Whitelaw, Tom Bell, Gary Kemp, Martin Kemp, Charlotte Cornwell, Susan Fleetwood

Synopsis: Peter Medak directed this fact-based drama, chronicling the lives of the infamous Kray Brothers, notorious celebrities in 60s London. The Krays were twin gangsters who ruled London's stylish East End club scene, staking out their territory by committing the most violent crimes imaginable Read More

Meridian

Actors: Sherilyn Fenn

Synopsis: Sherilynn Fenn heads the cast of Full Moon Productions' Kiss of the Beast. Fenn plays an art student who inherits a mysterious, accursed Italian castle. Before long, a troupe of Felliniesque circus performers take shelter in the drafty old manse. Assuming that Fenn is there against her will, a few Read More

Hamlet

Actors: Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, Alan Bates, Paul Scofield, Ian Holm

Synopsis: Franco Zeffirelli directs his third Shakespeare adaptation (after Romeo and Juliet and Otello) with this film version of the tragedy Hamlet. The titular prince of Denmark (Mel Gibson), returns home to his family's castle of Elsinore after years of attending school in Germany to find out his father Read More

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Actors: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies, River Phoenix

Synopsis: The third installment in the widely beloved Spielberg/Lucas Indiana Jones saga begins with an introduction to a younger Indy (played by the late River Phoenix), who, through a fast-paced prologue, gives the audience insight into the roots of his taste for adventure, fear of snakes, and dogged Read More

Till We Meet Again

Actors: Barry Bostwick, Lucy Gutteridge, Mia Sara

Synopsis: Originally titled Judith Krantz' Till We Meet Again, this two-part soaper covers forty-three years in the lives of three women. In 1913, French chanteuse Lucy Gutteridge embarks upon a successful showbiz career. She marries a champaigne heir and bears two daughters, played by Courtney Cox and Mia Read More

Berlin Jerusalem

Actors: Lisa Kreuzer, Markus Stockhausen, Benjamin Levy, Vernon Dobtcheff

Synopsis: This difficult-to-follow arthouse film explores the parallel stories of two very idealistic Zionist women who never met in real life. The story concerns the German poet Elsa Lasker-Schuller and the Russian Mania Schochat. Elsa (Lisa Krezer) lives in 1920's Berlin as Germany is degenerating into Read More

The Sweet House of Horrors

Synopsis: Italian schlock-horror director Lucio Fulci helmed this 1989 made-for-television ghost story, featuring his trademark gore mixed with a fairy-tale plot. The film tells the story of a couple who are brutally murdered in a stomach-turning scene. Afterwards, the man and woman return as spirits to Read More

Madame Sousatzka

Actors: Shirley MacLaine, Navin Chowdhry, Peggy Ashcroft, Twiggy, Shabana Azmi

Synopsis: Shirley MacLaine is Madame Sousatzka, an aging piano instructor of Russian extraction. Entrenched in a dilapidated London rooming house, the Madame gives lessons only to the most gifted. She does not stop at mere instruction; Sousatzka insists that her pupils conduct their lives in the same Read More

Pascali's Island

Actors: Ben Kingsley, Charles Dance, Helen Mirren, George Murcell, Sheila Allen

Synopsis: The year is 1908; after centuries of unchecked power, the Ottoman empire is rapidly crumbling. As a result, Turkey's secret agents--those that haven't already been eliminated by downsizing or death--operate in a vacuum, their superiors knowing little and caring less about their activities. One Read More

Catacombs

Actors: Timothy Van Patten, Laura Schaefer, Jeremy West, Ian Abercrombie

Synopsis: Despite the tendency of the Curse films to bear absolutely no relation to each other, this is perhaps the only film in that series to involve an actual curse. It's also one of the better installments. The curse in question is leveled upon the 16th-century monks of San Pietro by a Read More

L'Otage De L'Europe

Actors: Roland Blanche, Vernon Dobtcheff, Jean Barney, Jay Benedict

Testimony

Actors: Ben Kingsley, Sherry Baines, Magdalen Asquith, Mark Asquith, Terence Rigby

Synopsis: Ben Kingsley stars as celebrated Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich in this lengthy historical biography. Along with Prokofiev, Shostakovich is considered among the elite of the 20th-century composers to emerge from his country. Striving to be true to his art form, the composer was caught in the Read More

The Name of the Rose

Actors: Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, Christian Slater, Michel Lonsdale, Elya Baskin, Ron Perlman, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr., William Hickey

Synopsis: Adapted from Umberto Eco's best-selling novel, director Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose is a 14th century murder-mystery thriller starring Sean Connery as a Sherlock Holmes-esque Franciscan monk called William of Baskerville. When a murder occurs at a secluded Benedictine Abbey, William Read More

Caravaggio

Actors: Nigel Terry, Sean Bean, Garry Cooper, Spencer Leigh, Tilda Swinton

Synopsis: Writer/director Derek Jarman injects his patented iconoclasm in this biography of Renaissance artist Michelangelo Merisa da Caravaggio. Nigel Terry plays the title role, whom (according to Jarman) essentially told his own life story in his paintings. Caravaggio travelled among thieves and Read More

Morenga

Actors: Jacques Breuer, Jurgen Holtz

Synopsis: Based on a novel of the same title by Uwe Timm and set in 1904 in South Africa, this is an uneven tale of war and intrigue between native South Africans, German colonialists, and British colonialists, a war no one really wins. Gottschalk (Jacques Breuer) and Wenstrup (Edwin Noel) are two German Read More

A.D.

Actors: Anthony Andrews, Colleen Dewhurst, Ava Gardner, David Hedison, John Houseman

Synopsis: Filmed in Tunisia on a budget of 30 million dollars, the five-part, 12-hour miniseries A.D. was the final installment in a historical trilogy which included Moses the Lawgiver and Jesus of Nazareth. Covering the years 30 to 69 A.D., the teleplay, co-written by Anthony Burgess, chronicled the Read More

Mussolini: The Untold Story

Actors: George C. Scott, Lee Grant, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Virginia Madsen, Raul Julia

Synopsis: The story in this two-part TV biopic was probably "untold" mainly because it was untrue. According to the revisionist script by Stirling Silliphant, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (overplayed by George C. Scott) may have been a fascist, a tyrant, a mass murderer and an intimate of Adolf Hitler Read More

Mata Hari

Actors: Sylvia Kristel, Christopher Cazenove, Oliver Tobias, Gaye Brown, Gottfried John

Synopsis: Sylvia Kristel adds her sexual allure to the story of Mata Hari (Margaretha Geertruida Zelle), executed by the French in 1917 at the age of 41 for being a double agent. In reality, "Mata Hari" had been married, had children, and performed as a dancer around Europe -- not the normal background for Read More

Much Ado About Nothing

Actors: Robert Lindsay, Cherie Lunghi

An Englishman Abroad

Actors: Alan Bates, Coral Browne, Charles Gray, Harold Innocent, Vernon Dobtcheff

Synopsis: The BBC-produced An Englishman Abroad was first offered to American viewers October 27, 1984, as part of PBS' Great Performances series. Alan Bates stars as Guy Burgess, the infamous British diplomat who spied for the Russians in the 1950s. Alan Bennett's teleplay re-creates the 1958 chance Read More

Ellis Island

Synopsis: The seven-hour TV miniseries Ellis Island was adapted from a novel by Fred Mustard Stewart. Per its title, the film is a mosaic of subplots involving several European immigrants who passed through New York's Ellis Island before taking up residence in the Big Apple. Most of the characters are based Read More

Wagner

Actors: Richard Burton, Vanessa Redgrave, Laszlo Galffi, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson

Synopsis: Originally a nine-hour British miniseries, this film on the last four decades in the life of Richard Wagner may have taken its long-winded cue from the lengthy operas of the famous 19th-century German composer and musical theorist -- the Ring des Nibelungen is 14-15 hours in itself, divided into Read More

La Nuit De Varennes

Actors: Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcello Mastroianni, Hanna Schygulla, Harvey Keitel, Jean-Claude Brialy

Synopsis: This talky French costume drama chronicles the adventures of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as they attempt to flee Paris during the 1791 revolution. While en route to Varennes, the couple encounter and have philosophical debates with a number of fascinating historical figures including Read More

Enigma

Actors: Martin Sheen, Brigitte Fossey, Sam Neill, Derek Jacobi, Michel Lonsdale

Synopsis: Directed by TV-anthology veteran Jeannot Szwarc, Enigma has a certain small-screen "feel" to it. Adopting a musical-comedy foreign accent, Martin Sheen plays Alex Holbeck, an Iron Curtain defector who returns to East Germany at the behest of the CIA. His mission is to save five political Read More

Troilus & Cressida

Actors: Anton Lesser, Suzanne Burden

Synopsis: The Greeks laid siege to the city of Troy after Paris (David Firth) of Troy abducted the beautiful Helen (Ann Pennington) from Sparta. In the city, Troilus (Anton Lesser), brother of Paris, is courting the lovely Cressida (Suzanne Burden), who is playing hard to get so that his interest will be Read More

Nutcracker

Actors: Joan Collins, Carol White, Paul Nicholas, Finola Hughes, William Franklyn

Synopsis: In this sudsy drama, a Russian dancer defects and joins a London ballet school headed by a manipulative madam who uses the school as a front for her call-girl business. All of her employees are students whom she has forced to become prostitutes for prominent politicians. Meanwhile the Read More

Condorman

Actors: Michael Crawford, Oliver Reed, Barbara Carrera, James Hampton, Jean-Pierre Kalfon

Synopsis: The creator of a comic-book series (Michael Crawford) is recruited by a friend in the CIA (James Hampton) to rescue a beautiful Soviet defector (Barbara Carrera). He agrees, as long as he is permitted to don the persona of his most famous character, Condorman. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Nijinsky

Actors: Alan Bates, George de la Pena, Leslie Browne, Alan Badel, Carla Fracci, Janet Suzman

Synopsis: The deeper, broader issues behind the rise and fall of one of the world's greatest ballet dancers and choreographers, Vaslav Nijinksy (1888-1950), is not at the fulcrum of this two-hour British biographical drama. Director Herbert Ross and screenwriter Hugh Wheeler base the film on Nijinsky's Read More

Blakes 7: Shadow

Actors: Gareth Thomas, Sally Knyvette, Michael Keating, Paul Darrow, David Jackson

Synopsis: At Space City, Blake (Gareth Thomas) must negotiate with the criminal organization Terra Nostra in order to destroy the Federation. Mob leader Largo (Derek Smith) doesn't take a shine to Blake, and as a result the crew is imprisoned. Back on the Liberator, Cally issues a threat to Largo, stating Read More

Romeo and Juliet

Actors: John Gielgud, Patrick Ryecart, Rebecca Saire

Synopsis: This 3-hour TV adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet features Patrick Ryecart and Rebecca Saire in the title roles. Though these names may not be familiar to the casual viewer, the same cannot be said of the supporting cast. Celia Johnson appears as the Nurse, Michael Hordern is Lord Read More