La hija de todas las rabias
Nicaragua, today. 11-year-old Maria lives with her mother Lilibeth at the edge of a garbage dump. Their future depends on selling a litter of purebred puppies to a local thug. When the deal falls through, Lilibeth must go to the city and drops Maria off at a recycling center where she must stay and work. But days pass and she doesn’t return. Maria feels lost, bewildered and angry. One night, Maria meets Tadeo, an imaginative new friend who is determined to help her to reunite with her mother. More
Yuni
Yuni is a teenage girl — smart with big dreams of attending university. When two men she barely knows ask to marry her, she rejects their proposals, sparking gossip about a myth that a woman who rejects three proposals will never marry. The pressure is building when a third man asks for her hand, and Yuni must choose between the myth of a final chance at marriage, or her dream of future happiness. BONUS:Interview with Kamila Andini, Toronto Filmfestival More
Carajita
Within the large halls of a big house by the sea, Sara and her nanny Yarisa have forged a friendship so intense that it seems like a fantasy. While Sara finds in Yarisa the affectionate mother she never had, Yarisa finds in Sara not only affection, but also the illusion of a more comfortable life, away from the financial dramas of her background. That fantasy becomes affected, though not destroyed, when Yarisa finds herself forced to deal with her past and her biological daughter Mallory. But a rainy night and a muddy road invaded by goats will be enough for chaos to ensue. More
You Will Die At 20
Sudan, province of Aljazira, nowadays - When Muzamil was born, a prophecy by the holy man of the village predicts that he will die when he is 20 years old. Muzamil’s father cannot stand the doom and travels away from home. Sakina, as a single mother, raises her son with over protection. One day, Muzamil turns 19. More
This is not a Burial, it's a Resurrection
Amongst the pythonic mountains of landlocked Lesotho, an 80 year old widow winds up her earthly affairs, makes arrangements for her burial and prepares to die. But when her village is threatened with forced resettlement due to the construction of a reservoir, she finds a new will to live and ignites a collective spirit of defiance within her community. In the final dramatic moments of her life, Mantoa’s legend is forged and made eternal. More
Western
A group of German construction workers start a tough job at a remote site in the Bulgarian countryside. The foreign land awakens the men's sense of adventure, but they are also confronted with their own prejudice and mistrust due to the language barrier and cultural differences. The stage is quickly set for a showdown when men begin to compete for recognition and favor from the local villagers. More
Wajib
Abu Shadi is a divorced father and a school teacher in his mid-60s living in Nazareth. After his daughter's wedding in one month he will be living alone. Shadi, his architect son, arrives from Rome after years abroad to help his father in hand delivering the wedding invitations to each guest as per local Palestinian custom. As the estranged pair spend the day together, the tense details of their relationship come to a head challenging their fragile and very different lives. More
Centaur
There’s a horse thief at large on the outskirts of Bishkek high up in the mountainous region of Kyrgyzstan’s capital. Otherwise not a lot happens in this small community that does at least boast a cinema. This is where stories of the war in Afghanistan, Bollywood fairy-tales from India or films by ex-Soviet director Tolomush Okeyev open up a window on the world. This is also where projectionist and horse thief Centaur lives with his deaf wife and young son. Theirs is a simple life and yet one that increasingly seems to fall foul of the jealously and intrigues of others. More
Loveling
Irene lives in a crumbling house in the outskirts of Rio with her husband and her four sons. Her teenage son Fernando is a local handball star and when he’s scouted to play professionally in Germany, the family has only a few weeks to ready his departure and say goodbye. The perspective of Fernando leaving is a shock and a big change in Irene’s life but also a chance to see herself as a woman again and not just as a mother. Irene gets her high-school diploma, finds a new job and pushes forward with plans for a new family home. More
Fish and Cat
A group of students decides to camp on a desolate Caspian region which runs a competition of kite flying during the winter solstice. Not far from the camp, live Babak and Saeed, two grim cooks. Armed with sharp knives, they roam the forest in search of meat to serve the decrepit restaurant they run nearby. More
Tokyo Family
In this film director Yoji Yamada bows down before his teacher and role model. Yamada was assistant director on Yazujiro Ozu’s «Tokyo monogatari», a moving family portrait set after the Second World War. In his remake, Yamada has made very few departures from Ozu’s masterpiece in order to update the story of ageing couple Shukichi and Tomiko to present day Japan. Once again, the pair decides to leave their quiet lives in the country to pay a visit to their children and grandchildren in Tokyo. More
Anina
Anina Yatay Salas is a pensive redhead who really does not like hername. Each part is a palindrome, which means it reads the same bothforwards and backwards. Her schoolmates are always teasing herabout this, especially Anina’s arch-enemy Yisel. When these two getinto a playground fight one day they are sent to the school head whodisciplines them with a nerve-racking punishment: they are both givena sealed black envelope which they are not allowed to open foran entire week. Haunted by nightmares, the days drag by endlesslyfor Anina. More
Blind Dates
Sandro is a forty-something teacher and still lives with his parents, who constantly meddle in his private life. He shows little interest in the blind dates his friend Iva pressures him to go on. On an outing to the Black Sea, he falls in love with the hairdresser Manana. When her husband Tengo is released from jail early, Sandro’s predicament takes on absurd dimensions. He gets caught up in wild family disputes and feels compelled to move Natia, pregnant with Tengo’s child, into his parents’ home. More
A Separation
Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. She has already made all the necessary arrangements. Nader, however, is having second thoughts. He is worried about leaving behind his father, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. For this reason he decides to call off the trip altogether. As a result of Nader’s decision, Simin decides to sue for divorce at the family court. When her request is rejected, however, she refuses to live with Nader, moving instead into her parents’ home. More
Gatos Viejos
Isidora and Enrique are about 80 years old and live with their equally aged cats in an elegant apartment in Santiago. But it is on the eighth floor and will quickly make Isidora a prisoner if the lift fails again. On such a day, of all days, the daughter announces her visit. That can't bode well. Soon the fidgety Rosario sweeps through the apartment like a hurricane. She's allergic to cats, but that's not all. After her girlfriend "Hugo" has joined her, the real reasons for the visit shine through: They're going after the apartment. More
The Year Without A Summer
Azman is a Malaysian rock singer over his peak. He comes back to his village, to begin a new life as a fisherman. His wife Minah is totally supportive. But his friend Ali thinks he is ridiculous. Especially since the fishing business is becoming difficult. In fact, the time is difficult for everyone. No one understands why there is less fish in the sea by now, so they just live on, as long as God allows them to. The movie is a poetic reflection on memories, friendship and dreams in a world related to the sea. More
Au loin des villages
En avril 2006, 13 000 personnes de l’ethnie Dajo se réfugient dans la plaine de Gouroukoun, à l’Est du Tchad. Tous sont des survivants de la guerre du Darfour. Ils y construisent un camp, s’y enferment et s’y inventent une survie. L'auteur s’est enfermé à son tour dans cette prison sans mur. Des images patientes racontent l’interminable temps de l’attente. Une vie au ralenti qui s’égrène, comme suspendue dans le dénuement. More
Cinco dias sin Nora
Before dying, Nora devises a plan to make José, ex-husband, take care of her funeral. But she misses something—the only flaw in the plan, a mysterious photograph left under the bed, will lead to an unexpected outcome that will remind us that sometimes the greatest love stories are hidden in the smallest places. More
Honeymoons - Medeni Mesec
In hope of a better life, two young couples leave their respective countries. Melinda and Nik leave Albania by boat for Italy, in order to be able to live out their forbidden love. Vera and Marko leave Serbia by train for Austria, traveling through Hungary. Marko, a talented cellist, has the opportunity to enter the renowned Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. But upon their arrival at the border, and even though their visas are in order, their problems begin. More
Lluvia
On a chaotic Friday in Buenos Aires, Alma and Roberto meet in the pouring rain. In the middle of the traffic chaos, the door of Alma's car opens. Roberto gets in, injured and wet to the bones. "Please close the door! As soon as this is all over, I'm getting out." Without knowing why, Alma does what Roberto asks her to do. They have no idea that this sudden and unexpected encounter will change their lives. Alma made aimless rounds in the city in her car before, and Roberto wanted to find himself. None of them know what to do or how to progress in their lives. More
Pandora's Box - Pandoranin kutusu
Two sisters and a brother live in the center of İstanbul today. They are in their thirties and forties, and lead very different lives, self centered on their upper-middle class preoccupations. One day, a phone call brings them together on a voyage through Turkey’s suburbs and villages to the small town in the Black Sea mountains where they were born. Their aged mother, Nusret, has dissappered. More
Les méduses - Meduzot
Tel-Aviv, today. At her wedding reception, Keren breaks a leg. And bang goes the Caribbean honeymoon. A strange little girl comes out of the sea and follows Batya like a shadow until Batya’s life changes forever. Joy is a maid from the Philippines. She works for a tough old lady and unintendently reconciles her with her daughter. This is a composite film, made of scraps of humanity, like so many messages in a bottle, verging on the absurd. A portrait of a messy world in which everyone scrape by as best they can, looking for love, for something to remember or to forget. More
Pure Coolness - Boz Salkyn
Is it possible to justify the bride kidnapping if “he” and “she” will create a happy family after that? People marry by mutual agreement and love. And it happens that they marry of parents’ interests will. But Kyrgyz people have such a custom when the bride is kidnapped. Rural herder Sagyn’s mother decides to marry her son to a modest girl Anara with parents of whom she has already come to an agreement. And he is in love with rural beauty Asyl, but who has a fiancé. More
Ejforija - Euphoria
In an amazingly beautiful place, on the bank of the wide Don, in a remote, half-destroyed village, surrounded by only steppe for hundreds of miles, a real drama takes place. An unexpected passionate love between a young man and a married woman literally destroys the lives of not only the main characters, but also their close ones. More
Fireworks Wednesday
The film portrays three couples on the eve of Nouruz, the Iranian New Year. Rouhi, a young woman who is about to get married, takes a small job as a cleaner in an apartment in northern Tehran to finance her marriage. When she arrives in that apartment, she finds herself in a heated dispute between Mojdeh and Morteza. Mojdeh suspects her husband Morteza of cheating on her and her neighbour Simin, and obliges Rouhi to shadow them. Rouhi gets more and more between the fronts of the fighting couple. More
Climates
Beautifully drawn and meticulously observed, the film vividly recalls the cinema of Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni with its poetic use of landscape and the incisive, exquisitely visual rendering of loneliness, loss and the often-elusive nature of happiness. During a sweltering summer vacation on the Aegean coast, the relationship between middle-aged professor Isa (played by Ceylan himself) and his younger, television producer girlfriend Bahar (the luminous Ebru Ceylan, Ceylan’s real-life wife) brutally implodes. More
Saratan
Discontentment reigns in a Kyrgyzian village: money is not flowing as expected, everyone is trying to arrange his own business, if necessary secretly, communism is still finding adherents and the rustler Taschmat is at work, pursued by the village police man Salamat. The villagers belief in better times is weak, as well as their belief in a fair God. Be it Allah or Jehova, they prefer devoting themselves to terrestrial joy. While some are managing to profit from the situation, others are getting nothing. More
Bab'Aziz - Le prince qui contemplait son âme
A visual poem of incomparable beauty, this masterpiece from director Nacer Khemir (Wanderers of the Desert) begins with the story of a blind dervish named Bab’Aziz and his spirited granddaughter, Ishtar. Together they wander the desert in search of a great reunion of dervishes that takes place just once every thirty years. With faith as their only guide, the two journey for days through the expansive, barren landscape. More
Umoregi - La forêt oubliée
The action takes place in a small town near the mountains. The heroine, MACHI, is a high school student, who has yet to find her direction in life. One day, she and her friends start making up a story, which they decide to continue as a kind of relay. One after another, the girls continue the dreamlike tale, which unfolds like a “future history”, invisible to the protagonists. Meanwhile, for the adults of the town things are different. Their “story” is forged from the realities of life, and from their past. The two stories progress side by side, never seeming to cross. More
Bombón - el perro
Life is no bed of roses for 52-year-old Juan "Coco" Villegas. He, who has been a gas station attendant for twenty years in Patagonia, finds himself jobless overnight. He first tries to survive by selling knives of his own making. But business is bad and he can't find real work. One day though, after fixing a vehicle on a farm, he acquires a beautiful Argentinian watch dog. From this blessed day on, things start shaping well at last... More
Le grand voyage
Reda, summoned to accompany his father on a pilgrimage to Mecca, complies reluctantly, for he's preparing for his baccalaureat and, even more important, has a secret love relationship. The trip across Europe in a broken-down car is also the departure of his father: upon arrival in Mecca, both Reda and his father are not the characters they were at the start of the movie. Avoiding the hackneyed theme of the return to the homeland, the film uses the departure to renew a connection between two generations. More
Wo Ai Ni - I Love You
Yi and Ju meet when the latter is about to marry Yi's best friend. After a senseless accidental death they meet again. The fall in love and soon get married. Everyday life arrives and the couple niddle-noddles between a desire for freedom and tenures. The dream of the great love turns out to be more difficult in daily life than expected... More
Suite Habana
It might take two viewings to grasp fully what Fernando Pérez is doing in "Suite Habana," an elusive but intermittently beautiful tone poem on film. There is virtually no dialogue. There are no story lines that build to a climax, no documentary-style voice-overs. There are just snippets from a day in Havana, so disjointed and seemingly random that it takes a while to realize that Mr. Pérez is focusing on 10 specific individuals, tracking them through 24 hours in their painfully ordinary lives. More
Twilight Samurai - Tasogare Seibei
Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada), a low-ranking samurai and family man, leads a life without glory as a bureaucrat in the mid-XIX century Japan. A widower, he has charge of two daughters (whom he adores) and a senile mother; he must therefore work in the fields and accept piecework to make both ends meet. New prospects seem to open up when Tomoe (Rie Miyazama), his long-time love, divorces a brutal husband. However, even as the Japanese feudal system is unraveling, Seibei remains bound by the code of honour of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedences. The consequences are cruel. More
Lugares comunes
In Buenos Aires, a few days before traveling to Spain with his beloved wife Liliana Rovira to visit their son Pedro, the leftist Literature professor Fernando Robles is compulsory retired in the University, and he concludes that it is impossible to live with his pension. The crisis in Argentina does not allow Fernando to get a new job, and his wife decides to sell her family's apartment and move to a small farm near Villa Dolores to reduce their expenses. Fernando comes up with the idea to grow lavender and sell the oil to the perfume industry. More
Historias minimas
Don Justo hands over the running of his grocery store to his overbearing son and daughter-in-law and escapes to search for his lost dog Badface. Roberto is a love-struck obsessive-compulsive traveling salesman who drives to San Julián to surprise one of his clients by bringing a cake for her son's birthday. Finally, María Flores travels to San Julián with her daughter because she has won a spot on "Multicoloured Casino," a fusty TV game show. The film captures a lot of small details that make a realistic and moving depiction of life in southern Argentina. More
Todas las azafatas van al cielo
Julián, an overweight ophthalmologist who is emotionally upset due to the unexpected death of his flight-attendant wife, and of Teresa a free-spirited young stewardess unhappy in love and fearful that she's pregnant. Julián makes the decision to travel to the Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, where they he and his wife first met, in order to scatter his wife's ashes and to follow his wife in death by ending his own life by freezing to death. More
Elsewhere - Vier Jahreszeiten
short version of the movie ELSEWHERE More
I Love Beijing - Xiari Nuanyangyang
Dezi is a young restless taxi driver. His work brings him into contact with people whose lifestyles go far beyond his intellectual horizon, which is not true of his female acquaintances. The film follows him on his tours throughout Beijing. He is always on the move, people and places come into his life and leave it again. Dezi's journeys from one place to another or from one woman to another resemble Beijing's search for its own identity, which is somewhere between the old values and an unknown future. Ning Ying's new film effortlessly mixes the familiar and the unknown. More
Lagaan
Lagaan takes place in the small village of Champaner, now in the State of Gujarat, in western India during the height of the British Empire in India in 1893. Captain Andrew Russell, the commanding officer of the Champaner cantonment, has imposed high taxes (lagaan) on people from the local villages which they are unable to pay due to a prolonged drought. Led by Bhuvan, the villagers beg Raja Puran Singh to help them. He tells them that much to his regret, he is also bound by British law. It is after their visit to the Raja that the people of the village first witness a cricket match. More
Borges - Los libros y la noche
To celebrate the centenary of Jorge Luis Borges' birth, Tristán Bauer has created a very stimulating film essay: Skilfully, respectfully and poetically, he mixes archive documents, conversations and photographs of the writer's life, which reflect Borges' political stance, his problems with the Perón regime and his international successes. Tristán Bauer does not limit himself to a historian's work, he subtly reconstructs the writer's world: infinite fountains of the strange library of Babel, numerous corridors, circles, mirrors, stairs and hexagons. More
The Goddess of 1967
A Japanese man searches the internet looking for his dream car, a 1967 Citroen DS (in French: Déesse, or "Goddess") . He locates one in Australia and travels there to buy it. Upon his arrival he finds the seller dead. A 17 year-old blind girl tells him she can take him to find the real owner. Together they embark on a strange and erotic journey into the arid Australian desert, populated by abandoned mining towns - a desolate land and a dark haunting past. More
Platform - Zhantai
In 1979, in a China undergoing rapid changes, it is still forbidden to listen to pop music. Platform is a record young people listen to in secret. Minliang and his friends, an official theatre company, present a play in praise of Mao Zedong. With the 1980s, the theatrical troupe’s life changes: pop music, permed hair, cigarettes… This feature film follows the artistic and emotional tribulations of the young artistes over a ten-year period against a backdrop of revolutionary disappointment, a bygone past and privatisation. More
Eu, tu, eles
In Russas, a poor, desolate and dry settlement in the arid backlands of the northeast of Brazil, the countrywoman Darlene de Lima Linhares lives together with her three husbands - Osias, Zezinho and Ciro - and two children. She has managed her simple life with them, taking from each one what he's able to give best. A very special story in the middle of nowhere. More
La saison des hommes - Maussim al-riyal
Atmospheric drama about a young wife who must bear her husband a child if she ever wishes to escape the island of Djerba and join him in Tunis. More
Journey to the Sun - Günese Yolculuk
A story of friendship, courage and a politically naive man’s transformation into someone painfully aware of the social realities in contemporary Turkey … Mehmet and Berzan, two young men from different regions of Turkey bond together as lower – class citizens in Istanbul. When Mehmet is unjustly arrested, his frightened roomates evict him and he loses his job. Mehmet’s loyalty to Berzan will eventually force him to disregard an uncompassionate bureaucracy and embark on a journey eastward across Turkey. More
Clouds of May - Mayis Sikintisi
This May in the town seems to be warmer and gloomier than the previous years. Still, everyone seems to be happy despite their small worries and lives closed for any surprises. However, this happiness is a little disturbed by the arrival of Muzaffer who has made up his mind to shoot a film in this town where he had passed his childhood. "Clouds of May" tells the story of Muzaffer, who returns to his native town to make a movie. His father, Emin, is bent on saving the small forest he cultivates on his property from confiscation by the authorities. More
Martín (Hache)
Martin Echenique is a film director from Buenos Aires who has been living for more than 20 years in Madrid, spending his time with his much younger girlfriend Alicia and his best friend, the actor Dante. He has a 19-year-old son, named according to a tradition Martin as well, but known as Hache. Hache is living with his mother in Buenos Aires. After his girlfriend leaves him, Hache has a nearly fatal drug overdose, thought by many to be an attempted suicide. Consequently Martin flies to Buenos Aires and Hache is sent back to Madrid together with his father for a while. More
Pequeños milagros
Rosalie is a cashier at a supermarket. She lives alone, loves reading fairy tales and hides in a magic fantasy world in order to survive living in the real one. She thinks she is a fairy who came on a mission and got caught in this world. Santiago is a scientist who works in an international research project to detect signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. He is a lonely man who lives with his dog and his computer, watching Rosalia at the bus-stop, where he has installed a web camera. Rosalía finds she has some extra-sensory powers and thinks three young women she knows are fairies. More
TGV
TGV is an express bus service between Dakar, Senegal, and Conakry, Guinea, operated by the enterprising Rambo and his assistant, Dembo. Before setting off, Rambo and his passengers are warned of the danger that lies ahead on their route. The Bassari are carrying out a revolt at the Guinea border, leading to an exodus of refugees from their villages. On hearing the news, only a dozen or so passengers decide to make the risky trip. During the arduous journey, each passenger’s motivation for making the trip is slowly revealed. More
Kasaba
Told from the perspective of two children, and in four parts which run parallel to seasons, KASABA describes relationships between members of a Turkish family in a small town. The first part is in a primary school where the family's 11 year old doughter is a pupil. It shows the social environment to which she has to adopt, and its difficulties. She faces with her feeling of shame and some merciless clues of life... The second part is in spring. We see the girl with her brother, who is four years younger, and their journey to the corn field where their family are waiting for them. More
Mossane
This Senegalese melodrama tells the story of a young girl called Mossane who lives in a village between the ocean and the savannah. There, veneration for the traditions is very common. There's a legend saying that every other century a girl is born who is doomed because of her beauty. Mossane is only fourteen years old but is already considered to be extraordinary beautiful. Even her own brother is in love with her. According to the custom she has been promised to a rather wealthy man called Diogoye since the day of her birth. More
Goodbye South, Goodbye - Nanguo zaijian, nanguo
This movie gives us a glimpse at life in northern Taiwan. The main person is Kao, a 37-years-old man who has constantly to solve problems created by his younger brother Flat Head and his girlfriend Pretzel. As a non-stop schemer, Kao devises a plan to raise money by trading subsidized pigs to the government for cash. The ruse works, but when the temperamental Flat Head antagonizes the wrong people, the two find themselves caught up in a dangerous game of corrupt politics. More
Pequeno dicionário amoroso
Luiza is an architect who just got out of a ruined relationship. Gabriel is a biologist and he has finished a long-term marriage with divorce. When they both meet, chances that they can do well together are not that big. - Equal time is given to male and female perspectives in this take on modern Brazilian love - and not only Brazilian. A romantic comedy, Little Book of Love looks at the stages of a couple's affair and divides them into alphabetically arranged scenes. More
Maboroshi no hikari
Yumiko is a young woman from Osako, whose life is defined by the death of her loved ones. She lost her grandmother at the age of twelve, and her husband Ikuo, who is the reincarnation of her grandmother to her, commits suicide some months after the birth of their child. Once more Yumiko loses a person she had really loved. Five years later she marries Tamio, a man who lives by the sea together with his eight-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Her pain has ceased until the day she returns to her place of birth and gets caught up by her memories. More
Okaeri
Yuriko works at home all day, transcribing tapes, feeling cut off from outside the world. Her husband, Takashi, works as a school teacher. In the evening he often goes to bars and comes home late, leaving his wife behind, waiting for him with the warm supper. He thinks she had accepted this reality, but one day she runs off, steals a car and starts turning into a woman he doesn't recognize. More
No te mueras sin decirme adónde vas
Don‘t Die without Telling Me Where You‘re Going is an extraordinary film by a remarkable director, Eliseo Subiela (Man Looking Southeast, Dark Side of the Heart).This is masterful filmmaking that brings to life an invisible dimension of our world: auras, souls, spirits. William and Rachel have loved each other in various lives. In the life this movie depicts, William is Leopoldo, lives in Buenos Aires, and is working on an invention: a dream collector. While testing his invention, he finds Rachel, who in this life is a soul. More
Les gens de la rizière - Neak srê
Les Gens de la rizière tells the story of Yong Poeuw, his wife Yim Om and their seven daughters. The land is scarce, the family members are many, the children are growing up, the balance has become fragile. Yong Poeuw and Yim Om suspect that a rupture is coming. More
Shamt al kushur - Les silences du palais
The news that Prince Sid'Ali has died suddenly confronts 25-year-old Ali with her past again. During the funeral she visits the palace where she spent her childhood and adolescence and where her mother was a servant. She never knew her father - he may even have been the prince. As she wanders the deserted corridors, the images of her youth return, such as her forbidden friendship with Sarra, daughter of one of the princes, who taught Alia to love the lute. More
Madagascar
"I dream exactly what I live every day," a professor, bored with her mundane life, tells her therapist. But the visual evidence on screen at the start of "Madagascar" suggests that dreams are never that banal. Bicyclists crowd the street, riding to work in slow motion in a haunting, shadowy blue dawn. The 50-minute "Madagascar" has the resonance and eloquence of the best poetry, as it deftly turns an adolescent's search for identity into a metaphor for post-revolutionary Cuba. Laura is a professor at a shabby, stultifying college. More
Sishi buhuo
The news that his first wife was pregnant with a child when they separated some ten years ago comes to official photographer Cao Depai (Li Xuejian) like a thunderbolt out of the blue. Now she is dead, and the son that he never knew was found wandering the streets. He is afraid to tell his new wife about this extra mouth to feed, and at first he attempts to house the lad at his darkroom. However, the boy sneaks visits to his father's current home frequently in order to play with his step-siblings, and eventually they are discovered together. More
El viaje
A young man living in a cold southern village in South America, decides to start a trip looking for his father. By doing this he discovers unexpected facts about his Latin American essence. More
Life on a String - Bian zou bian chang
A blind master wanders through a mythic landscape of a terrific beauty to play his songs and sing his ballads. His whole life he's had one hope, one dream of another world: According to a prophecy he shall be able to see, if he has broken 1000 of his banjo strings. His blind disciple, on the contrary, doesn't want to rely on one hope. He longs for a woman's love. Does sight await the saint when the 1000th string breaks? Can the disciple's strength of character overcome provincial prejudice to win the hand of his love and a place in the village? More
Le collier perdu de la colombe - Tawk al hamama al mafkoud
The fairy tale "the dove's lost necklace" by Nacer Khemir tells the story of Hassan, a young man who is taught calligraphy by his master. One day he runs across a portion of an old text which convinces him that it holds the secrets to love. With the help of an impudent young boy and the boy's monkey (whom the boy thinks is an enchanted prince), Hassan sets out to find the rest of the manuscript. What he finds instead is the beauteous Aziz. Despite their being separated by war, they are soon reunited. This film takes us in the midst of a time when djinns and visions were still, real. More
Le pas suspendu de la cigogne
While working on a story in the border area, a young journalist discovers a divided town bisected by a river which is also the national frontier. He observes a surreal wedding in which the bride and her family stand on one shore and the groom and his relatives on the other, lost under a cold sky: figure in a landscape who only delude themselves that they are masters of the earth and their destiny The town, a remote ghost town, almost forgotten at the end of the world, has been named «waiting room» by the locals because most of its inhabitants are refugees from different More
Sibaji
Shin, a nobleman, had been trying to conceive a male heir to pass his family name. Unable to provide a male heir, Shin's wife gives her husband permission to search for a surrogate wife to bear a male heir. On the way to finding a surrogate wife, Shin runs into a 17 year old girl, Ok-nyo (Kang Soo-yeon). She was a poor feisty girl who stated she would do anything for money. More
O melissokomos - The Beekeeper
In THE BEEKEEPER, alienation and despair have so mestastasized in the film's central figure that he's virtually one of the walking dead. Spyros, a man soured by a secret, incestuous love for his daughter, on the day of her wedding, gives up his position as a schoolteacher, his wife, his home and his city to take up again the profession of his father and grandfather before him traveling across Greece to the town in which he was born and first learned to tend the bees, following the traditional beekeeper's route, looking for flowers that will produce the best honey, a wanderer obsessed by More
Taxidi sta Kythira - Voyage to Cythera
Cythera, in Greek mythology, is the isle of dreams where one can dedicate oneself to happiness (or the pursuit thereof). In this quest within a quest, the tale of the father's return is told as if from the point of view of his son Telemachus and as if Telemachus were a filmmaker, as well as a middle-aged man with a son of his own. A film director, tired of the illusions and fictions of his profession, searches for a story of substance by attaching himself to an old man, a recently returned political exile. More
Narayama Bushiko - Imamura
Peaceful living and dying are a central theme in this masterpiece by the Japanese Shohei Imamura, a literary film adaptation in the mountain region of Narayama. In a small mountain village on the edge of a valley, all who have turned seventy must leave the community and climb a certain mountain to die. Anyone who defies tradition brings misfortune to his own family. Orin is 69 years old and is about to climb the mountain this winter. But first she has to make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finally finds a wife. More
La notte di San Lorenzo
The film that captivated more than 8,000 people on an unforgettable evening in Locarno's Piazza Grande with its cinematic magic and message of peace. In the summer of 1944, a group of residents from their home village of San Miniato in Tuscany secretly sneaked out to meet the American liberators. According to instructions, those who remain behind seek shelter in the church and fall victim to a retaliatory strike by the Germans. More
Jom
Senegalese filmmaker Ababacar Samb says, «Jom is a Wolof word which has no equivalent in English or French, Jom means courage, dignity, respect. It is the origin of all virtues.» To celebrate the concept, Samb uses the griot as the nexus of multiple stories and Senegal’s collective memory. To inspire striking workers, the griot tells of a legendary prince, Dieri Dior Ndella, who sacrificed his life during colonialism, and Koura Thiaw, an entertainer who took up the cause of oppressed domestics in the 1940s, both becoming heroes to their people. More
O Megalexandros
The film is a study of the 20th century cult of personality - the myth, the lure and the corruption of the political hero who is a fusion of two characters. Drawing from the so-called Dilessi incident of 1870 (updated in the film to the dawn of the twentieth century), this Megalexandros is a bandit of the sort that typically plagued nineteenth century Greece. More
Dersu Uzala
A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the glacial Siberian woods. The film won the 1976 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the Golden Prize and the Prix FIPRESCI at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival and a number of other awards. More
Touki Bouki
Mory, a cowherd who rides a motorcycle mounted with a cow's skull, and Anta, a university student, have met in Dakar, Senegal's capital. Alienated and disaffected with Senegal and Africa, they long to go to Paris and work up different con schemes to raise the money. Mory steals clothing and money from a wealthy gay man who had brought him home, and he and Anta book passage on a ship to France. One of the most important, engaged and fascinating movies from Africa - selected for the documenta 2007. More
Sanjuro - Tsubaki Sanjûrô
A few years before the War of the Meiji Restoration in Japan in 1868, a group of young progressives, weary of the corruption rampant in their clan, appear before the chief steward to ask for justice. But the steward, aware of the prevailing condition, is helpless to do anything, for he is merely being controlled. Disappointed, the group visit the chief inspector of their clan and present their case to him. After consideration, the inspector, who is in reality one of the most corrupt, agrees to their leader. More
Yojimbo
Sanjuro, soldier of fortune―unemployed, unbathed, generally unprincipled, with only the threadbare clothes on his back and his razor-sharp swords. But vagrant as he sees, his faded garments bear the crests of a samurai, labeling him as a member of the superior, warrior class. His wandering takes him to a foreboding village, one under the yoke of two gangs―bitter rivals―who are constantly at war with each other. Decent citizens are too terrified to venture into the streets, and the police are helpless. More
Late Autumn - Akibiyori
Seven years after the death of a close friend, three middle-aged men plan to arrange a marriage for the dead man’s daughter. But 24-year old Ayako doesn’t really want to marry; she would rather continue taking care of her widowed mother. So the three men decide that the best course is to marry off the rather comely mother, Akiko, before the daughter … preferably to one of them. More
Jazz on a Summer's Day
Ein Sommertag in Newport 1958: Musik zum Geniessen, Bilder zum Schwelgen. Das legendäre Newport Jazz Festival und die Regatta America’s Cup mit ihren alten Segeljachten. Mittendrin der Fotograf Bert Stern, bekannt durch seine Fotosession mit Marilyn Monroe. Wie in seinen Bildern gelingt es Stern auch hier in impressionistisch anmutenden Momentaufnahmen die Persönlichkeiten zu erfassen, seien es die Stars auf der Bühne oder scheinbar zufällig herausgegriffene Gesichter aus dem Publikum, in denen sich schiere Lebensfreude, Entspannung und Entrückung spiegeln. More
The Seven Samurai - Shichinin no samurai
Around the time of wheat harvesting, the wandering bandits come to raid the villages and the villagers tremble with fear and apprehension. The only way to defend the village is to hire the samurai mercenaries. With the cooperation of a veteran fighter Kambei, Korobei, Kyuzo, Heihachi, Shichiroji, Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo are chosen, the last being a wild youth of farmer descent. The defense of the village is built up with the help of the samurai and combat training is started. With the end of the harvesting of the corn, the raids by the bandits begin. The enemy number some 40 odd. More
Tokyo monogatari - Tokyo Story
The Hirayamas travel from their hometown of Onomichi to Tokyo tovisit their adult children. But the younger generation make them feelmore in the way than welcome. It also emerges that their son’s career asa doctor and their daughter’s as a hairdresser are nowhere near as successfulas the couple were led to believe from afar. The only one whoreally makes an effort to spend time with them is their daughter-in-law,Noriko, the widow of the Hirayama’s son who went missing in the war. More
Ikiru - Einmal wirklich leben
Kanji Watanabe was the Chief of the Citizens’ Section of the Municipal Office with a record of 30 years’ regular attendance without absence. Suddenly this man failed to show up at work and with no notice. He received a big shock when the doctor pronounced him as having ulcer of the stomach and gave him only a few months to live. Having lost his wife some time ago, his first impulse was to go to his son, whom he had brought up single-handed and to disclose to him his agony and ask for consolation. But he finds his son married and with his own troubles and hardships of life. More