Tag: 2005

Director: Changwei Gu
Stars: Jing An, Li Feng, Changwei Gu
Genre: Drama
Country: China

China in the late 1970s and early 1980s: the life of an ordinary working family as seen through its three siblings.

Director: Gavin Hood
Stars: Presley Chweneyagae, Mothusi Magano, Israel Matseke-Zulu
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: UK | South Africa

Six days in the violent life of a young Johannesburg gang leader.

Director: Deepa Mehta
Stars: Lisa Ray, John Abraham, Seema Biswas
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada | India

Set in colonial India against Gandhi’s rise to power, it’s the story of 8-year-old Chuyia, who is widowed and sent to a home to live in penitence; once there, Chuyia’s feisty presence deeply affects the lives of the other residents.

Director: Carroll Ballard
Stars: Alex Michaeletos, Campbell Scott, Hope Davis
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Family
Country: USA

An orphaned cheetah becomes the best friend and pet of a young boy living in South Africa.

Director: Rian Johnson
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Emilie de Ravin
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: USA

A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Stars: Issei Ogata, Robert Dawson, Kaori Momoi
Genre: Drama, History
Country: Russia | Italy | Switzerland | France

Third part in Aleksandr Sokurov’s quadrilogy of Power, following Moloch (1999) and Taurus (2001), focuses on Japanese Emperor Hirohito and Japan’s defeat in World War II when he is finally confronted by General Douglas MacArthur who offers him to accept a diplomatic defeat for survival.

Director: Vladan Nikolic
Stars: Sergej Trifunovic, Geno Lechner, Peter Gevisser
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA | Serbia and Montenegro

Told through a looping, non-linear narrative from each of the characters’ points of view, the film reconstructs the stories of a Yugoslav hit man, his former lover and her police officer boyfriend, as their paths cross in New York.

Director: Lajos Koltai
Stars: Marcell Nagy, Béla Dóra, Bálint Péntek
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Hungary | Germany | UK | Israel | France | USA

14-year-old György’s life is torn apart in WWII Hungary, as he is deported first to Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald, where he is forced to become a man in the midst of hatred, and what it really means to be Jewish.

Director: Luc Dionne
Stars: Marianne Fortier, Serge Postigo, Hélène Bourgeois Leclerc
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

After the sudden death of her mother, Aurore Gagnon is abused by her disturbed step-mother as her town remains in the silence followed by her death. Based on a true story.

Director: Francisco Vargas
Stars: Ángel Tavira, Gerardo Taracena, Dagoberto Gama
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: Mexico

In an unnamed Latin American country that closely resembles Mexico, the government fights a rural insurgency with torture, assault, rape, and murder. Soldiers descend on a town, cutting off the rebels from their cache of ammunition hidden in a field. A family of grandfather, son, and grandson are among the rebels in the hills. The grandfather, with his violin over his shoulder, tries to pass the checkpoint, ostensibly to tend his corn crop. The commanding officer lets him pass but insists on a daily music lesson. Can the old man ferry out the ammunition in his violin case under the soldiers’ nose?

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Zlatko Buric, Marinela Dekic, Slavko Labovic
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Denmark

Milo tries to be a family man and run his criminal organization, but a wrong drug shipment endangers everything.

Director: Patrice Chéreau
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Pascal Greggory, Claudia Coli
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Italy | Germany

The marriage between Gabrielle and Jean begins to fray after the discovery of a letter that belongs to Gabrielle.

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: Jan Tríska, Pavel Liska, Anna Geislerová
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic | Slovakia

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man may’ve predicted.

Director: Van Fischer
Stars: Jeremy Renner, Gabrielle Union, David E. Allen
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Like most kids, Ned idolized his father and dreamed of following in his footsteps. Unfortunately, his father was a two-bit crook who spent most of his life in jail. Without a family of his own, Ned falls in with the Aryan Brotherhood. Soon after, Ned is placed in a mental hospital where he is mesmerized by a young black girl who believes Adolf Hitler was reincarnated in her. What follows is a gritty character study and poignant love story of two people brought together by a seemingly impossible connection. As a result of that connection, they both find that there is more to a person than what is on the surface.

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Stars: Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada

A young French-Canadian, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging homosexuality with his father’s conservative values and his own Catholic beliefs.

Director: Mohammad Rasoulof
Stars: Ali Nassirian, Hossein Farzi-Zad, Neda Pakdaman
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran

Some poor people in the Southern coasts of Iran do not have any place to live, and thus, they reside on an old, abandoned ship in the sea. Captain Nemat, their chief, tries to persuade the ship-owner and the official authorities not to get the ship back. On the other hand, he is selling the iron parts of the ship piece by piece. ‘Iron Island’ is the story of those whose ignorance makes them simply trust those who are always ready to abuse their trust.

Director: Philippe Garrel
Stars: Louis Garrel, Clotilde Hesme, Julien Lucas
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

1968 and 1969 in Paris: during and after the student and trade union revolt. François is 20, a poet, dodging military service. He takes to the barricades, but won’t throw a Molotov cocktail at the police. He smokes opium and talks about revolution with his friend, Antoine, who has an inheritance and a flat where François can stay. François meets Lilie, a sculptor who works at a foundry to support herself. They fall in love. A year passes; François continues to write, talk, smoke, and be with Lilie. Opportunities come to Lilie: what will she and François do?

Director: Charles Sturridge
Stars: John Lynch, Samantha Morton, Peter O’Toole
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Country: USA | France | Ireland | UK

A family in financial crisis is forced to sell Lassie, their beloved dog. Hundreds of miles away from her true family, Lassie escapes and sets out on a journey home.

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Stars: Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Fang Mei
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Taiwan

Three stories set in three times, 1911, 1966 and 2005. Two actors play the two main characters in each story.

Director: Gary Tarn
Stars: Hugues de Montalembert
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

Gary Tarn’s remarkable, award-winning documentary, BLACK SUN, investigates this through the story of Hugues de Montalembert, a New York-based artist and filmmaker who was blinded by a vicious attack in 1978.

Director: Klaus Härö
Stars: Topi Majaniemi, Marjaana Maijala, Maria Lundqvist
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Finland | Sweden

During World War II, more than 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated to neutral Sweden to avoid the conflict. From the award-winning Klaus Härö (Elina: As If I Wasn’t There (2002)), “Mother of Mine” tackles that painful patch of history in a tale of 9-year-old Eero, a child who increasingly feels abandoned by his biological Finnish mother and yet not attached to his Swedish surrogate mom. When he is returned to Finland, his confusion intensifies.

Director: Costa-Gavras
Stars: José Garcia, Karin Viard, Geordy Monfils
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Belgium | France | Spain

A chemist (Garcia) loses his job to outsourcing. Two years later and still jobless, he hits on a solution: to genuinely eliminate his competition.

Director: Rowan Woods
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Australia

Set in the Little Saigon district outside of Sydney, a woman (Blanchett) trying to escape her past becomes embroiled in a drug deal.

Director: Marshall Curry
Stars: Jen Bluestein, Cory Booker, Bill Bradley
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

This documentary follows the 2002 mayoral campaign in Newark, New Jersey in which a City Councilman, Cory Booker, attempted to unseat longtime mayor Sharpe James.

Director: David Zeiger
Stars: Michael Alaimo, Edward Asner, Joe Bangert
Genre: Documentary, War
Country: USA

This feature-length documentary focuses on the efforts by troops in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to oppose the war effort by peaceful demonstration and subversion. It speaks mainly to veterans, but serves as a ready reminder to civilians that soldiers may oppose war as stridently as any civilian, and at greater personal peril.

Director: Algimantas Puipa
Stars: Valentinas Masalskis, Steven Berkoff, Liubomiras Laucevicius
Genre: Biography, Drama, War
Country: Lithuania | UK

The story about one man- an artist and an intellectual- who was imprisoned by two brutal regimes, the Nazis and the Soviets. ‘The Professor’ is a man who lives by his own personal version of the Ten Commandments. After miraculously surviving imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp through a bit of ironic fate, he writes a memoir of his life, which becomes the target of the Soviet censors. The so-called “freedom” of Communism becomes just as oppressive as the German concentration camp.

Director: Jessica Sanders
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A gripping, emotionally charged film that follows wrongfully convicted men freed by DNA evidence after decades in prison as they struggle to transition back into society.

Director: Gregory Colbert
Stars: Laurence Fishburne, Jeanne Moreau, Enrique Rocha
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: USA

Exploring the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals.

Director: Julian Fellowes
Stars: Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson, Hermione Norris
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: UK

A couple’s marriage is complicated by the introduction of a third party.

Director: Laurent Cantet
Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Louise Portal
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Canada | Belgium

Three female tourists have their eyes opened while visiting the poverty-stricken and dangerous world of 1980s Haiti.

Director: Bent Hamer
Stars: Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, Marisa Tomei
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Norway | USA | Germany | France | Italy

This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of “Factotum” author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don’t interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.

Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach De Bankolé, Danny Glover
Genre: Drama
Country: Denmark | Sweden | Netherlands | France | Germany | UK | Italy | USA

A story of slavery, set in the southern U.S. in the 1930s.

Director: Peter Jackson
Stars: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama
Country: New Zealand | USA | Germany

A greedy film producer assembles a team of moviemakers and sets out for the infamous Skull Island, where they find more than just cannibalistic natives.

Director: Valérie Minetto
Stars: Mila Dekker, Aurélia Petit, Malik Zidi
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

Cheyenne, a journalist, decides to leave Paris after being laid off and to settle down in the middle of nowhere, far from the society she hates.The trouble is that she leaves Sonia, her true love, behind. The latter, a teacher who loves her job, refuses to give up everything -including her comfort- to follow her.

Director: Rachel Boynton
Stars: Mauricio Balcazar, James Carville, Tad Devine
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary on American political campaign marketing tactics and their consequences.

Director: Paul Wilmshurst
Stars: John Hurt, Shuntaro Hida, George Elsey
Genre: Documentary, Drama, History
Country: UK

Documentary with dramatic reenactments with actors to describe what dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was like.

Director: Henry Alex Rubin, Dana Adam Shapiro
Stars: Joe Soares, Keith Cavill, Mark Zupan
Genre: Documentary, Sport
Country: USA

Quadriplegics, who play full-contact rugby in wheelchairs, overcome unimaginable obstacles to compete in the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Director: Ali Selim
Stars: Elizabeth Reaser, Lois Smith, Patrick Heusinger
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

In 1920, Inge, a German national, travels from Norway to rural Minnesota for her arranged marriage to Olaf, a Norwegian farmer; bureaucracy and prejudice cause major complications.

Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Dwight Yoakam
Genre: Adventure, Crime, Drama
Country: France | Mexico | USA

Ranch foreman Pete Perkins looks to fulfill the promise to his recently deceased best friend by burying him in his hometown in Mexico.

Director: Chan-wook Park
Stars: Yeong-ae Lee, Min-sik Choi, Shi-hoo Kim
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: South Korea

After being wrongfully imprisoned for thirteen years and having her child taken away from her, a woman seeks revenge through increasingly brutal means.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Marie-Josée Croze
Genre: Action, Drama, History
Country: France | Canada | USA

Based on the true story of the Black September aftermath, about the five men chosen to eliminate the ones responsible for that fateful day.

Director: Ryuichi Hiroki
Stars: Shinobu Terajima, Etsushi Toyokawa, Akira Emoto
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

Yuko is 35 years old, single, out of work, and on medication from her psychiatrist to combat her manic depression. Living in Kamata Town, Yuko divides her time between a variety of men friends, each with his own peculiarities. Her university classmate, Homma, suffers from impotence. “

Director: Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine
Stars: Irina Baronova, Kenneth Kynt Bryan, Yvonne Chouteau
Genre: Documentary, History, Music
Country: USA

Ballets Russes is an intimate portrait of a group of pioneering artists — now in their 70s, 80s and 90s — who gave birth to modern ballet.

Director: Cle Sloan
Stars: Daryl Gates, Fred Hampton, Joe Hicks
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Surrounded by death and the brutal lifestyle that feeds it, a Los Angeles gangbanger explores the history of Southern California street gangs from the 1950s through the 1990s in an attempt to fully understand his existence. Bastards of the Party humanizes the staggering casualties of the LA gang wars.

Director: Ramin Bahrani
Stars: Ahmad Razvi, Leticia Dolera, Charles Daniel Sandoval
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A night in the life of a former Pakistani rock star who now sells coffee from his push cart on the streets of Manhattan.

Director: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Stars: Claus Hansen Petz, Arkadiusz Rydellek, Barbara Hinz
Genre: Documentary
Country: Germany | Austria

OUR DAILY BREAD is a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn’t always easy to digest – and in which we all take part. A pure, meticulous and high-end film experience that enables the audience to form their own ideas.

Director: Emmanuel Carrère
Stars: Vincent Lindon, Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Country: France

Marc is sitting in his bath one morning and asks his wife, “how would you feel if I shaved off my mustache?” She doesn’t think it’s a great idea, for the 15 years they’ve been married, she’s never known him without his ‘stache. He shaves it off anyway, but when he sees his wife, she doesn’t notice, neither do their friends at dinner that night, neither do his co-workers. Marc finally flips out, shouts at everyone, tells them he’s tired of their little joke, and what do they really think. His wife and co-workers are appalled, what is he talking about, he’s never had a mustache. In fact, he’s imagining other things as well, or is he?

Director: Fabián Bielinsky
Stars: Ricardo Darín, Manuel Rodal, Dolores Fonzi
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Argentina | Spain | France

A deluded taxidermist plans the perfect crime.

Director: Christian Carion
Stars: Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann, Guillaume Canet
Genre: Drama, History, Music
Country: France | Germany | UK | Belgium | Romania | Norway | Japan | USA

In December 1914, an unofficial Christmas truce on the Western Front allows soldiers from opposing sides of the First World War to gain insight into each other’s way of life.

Director: Roman Polanski
Stars: Barney Clark, Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Swift
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: France | UK | Czech Republic

An adaptation of the classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.

Director: Jee-woon Kim
Stars: Byung-hun Lee, Min-a Shin, Yeong-cheol Kim
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: South Korea

Things go wrong for a high ranking mobster when he doesn’t proceed by his boss’s orders.

Director: Doug Block
Stars: Carol Block, Doug Block, Ellen Block
Genre: Documentary
Country: Germany | USA

Documentary filmmaker Doug Block had every reason to believe his parents’ 54-year marriage was a good one. But when his mother dies unexpectedly and his father swiftly marries his former secretary, he discovers two parents who are far more complex and troubled than he ever imagined. 51 Birch Street is a riveting personal documentary that explores a universal human question: how much about your parents do you really want to know?

Director: Bernard Émond
Stars: Élise Guilbault, Patrick Drolet, Marie-Josée Bastien
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

The faith of a caring physician and an unquestioningly religious youth is shaken to the core when the pair is inexplicably brought together.

Director: Florence Ayisi, Kim Longinotto
Stars: Vera Ngassa, Beatrice Ntuba
Genre: Documentary
Country: Cameroon | UK

Set in Kumba in South West Cameroon Sisters in Law follows Adultery, Rape and Abuse cases led by a Female Judge.

Director: Ward Serrill
Stars: Darnellia Russell, Bill Resler, Ludacris
Genre: Documentary, Sport
Country: USA

A documentary Roosevelt Roughriders, a girls’ high-school basketball team in Seattle, and one player’s fight to regain her eligibility to play.

Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Stars: Daler Nazarov, Mariam Gaibova, Farzona Beknazarova
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Iran | Tajikistan

On his fortieth birthday, a man engineers a revolt against himself. He telephones his lovers — all four of them — and arranges to meet them at his dance school that afternoon. The women are shocked to discover that they have been sharing the affections of the same man. He arrives and tries to explain his actions. He has realized that time is limited for each of us. Total honesty is the only answer. One by one we review the beginning of each affair.

Director: Philip Gröning
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: France | Switzerland | Germany

An examination of life inside the Grande Chartreuse, the head monastery of the reclusive Carthusian Order in France.

Director: Majid Majidi
Stars: Parviz Parastui, Roya Taymourian, Soghra Obeisi
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran

Youssef, a blind university professor, is suddenly diagnosed with a fatal disease and must undergo treatment in France. Back home, will he find the life he had before?

Director: Auraeus Solito
Stars: Nathan Lopez, Soliman Cruz, J.R. Valentin
Genre: Drama
Country: Philippines

A young boy falls in love with a handsome policeman who is investigating his family’s criminal activities.

Director: Aku Louhimies
Stars: Jasper Pääkkönen, Mikko Leppilampi, Pamela Tola
Genre: Drama
Country: Finland

When a schoolteacher is sacked he projects his bad mood at his troubled teen son. He in turn buys a CD player from a pawnshop with counterfeit money. This causes a chain-reaction that wreaks havoc on many lives, as everyone transfers their problems to the next victim.

Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Stars: Kais Nashif, Ali Suliman, Lubna Azabal
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Palestine | France | Germany | Netherlands | Israel

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

Director: Fedor Bondarchuk
Stars: Artur Smolyaninov, Aleksey Chadov, Konstantin Kryukov
Genre: Action, Drama, History
Country: Finland | Russia | Ukraine

Young Soviet Army recruits are stuck in the bloody war in Afghanistan, that was started by politicians.

Director: John Hillcoat
Stars: Ray Winstone, Guy Pearce, Emily Watson
Genre: Crime, Drama, Western
Country: Australia | UK

A lawman apprehends a notorious outlaw and gives him nine days to kill his older brother, or else they’ll execute his younger brother.

Director: Michael Apted, Paul Almond
Stars: Bruce Balden, Jacqueline Bassett, Symon Basterfield
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: UK

In 1964, to explore the adage “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man,” World in Action filmed seven-year-olds. Every seven years, Michael Apted visits them. At 49, 12 agree to talk about family, work, their hopes, and the series. We also see footage from previous interviews. Some marriages seem stronger; some have ended. Being a parent or a grandparent dominates life’s pleasures. Simon has found responsibility; John’s charity work flourishes. Neil remains in politics, against all odds. Jackie leads the critique of a more deliberately-present Apted and the series’ intrusiveness. None enjoy participating; all are reflective; several surpass expectations.

Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Stars: Jérémie Renier, Déborah François, Jérémie Segard
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Belgium | France

Bruno and Sonia, a young couple living off her benefit and the thefts committed by his gang, have a new source of money: their newborn son.

Director: Ellen Perry
Stars: Alberto Fujimori
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

President Alberto Fujimori risked everything to win Peru’s war on terror, but in doing so became an international fugitive, wanted for corruption, kidnapping and murder.

Director: Taggart Siegel
Stars: John Peterson, Anna Nielsen, John Edwards
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The epic tale of a maverick Midwestern farmer. Castigated as a pariah in his community, Farmer John bravely transforms his farm amidst a failing economy, vicious rumors, and arson. He succeeds in creating a bastion of free expression and a revolutionary form of agriculture in rural America.

Director: Susan Buice, Arin Crumley
Stars: Susan Buice, Arin Crumley, Julia Ann Ames
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA

Apathy, technology, paranoia, disease and medication. Meet Arin. Arin is a shy videographer who finds it too much to handle to go out and meet girls, so he sets up an account on meester.net. The flood of responses never comes, save for one email from Susan, a struggling artist who finds her job as a waitress stifling her creativity. Susan is also on the shy side and is seeking an alternative to the classic dating situation. When Arin and Susan finally meet, that alternative dating situation comes to life as the two refuse to communicate verbally with each other, wanting to avoid bullshit small talk. Instead, when they do need to communicate to each other, they pass a pen and pad back and forth.

Director: Edward A. Burger
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: China | Canada

A journey exploring the practices of Chinese hermits living in the Zhongnan Mountains.

Director: Xavier Beauvois
Stars: Nathalie Baye, Jalil Lespert, Roschdy Zem
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: France

A rookie policeman from provincial Le Havre volunteers for the high pressure Parisian homicide bureau and is assigned to a middle-aged woman detective.

Director: Marilyn Agrelo
Stars: Heather Berman, Emma Therese Biegacki, Eva Carrozza
Genre: Documentary, Family, Music
Country: USA

The students of several New York City elementary schools learn ballroom dancing and compete in a city wide dance competition.

Director: Yimou Zhang
Stars: Ken Takakura, Kiichi Nakai, Shinobu Terajima
Genre: Drama
Country: China | Japan | Hong Kong

A Japanese father travels to China’s Yunnan province in the place of his ailing son to film a folk-opera singer.

Director: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay, Weiser Quay
Stars: Amira Casar, Gottfried John, Assumpta Serna
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Music
Country: Germany | UK | France

Dark fairy-tale about a demonic doctor who abducts a beautiful opera singer with designs on transforming her into a mechanical nightingale.

Director: Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach, Ermanno Olmi
Stars: Carlo Delle Piane, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Silvana De Santis
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy | UK

A train travels across Italy toward Rome. On board is a professor who daydreams a conversation with a love that never was, a family of Albanian refugees who switch trains and steal a ticket, three brash Scottish soccer fans en route to a match, and a complaining widow traveling to a memorial service for her late husband who’s accompanied by a community-service volunteer who’s assisting her. Interactions among these Europeans turn on class and nationalism, courtesy and rudeness, and opportunities for kindness.

Director: Ira Sachs
Stars: Dina Korzun, Rip Torn, Darren E. Burrows
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: USA

A Russian woman living in Memphis with a much older rock-‘n’-roll legend experiences a personal awakening when her husband’s estranged son comes to visit.

Director: Penn Jillette, Paul Provenza
Stars: George Carlin, Don Rickles, Chris Rock
Genre: Documentary, Comedy
Country: USA

One hundred superstar comedians tell the same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke–one shared privately by comics since Vaudeville.

Director: Stephen Frears
Stars: Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Christopher Guest
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: UK | USA

Laura Henderson (Dame Judi Dench) buys an old London theater and opens it up as the Windmill, a performance hall which goes down in history for, amongst other things, its all-nude revues.

Director: Çagan Irmak
Stars: Çetin Tekindor, Fikret Kuskan, Hümeyra
Genre: Drama, Family
Country: Turkey

The family of a left-wing journalist is torn apart after the military coup of Turkey in 1980.

Director: Jason Reitman
Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Cameron Bright, Maria Bello
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

Satirical comedy follows the machinations of Big Tobacco’s chief spokesman, Nick Naylor, who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying to remain a role model for his twelve-year-old son.

Director: Joe Wright
Stars: Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Brenda Blethyn
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | UK | USA

Sparks fly when spirited Elizabeth Bennet meets single, rich, and proud Mr. Darcy. But Mr. Darcy reluctantly finds himself falling in love with a woman beneath his class. Can each overcome their own pride and prejudice?

Director: Keith Beauchamp
Stars: Mamie Till Mobley, Wheeler Parker, Simeon Wright
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

Never-before-seen testimony is included in this documentary on Emmett Louis Till, who, in 1955, was brutally murdered after he whistled at a white woman.

Director: Micha X. Peled
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The sweatshop conditions and the growing importance of China as an exporting country on a global scale are followed through by the life of a young seventeen-year-old worker in a Chinese jeans’ factory.

Director: Hank Rogerson
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Twenty male inmates in a Kentucky prison form an unlikely Shakespearean acting troupe.

Director: Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA | UK

‘The Devil’s Miner’ tells the story of 14-year-old Basilio who worships the devil for protection while working in a Bolivian silver mine to support his family.

Director: Ewa Ewart, Leslie Woodhead
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA | UK

On September 1, 2004, a group of heavily armed rebel extremists stormed into School No. 1 in Beslan, Russia. For three days, more than a thousand children and adults were held hostage in a sweltering gymnasium, denied food and water, and forced to keep their hands over their heads. The harrowing siege ended on September 3 with a series of explosions and a hail of gunfire that killed some 350 people – half of them children. In this film, the youngest survivors of Beslan tell their story.

Director: Aleksandar Manic
Stars: Jasar Destani, Bajram Severdzan
Genre: Documentary
Country: Serbia and Montenegro | Czech Republic

A documentary about bizarre residents of Shutka, a Macedonian village built on the former city dump area.

Director: Erwin Wagenhofer
Stars: Jean Ziegler, Peter Brabeck, Karl Otrok
Genre: Documentary
Country: Austria

A look at how the world’s food is produced and how mass production changes the environment and the lives of people.

Director: Matthew Barney
Stars: Matthew Barney, Björk, Shigeru Akahori
Genre: Fantasy
Country: USA | Japan

The film concerns the theme of self-imposed limitation and continues Matthew Barney’s interest in religious rite, this time focusing on Shinto.

Director: Andrucha Waddington
Stars: Fernanda Montenegro, Fernanda Torres, Ruy Guerra
Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil

A woman is taken along with her mother in 1910 to a far-away desert by her husband, and after his passing, is forced to spend the next 59 years of her life hopelessly trying to escape it.

Director: Fatih Akin
Stars: Alexander Hacke, Ahmed Ulug, Cem Yegul
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: Germany | Turkey

Award-winning director Fatih Akin takes us on a journey through Istanbul, the city that bridges Europe and Asia, and challenges familiar notions of east and west. He looks at the vibrant musical scene which includes traditional Turkish music plus rock and hip-hop.

Director: Felice Conte, Brent Renaud, Craig Renaud
Stars: Matt, Michelle, Sebastian
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

When you’re a junkie, the money comes and goes–and so does the high. Do relationships stand a chance among addicts? Meet Matt & Tracy and Sebastian & Michelle–two New York City couples looking for love, and fixes, in all the wrong places. This startlingly candid documentary follows these two drug-addicted couples as they eke out a bare-bones existence on the streets of New York, desperately trying to score cash to pay for their next fix. The result is an unflinching, captivating examination of the human need for love and escape–and the virtual impossibility of finding anything more than temporary solace.

Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Brad Dourif, Donald Williams, Ellen Baker
Genre: Sci-Fi
Country: Germany | France | Austria | UK

An alien narrates the story of his dying planet, his and his people’s visits to Earth and Earth’s man-made demise, while human astronauts attempt to find an alternate planet for surviving humans to live on.

Director: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Stars: Mark Duplass, Katie Aselton, Rhett Wilkins
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Josh Sagers drives cross-country on a mission to deliver his father’s birthday gift – a giant purple LazyBoy.

Director: James Cameron, Steven Quale
Stars: James Cameron, Anatoly M. Sagalevitch, Genya Chernaiev
Genre: Documentary, Family
Country: USA

James Cameron teams up with NASA scientists to explore the Mid-Ocean Ridge, a submerged chain of mountains that band the Earth and are home to some of the planet’s most unique life forms.

Director: Jacques Audiard
Stars: Romain Duris, Aure Atika, Emmanuelle Devos
Genre: Crime, Drama, Music
Country: France

Will Thomas still lead a life of crime and cruelty, just like his thuggish father, or will he pursue his dream of becoming a pianist?

Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden
Genre: Comedy, Sport
Country: USA

A grizzled little league coach tries to turn his team of misfits into champs.

Director: Michel Gondry
Stars: Dave Chappelle, Yasiin Bey, Lauryn Hill
Genre: Documentary, Comedy, Music
Country: USA

A mix of Dave Chappelle’s sketch comedy and musical interludes, inspired in part by the 1973 documentary Wattstax.