Tag: 2009

Director: Chan-wook Park
Stars: Kang-ho Song, Ok-bin Kim, Hee-jin Choi
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country: South Korea | USA

Through a failed medical experiment, a priest is stricken with vampirism and is forced to abandon his ascetic ways.

Director: Jamin Winans
Stars: Christopher Soren Kelly, Quinn Hunchar, Jessica Duffy
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA

A mysterious creature, known as Ink, steals a child’s soul in hopes of using it as a bargaining chip to join the Incubi – the group of supernatural beings responsible for creating nightmares.

Director: Bong Joon Ho
Stars: Hye-ja Kim, Won Bin, Goo Jin
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: South Korea

A mother desperately searches for the killer who framed her son for a girl’s horrific murder.

Director: Julia Bacha
Stars: Jonathan Gould
Genre: Documentary, Action, Biography
Country: Israel | Palestine | USA

Follows a Palestinian leader who unites Fatah, Hamas and Israelis in an unarmed movement to save his village from destruction. Success eludes them until his 15-year-old daughter jumps into the fray.

Director: Liang Zhao
Stars: Zhang Weiye, Xiao Yuan
Genre: Documentary
Country: China | Switzerland | UK | France | Belgium | Finland

It is a fantastic documentary about Chinese govt’s systemic oppression and persecution toward ordinary folk who petition the government.

Director: Johnnie To
Stars: Johnny Hallyday, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, Simon Yam
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Country: Hong Kong | France

A French chef swears revenge after a violent attack on his daughter’s family in Macau, during which her husband and her two children are murdered. To help him find the killers, he hires three local hit-men working for the mafia.

Director: Samuel Maoz
Stars: Yoav Donat, Itay Tiran, Oshri Cohen
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Israel | France | Germany | UK

During the First Lebanon War in 1982, a lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town.

Director: Lucas Belvaux
Stars: Yvan Attal, Anne Consigny, André Marcon
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: France | Belgium

A rich industrialist is brutally kidnapped. While he physically and mentally degenerates in imprisonment, the kidnappers, police and the board of the company of which he is director negotiate about the ransom of 50 million euro.

Director: Geralyn Pezanoski
Stars: Karen O’Toole
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

MINE is the powerful story about the essential bond between humans and animals told against the backdrop of one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. MINE explores how tragedy intensifies that bond and is told from the perspective of original guardians, rescuers, and adoptive parents of the voiceless victims of Katrina.

Director: Christian Carion
Stars: Guillaume Canet, Emir Kusturica, Alexandra Maria Lara
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: France

The French intelligence service alerts the U.S. about a Soviet spy operation during the height of the Cold War, which sets off an unfortunate chain of events.

Director: Chris Smith
Stars: Michael Ruppert
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary on Michael Ruppert, a police officer turned independent reporter who predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness.

Director: Zachary Levy
Stars: Stanley Pleskun
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A man strong enough to bend a penny with just his fingers, Stanless Steel reaches middle age, career disappointments and difficult personal relationships that begin to test his strengths and force him to struggle with the weaknesses around him — including his own.

Director: Jessica Hausner
Stars: Sylvie Testud, Léa Seydoux, Bruno Todeschini
Genre: Drama
Country: Austria | France | Germany

In order to escape her isolation, wheelchair-bound Christine makes a life changing journey to Lourdes, the iconic site of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees Mountains.

Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Tony Kgoroge
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA

Nelson Mandela, in his first term as President of South Africa, initiates a unique venture to unite the Apartheid-torn land: enlist the national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

Director: Joe Berlinger
Stars: Dan Ashley, Pablo Fajardo, Kent Robertson
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The story of lawsuit by tens of thousands of Ecuadorans against Chevron over contamination of the Ecuadorean Amazon.

Director: Marco Bellocchio
Stars: Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Filippo Timi, Fausto Russo Alesi
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: Italy | France

The story of Mussolini’s secret lover, Ida Dalser, and their son Albino.

Director: Fatih Akin
Stars: Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu, Pheline Roggan
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Germany | France | Italy

In Hamburg, German-Greek chef Zinos unknowingly disturbs the peace in his locals-only restaurant by hiring a more talented chef.

Director: Gary Hustwit
Stars: Paola Antonelli, Chris Bangle, Andrew Blauvelt
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Director: Alain Resnais
Stars: André Dussollier, Sabine Azéma, Anne Consigny
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Italy

A quirky woman who spends her free time as a pilot has her purse stolen; when a mysterious man finds her wallet, they embark on a peculiar romance.

Director: Sebastián Silva
Stars: Catalina Saavedra, Claudia Celedón, Mariana Loyola
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Chile | Mexico

A drama centered on a maid trying to hold on to her position after having served a family for 23 years.

Director: Louie Psihoyos
Stars: Richard O’Barry, Louie Psihoyos, Hardy Jones
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Crime
Country: USA

Using state-of-the-art equipment, a group of activists, led by renowned dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry, infiltrate a cove near Taijii, Japan to expose both a shocking instance of animal abuse and a serious threat to human health.

Director: Chris Atkins
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

Documentary that explores mankind’s desire to be famous and its effect on society.

Director: Michael Mann
Stars: Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, Christian Stolte
Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama
Country: USA | Japan

The Feds try to take down notorious American gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s.

Director: Caroline Bottaro
Stars: Sandrine Bonnaire, Kevin Kline, Francis Renaud
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Germany

A chambermaid on Corsica is obsessed with chess after seeing a US expat play it lovingly with l’Américaine. She cleans his house and now also plays with him on Tuesdays.

Director: Daniel Monzón
Stars: Luis Tosar, Alberto Ammann, Antonio Resines
Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime
Country: Spain | France

The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot — the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.

Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Stars: Paulina Gaitan, Marco Antonio Aguirre, Leonardo Alonso
Genre: Adventure, Crime, Drama
Country: Mexico

A Honduran young girl and a Mexican gangster are united in a journey across the American border.

Director: Pedro Costa
Stars: Jeanne Balibar, Rodolphe Burger, Hervé Loos
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: Portugal | France

Intimate portrait of the French actress/singer Jeanne Balibar.

Director: Luca Guadagnino
Stars: Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, Edoardo Gabbriellini
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy

Emma left Russia to live with her husband in Italy. Now a member of a powerful industrial family, she is the respected mother of three, but feels unfulfilled. One day, Antonio, a talented chef and her son’s friend, makes her senses kindle.

Director: Gaspar Noé
Stars: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Country: France | Germany | Italy | Canada | Japan

An American drug dealer living in Tokyo is betrayed by his best friend and killed in a drug deal. His soul, observing the repercussions of his death, seeks resurrection.

Director: Cherien Dabis
Stars: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass
Genre: Drama
Country: USA | United Arab Emirates | Canada | Kuwait | Jordan

A drama centered on the trials and tribulations of a proud Palestinian Christian immigrant single mother and her teenage son in small town Indiana.

Director: Jacques Audiard
Stars: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: France | Italy

A young Arab man is sent to a French prison.

Director: Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud
Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Jacques Perrin, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: France | Switzerland | Spain | USA | United Arab Emirates

An ecological drama/documentary, filmed throughout the globe. Part thriller, part meditation on the vanishing wonders of the sub-aquatic world.

Director: Miraz Bezar
Stars: Senay Orak, Muhammed Al, Hakan Karsak
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany | Turkey

Diyarbakir, in the late nineties: Two young Kurdish children are forced to live on the street after their parents have been murdered by a member of a secret state security force.

Director: Peter Strickland
Stars: Hilda Péter, Norbert Tankó, László Mátray
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Romania | UK

In the beautiful, otherworldly Carpathian Mountains a woman is traveling with a small boy in a horse and cart, looking to punish those who once abused her. For years, Katalin has been keeping a terrible secret. Hitchhiking with two men, she was brutally raped in the woods. Although she has kept silent about what happened, she has not forgotten, and her son Órban serves as a living reminder. When her village discovers her secret, Katalin’s husband rejects her. With nothing to lose, she is free to seek revenge on the perpetrators. As she puts human faces to horrible acts, she is forced to consider that morality might not be as black and white as she had imagined.

Director: Bruno Dumont
Stars: Julie Sokolowski, Karl Sarafidis, Yassine Salime
Genre: Drama
Country: France

The aspirant nun Céline van Hadewijch is invited to leave the convent where she studies and she returns to the house of her parents in Paris. Céline meets her outcast Muslim teenage friend Yassine Chikh in a café and they hang around together. Céline tells that he is only her friend since she is committed with God and will stay virgin since her body belongs to God. Yassine introduces Céline to his older brother and religious leader Nassir Chikh and he invites the teenage girl to participate in his religious seminars. However, Nassir is actually a terrorist and the confused Céline is the perfect tool for his cell.

Director: Robert Connolly
Stars: Jane Hampson, Bea Viegas, Christine Martins
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Australia

War correspondent Roger East and the young Jose Ramos-Horta travel to East Timor to investigate the murders of the Balibo Five in 1975.

Director: Lee Daniels
Stars: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

In New York City’s Harlem circa 1987, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction.

Director: Benoît Jacquot
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Xavier Beauvois
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Switzerland

Villa Amalia is the story of Ann, a musician, whose life is turned upside down by a kiss. When she sees Thomas kissing another woman, Ann makes a clean break, leaving him and everything else far behind her. Suddenly unsure of everything that seemed so certain, Ann knows only that she must change her life and become someone else to find herself. With her music and the friendship of Georges, who pops out of her distant past, she sets off on a journey that will take her to an island where the Villa Amalia stands.

Director: Mohamed Al Daradji
Stars: Shazada Hussein, Yasser Talib, Bashir Al Majid
Genre: Drama
Country: Iraq | UK | France | Netherlands | United Arab Emirates | Egypt | Palestine

A willful young boy follows his just as obstinate grandmother in a journey across Iraq, determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed’s father, who never returned from war.

Director: Julien Temple
Stars: Lee Brilleaux, Wilko Johnson, John Martin
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: UK

The story of Dr Feelgood, four men in cheap suits who crashed out of Canvey Island in the early ’70s, sandpapered the face of rock’n’roll, leaving all that came before a burnt-out ruin – four estuarine John-the-Baptists to Johnny Rotten’s anti-Christ. Taking London by storm, they sped through Europe and conquered the UK with No 1 chart success, before imploding just as punk was born and America beckoned with open arms. Contributions from members of The Clash, Blondie and The Sex Pistols join Dr Feelgood with collaborators Jools Holland and Alison Moyet to tell the story of Canvey, ’70s England and the greatest local band in the world.

Director: Urszula Antoniak
Stars: Lotte Verbeek, Stephen Rea, Tom Charlfa
Genre: Drama
Country: Netherlands | Ireland

Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.

Director: Alain Guiraudie
Stars: Ludovic Berthillot, Hafsia Herzi, Pierre Laur
Genre: Adventure, Comedy
Country: France

Armand, a man who sells farm machines in the country, is a popular middle-aged homosexual. Just as he was getting sick of life, he falls in love with a young girl called, Curlie, and goes on the run from her parents and the police.

Director: Bartosz Konopka
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary, History, News
Country: Poland | Germany

The untold story about wild rabbits which lived between the Berlin Walls.

Director: Armando Iannucci
Stars: Tom Hollander, Peter Capaldi, James Gandolfini
Genre: Comedy
Country: UK

A political satire about a group of skeptical American and British operatives attempting to prevent a war between two countries.

Director: Haim Tabakman
Stars: Zohar Shtrauss, Ran Danker, Tinkerbell
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Israel | Germany | France

A married, Orthodox, Jerusalem butcher and Jewish father of four falls in love with his handsome, 22-year-old male apprentice, triggering the suspicions of his wife and the disapproval of his Orthodox community.

Director: Asghar Farhadi
Stars: Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Iran | France

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

Director: Dominic Murphy
Stars: Muse Watson, Carrie Fisher, Wallace Merck
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: UK

Deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, where every man owns a gun and a moonshine still, abides living legend Jesco White, “the dancing outlaw”. As a boy Jesco was in and out of reform school and the insane asylum. To keep him out of trouble, his daddy D-Ray taught him the art of mountain dancing, a frenzied version of tap dancing to wild country banjo music. After his father’s death, crazy Jesco dons his father’s tap shoes and takes his show on the road.

Director: Oren Moverman
Stars: Ben Foster, Samantha Morton, Woody Harrelson
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA

An American soldier struggles with an ethical dilemma when he becomes involved with a widow of a fallen officer.

Director: Tom Hooper
Stars: Colm Meaney, Henry Goodman, David Roper
Genre: Biography, Drama, Sport
Country: UK

The story of the controversial Brian Clough’s 44-day reign as the coach of the English football club Leeds United.

Director: Franny Armstrong
Stars: Pete Postlethwaite, Jehangir Wadia, Alvin DuVernay
Genre: Documentary, History, News
Country: UK

A future archivist looks at old footage from the year 2008 to understand why humankind failed to address climate change.

Director: Warwick Thornton
Stars: Rowan McNamara, Marissa Gibson, Mitjili Napanangka Gibson
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Australia

A glue-sniffing boy and his girlfriend escape the government-controlled no-hope Aboriginal community they live in and go to the city, Alice Springs, looking for a better life.

Director: Robert Guédiguian
Stars: Simon Abkarian, Virginie Ledoyen, Robinson Stévenin
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: France

The poet Missak Manouchian leads a mixed bag of youngsters and immigrants in a clandestine battle against the Nazi occupation. Twenty-two men and one woman fighting for an ideal and for freedom. News of their daring attacks, including the assassination of an SS general, eventually reaches Berlin.

Director: Hae-jun Lee
Stars: Jae-yeong Jeong, Ryeowon Jung, Yeong-seo Park
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: South Korea

A failed suicide attempt leads a heartbroken man to live a life in the wilderness.

Director: Ken Wardrop
Stars: Leah Holohan, Grace McGee, Eimear Peters
Genre: Documentary
Country: Ireland

Using his mother’s life as inspiration, the filmmaker has created a film that explores how we share life’s journey with the opposite sex. His and Hers is an investigation into the ordinary to discover the extraordinary. It finds comedy in the mundane, tragedy in the profound and provides an original insight into a life. The hallways, living rooms and kitchens of the Irish Midlands are used as the canvas for the film’s rich tapestry of female characters. The story unfolds sequentially through young to old with a charmingly unabashed array of Irish ladies, and there’s not a man in sight.

Director: Kyle Patrick Alvarez
Stars: Brian Geraghty, Kel O’Neill, Marguerite Moreau
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

In an effort to promote his unpublished novel, Davy Mitchell sets out on a road trip with his younger brother. However, the idealism of being on the road wears off and it quickly proves to be a lonely and unfulfilling experience for Davy. One night in a motel room he gets a random phone call from a mysterious woman named Nicole. They start a funny and intimate long distance relationship that leaves Davy happier than he has been in years. Hoping there is more to the relationship then a voice and a phone bill, Davy decides he wants to meet Nicole. Ultimately, he will have to face not only the truth about their relationship but also about himself.

Director: Catherine Breillat
Stars: Dominique Thomas, Lola Créton, Daphné Baiwir
Genre: Fantasy
Country: France

An adaptation of the classic tale of a wealthy aristocrat with a blue beard.

Director: Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani
Stars: Fouad Habash, Nisrin Siksik, Elias Saba
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Germany | Israel | UK

Ajami is the religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv. These are five stories about the everyday life in Ajami.

Director: Adam Elliot
Stars: Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Drama
Country: Australia

A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York.

Director: Heitor Dhalia
Stars: Laura Neiva, Vincent Cassel, Camilla Belle
Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil

A 1980s-set drama about a teenage girl undergoing her sexual awakening when she learns about her father’s infidelities.

Director: Rebecca Cammisa
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

“Which Way Home” is a feature documentary film that follows unaccompanied child migrants, on their journey through Mexico, as they try to reach the United States. We follow children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year old Hondurans, who are desperately trying to reach their parents in the US.; children like Jose, a ten-year old El Salvadoran, who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center; and Kevin, a canny, streetwise fourteen-year old Honduran, whose mother hopes that he will reach the U.S. and send money back to her. These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow. They are the children you never hear about; the invisible ones.

Director: Jim Jarmusch
Stars: Isaach De Bankolé, Alex Descas, Jean-François Stévenin
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA | Japan

The story of a mysterious loner, a stranger in the process of completing a criminal job.

Director: Peter Hanson
Stars: Allison Anders, Jane Anderson, Doug Atchison
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

War stories and life lessons from the industry’s top writers.

Director: Alexander Adolph
Stars: Devid Striesow, Nadja Uhl, Jörg Schüttauf
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany

After a flirtation in a store looking for the imposter Frank is taken and to be behind bars. Free again, he tries to earn money in an honest way. One day, he meets the woman from the store again. For her he would do anything. That she works as a prostitute does not bother him. Soon, Frank can not help but return to his old ways and loses more and more its sense of reality.

Director: Veiko Õunpuu
Stars: Taavi Eelmaa, Ravshana Kurkova, Tiina Tauraite
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: Estonia | Finland | Sweden | France

A mid-level manager who develops an aversion to being “good” finds himself confronting the mysteries of middle-age and morality as he loses grasp of what was once his quiet life.

Director: Paul Fierlinger, Sandra Fierlinger
Stars: Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave, Isabella Rossellini
Genre: Animation, Drama
Country: USA

The story of a man who rescues a German shepherd and how the two become fast friends.

Director: Giuseppe Capotondi
Stars: Kseniya Rappoport, Filippo Timi, Antonia Truppo
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy

A chambermaid and an ex-cop meet at a speed dating event and a romance develops. But during a romantic getaway things suddenly take a dark turn.

Director: Xavier Dolan
Stars: Anne Dorval, Xavier Dolan, François Arnaud
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Canada

A semi-autobiographical story about Hubert as a young homosexual at odds with his mother.

Director: Lixin Fan
Stars: Changhua Zhang, Yang Zhang, Suqin Chen
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Canada | China | UK

A couple embarks on a journey home for Chinese new year along with 130 million other migrant workers, to reunite with their children and struggle for a future. Their unseen story plays out as China soars towards being a world superpower.

Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura
Stars: Atsushi Itô, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Noriko Eguchi
Genre: Action, Comedy, Music
Country: Japan

Several seemingly unrelated but surprisingly intertwined tales reveal how a Japanese band that independently invented punk rock in 1975 is, 37 years later, connected to a comet that is about to destroy the world.

Director: Juan José Campanella
Stars: Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Pablo Rago
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: Argentina | Spain

A retired legal counselor writes a novel hoping to find closure for one of his past unresolved homicide cases and for his unreciprocated love with his superior – both of which still haunt him decades later.

Director: Maren Ade
Stars: Lars Eidinger, Birgit Minichmayr, Hans-Jochen Wagner
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Germany

While on a Mediterranean vacation, a seemingly happy boyfriend and girlfriend find their connection to one another tested as they bond with another couple.

Director: Havana Marking
Stars: Habib Amiri, Setara Hussainzada, Rafi Naabzada
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: UK

A look at how contestants on the a musical contest program “Pop Idol” in Afghanistan risk their lives to appear on the show.

Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Stars: Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Ion Stoica
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Romania

A police officer refuses to arrest a young man for offering drugs to his friends.

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Stars: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley, Angeliki Papoulia
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: Greece

Three teenagers live isolated, without leaving their house, because their over-protective parents say they can only leave when their dogtooth falls out.

Director: Ounie Lecomte
Stars: Sae-ron Kim, Do Yeon Park, Ko Asung
Genre: Drama
Country: France | South Korea

Inspired by her childhood, French-Korean filmmaker Ounie Lecomte recounts the emotional journey of a little girl abandoned by her father in an orphanage.

Director: Ayan Mukherjee
Stars: Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Supriya Pathak
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: India

A spoiled young adult living in Mumbai experiences a change in his lazy ways when he meets a woman at a party, who inspires him to “wake up.”

Director: Elia Suleiman
Stars: Menashe Noy, Elia Suleiman, Baher Agbariya
Genre: Drama, History
Country: UK | Italy | Belgium | France | Palestine | Israel

An examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day.

Director: Terry Gilliam
Stars: Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Heath Ledger
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: UK | France | Canada

A traveling theater company gives its audience much more than they were expecting.

Director: Michael Schwarz, Edward Gray
Stars: Frances McDormand, Michael Pollan
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism and a student of food, presents the history of four plants, each of which found a way to make itself essential to humans, thus ensuring widespread propagation. Apples, for sweetness; tulips, for beauty; marijuana, for pleasure; and, potatoes, for sustenance. Each has a story of discovery and adaptation; each has a symbiotic relationship with human civilization. The film tells these stories and examines these relationships.

Director: Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary, Adventure, Western
Country: UK | France | USA

In the summer of 2003, a group of shepherds took a herd of sheep one final time through the Beartooth Mountains of Montana, in the extreme north-west of the United States. It was a journey of almost three hundred kilometres through expansive green valleys, by fields of snow, and across hazardous, narrow ridges – a journey brimming with challenges. The aging shepherds do their very best to keep the hundreds of sheep together; the panoramic high mountains are teeming with hungry wolves and grizzly bears.

Director: Anand Tucker
Stars: David Morrissey, Lisa Howard, Chris Walker
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK

Plagued by guilt, a corrupt police official attempts to solve the case of a missing schoolgirl after seeing connections between her disappearance and a rash of prior abductions.

Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Stars: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Ewa Fröling
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Sweden | Denmark | Germany | Norway

A journalist is aided by a young female hacker in his search for the killer of a woman who has been dead for forty years.

Director: Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

An intimate and moving account of one family’s extraordinary courage in the face of overwhelming injustice and brutality.

Director: Todd Solondz
Stars: Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Ally Sheedy
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.

Director: Pietro Marcello
Stars: Vincenzo Motta, Mary Monaco, Franco Leo
Genre: Documentary, Romance
Country: Italy | France

The story of a criminal Vincenzo and his transsexual lover Mary, who waited for him for many years while he served his prison sentence.

Director: Mohammad Rasoulof
Stars: Hassan Pourshirazi, Younes Ghazali, Mohammad Rabbani
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran

Rahmat has been asked to meet the inhabitants of these islands to collect their tears. Although for years people have been giving their tears to Rahmat, no one knows exactly what he has been doing with them.

Director: Patrick Coyle
Stars: Jeremy Sisto, Kristin Chenoweth, Brian Baumgartner
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A prostitute plans to end her life on her birthday, but her priest attempts to stop her from doing so.

Director: Gloria La Morte, Paola Mendoza
Stars: Paola Mendoza, Sebastian Villada, Laura Montana
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A story based on facts which offers a fresh take on the issue of new immigrants in the United States. Mariana totes her two children from Colombia to reunite with her husband in Queens, New York. Her life is devastatingly turned around when her husband abandons the family. The woman and her kids have to fend for themselves in a foreign country. Mariana desperately searches for work. In the end, she resourcefully navigates a surprising avenue for making some money, the city’s recycling.

Director: Rob Lemkin, Thet Sambath
Stars: Thet Sambath, Nuon Chea, Pol Pot
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK | Cambodia

The Khmer Rouge slaughtered nearly two million people in the late 1970s. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain unexplained. Until now. Enter Thet Sambath, an unassuming, yet cunning, investigative journalist who spends a decade of his life gaining the trust of the men and women who perpetrated the massacres. From the foot soldiers who slit the throats to Pol Pot’s right-hand man Nuon Chea, the notorious Brother Number Two, Sambath records shocking testimony never before seen or heard.

Director: Sophie Barthes
Stars: Paul Giamatti, Emily Watson, Dina Korzun
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA | France

Paul is an actor who feels bogged down by his participation in a production of Chekov’s play, Vanya.

Director: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani
Stars: Cassandra Forêt, Charlotte Eugène Guibeaud, Marie Bos
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Country: France | Belgium

As a young girl Ana was a rebellious child. She was also tormented by images of death and a shadowy, ominous figure in black. Now an adult, she is once again tormented by shadowy, other-worldly forms.

Director: Pedro González-Rubio
Stars: Jorge Machado, Roberta Palombini, Natan Machado Palombini
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Mexico

Before their inevitable farewell, Jorge, a young man of Mayan roots, and Natan, his half-Italian son, spend time together living off the Banco Chinchorro coral reef.

Director: Marc Webb
Stars: Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Geoffrey Arend
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

An offbeat romantic comedy about a woman who doesn’t believe true love exists, and the young man who falls for her.

Director: Chuan Lu
Stars: Ye Liu, Wei Fan, Hideo Nakaizumi
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: China | Hong Kong

In 1937, Japan occupied Nanjing, the Chinese capital. There was a battle and subsequent atrocities against the inhabitants, especially those who took refuge in the International Security Zone.

Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Lambert, Isaach De Bankolé
Genre: Drama, War
Country: France | Cameroon

Amidst turmoil and racial conflict in a Francophone African state, a white French woman fights for her coffee crop, her family and ultimately for her life.

Director: Aviva Kempner
Stars: Gertrude Berg, Lewis Berg, Sara Chase
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

The story of the actress, writer, and broadcasting pioneer Gertrude Berg.

Director: Karim Aïnouz, Marcelo Gomes
Stars: Irandhir Santos
Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil

A geologist is sent to an isolated region in the Northeast of Brazil to survey water sources, but begins to feel a a sense of abandonment and loneliness.

Director: Judith Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith
Stars: Peter Arnett, Ben Bagdikian, Ann Beeson
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

“The Most Dangerous Man in America” is the story of what happens when a former Pentagon insider, armed only with his conscience, steadfast determination, and a file cabinet full of classified documents, decides to challenge an “Imperial” Presidency-answerable to neither Congress, the press, nor the people-in order to help end the Vietnam War.

Director: Gregory V. Sherman, Jeff Sherman
Stars: Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman, Roy Edward Disney
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Their music is unforgettable. Their name is legend. Delve into the lives and cinematic legacy of the prolific songwriting duo whose music has been featured in classic movies such as Mary Poppins (1964) and The Jungle Book (1967).

Director: Friðrik Þór Friðriksson
Stars: Margrét Dagmar Ericsdóttir, David G. Amaral, Simon Baron-Cohen
Genre: Documentary
Country: Iceland

The mother of an autistic child is determined not to accept the pessimistic prognosis for her son.

Director: Manoel de Oliveira
Stars: Ricardo Trêpa, Catarina Wallenstein, Diogo Dória
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Portugal | Spain | France

A young man falls helplessly in love with a mysterious blonde woman who turns his life upside down.

Director: James Marsh
Stars: Warren Clarke, Paddy Considine, James Fox
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK

A team of investigators attempt to stop a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper from claiming his next victim, but uncover something far more terrifying.

Director: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar
Stars: Stéphane Aubier, Jeanne Balibar, Nicolas Buysse
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Country: Belgium | Luxembourg | France

Cowboy and Indian’s only wish was to come up with a brilliant idea for Mr Horse’s birthday, but when their plan ends up in utter disaster, they’ll need to travel the world and back to make things right again.

Director: Andrew Monument
Stars: Lance Henriksen, Larry Cohen, Joe Dante
Genre: Documentary, Horror
Country: USA

An exploration of the appeal of horror films, with interviews of many legendary directors in the genre.

Director: Stéphane Brizé
Stars: Vincent Lindon, Sandrine Kiberlain, Aure Atika
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

Jean, his loving wife and son live a simple, happy life. At his son’s homeroom teacher Madamoiselle Chambon’s request, he volunteers as substitute teacher and starts to fall for her delicate and elegant charm. His ordinary life between family and work starts to falter.

Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Stars: Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Chiara Caselli, Alice de Lencquesaing
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Germany | Belgium

A film producer struggles with suicidal despair.

Director: Serge Bromberg, Ruxandra Medrea
Stars: Romy Schneider, Bérénice Bejo, Serge Reggiani
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s unfinished masterpiece, Inferno (1964), is reconstructed in this film which is part drama and part documentary.

Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Stars: Negar Shaghaghi, Ashkan Koshanejad, Hamed Behdad
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: Iran

Iranian musicians Negar and Ashkan look for band members to play at a London concert – and the visas that allow them to leave Tehran to do so.

Director: Claude Miller, Nathan Miller
Stars: Vincent Rottiers, Sophie Cattani, Christine Citti
Genre: Drama
Country: France

Given up for adoption as a toddler, troubled teenager Thomas becomes obsessed with tracking down his birth mother. After years of searching, Thomas finds her single, with a small child, living in a nearby suburb and begins a relationship with her which slowly drives him to an act of madness.

Director: Phil Grabsky
Stars: Emanuel Ax, Jonathan Biss, Riccardo Chailly
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: UK

The first truly comprehensive feature length cinema documentary ever made about Beethoven. With over 60 live performances.

Director: Damien Chazelle
Stars: Jason Palmer, Desiree Garcia, Sandha Khin
Genre: Drama, Musical
Country: USA

After connecting with the shy Madeline, a jazz trumpeter embarks on a quest for a more gregarious paramour, but through a series of twists and turns punctuated by an original score, the two lovers seem destined to be together.

Director: Michèle Hozer, Peter Raymont
Stars: Cornelia Foss, Glenn Gould
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: Canada

A documentary on the mysterious and influential pianist.

Director: Gerald Peary
Stars: Roger Ebert, Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA

The history of American film criticism.

Director: Wael Mandour, Yusri Nasrullah
Stars: Mona Zaki, Mahmoud Hemida, Hasan El-Raddad
Genre: Drama
Country: Egypt

A female talk show host in Cairo stirs up political controversy when she focuses her on-air discussions on the topic of women’s issues.

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac, Jacques Gamblin
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: France

A well known Parisian inspector becomes involved in an investigation while on holiday.

Director: David Ridgen, Nicolas Rossier
Stars: Musa Abu-Hashhash, Nidal Barham, Noam Chomsky
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Country: USA | Canada | Palestine | Israel | Lebanon

About the life and work of controversial American Jewish academic Norman Finkelstein.

Director: Sharon Maymon, Erez Tadmor
Stars: Itzik Cohen, Irit Kaplan, Dvir Benedek
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Israel | Germany | France

A comedy about a ‘coming out’ of a different kind – overweight people learning to accept themselves.

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Stars: Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: Spain

Harry Caine, a blind writer, reaches this moment in time when he has to heal his wounds from 14 years back. He was then still known by his real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie.

Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Leonie Benesch
Genre: Drama, History, Mystery
Country: Germany | Austria | France | Italy | Canada

Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years before World War I, which seem to be ritual punishment. Who is responsible?