Tag: Priority 3

Director: Alan Zweig
Stars: Alan Zweig, Harvey Pekar, Don McKellar
Genre: Documentary
Country: Canada

Alan Zweig investigates the wacky world of record collecting.

Director: F.A. Brabec
Stars: Martina Bezousková, Sylvie Kraslová, Sára Vorísková
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country: Czech Republic

Seven seemingly unconnected fairy tales – glued together only by folklore, mood, color and light – make up this Czech collection of visual poetry. The original piece of literature, written by Karel Jaromír Erben in 1853, contained twelve tales.

Director: Dan Cohen
Stars: Robert Forster, Donnie Wahlberg, Bess Armstrong
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

After 30 years on the road, a veteran jewelry salesman is forced to show his young replacement the tricks of the trade, but when the kid introduces him to the ladies of the “Altoona Riding Club,” the old dog is introduced to a whole new set of “tricks.”

Director: Olivier Assayas
Stars: Emmanuelle Béart, Charles Berling, Isabelle Huppert
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Switzerland

Jean Barnery is a young Protestant cleric in Barbazac in 1900 when he divorces his severe wife after falling in love with Pauline, the independent-minded niece of an upper-crust parishioner. Jean’s also an heir to a high-end porcelain factory in Limoges. He gives his fortune to his wife to assuage his guilt over the divorce. He pursues Pauline; they marry and live idyllically in Switzerland. Then, duty calls: his family asks him to come to Limoges to run the business. He accepts, ignoring Pauline’s wishes. His new responsibilities, as well as his fighting in the Great War, change him and his relationship with Pauline.

Director: Hideaki Anno
Stars: Shunji Iwai, Ayako Fujitani, Jun Murakami
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

A disillusioned filmmaker has an encounter with a young girl who has a ritual of repeating “Tomorrow is my birthday” everyday. He tries to communicate with her through his video camera

Director: Bernard Rapp
Stars: Bernard Giraudeau, Jean-Pierre Lorit, Florence Thomassin
Genre: Crime, Thriller, Drama
Country: France

Nicolas, a handsome, young waiter, is befriended by Frédéric Delamont, a wealthy middle-aged businessman. Delamont, a man of power, influence and strictly refined tastes, is immediately smitten by Nicolas’ charm. Lonely and phobic, Delamont offers Nicolas a lucrative job as his personal food taster. In spite of their differences, a close friendship begins to emerge between the two men. However, their bond of trust and admiration soon spirals downward into a dangerous game of deceit and obsession for which neither is prepared.

Director: Adam Simon
Stars: George A. Romero, John Carpenter, Tom Savini
Genre: Documentary, Horror
Country: USA | UK

An examination into the nature of 1960s-’70s horror films, the artists involved, and how they reflected contemporary society.

Director: Ye Lou
Stars: Xun Zhou, Hongshen Jia, Zhongkai Hua
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Germany | China | France

The river Suzhou that flows through Shanghai is a reservoir of filth, chaos and poverty, but also a meeting place for memories and secrets. Lou Ye, who spent his youth on the banks of the Suzhou, shows the river as a Chinese Styx, in which forgotten stories and mysteries come together.

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: Veronika Zilková, Jan Hartl, Jaroslava Kretschmerová
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic | UK | Japan

When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife’s pain, the man finds a stump in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real. When the root takes life they seem to have gained a child; but its appetite is much greater than that of a normal child.

Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Stars: Dina Korzun, Artyom Strelnikov, Paddy Considine
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK

When a young Russian woman and her son leave Moscow to meet her fiancé, who fails to show up, she declares political asylum.

Director: Patrice Leconte
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil, Emir Kusturica
Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Country: France | Canada

In a small French colony, a drunken man kills someone. While a guillotine is being shipped in, he changes, becoming a good and popular man.

Director: Charles Kiselyak
Stars: Seymour Cassel, Carol Kane, Jon Voight
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Romance
Country: USA

A look at the life, times, and art of independent film pioneer John Cassavetes through interviews with his family, friends, and admirers of his work.

Director: Julien Temple
Stars: Paul Cook, Steve Jones, John Lydon
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: UK | USA

A film about the career of the notorious punk rock band, the Sex Pistols.

Director: Sang-soo Hong
Stars: Eun-ju Lee, Seong-kun Mun, Won-hee Cho
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: South Korea

Relationship filled with pitfalls between a pleasant female video producer and a gallery owner as they become embroiled in their self-spun web of illusions. Bitter-sweet serenade to modern courtship.

Director: Lone Scherfig
Stars: Anders W. Berthelsen, Ann Eleonora Jørgensen, Anette Støvelbæk
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Denmark | Sweden

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner’s course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives.

Director: Dominik Moll
Stars: Laurent Lucas, Sergi López, Mathilde Seigner
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Country: France

Harry knew Michel in high school; they meet again by accident, Harry inserts himself in Michel’s life… and things take a sinister turn.

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Stars: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, David Brisbin
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: USA

An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city’s water supply.

Director: Raoul Peck
Stars: Eriq Ebouaney, Alex Descas, Théophile Sowié
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: France | Belgium | Germany | Haiti

The true story of controversial leader of independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba.

Director: François Ozon
Stars: Bernard Giraudeau, Malik Zidi, Ludivine Sagnier
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France

In 1970s Germany, a 50-year-old businessman falls in love with a 20-year-old man.

Director: Rodrigo García
Stars: Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Five California women struggle with personal problems as their own paths unwind in ways unexpected.

Director: John Sayles
Stars: David Strathairn, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Vanessa Martinez
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA

Limbo tells the story of people trying to reinvent themselves in the Southeastern islands of Alaska. The story revolves around Joe Gastineau, a fisherman traumatised by an accident at sea years before, singer Donna de Angelo and her disaffected daughter Noelle who come into Joe’s life. When Joe’s fast-talking half-brother Bobby returns to town and asks Joe for a favor, the lives of the characters are changed forever.

Director: Yang Zhang
Stars: Jiayi Du, Zheng Fang, Bing He
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: China

A young wealthy businessman’s icy attitude toward his working-class background is about to thaw as he is forced to reconnect with his elderly father and mentally challenged younger brother, who together run a public bathhouse.

Director: Emmanuel Finkiel
Stars: Shulamit Adar, Liliane Rovère, Esther Gorintin
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland | France | Belgium

During a tour of a group of Israeli Jews of Polish origin, the bus in which Riwka is located breaks down between Warsaw and Auschwitz.

Director: Benito Zambrano
Stars: María Galiana, Ana Fernández, Carlos Álvarez-Nóvoa
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain | Canada

While waiting for her husband to recover in a hospital, a mother stays with her estranged daughter, Maria, who fled her parents rural home in Andalusia because she could no longer bear her father’s abusiveness and her mother’s passivity.

Director: Krzysztof Krauze
Stars: Robert Gonera, Jacek Borcuch, Andrzej Chyra
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Country: Poland

The Debt is a gripping thriller about two entrepreneurs who become tangled in the web of a Russian thug. Two friends begin a business venture of importing Italian scooters into Poland. With no collateral, they turn to a Russian acquaintance that offers money and support in the beginning and then inexplicably turns violent and vicious. Tension mounts as the two friends begin to understand what must be done. Based on a true story, The Debt is a terrifying tale of ordinary men pushed to their limit.

Director: Matthew Barney
Stars: Norman Mailer, Matthew Barney, Anonymous
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

Larger in scale, darker in tone, and much more lavishly produced than the previous installments, “Cremaster 2,” is an epic avant-garde western built around classic themes but laced with an intricate (and often whimsical) symbolic framework.

Director: José Luis Cuerda
Stars: Manuel Lozano, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Uxía Blanco
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain

For Moncho, it’s an idyllic year: he starts school, he has a wonderful teacher, he makes a friend in Roque, he begins to figure out some of the mysteries of Eros, and, with his older brother, a budding saxophone player, he makes a trip with the band from their town in Galicia. But it’s also the year that the Spanish Republic comes under fire from Fascist rebels. Moncho’s father is a Republican as is the aging teacher, Don Gregorio. As sides are drawn and power falls clearly to one side, the forces of fear, violence, and betrayal alter profoundly what should be the pleasure of coming of age.

Director: Lynne Ramsay
Stars: Tommy Flanagan, Mandy Matthews, William Eadie
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | France

An unabashed kid navigates the filthy world of 1973 Glasgow, preoccupying himself with the equally poor youth around him.

Director: Pablo Trapero
Stars: Luis Margani, Adriana Aizemberg, Daniel Valenzuela
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Argentina

The portrait of a man and his attempts to make things up with life after losing his job.

Director: Roko Belic
Stars: Richard Feynman, B.B. King, Kongar-ol Ondar
Genre: Documentary
Country: Vietnam | USA

San Francisco bluesman and composer, Paul Peña makes a musical pilgrimage to the land of Tuva.

Director: Chang-dong Lee
Stars: Kyung-gu Sol, Yeo-jin Kim, So-Ri Moon
Genre: Drama
Country: South Korea | Japan

Consists of five phases of a man’s life about why he committed suicide in the end.

Director: Louis Bélanger
Stars: Gabriel Arcand, Sylvie Moreau, Hélène Loiselle
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Canada

A mother who supports her child with a credit card scam and an accused rapist meet and form a unique bond.

Director: Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen
Stars: Sam Doumit, Martin Goldman, Harry Keitt
Genre: Documentary, Drama, Sport
Country: USA

The story of three young boxers and their coach who is determined to guide them in a positive direction in and out of the ring.

Director: Jean-Pierre Améris
Stars: Maud Forget, Lou Doillon, Robinson Stévenin
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

Delphine is a sweet innocent young girl, her new best friend pulls her into a world where she falls in love with a local pretty boy. Working her hardest to make him love her drags her into prostitution.

Director: Yimou Zhang
Stars: Minzhi Wei, Huike Zhang, Zhenda Tian
Genre: Drama
Country: China

In a remote mountain village, the teacher must leave for a month, and the mayor can find only a 13-year old girl, Wei Minzhi, to substitute. The teacher leaves one stick of chalk for each day and promises her an extra 10 yuan if there’s not one less student when he returns. Within days, poverty forces the class troublemaker, Zhang Huike, to leave for the city to work. Minzhi, possessed of a stubborn streak, determines to bring him back. She enlists the 26 remaining pupils in earning money for her trip. She hitches to Jiangjiakou City and begins her search. The boy, meanwhile, is there, lost and begging for food. Minzhi’s stubbornness may be Huike and the village school’s salvation.

Director: Yuan Zhang
Stars: Lin Liu, Bingbing Li, Yeding Li
Genre: Drama
Country: Switzerland | Italy | Hong Kong

Tao Lan and Yu Xiaoqin are teenage stepsisters. They go to the same high school, sleep in the same bedroom, but couldn’t be more different. The first is wild, a bit of a vagabond, while the other is diligent and studies hard. One day Yu Xiaoqin steals money from her father and puts the blame on Tao Lin, who accidentally kills her sister while attempting to prove her innocence, and is put in jail. 17 years later, a woman by now, she is allowed out and is escorted by a guard to find her home long demolished. The two go to the new address of the ageing parents, and the guard becomes an eyewitness to the difficult reunion and the girl’s remorse, the anxiety and fear of the mother and the stepfather’s silent struggle to rise above his pain and find forgiveness.

Director: Michael Polish
Stars: Michael Polish, Mark Polish, Michele Hicks
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

Conjoined twins have their relationship tested when a woman takes interest in one of them.

Director: Roland Suso Richter
Stars: Kai Wiesinger, Götz George, Karoline Eichhorn
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Germany | USA

The famous Nazi-Doctor Dr. Josef Mengele – the “death angel of Auschwitz”, who killed more than 300.000 people – comes back from his hide out in Argentina to Germany as a 87 year old man. He must stand up in front of a court for his crimes. The young solicitor Peter Rohm has to defend him. But Peter Rohm – himself an expert on Josef Mengele and his crimes – feels unable to do this. When he decides to take on the case he endangers not only the relationship to his wife but also their lifes. A fictional story around the non-fictional person of Josef Mengele who died in 1979.

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Stars: Emin Ceylan, Muzaffer Özdemir, Fatma Ceylan
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Turkey

This is a movie within movie, which is almost recursive, i.e., the movie inside looks like director Ceylan’s previous movie, Kasaba. It is about the movie director, Muzaffer, going back to his hometown to make a movie using a cast of local people. While Muzaffer is around, his mother complains about simple health problems, his father is in a legal fight against the government for his land, his cousin gets out of his job to help Muzaffer who promises him to find a job in Istanbul, and his little cousin Ali tries to carry an egg in his pocket for 40 days so that he’ll get the watch of his dreams. In the meantime, they get to form the cast for Muzaffer’s movie as well.

Director: Gavin O’Connor
Stars: Janet McTeer, Kimberly J. Brown, Jay O. Sanders
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

A woman and her daughter have been constantly moving from town to town for years, but their newest home might be different from all the others.

Director: Yimou Zhang
Stars: Ziyi Zhang, Honglei Sun, Hao Zheng
Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Country: China

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.

Director: Norman Jewison
Stars: Denzel Washington, Vicellous Shannon, Deborah Kara Unger
Genre: Biography, Drama, Sport
Country: USA

The story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.

Director: Kátia Lund, João Moreira Salles
Stars: Nilton Cerqueira, Carlos Luis Gregório, Paulo Lins
Genre: Documentary
Country: Brazil | Spain

Documentary about urban violence in Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro. Policemen, drug dealers, and shantytown dwellers get trapped into a daily war that knows no winners.

Director: Andrew Shea
Stars: Noble Willingham, Jim Holmes, David Steen
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A foul-mouthed and bigoted boat salesman in rural South Carolina is targeted for ruthless and never-ending telephone terrorism by a mysterious man claiming to be his son…

Director: Takashi Koizumi
Stars: Akira Terao, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Shirô Mifune
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan | France

During a downpour, a generous ronin and his supporting wife are stranded at a country inn. The ronin comes to the attention of a lord who wants to hire him as an instructor for his men, who treat the ronin with disrespect.

Director: Eric Valli, Michel Debats
Stars: Thilen Lhondup, Gurgon Kyap, Lhakpa Tsamchoe
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Switzerland | UK | Nepal

An aging chief’s last stand, lessons for the new, and the education of a young chief-to-be played against harsh Nature in Nepal’s Dolpo. When his son dies returning from Tibet’s salt lakes, Tinle blames Karma, his son’s friend, refuses to give Karma his blessing as the new chief, and organizes a rival caravan to take the salt to lower Nepal to trade for grain. He, a few old men, his son’s widow, his grandson, and his second son, a monk, set out on the arduous journey.

Director: Eric Mendelsohn
Stars: Barbara Barrie, Bob Dishy, Edie Falco
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

A lonely, but talented teacher enjoys a flirtation with the (married) principal of the school, who returns her affections, but is hampered by his family members. Whilst the teacher and principal can steal their fleeting moments during an eclipse.

Director: Marcelo Masagão
Stars: Franz Reichelt
Genre: Documentary
Country: Brazil

A fascinating and poetical collage of countless images from the 20th century with the purpose of revealing matters of life and death during the era and its many social, cultural and political transformations, with the director making several statements on several issues, combining fact and fiction to compose his powerful mosaic of images along with the magnificent music of Wim Mertens. A true work of art that dares to make several questions about the human condition, its contradictions and ironies.

Director: Laurent Cantet
Stars: Jalil Lespert, Jean-Claude Vallod, Chantal Barré
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France | UK

The 35-hour work week has all of France in its thrall. This film turns it into a feature about economic and familial politics. Frank, a business school graduate, returns to his provincial hometown to take a management position in the factory where his father has been working for 30 years. First Frank makes the mistake of actually asking the workers on the assembly line for their opinions. Then upper management manipulates his findings to lay off employees. This creates a huge rift, not only between labor and management, but between father and son. A human morality tale that evokes paternal and filial love, and illustrates the personal risk behind political ideas.

Director: Kevin Macdonald
Stars: Michael Douglas, Ankie Spitzer, Jamal Al Gashey
Genre: Documentary, History, Sport
Country: Switzerland | Germany | UK

The Palestinian terrorist group Black September holds Israeli athletes hostage at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich.

Director: Barry Levinson
Stars: Adrien Brody, Bebe Neuwirth, Joe Mantegna
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: USA

Baltimore, Fall 1954: Schools implement the new integration law. Ben finds the “colored” girl in his class cute – upsetting his Jewish mom and granny. Ben talks to her while his brother looks for his WASP dream girl.

Director: Ming-liang Tsai
Stars: Kuei-Mei Yang, Kang-sheng Lee, Tien Miao
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Musical
Country: Taiwan | France

While never-ending rain and a strange disease spread by cockroaches ravage Taiwan, a plumber makes a hole between two apartments and the inhabitants of each form a unique connection, enacted in musical numbers.

Director: John Curran
Stars: Peter Fenton, Sacha Horler, Marta Dusseldorp
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia

An unfocused twentysomething (Peter Fenton) moves in with a former co-worker (Sacha Holder), who is suffering from low self-esteem because of her weight, looks, and a case of eczema. Their relationship is based on unending drink, drugs, and sex. Curiously, though the two are presented in a tender and humorous light that lets the viewer get involved in concerned about their direction.

Director: Simon Shore
Stars: Ben Silverstone, Brad Gorton, Charlotte Brittain
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK

A tenderly romantic coming-of-age story as two boys in a British school fall in love.

Director: James Moll
Stars: Bill Basch, Martin Basch, Randolph Braham
Genre: Documentary, War
Country: USA

In late 1944, even as they faced imminent defeat, the Nazis expended enormous resources to kill or deport over 425,000 Jews during the “cleansing” of Hungary. This Oscar-winning documentary, executive produced by Steven Spielberg, focuses on the plight of five Hungarian Jews who survived imprisonment in Auschwitz. Though these survivors recount the horrors they witnessed and endured as a result of the Nazis’ “Final Solution,” their individual triumphs are a testament to hope and humanity.

Director: Gaspar Noé
Stars: Philippe Nahon, Blandine Lenoir, Frankie Pain
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: France

A horse meat butcher’s life and mind begins to breakdown as he lashes out against various factions of society while attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

Director: Shekhar Kapur
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Liz Giles, Rod Culbertson
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: UK

The early years of the reign of Elizabeth I of England and her difficult task of learning what is necessary to be a monarch.

Director: Steve Yeager
Stars: John Waters, Pat Waters, John Waters Sr.
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters. Intercut with a 1972 interview of Waters are clips from his first films and recent interviews with his parents, his brother, Divine’s mom, actors and crew, other directors, film critics, a film curator, psychologists, and Maryland’s last censor, who shudders at the memory of Waters’s pictures.

Director: Chris Eyre
Stars: Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

Young Native American man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents died in a fire in 1976, and Thomas was saved by Arnold. Arnold soon left his family (and his tough son Victor), and Victor hasn’t seen his father for 10 years. When Victor hears Arnold has died, Thomas offers him funding for the trip to get Arnold’s remains, but only if Thomas can also go with him. Thomas and Victor hit the road.

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Sandrine Bonnaire, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Grégoire Colin
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: France

Sylvie, a 30-year-old scientist, has to dig deeper and deeper into her own background.

Director: Michael Glawogger
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Austria | Switzerland

A look at the people who live precariously, but with an unusual level of resourcefulness and imagination, in four gigantic urban agglomerations: Mumbai, New York City, Moscow and Mexico City.

Director: Nicole Garcia
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Emmanuelle Seigner
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: France

Realising a dishonest deal has been found out a diamond merchant commits suicide, leaving the gems in question for his wife. Knowing the business from the time before drink largely took over her life, she decides to sober up and sell them herself. Though they attract much interest, no-one legitimate will touch them. As she tries to get her present life straight the lure of the stones means she may have to confront the past as well.

Director: Francis Veber
Stars: Thierry Lhermitte, Jacques Villeret, Francis Huster
Genre: Comedy
Country: France

A few friends have a weekly fools’ dinner, where each brings a fool along. Pierre finds a champion fool for next dinner. Surprise.

Director: Srdjan Dragojevic
Stars: Dusan Pekic, Milan Maric, Dragan Bjelogrlic
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia | Germany

This film follows two Belgrade youths on their rise to gangster legends in a decaying society.

Director: Garin Nugroho
Stars: Sarah Azhari, Deni Christantra, Christine Hakim
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Indonesia

The Indonesian society is seen through a middle-aged lady’s eyes in her daily encounters with the street children who work and live off the harsh and sleazy world of adults.

Director: Jonathan Demme
Stars: Robyn Hitchcock, Deni Bonet, Tim Keegan
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

In this film, director Jonathan Demme documents a live performance by Robyn Hitchcock, an English singer-songwriter.

Director: Erick Zonca
Stars: Élodie Bouchez, Natacha Régnier, Grégoire Colin
Genre: Drama
Country: France

The lives of two dissimilar girls turned out in different ways.

Director: Lucian Pintilie
Stars: Costel Cascaval, Dorina Chiriac, Gheorghe Visu
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: France | Romania | Italy

The Bucharest’s suburb, a torrid summer day. Norica, a waitress and Mitu, a swineherd, meet and tease each other and starts a beverage competition. Their relationship is not just a one-night stand. It would end with a marriage, if Norica wouldn’t want to marry Gili, her 50’s boss and boyfriend, and if Mitu wouldn’t have to make two years of military service. Mitu’s passion for Norica will make him to get in trouble: drove by his obsession for her, he makes something unforgettable. The society’s resorts start moving and hunting the couple.

Director: Ebrahim Hatamikia
Stars: Parviz Parastui, Reza Kianian, Habib Rezaei
Genre: Action, Drama, Romance
Country: Iran

The Glass Agency is the story of a war veteran living in post war Iran. It depicts veterans who are suffering from social problems after the war. Society does not understand them and the standard social norms are not in harmony with their personalities.

Director: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
Stars: Michael Alig, Gitsie, James St. James
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

Documentary film exploring the rise of Club Kid legend Michael Alig and his fall in 1996 when he murdered his drug dealer/roommate Angel Melendez.

Director: Aleksey Balabanov
Stars: Sergey Makovetskiy, Dinara Drukarova, Anzhelika Nevolina
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: Russia

Dariya the maid getting a boy to touch her large breast is just one incident that occurs when Yohan and Victor infiltrate two families, forcing young Liza and blind Ekaterina to appear in porn, but they are not so innocent themselves.

Director: Jin-ho Hur
Stars: Suk-kyu Han, Eun-ha Shim, Goo Shin
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: South Korea

Hahn Suk-Kyu suffers from a fatal disease. He meets Shim Eun-Ha and falls in love with her. What will be the fate of this love – will it be a tragic ending?

Director: Goran Paskaljevic
Stars: Aleksandar Bercek, Vojislav ‘Voja’ Brajovic, Bogdan Diklic
Genre: Drama
Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia | Republic of North Macedonia | France | Greece | Turkey

Random Belgrade citizens interact with each other in a night full of crime, frustration, betrayal and revenge.

Director: Tamara Jenkins
Stars: Natasha Lyonne, Alan Arkin, Bryna Weiss
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

In 1976, a lower-middle-class teenager struggles to cope living with her neurotic family of nomads on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.

Director: Ken Loach
Stars: Peter Mullan, Louise Goodall, Gary Lewis
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK | Germany | France | Spain

Two thirtysomethings, unemployed former alcoholic Joe and community health worker Sarah, start a romantic relationship in the one of the toughest Glasgow neighbourhoods.

Director: Radwan El-Kashef
Stars: Hamdy Ahmed, Fayza Amasaib, Abla Kamel
Genre: Drama
Country: Egypt

This film is an exploration of what happens to places in general, and people in particular, once the menfolk abandon an Egyptian village to investigate the greener-grass on the proverbial ‘other side’. The womenfolk, those too old and those too young are left behind… and as the years pass, only letters return, telling tales of loneliness and hard-times. A young man, Ahmed, grows-up under these surroundings and has to deal with being the de-facto man-in-charge; when several of the migrant workers return one day, everyone has to come to terms with things being forever changed.

Director: Kim Longinotto, Ziba Mir-Hosseini
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Iran | UK

A documentary about real divorce cases in Iran’s tribunals.

Director: Alexandra Isles
Stars: Morgan Freeman, Rosetta LeNoire, Dick Campbell
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary look at the confluence of the Red scare, McCarthyism, and blacklists with the post-war activism by African Americans seeking more and better roles on radio, television, and stage. It begins in Harlem, measures the impact of Paul Robeson and the campaign to bring him down, looks at the role of HUAC, J. Edgar Hoover and of journalists such as Ed Sullivan, and ends with a tribute to Canada Lee. Throughout are interviews with men and women who were there, including Dick Campbell of the Rose McLendon Players and Fredrick O’Neal of the American Negro Theatre. In the 1940s and 1950s, anti-Communism was one more tool to maintain Jim Crow and to keep down African-Americans.

Director: Steve Humphries
Stars: Dervla Kirwan, Martha Cooney, Christina Mulcahy
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: UK

Interlocking interviews of 4 women interred in various Magdalene asylums and/or orphanages because of out-of-wedlock pregancies, being sexually assaulted, or just being “too pretty” (believe it or not).

Director: Valeriy Todorovskiy
Stars: Chulpan Khamatova, Dina Korzun, Maksim Sukhanov
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Russia | France

Alyosha has a gambling problem and his girlfriend becomes a stripper to help pay off his debt.

Director: Ken Burns, Lynn Novick
Stars: Edward Herrmann, Philip Bosco, Julie Harris
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Country: USA

A biography of the life and work of the American architect.

Director: Liz Garbus, Wilbert Rideau, Jonathan Stack
Stars: Bernard Addison, Burl Cain, George Crawford
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Documentary depicting day to day life in Angola Prison mostly from an inmate’s perspective. Interviews are with several inmates including one with a life sentence who is about to die.

Director: Kaige Chen
Stars: Li Gong, Fengyi Zhang, Zhou Sun
Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Country: China | Japan | France

In pre-unified China, the King of Qin sends his concubine to a rival kingdom to produce an assassin for a political plot, but as the king’s cruelty mounts she finds her loyalty faltering.

Director: Julio Medem
Stars: Najwa Nimri, Fele Martínez, Nancho Novo
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: Spain | France

In cold Lapland Finland, under the eternal midnight sun, two ardent lovers reunite once again after a long period apart, governed by a powerful and eloquent circular motif woven by destiny, faith, and love. Can they deny their destiny?

Director: Emir Kusturica
Stars: Bajram Severdzan, Srdjan ‘Zika’ Todorovic, Branka Katic
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Romance
Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia | France | Germany | Austria | Greece

Matko and his son Zare live on the banks of the Danube river and get by through hustling and basically doing anything to make a living. In order to pay off a business debt Matko agrees to marry off Zare to the sister of a local gangster.

Director: Aleksey German
Stars: Yuriy Tsurilo, Nina Ruslanova, Mikhail Dementev
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Russia | France

Military doctor General Klenski is arrested in Stalin’s Russia in 1953 during an anti-Semitic political campaign accused of being a participant in so-called “doctors’ plot.”

Director: Amos Kollek
Stars: Anna Thomson, Matthew Powers, Tahnee Welch
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

An unemployed ex-office worker (Anna Thomson) searching for work floats a fragile line of sanity as she struggles to find friendship and companionship. Her tenuous grasp on reality further fluctuates when a man (Matthew Powers) whom she met in a restaurant and started an affair is called to go to India for an assignment. The final straw occurs when she is evicted and moves into a sleazy hotel. She then starts seeking casual sex in unorthodox locations just to have human contact.

Director: Pedro Costa
Stars: Vanda Duarte, Nuno Vaz, Mariya Lipkina
Genre: Drama
Country: Portugal | France | Denmark

A suicidal young woman gives her newborn child up to his deadbeat father in the Fontainhas slums of Lisbon

Director: Dariush Mehrjui
Stars: Leila Hatami, Ali Mosaffa, Jamileh Sheikhi
Genre: Drama, Family, Romance
Country: Iran

Leila and Reza meet in a kind of celebration and fall for each other. Having discovered their love, they get married soon only to find out the infertility of Leila. That’s when Reza’s authoritative mother starts wheedling Leila to persuade Reza into second marriage for the sake of having a grandchild. Leila accepts at first but is unaware of her own strain threshold.

Director: John Woo
Stars: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen
Genre: Action, Crime, Sci-Fi
Country: USA

In order to foil a terrorist plot, an FBI agent undergoes facial transplant surgery and assumes the identity of a criminal mastermind, who murdered his only son. The plan turns sour when the criminal wakes up prematurely and seeks revenge.

Director: Andrej Kosak
Stars: Demeter Bitenc, Miranda Caharija, Nina Ivanic
Genre: Drama
Country: Slovenia

A teenager, son of an army officer moves with his family to Ljubljana in the fall of 1979. In the new surroundings, he’ll fall in love, make friends and discover the world of punk rock. The latter will put him into the troubles with his strict father.

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Stars: Mehmet Emin Toprak, Havva Saglam, Cihat Bütün
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey

The story of a family living in a small godforsaken town in Turkey seen through the eyes of children and dealing with the growing complexity when one becomes an adult.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Stars: Masato Hagiwara, Kôji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki
Genre: Crime, Horror, Mystery
Country: Japan

A frustrated detective deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they’ve done.

Director: Víctor González
Stars: Mabel Dai, Gustavo Domínguez, Omar Fanucci
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina

A portrait of a couple, living in poverty and prostitution. Couple is joined by a second woman, and problems escalates.

Director: Shôhei Imamura
Stars: Kôji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baishô
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After the release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking almost to no one except an eel he befriended while in prison.

Director: José Luis Guerín
Stars: Juliette Gautier, Ivon Orvain, Anne Céline Auche
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain

A silent homage to the origins of cinema, recreating the apparent disappearance of a French photographer in the 1920s. Experimental.

Director: Aleksey Balabanov
Stars: Sergey Bodrov, Viktor Sukhorukov, Svetlana Pismichenko
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Russia

An ex-soldier with a personal honor code enters the family crime business in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Director: Ademir Kenovic
Stars: Mustafa Nadarevic, Almedin Leleta, Almir Podgorica
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina | France

An alcoholic Bosnian poet sends his wife and daughter away from Sarajevo so they can avoid the troubles there. However, he is soon descended upon by a pair of orphaned brothers. The brothers have escaped a massacre in their own village and have come to the Bosnian capital in search of a long lost Aunt. The poet befriends the boys and together they try to survive the horror of the siege of Sarajevo.

Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Mina Mohammad Khani, Aida Mohammadkhani, Kazem Mojdehi
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran

When a young girl becomes lost in the hustle and bustle of Tehran, her journey turns into a dazzling exercise on the nature of film itself. In this ingenious and daringly original feature, world renowned director Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon, Crimson gold) has wrapped a blunt political critique inside the layers of a deceptively simple film.

Director: Mike van Diem
Stars: Pavlik Jansen op de Haar, Jan Decleir, Fedja van Huêt
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Netherlands | Belgium

Jacob Katadreuffe lives mute with his mother, has no contact with his father who only works against him and wants to become a lawyer, at all costs.

Director: Robert Duvall
Stars: Zeki Demirkubuz
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey

Yusuf is released from prison after serving a ten-year sentence. He is scared of life outside as he goes to an address given to him by another prisoner.

Director: Robert Duvall
Stars: Robert Duvall, Todd Allen, Paul Bagget
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

After his happy life spins out of control, a preacher from Texas changes his name, goes to Louisiana and starts preaching on the radio.

Director: Jonas Mekas
Stars: Allen Ginsberg, Paul Krassner, John Lennon
Genre: Documentary, Short, Musical
Country: USA

On October 9th, 1972 an exhibition of John Lennon/Yoko Ono’s art, designed by the Master of the Fluxus movement, George Maciunas, opened at the Syracuse Museum of Art, curated by David Ross, presently Director of Whitney Museum, in New York. On the same day an unusual group of John’s and Yoko’s friends, including Ringo, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Krasner, and many others, gathered to celebrate John’s birthday. This film is an visual and audio record of that event.

Director: Pavel Chukhray
Stars: Vladimir Mashkov, Yekaterina Rednikova, Mikhail Filipchuk
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Russia | France

A woman meets a man who isn’t the right man for her – but she hasn’t realised it yet…

Director: John Singleton
Stars: Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle
Genre: Action, Drama, History
Country: USA

A dramatization of a 1923 horrific racist lynch mob attack on an African-American community.

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Stars: Aleksandr Sokurov
Genre: Short
Country: Russia

Aleksander Sokurov brings the treasures of the Hermitage back into the light by making films about artists and their paintings. He has chosen the painter Hubert Robert, who spent a long time in Italy, and whose preference was for creating ancient ruined landscapes and naturalistic portrayals of times past.

Director: Antonio Mitrikeski
Stars: Agnieszka Wagner, Nikola Ristanovski, Marija Atanasovska
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Republic of North Macedonia | Poland

A true story about tragic love of the couple who found themselves at the different sides of the border in 1948.

Director: Ka-Fai Wai
Stars: Ching Wan Lau, Carman Lee, Francis Ng
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
Country: Hong Kong

When Ah-Gou, a smalltime Hong Kong street rascal, visits a fortune teller and hears that soon he will face a life-changing choice, he surely can’t imagine that his life reached a middle point without return. Will he go to Mainland China with his fellow gangsters to close a deal on a couple of stolen cars? Or will he instead chose to accompany his friend on a trip to kill a mafioso in Taiwan?

Director: Adolfo Aristarain
Stars: Federico Luppi, Juan Diego Botto, Eusebio Poncela
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain | Argentina

19-year-old Argentina Martin has a nearly fatal drug overdose. After that his mother sends him to Madrid, where his film director father (also called Martin) lives with his new much younger lover Alicia and bisexual actor friend Dante.

Director: John Sayles
Stars: Federico Luppi, Damián Delgado, Dan Rivera González
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Country: USA | Mexico

Humberto Fuentes is a wealthy doctor whose wife has recently died. In spite of the advice of his children, he takes a trip to visit his former students who now work in impoverished villages. His trip soon becomes a quest, politically awakening him when he finds out that one of his students was killed by the army.

Director: Noah Baumbach
Stars: Eric Stoltz, Annabella Sciorra, Chris Eigeman
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Country: USA

Lester is an occasional substitute teacher and he’s very jealous. He is jealous about the last boyfriend of Lester’s slightly wacky current partner Ramona – arrogant best-selling author Dashiell. Lester joins Dashiell’s therapy group under an alias to find out if Dashiell still has any feelings for her.

Director: Neil Jordan
Stars: Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw, Eamonn Owens
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA | Ireland

The antisocial son of an alcoholic father and a bipolar mother grows up in 1960s Ireland.

Director: Arthur Dong
Stars: Donald Aldrich, Corey Burley, Raymond Childs
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

“Licensed to Kill” goes behind the media headlines of recent high-profile anti-gay murders to investigate their causes.

Director: Kôki Mitani
Stars: Toshiaki Karasawa, Kyôka Suzuki, Masahiko Nishimura
Genre: Comedy
Country: Japan

A radio play is going to go on air at a Tokyo radio station. It is a weepy melodrama written by housewife Miyako, who is the winner of the competition run by the station. Suddenly, the hot-tempered lead actress Nokko decides she wants the name of her character to be Mary Jane and not Ritsuko. That leads to the chain of events which changes the play completely.

Director: Philippe Harel
Stars: Isabelle Carré, Philippe Harel, Nathalie Conio
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

39-year-old François meets 22-year-old Muriel, who is a virgin. She agrees that on a certain day they will meet at a hotel and he will see her naked, and promises not to sleep with her at that occasion.

Director: Marcelo Piñeyro
Stars: Héctor Alterio, Cecilia Roth, Leonardo Sbaraglia
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Argentina

A judge falls from the roof of the Federal Courthouse. A woman is murdered. Between them and the three sons of the judge there is a connection that will be investigated by a woman judge who is determined to discover the truth.

Director: Richard Kwietniowski
Stars: John Hurt, Jason Priestley, Fiona Loewi
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK | Canada

Giles De’Ath (Sir John Hurt) is a widower who doesn’t like anything modern. He goes to movies and falls in love with movie star Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestly). He then investigates everything about the movie and Ronnie. After that, he travels to Long Island City, where Ronnie lives, and meets him, pretending that Ronnie is a great actor, and that’s why Giles admires him.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Matt Damon, Danny DeVito, Claire Danes
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA | Germany

An underdog lawyer takes on a fraudulent insurance company.

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Stars: Liberto Rabal, Francesca Neri, Javier Bardem
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain | France

After leaving jail, Víctor is still in love with Elena, but she’s married to the former cop -now basketball player- who became paralysed by a shot from Víctor’s gun…

Director: Peter Meyer
Stars: Danny Glover, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: USA

An in-depth, award-winning documentary on the life and music of legendary bluesman ROBERT JOHNSON. Mixing rare photographs, exclusive interviews, and dramatic re-creations, director PETER MEYER presents a compelling portrait of this enigmatic figure. Hosted by Danny Glover with Keb’ Mo’ as Robert Johnson, featuring Johnny Shines, Honeyboy Edwards, John Hammond, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards.

Director: Kirby Dick
Stars: Bob Flanagan, Sheree Rose, Kathe Burkhart
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis from a young age, performance artist Bob Flanagan shared his life and pain in his art, usually through sadomasochistic practices.

Director: Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
Stars: Patrick Bergin, Jordan Kiziuk, Jack Warden
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Denmark | UK | Germany | France

During World War II a Jewish boy is left on his own for months in a ruined house in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he must learn all the tricks of survival under constantly life-threatening conditions.

Director: Ken Burns
Stars: Hal Holbrook, Adam Arkin, John Logan Allen
Genre: Documentary, Adventure, Biography
Country: USA

The story of the most important American exploration expedition in American history and the participants in it.

Director: S.R. Bindler
Stars: Sid Allen, Brent Baskin, Greg Cox
Genre: Documentary, Comedy
Country: USA

Twenty-four contestants compete in an endurance/sleep deprivation contest in order to win a brand new Nissan Hardbody truck. The last person to remain standing with his or her hand on the truck wins. An absurd marketing gimmick at first glance, the contest proves to be much more.

Director: Yoshio Kuroda, Doug Stone
Stars: Makoto Tsumura, Sakura Tange, Brady Bluhm
Genre: Animation, Drama, Family
Country: Japan | USA

A small poor boy lives with his caring grandfather in a small Flemish village in the 19th century Belgium, has a lovable pet dog, loves art and dreams of becoming a famous painter one day. Based on a famous Flemish novel.

Director: Mustafa Altioklar
Stars: Okan Bayülgen, Müjde Ar, Savas Dinçel
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Turkey | Hungary | France

A young car mechanic, while in the middle of an unlikely love affair, tries to protect the people in his poor neighborhood from a gangster who terrorizes the locals.

Director: Iain Softley
Stars: Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, Alex Jennings
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA | UK

An impoverished woman who has been forced to choose between a privileged life with her wealthy aunt and her journalist lover, befriends an American heiress. When she discovers the heiress is attracted to her own lover and is dying, she sees a chance to have both the privileged life she cannot give up and the lover she cannot live without.

Director: George Armitage
Stars: John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
Country: USA

Martin Blank is a professional assassin. He is sent on a mission to a small Detroit suburb, Grosse Pointe, and, by coincidence, his ten-year high school reunion party is taking place there at the same time.

Director: Jim Sheridan
Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Daragh Donnelly
Genre: Drama, Romance, Sport
Country: USA | Ireland

Young Danny Flynn is released from prison 14 years after “taking the rap” for the IRA and tries to rebuild his life in his old Belfast neighborhood.

Director: Ivan Fíla
Stars: Lenka Vlasáková, Christian Redl, Hanna Schygulla
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Czech Republic | Germany | France

51-year-old Herbert Strehlow, a furniture restorer, falls in love with 21-year-old Lea, who has not spoken a word since childhood when her father killed her mother. She bears a striking resemblance to Herbert’s dead wife. They get married, but their relationship seems doomed, until gradually each one manages to penetrate the mysterious world of the other, and they begin to realize that they are bound by a kind of spiritual relationship. For Lea it is the death of her mother, for Herbert it is the death of his first wife. His hard exterior slowly beings to thaw, and he starts to show feelings and responses that soften Lea’s initial hatred and fear of him, and which put their relationship in a more positive light.

Director: Scott Hicks
Stars: Geoffrey Rush, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Justin Braine
Genre: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: Australia

Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Kim Bodnia, Zlatko Buric, Laura Drasbæk
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Country: Denmark

A drug pusher grows increasingly desperate after a botched deal leaves him with a large debt to a ruthless drug lord.

Director: Majid Majidi
Stars: Hossein Abedini, Mohammad Kasebi, Parivash Nazarieh
Genre: Drama
Country: USA | Hungary

Mehrollah is a 14-year-old boy who is forced to find a job to support his family after his father dies. He travels to the southern parts of Iran, looking for work. Upon his return to his hometown, he notices certain changes in his family.

Director: Jan Troell
Stars: Max von Sydow, Ghita Nørby, Anette Hoff
Genre: Biography, Drama, War
Country: Denmark | Sweden | Norway | Germany

Norwegian Nobel Laureate Knut Hamsun’s controversial support for the Nazi regime during WW2 and its consequences for the Hamsun family after the war.

Director: Geoffrey Sax
Stars: Paul McGann, Eric Roberts, Daphne Ashbrook
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA | UK

The newly-regenerated Doctor takes on the Master on the turn of the millennium, 31 December 1999.

Director: Andrew Kotting
Stars: Andrew Kotting, Eden Kotting, Benji Ming
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

When British filmmaker Andrew Kotting decided to tour the perimeter of Great Britain with his grandmother Gladys and his daughter Eden, he brought a film crew along. The result is this often humorous and picturesque documentary.

Director: Bertram Verhaag
Stars: Jane Elliott, Martin Luther King
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA | Germany

In only 15 minutes with some 30 people Jane Elliott manages to build up a realistic microcosmos of society today with all its phenomena and feelings. As already known from the ill reputed Milgram experiment, even participants who knew the “rules” are unable to remain uninvolved. What starts as a game turns into cruel reality which causes some participants’ emotions to erupt with unforeseen intensity.

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Julie Christie, Derek Jacobi
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | USA

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.

Director: Chi-Ngai Lee
Stars: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Kelly Chen, Michael Wong
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Hong Kong

Where is the end of the world? A rich girl diagnosed with leukemia wants to follow a sailor friend to St Kilda, Scotland to find out…but first she must search him out, who is missing.

Director: Caroline Link
Stars: Sylvie Testud, Tatjana Trieb, Howie Seago
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: Germany

Since the earliest days in her childhood Lara has had a difficult but important task. Both her parents are deaf-mute and Lara has to translate from sign-language to the spoken word and vice versa when her parents want to communicate with other people. Getting older and more mature she becomes interested in music and starts to play clarinet very successfully. However her parents are deaf, they cannot share Lara’s musical career. The day comes when Lara has to decide between her parents and her own ambitions.

Director: Yavuz Turgul
Stars: Sener Sen, Ugur Yücel, Sermin Hürmeriç
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Turkey | France | Bulgaria

Baran the Bandit, released from prison after 35 years, searches for vengeance and his lover.

Director: Nikos Grammatikos
Stars: Nikos Georgakis, Giorgos Evgenikos, Vangelis Mourikis
Genre: Drama
Country: Greece

The story follows the sporadic reunions of six friends during the seven-year period of their integration into society.

Director: Tian-Ming Wu
Stars: Li Chen, Zhaoji Jia, Zhigang Zhang
Genre: Drama
Country: China | Hong Kong

Wang Bianlian is an aging street performer known as the King of Mask for his mastery of Sichuan Change Art in a true story. His wife left him with and infant son over 30 years ago. The son died from illness at age 10. This left Wang a melancholy loner aching for a male descendent to learn his rare and dying art. A famous master performer of the Sichuan Opera offers to bring him into his act, thus giving Wang fame and possible fortune, but Wang opts for staying the simple street performer. Then, one night after a performance he is sold a young boy by a slave trader posing as the boy’s parent. “Grandpa” finds new joy in life as he plans to teach “Doggie” (an affectionate term often used for young children in China) his art. All is well until Doggie is found out to really be a girl.

Director: Nae Caranfil
Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Mircea Diaconu, Florin Calinescu
Genre: Comedy
Country: France | Romania

A desperate husband chases a bus full of beautiful women headed for Paris, France.

Director: Arturo Ripstein
Stars: Regina Orozco, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Sherlyn
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Mexico

The life of a man who preys on unsuspecting women for a living is changed when he finds an accomplice in the woman who loves and controls him.

Director: Keith Gordon
Stars: Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee, Anthony J. Robinow
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA

An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.

Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Grégoire Colin, Alice Houri, Jacques Nolot
Genre: Drama
Country: France

A brother and sister reunite after time apart. But the sister is pregnant, which could either bring the siblings together or tear them apart.

Director: Alan Berliner
Stars: Alan Berliner, Oscar Berliner
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A portrait of the director’s father, searching for the extraordinary in the subject’s seemingly normal existence.

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Madeleine Assas, Ghalya Lacroix, Bérangère Allaux
Genre: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Switzerland | France

Jean-Luc Godard’s densely packed rumination on the need to create order and beauty in a world ruled by chaos is divided into four distinct but tangentially related stories, including the attempts by a young group of idealists to stage a play in war-torn Sarajevo and an elderly director’s efforts to complete his film.

Director: Shunji Iwai
Stars: Hiroshi Mikami, Chara, Ayumi Itô
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Japan

The struggles of a group of immigrant outcasts living in an alternative-future, xenophobic Japanese metropolis.

Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Stars: Kati Outinen, Kari Väänänen, Elina Salo
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Finland | Germany | France

The recession hits a couple in Helsinki.

Director: Al Pacino
Stars: Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: USA

Director Al Pacino juxtaposes scenes from Richard III, scenes of rehearsals for Richard III, and sessions where parties involved discuss the play, the times that shaped the play, and the events that happened at the time the play is set. Interviews with mostly British actors are also included, attempting to explain why American actors have more problems performing Shakespearean plays than they do

Director: Leon Gast
Stars: Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Don King
Genre: Documentary, Sport
Country: USA

A documentary of the 1974 heavyweight championship bout in Zaire, “The Rumble in the Jungle,” between champion George Foreman and underdog challenger Muhammad Ali.

Director: Liv Ullmann
Stars: Pernilla August, Max von Sydow, Samuel Fröler
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Sweden

Five conversations frame a flawed marriage in this film written by Ingmar Bergman about his parents. Guilt-ridden wife Anna (Pernilla August) divulges an extramarital affair to a priest, her uncle Jacob (Max von Sydow). He presses her to confess her sins to her husband, Henrik. As the film moves back and forth in time, the notion of truth is tested. Tomas, the lover, and Henrik will find that Anna’s confessions do not absolve anyone, and have the power to inflict more pain.

Director: Cédric Klapisch
Stars: Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Catherine Frot
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France

An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.

Director: Jaco Van Dormael
Stars: Srdjan Dragojevic
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

During the war in Bosnia, two childhood friends eventually become enemies, as the tragic and devastating circumstances of the war put them on the opposite sides and expose the most gruesome and cruel aspects of the human nature.

Director: Jaco Van Dormael
Stars: Daniel Auteuil, Pascal Duquenne, Miou-Miou
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Belgium | France | UK

An unusual and wonderful friendship develops between a busy but unhappy salesman and a resident of a mental asylum.

Director: Greta Schiller
Stars: Juliet Stevenson, Maureen All, Gillian Hanna
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

Female artists, writers, photographers, designers, and adventurers are settled in Paris between the wars.

Director: Johan van der Keuken
Stars: Julika Marijn
Genre: Documentary
Country: Netherlands

This four hour documentary looks for the exotic in the everyday life observed in just one city, the filmmaker’s own Amsterdam.

Director: Sophie Calle, Greg Shephard
Stars: Sophie Calle, Greg Shephard
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Romance
Country: USA

French Artist Sophie Calle and American Photographer Greg Shephard’s autobiographical account of their road trip across America. Both hide behind their cameras as they make the mythical journey westward from New York to California in Greg’s troubling convertible. The couple stop in a Las Vegas Drive-Thru wedding chapel and decide to get married, in order to save their shaky relationship, with their cameras recording everything.

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Stars: Aleksandr Sokurov
Genre: Drama, Short
Country: Russia | Japan

A short film by Aleksandr Sokurov which provides a surreal visual experience.

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Stars: Jieh-Wen King, Kuei-Ying Hsu, Annie Shizuka Inoh
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Taiwan | Japan

A glimpse at the lives of two petty criminals in Taipei.

Director: Peter Duncan
Stars: Judy Davis, Sam Neill, F. Murray Abraham
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Australia

Few knew that Stalin spent his last night in the arms of a young Australian woman. Few still knew that their “love-child” brought Australia to the brink of civil war. Until now.

Director: Jacques Audiard
Stars: Mathieu Kassovitz, Anouk Grinberg, Sandrine Kiberlain
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Country: France

Set in France at the end of World War II Albert Dehousse finds out his father wasn’t a war hero and his mother is a collaborator. He leaves his wife and goes to Paris. Gradually he inveigles himself with the resistance movement. They trust him and he helps them trace collaborators.

Director: Peter Ho-Sun Chan
Stars: Maggie Cheung, Leon Lai, Eric Tsang
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Hong Kong

Two Chinese-mainlanders living in Hong Kong form a close friendship. Over the years this grows into love, but there are obstacles.

Director: Vinko Bresan
Stars: Vlatko Dulic, Ljubomir Kerekes, Ivan Brkic
Genre: Comedy, War
Country: Croatia

Although being one of the first movies to take humoristic approach towards violent break-up of Yugoslavia, this motion picture is partly based on real events that took place in September of 1991. Few months after Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia, Federal military installations are still present with previously recruited Croatian boys trapped inside. One such installation is a garrison on a small Dalmatian island, commanded by Major Aleksa Milosavljevic. Besieged by local militia, Major Aleksa threatens to blow up ammunition depots with half an island in case of any hostile action. During the stalemate, art historian Blaz Gajski comes from Zagreb in order to rescue his son from the barracks.

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: Petr Meissel, Gabriela Wilhelmová, Barbora Hrzánová
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic | Switzerland | UK

Six people unknowingly form a cycle of masturbation as they each cause others to privately indulge in their fetishes.

Director: Ulu Grosbard
Stars: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mare Winningham, Ted Levine
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: France | USA

Sadie is desperately looking up to her older sister Georgia who is a famous C&W artist. Her desperate need to be accepted by her sister is constantly complicated by her drug and alcohol problems.

Director: Maciej Slesicki
Stars: Boguslaw Linda, Dorota Segda, Ola Maliszewska
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A father, who is in the middle of a brutal custody battle with his mentally ill wife, fights relentlessly for the right to take care of his 7-year-old daughter.

Director: Shunji Iwai
Stars: Miho Nakayama, Etsushi Toyokawa, Bunjaku Han
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan

When exchanging letters two women discover new things about a man they knew.

Director: James Mangold
Stars: Pruitt Taylor Vince, Liv Tyler, Shelley Winters
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

The life of an overweight, unhappy cook is changed after a kind, beautiful college drop-out comes to work as a waitress at his and his mother’s road-side restaurant.

Director: Ron Howard
Stars: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon
Genre: Adventure, Drama, History
Country: USA

NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.

Director: Martin Sulík
Stars: Roman Luknár, Zuzana Sulajová, Jana Svandová
Genre: Comedy
Country: Slovakia | France

Jakub’s life arrived at a dead-end. He leaves his job, and gets into conflict with his father. The trouble just grows by his relation with a married woman. Breaking out, Jakub realizes the pleasures of the countryside in the old garden of his grandfather. He finds true love with an angel, and encounters various exciting moments of his new free life. Strange visitors arrive, and he wont get back to town anymore.

Director: Robert Jan Westdijk
Stars: Kim van Kooten, Romijn Conen, Hugo Metsers
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Country: Netherlands

Martijn is obsessed with his younger sister Daantje and visits her to make a documentary about her. He manages to invade Daantje’s life with his video camera, but soon unresolved issues from a distant past come to the surface.

Director: Michael Rymer
Stars: John Lynch, Jacqueline McKenzie, Colin Friels
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Australia

Two schizophrenics meet during therapy and fall passionately in love. Ahead of them lies the inevitable road to disaster – one they share to the end.

Director: Marleen Gorris
Stars: Willeke van Ammelrooy, Jan Decleir, Veerle van Overloop
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands | Belgium | UK | France

A Dutch matron establishes and, for several generations, oversees a close-knit, matriarchal community where feminism and liberalism thrive.

Director: Kar-Wai Wong
Stars: Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Hong Kong

This Hong Kong-set crime drama follows the lives of a hitman, hoping to get out of the business, and his elusive female partner.

Director: Yu-Hsun Chen
Stars: Akio Chen, Yi-fan Chen, Hsiao-fan Fan
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Taiwan

Young boy, Ah-Jiang, a school failure and day dreamer witnesses the kidnapping of a child. After being taken hostage by a corrupt family, he begins an unusual adventure away from home.

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Stars: Beata Fudalej, Wojciech Malajkat, Jakub Przebindowski
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Poland | Germany | France

An investigation of the history of anti Semitism in Poland.

Director: Ann Hui
Stars: Josephine Siao, Kar-Ying Law, Allen Ting
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Hong Kong

The Suns are a typical Hong Kong family: May, forty something, works for a trading company; her husband, Bing, works as a low-grade civil servant, and Allen, their teenage son, is still at school. Trouble strikes one day when Bing’s mother dies of a stroke, leaving her husband old Mr. Sun. Alzheimer’s Disease is diagnosed. From that day on, the family’s daily life is thrown into a poignant. Old Mr. Sun develops a tendency to wander off and get lost, he wakes up yelling in the middle of the night plus he is rude and disobliging … all this, along with May’s already full schedule as wife, mother and employee, drives her close to the edge of her endurance. The very last thing they all wanted has to happen: old Mr. Sun has to go into a Nursing Home. But it does not turn out quite like they expected.

Director: Robert Lepage
Stars: Lothaire Bluteau, Patrick Goyette, Jean-Louis Millette
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Canada | UK | France

The year is 1952, in Québec City, Québec. Rachel (Suzanne Clément), sixteen, unmarried, and pregnant, works in the church. Filled with shame, she unburdens her guilt to a young Priest under the confidentiality of the confessional. In the present year of 1994, Pierre Lamontagne (Lothaire Bluteau) has returned to Québec to attend his father’s funeral. He meets up with his adopted brother, Marc (Patrick Goyette), who has begun questioning his identity and has embarked on a quest for his roots that would lead them to the Québec of the 1950s. Past and present converge in a complex web of intrinque where the answer to the mystery lies.

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Stars: Sergio Castellitto, Tiziana Lodato, Franco Scaldati
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy

A photographer and the types of people he encounters.

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: Waclaw Ulewicz, Lech Grzmocinski, Tadeusz Bartosik
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A short working day for sure: the main character is unable to complete his regular hours. But what a day it is. A local party secretary (this is still the time when Poland was behind the iron curtain) has to face a mob of strikers protesting hefty increases in food prices by the central government. The embattled secretary decides at first to stick it out at the party’s office instead of making the recommended hasty escape. Most of the footage is from the point of view of the party secretary. His thoughts and stratagems to deal with the protesters is done through voice-over. The confrontation between mob and the party leads to a tense, suspenseful situation.

Director: Gakuryû Ishii
Stars: Rena Komine, Shinsuke Aoki, Reiko Matsuo
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Japan

A teenage girl gains supernatural power after an accident and comes to understand her place in the universe.

Director: Darrell Roodt
Stars: Richard Harris, James Earl Jones, Vusi Kunene
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: South Africa | USA

A South African preacher goes to search for his wayward son, who has committed a crime in the big city.

Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Aida Mohammadkhani, Mohsen Kafili, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy
Genre: Drama, Family
Country: Iran

Several people try to help a little girl to find the money her mom gave her to buy a goldfish with.

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Marianne Denicourt, Nathalie Richard, Laurence Côte
Genre: Comedy, Musical, Mystery
Country: France | Switzerland

Adventures of three young women in a hot and lazy Paris in summer.

Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Stars: Shaghayeh Djodat, Behzad Dorani, Feizola Gashghai
Genre: Documentary, Comedy, Drama
Country: Iran

Makhmalbaf puts an advertisement in the papers calling for an open casting for his next movie. However when hundreds of people show up, he decides to make a movie about the casting and the screen tests of the would-be actors.

Director: Claude Sautet
Stars: Emmanuelle Béart, Michel Serrault, Jean-Hugues Anglade
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Italy | Germany

When Nelly, a woman being just divorced, meets by chance M. Arnaud, a mature salesman just retired, begins a strange and special relationship between the two personalities.

Director: Todd Louiso
Stars: Austin Pendleton, Ernest Perry Jr., Philip Seymour Hoffman
Genre: Comedy, Short
Country: USA

Shakespeare films Hamlet on a single reel then, after an initial screening, edits it down to the bare bones.

Director: Kate Blewett, Brian Woods
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: UK

Documentary about a crew going from one orphanage to another in China to investigate these so called “dying rooms” where the orphanage workers leave baby girls to die.

Director: Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon
Stars: Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Hawking, Benoît B. Mandelbrot
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

Arthur C. Clarke presents this unusual documentary on the mathematical discovery of the Mandelbrot Set (M-Set) in the visually spectacular world of fractal geometry. This show relates the science of the M-Set to nature in a way that seems to identify the hand of God in the design of the universe itself. Dr. Mandelbrot in 1980 discovered the infinitely complex geometrical shape called the Mandelbrot Set using a very simple equation with computers and graphics.

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Stars: Annie Shizuka Inoh, Giong Lim, Jack Kao
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan | Taiwan

Intended as the concluding film in the trilogy on the modern history of Taiwan began with Beiqing Chengshi (1989), this film reveals the story through three levels: a film within a film as well as the past and present as linked by a young woman, Liang Ching. She is being persecuted by an anonymous man who calls her repeatedly but does not speak. He has stolen her diary and faxes her pages daily. Liang is also rehearsing for a new film that is due to go into production soon. The film, entitled Haonan Haonu, is about a couple Chiang Bi-yu and Chung Hao-tung who returns to China to participate in the anti-Japanese movement in China in the 1940s and are arrested as communists when they go back to Taiwan.

Director: Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas
Stars: Fernanda Torres, Fernando Alves Pinto, Alexandre Borges
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil | Portugal

After the death of his mother, a young Brazilian decides to leave his country and travel to his mother’s native land. In a foreign land, he finds love and danger.

Director: Benjamin Ross
Stars: Hugh O’Conor, Antony Sher, Tobias Arnold
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: UK | Germany | France

This film is based on a true story about a British teenager who allegedly poisoned family, friends, and co-workers.

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni, Wim Wenders
Stars: Fanny Ardant, Chiara Caselli, Irène Jacob
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Germany | Italy

Made of four short tales, linked by a story filmed by Wim Wenders. Taking place in Ferrara, Portofino, Aix en Provence and Paris, each story, which always a woman as the crux of the story, invites to an inner travel, as Antonioni says “towards the true image of that absolute and mysterious reality that nobody will ever see”.

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Stars: Liesel Matthews, Eleanor Bron, Liam Cunningham
Genre: Drama, Family, Fantasy
Country: USA

When her father enlists to fight for the British in WWI, young Sara Crewe goes to New York to attend the same boarding school her late mother attended. She soon clashes with the severe headmistress, Miss Minchin, who attempts to stifle Sara’s creativity and sense of self-worth. Sara’s belief that “every girl’s a princess” is tested to the limit, however, when word comes that her father was killed in action and his estate has been seized by the British government.

Director: Torben Skjødt Jensen
Stars: Clara Pontoppidan, Hélène Falconetti, Lisbeth Movin
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: Denmark

Carl Theodor Dreyer is a young journalist in Copenhagen when he gets involved in the early Danish film industry. He writes scripts and inter-titles, and for some years he is the main editor at Nordisk Film. After those years of apprenticeship he gets the opportunity to direct his first film in 1917. Dreyer wanted his films to carry his personal imprints down to the smallest details, and already in his first silent movies it’s possible to find stylistic traits that characterize his entire film production until his last film in 1964.

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Stars: Marisa Paredes, Juan Echanove, Carme Elias
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain | France

Leo writes trashy romance novels under a pseudonym but as she struggles in her relationship with her husband, she finds her output becoming darker.

Director: Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Stars: Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Country: France | Germany | Spain | Belgium | USA

A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.

Director: Brett Thompson
Stars: Maila Nurmi, Dolores Fuller, Paul Marco
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

How was it possible that a movie like Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) could be made? This documentary about Edward D. Wood Jr.’s masterpiece gives the answer.

Director: Laurent Bouzereau
Stars: Steven Spielberg, Peter Benchley, David Brown
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Excellent and very detailed documentary on the making of a classic. Filled with appealing trivia, exhaustive interviews with cast and crew members, and never before seen footage.

Director: Romuald Karmakar
Stars: Götz George, Jürgen Hentsch, Pierre Franckh
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Germany

Fritz Haarmann, who has killed at least 27 boys, is questioned by a psychology professor in order to find out whether he is sane and can be held responsible for his crimes. During this interrogation Haarmann reveals his motives and his killing methods.

Director: Koreyoshi Kurahara, Roger Spottiswoode
Stars: Lynne Adams, Wesley Addy, Allen Altman
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Canada | Japan

The grisly events leading to the first attack with a nuclear weapon.

Director: Pat O’Connor
Stars: Chris O’Donnell, Minnie Driver, Geraldine O’Rawe
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Ireland | USA | UK

3 women, who’ve been friends since kids, meet at university in Dublin in 1957. Student and boyfriend life begins.

Director: Boaz Yakin
Stars: Kôji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura, Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: Japan

“Memories” is made up of three separate science-fiction stories. In the first, “Magnetic Rose,” four space travelers are drawn into an abandoned spaceship that contains a world created by one woman’s memories. In “Stink Bomb,” a young lab assistant accidentally transforms himself into a human biological weapon set on a direct course for Tôkyô. The final episode, “Cannon Fodder,” depicts a day in the life of a city whose entire purpose is the firing of cannons at an unseen enemy.

Director: Xiaowen Zhou
Stars: Liya Ai, Peiqi Liu, Zhijun Ge
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Hong Kong | China

A woman gets obsessed with buying a television for her family.

Director: Gianni Amelio
Stars: Enrico Lo Verso, Michele Placido, Piro Milkani
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy | France | Switzerland | Austria

Two Italian racketeers come to Albania just after the fall of the communists to set up a fictive firm and pocket the grants. They need a stooge. They choose an old one in a jail : Spiro. But the youngest italian, Gino, once alone with Spiro, encounter a few problems. Far from his roots, loosing his identity in deep Albania, he begins to change.

Director: Rithy Panh
Stars: Peng Phan, Mom Soth, Chhim Naline
Genre: Drama
Country: Cambodia | France | Switzerland | Germany

In Cambodian refugee camps, when children are asked where rice comes from, they answer, “from UN lorries”. They have never seen a rice field. One day, these children will have to learn to live in Cambodia, i.e., they will have to learn to cultivate, to plough, to work the land. Rice people tries to share this way of life, to demonstrate the fragile equilibrium on which it lies and the freedom it represents.

Director: Nien-Jen Wu
Stars: Akio Chen, Shu-Fang Chen, Jun Fu
Genre: Drama
Country: Taiwan

Autobiographical story about the life of a poor family in the Taiwanese countryside during the 1940s and 1950s as the Japanese rule of the island ends and nationalist forces of Kwomintang arrive when the Communists take the mainland.

Director: Bernard Rose
Stars: Gary Oldman, Jeroen Krabbé, Isabella Rossellini
Genre: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: UK | USA

The life and death of the legendary Ludwig van Beethoven. Besides all the work he is known for, the composer once wrote a famous love letter to a nameless beloved, and the movie tries to find out who this beloved was–not easy, as Beethoven has had many women in his life.

Director: Wen Jiang
Stars: Yu Xia, Wei Chen, Shaobo Dai
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: China | Hong Kong

A story of four teenagers during Cultural Revolution in Beijing.

Director: Patrice Chéreau
Stars: Isabelle Adjani, Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Hugues Anglade
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: France | Italy | Germany

Young Queen Margot finds herself trapped in an arranged marriage amidst a religious war between Catholics and Protestants. She hopes to escape with a new lover, but finds herself imprisoned by her powerful and ruthless family.

Director: Arthur Dong
Stars: Salome Jens, Phillis Abry, David Barrett
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Country: USA

A historical account of military policy regarding homosexuals during World War II. The documentary includes interviews with several gay WWII veterans.

Director: Jean Bach
Stars: Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Hinton, Marian McPartland
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

The documentary compiles interviews of all the top jazz musicians in NYC in the year 1958, for a piece in Esquire magazine.

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Roman Polanski, Sergio Rubini
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Italy | France

Onoff is a famous writer who hasn’t published any new books for quite some time and has become a recluse. When he is picked up by the police one stormy night, without any identification, out of breath and running madly, without clear memory of recent events, the Inspector is suspicious. Through interrogatory dialectic, the head of this lonely, isolated, broken-down police station tries to establish what has happened, by delving into the mind of his writer-hero, and clearing up a mysterious killing.

Director: Edward Yang
Stars: Li-Mei Chen, Shiang-chyi Chen, Yi-wen Chen
Genre: Comedy
Country: Taiwan

After firing a colleague, the head of a PR company begins to question her lifestyle and values.

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Sandrine Bonnaire, André Marcon, Jean-Louis Richard
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: France

Film about the later life of Joan Of Arc including her trial and execution.

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Tatiana Moukhine, Sandrine Bonnaire, Jean-Marie Richier
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: France

A part of Joan of Arc’s life. At the beginning, Jeanne (Joan) has already left Domremy, she is trying to convince a captain to escort her to the Dauphin. It ends during Jeanne’s first battle, at Orleans. Meanwhile, Jeanne is depicted more as a warrior than a saint (all cliches are avoided), with only her faith for strength.

Director: Ken Loach
Stars: Crissy Rock, Vladimir Vega, Sandie Lavelle
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

This Ken Loach docu-drama relates the story of a British woman’s fight with Social Services over the care of her children.

Director: John Sayles
Stars: Jeni Courtney, Eileen Colgan, Mick Lally
Genre: Drama, Family, Fantasy
Country: USA | Ireland

Young Fiona lives with her grandparents in a small fishing village where she takes an active role to unravel the mysterious secrets.

Director: Gillian Armstrong
Stars: Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst
Genre: Drama, Family, Romance
Country: USA | Canada

Louisa May Alcott’s autobiographical account of her life with her three sisters in Concord, Massachusetts in the 1860s. With their father fighting in the American Civil War, sisters Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth are at home with their mother, a very outspoken women for her time. The story tells of how the sisters grow up, find love and find their place in the world.

Director: Mika Kaurismäki
Stars: Samuel Fuller, Jim Jarmusch
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Brazil | Finland | Germany

In 1993, Sam Fuller takes Jim Jarmusch on a trip into Brazil’s Mato Grosso, up the River Araguaia to the village of Santa Isabel Do Morro, where 40 years before, Zanuck had sent Fuller to scout a location and write a script for a movie based on a tigrero, a jaguar hunter. Sam hopes to find people who remember him, and he takes film he shot in 1954.

Director: Jianxin Huang, Yazhou Yang
Stars: Zhenhua Niu, Kesheng Lei, Qiang Li
Genre: Drama
Country: China | Hong Kong

Wang Shuangli is Deputy Director of the local Cultural Centre, and hopes to be appointed Director. However Old Ma is brought in from the country and installed as Director. This starts a long train of events with Wang’s cronies using the bureaucracy to try to oust the new director. At home, Wang has problems because his father wants Wang to have a son to carry on the family name. However, because of the one-child policy, Wang cannot have any more children unless his young daughter is certified infirm.

Director: Milos ‘Misa’ Radivojevic
Stars: Svetozar Cvetkovic, Bojana Maljevic, Branislav Lecic
Genre: Drama
Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

This Serbian drama follows the exploits of a depressed architect in Belgrade as he wanders about searching for the future in a land where the future no longer exists.

Director: Moufida Tlatli
Stars: Hind Sabri, Ghalya Lacroix, Nejia Ouerghi
Genre: Drama
Country: Tunisia | France

As she grows up, Alia (the daughter of housemaid Khedija) learns the secrets of the peaceful palace where she and her mother live.

Director: Milcho Manchevski
Stars: Katrin Cartlidge, Rade Serbedzija, Grégoire Colin
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Republic of North Macedonia | France | UK

Three interconnected stories of love under the threat of civil war in Macedonia and London.

Director: Lee Tamahori
Stars: Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison, Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: New Zealand

A family descended from Maori warriors is bedeviled by a violent father and the societal problems of being treated as outcasts.

Director: Chris Gore
Stars: Lawrence Tierney, Scott Spiegel
Genre: Short, Comedy
Country: USA

Based on the true story of Louis “Red” Deutsch. A New Jersey bar-owner is plagued with prank phone calls that prompt him to flip into psychotic, profanity-laden rages.

Director: Zhuangzhuang Tian
Stars: Tian Yi, Wenyao Zhang, Xiaoman Chen
Genre: Drama
Country: China | Hong Kong

The lives of a Beijing family throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as they experience the impact of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.

Director: Shinji Sômai
Stars: Kiichi Nakai, Junko Sakurada, Tomoko Tabata
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

Renko, a girl in the sixth grade, is at first unperturbed by her parents’ decision to separate. With the companionship of her boyfriend, Minoru, and Sally, a classmate in the same boat, Renko gradually realises the practical implications of divorce, and tries repeatedly to get her parents to reconcile. An old man teaches her about the need to forget the past.

Director: Joseph Vilsmaier
Stars: Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann, Jochen Nickel
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Germany

The story follows a group of German soldiers, from their Italian R&R in the summer of 1942 to the frozen steppes of Soviet Russia and ending with the battle for Stalingrad.

Director: Ron Maxwell
Stars: Tom Berenger, Martin Sheen, Stephen Lang
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: USA

In 1863, the Northern and Southern forces fight at Gettysburg in the decisive battle of the American Civil War.

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Michel Bouquet, Brian Cox, Maquisard Alfonso
Genre: Documentary, War
Country: France

This movie is only made of archive pictures: the official newsreels that were broadcasted on French movie screens during 1940 and 1944 (the Occupation). Those newsreels were controlled by the government of Vichy, which collaborated with the Nazis, so most of them are propaganda. Their purpose is to show what the disinformation was then, and perhaps more generally to evoke the problem of the power of the mass media.

Director: Bill Krohn, Myron Meisel, Orson Welles, Richard Wilson, Norman Foster
Stars: Manuel ‘Jacare’ Olimpio Meira, Jeronimo André De Souza, Raimundo ‘Tata’ Correia Lima
Genre: Documentary
Country: France | USA

A documentary about Orson Welles’s unfinished three-part film about South America.

Director: Ken Loach
Stars: Bruce Jones, Julie Brown, Gemma Phoenix
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Country: UK

This Ken Loach film tells the story of a man devoted to his family and his religion. Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to more and more questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.

Director: Mark Baker
Stars: Annie Griffin, Dave Western, James Baker
Genre: Animation, Short
Country: UK

A village is ruled by the church, but it filled with hypocritical sinners who constantly spy on each other.

Director: Wayne Wang
Stars: Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao, Kieu Chinh
Genre: Drama
Country: USA | China

The life histories of four Asian women and their daughters reflect and guide each other.

Director: Tomomi Mochizuki
Stars: Nobuo Tobita, Toshihiko Seki, Yoko Sakamoto
Genre: Animation, Drama, Romance
Country: Japan

As a young man returns home after his first year away at college he recalls his senior year of high school and the iron-willed, big city girl that turned his world upside down.

Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Laura Dern
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA

Kidnapped boy Phillip Perry (T.J. Lowther) strikes up a friendship with his captor Butch Haynes (Kevin Costner): an escaped convict on the run from the law, while the search is headed up by honorable Texas Ranger “Red” Garrett (Clint Eastwood).

Director: Ang Lee
Stars: Winston Chao, May Chin, Ah-Lei Gua
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Taiwan | USA

To satisfy his nagging parents, a gay landlord and a female tenant agree to a marriage of convenience, but his parents arrive to visit and things get out of hand.

Director: Agnieszka Holland
Stars: Kate Maberly, Maggie Smith, Heydon Prowse
Genre: Drama, Family, Fantasy
Country: UK | USA

A young, recently-orphaned girl is sent to England after living in India all of her life. Once there, she begins to explore her new, seemingly-isolated surroundings, and its secrets.

Director: Manoel de Oliveira
Stars: Manoel de Oliveira, Maria Isabel de Oliveira, Diogo Dória
Genre: Biography, History
Country: Portugal

A docu-drama that follows Manoel de Oliveira’s life during the times of dictatorship in Portugal.

Director: Tung-Shing Yee
Stars: Ching Wan Lau, Anita Yuen, Carina Lau
Genre: Romance
Country: Hong Kong

A jazz musician (Lau Ching-Wan) who has problems in both his life and career breaks up with his girlfriend, and moves into a poor neighborhood. There, he meets a girl (Anita Yuen), who started being interested in him as of his saxophone skills. Their friendship turns into a romance, and he gets inspired to write songs again. However, Min discovers that she has an issue with her health-condition.

Director: Anh Hung Tran
Stars: Nu Yên-Khê Tran, Man San Lu, Thi Loc Truong
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France | Vietnam

A Vietnamese servant girl, Mui, observes lives within two different Saigon families: the first, a woman textile seller with three boys and a frequently absent husband; the second, a handsome young pianist with his fiancée.

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Otto Sander, Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Germany

A group of angels in the German capital look longingly upon the life of humans.

Director: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay, Weiser Quay
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short
Country: UK

Near an extraordinary chair with many legs, a hand is visible gripping an edge. The hand is weathered, the fingers cracked and scarred. The end of a rifle appears and a shot fires. The bullet is visible whirling through space; it caroms and then goes through a pine cone. A long spoon emerges from a drawer in the chair and stretches toward the hand. The bullet is on the spoon. Later, the hand holds the bullet between two fingers; another shot is fired.

Director: Peter Capaldi
Stars: Richard E. Grant, Crispin Letts, Ken Stott
Genre: Short, Biography, Comedy
Country: UK

While trying to decide what Gregor Samsa wakes up as, Kafka’s constantly being interrupted by knife-selling strangers, party noise, girls, fancy dress costumes, and other strange, dreamlike visions.

Director: Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker
Stars: James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, Heather Beckel
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA

A documentary of the Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign and the organization who ran it.

Director: Richard Attenborough
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger, Julian Fellowes
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: UK

C.S. Lewis, a world-renowned Christian theologian, writer and professor, leads a passionless life until he meets spirited poet Joy Gresham from the U.S.

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Keanu Reeves
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK | USA

Young lovers Hero and Claudio, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles Benedick and Beatrice to wed as well.

Director: Fei Xie
Stars: Gaowa Siqin, Yujuan Wu, Kesheng Lei
Genre: Drama
Country: China

If money can’t buy happiness, can it at least buy control over others? Xiang is hard-working, running a small sesame oil business. Her husband is lazy and drinks; her son is blood simple. When Japanese investors provide capital to expand Xiang’s business, she has the wealth to raise her social standing and buy a wife for her son, Dunzi. When money and a forceful personality fail to bend others to her will, including daughter-in-law Huanhuan, Xiang must find another way to tranquillity.

Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Juan Carlos Tabío
Stars: Jorge Perugorría, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Cuba | Mexico | Spain | USA

Diego, a cultivated, homosexual and skeptical young man, falls in love with a young heterosexual communist full of prejudices and doctrinal ideas. First come rejection and suspicion, but also fascination. Fresa y chocolate is a coming-of-age story, told through the development of a great friendship which overcomes incomprehension and intolerance.

Director: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes
Stars: Tyrin Turner, Larenz Tate, June Kyoto Lu
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA

A young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.

Director: Éric Rohmer
Stars: Pascal Greggory, Arielle Dombasle, Fabrice Luchini
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

In 1992, the socialist mayor of a little French town with the help of his contacts in Paris get the money to build a multimedia house. But the socialist party lose his majority in the election. But… But… Well everything would have been all right without those seven coincidences.

Director: Jean-Claude Lauzon
Stars: Maxime Collin, Ginette Reno, Gilbert Sicotte
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada | France

Young Leo Lauzon is torn between two worlds – the squalid Montreal tenement that he inhabits with his severely dysfunctional (and largely insane) family, and the imaginative world that he constructs for himself through his writings, where he’s Leolo Lozone, son of a Sicilian peasant (conceived in a bizarre act involving a tomato). And his experiences of growing up (especially his sexual development) affect his response to both these worlds…

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Marie Trintignant, Stéphane Audran, Jean-François Garreaud
Genre: Drama
Country: France

A drunken self-destructive woman called Betty wanders through bars and meets a man that drives her to a restaurant outside Paris called Le Trou (The Hole). She meets the middle-aged alcoholic Laure from Lyon, who is the lover of the Le Trou’s owner Mario. Laure decides to take care of Betty and brings her to the room next-door in her hotel. Along the days, Betty tells the story of her bourgeois life and her unhappy marriage to Laure and also recalls moments of her promiscuous life.

Director: Louis Malle
Stars: Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK | France

A member of Parliament falls passionately in love with his son’s fiancée despite the dangers of discovery.

Director: Lucian Pintilie
Stars: Maia Morgenstern, Razvan Vasilescu, Victor Rebengiuc
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France | Romania

A description of Romania before Ceausescu’s downfall, through the story of Nela. Daughter of a former colonel of the Securitate, the romanian political police. She refused to become as her sister, an agent of this Securitate, and lives with her father. After he died, she leaves Bucarest, and ends up in a little town, where she meets Mitica, a surgeon, another herself, laughing of everything.

Director: John Sayles
Stars: Mary McDonnell, Alfre Woodard, Angela Bassett
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.

Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Stars: Jane March, Tony Ka Fai Leung, Frédérique Meininger
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: France | UK | Vietnam

In 1929 French Indochina, a French teenage girl embarks on a reckless and forbidden romance with a wealthy, older Chinese man, each knowing that knowledge of their affair will bring drastic consequences to each other.

Director: George Miller
Stars: Nick Nolte, Susan Sarandon, Peter Ustinov
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A boy develops a disease so rare that nobody is working on a cure, so his father decides to learn all about it and tackle the problem himself.

Director: Mamoru Oshii
Stars: Shigeru Chiba, Tomoko Ishimura, Fumihiko Tachiki
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Japan

A revered director with an obscure style, Rei Maruwa, has gone missing during the production of his latest animated feature, Talking Head. With the deadline approaching and next to no progress made, the producer calls in a “shadow director” with the ability to mimic any director’s style. Arriving at the studio, he begins meeting with the eccentric crew members in order to understand the project, but soon they begin dying in the same order that he met up with them.

Director: Régis Wargnier
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Perez, Linh Dan Pham
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France

Eliane adopts Camille, whose Vietnamese parents were friends. In 1930, a French navy officer is interested in Eliane (owns 60km2 plantation) and later in Camille. There’s an uprising in Vietnam against French colonial power.

Director: Fernando Trueba
Stars: Fernando Fernán Gómez, Jorge Sanz, Penélope Cruz
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Spain | Portugal | France

A 1931 Spanish military deserter finds himself on a lonely farm until the farmer’s four daughters pay a visit and he falls for all of them.

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanuelle Béart
Genre: Drama
Country: France

More than just an abbreviated form of “La Belle Noiseuse”, Rivette re-cut his footage with some important differences in point of view – this one being more from Marianne’s point of view.

Director: Pawel Lozinski
Stars: Henryk Grynberg
Genre: Documentary
Country: Poland

After almost 50 years, Holocaust survivor Henryk Grynberg visits the village he grew up in. He was also hiding there during the Nazi occupation. Grynberg wants to know what happened to his father and younger brother during the war.

Director: Raymond Lee, Siu-Tung Ching, Hark Tsui
Stars: Tony Ka Fai Leung, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung
Genre: Action, Thriller
Country: Hong Kong

Set during the Ming Dynasty, this acclaimed production tells the story of a power hungry eunuch who employs an evil sect in his quest to rule China. An extravagant climax features dizzying acrobatics and masterful fight sequences.

Director: Viktor Kosakovskiy
Stars: Anna Fyodorovna Belova, Mikhail Fyodorovich Belov, Vasiliy Fyodorovich Belov
Genre: Documentary
Country: Russia

“Belovy (the Belovs)” is a breathtaking portrait of a troubled peasant family. It’s poetry in the form of a documentary that won many prizes. Beautifully shot in vintage black and white, the film tells the story of two times widow Anna Belova who lives together with her brother Mikhail. Blending the two personalities, Kosakovsky characterizes the true Russian soul: she is the rational worker, honest and strong – he is the drunken poet, the idealist, his philosophy fades into radical nonsense time after time.

Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Stars: Matti Pellonpää, Evelyne Didi, André Wilms
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Finland | France | Sweden | Germany

Three struggling artists try to make passable livings in Paris despite knock backs and tragedies.

Director: Alexandre Rockwell
Stars: Steve Buscemi, Seymour Cassel, Jennifer Beals
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA | France | Germany | Japan | Italy | Spain

New Yorker Adolpho Rollo is your classic head-movie auteur. In his mind, he’s creating deathless classics of the screen. Back in the real world, he can’t pay the rent on the downtown grothole he calls home.

Director: Claude Miller
Stars: Richard Bohringer, Elena Safonova, Romane Bohringer
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France

In Nazi-occupied Paris, a young accompanist named Sophie Vasseur gets a job with famed singer Irene Brice. As Irene’s husband Charles, a businessman collaborating with the Nazis, wrestles with his conscience, Sophie becomes obsessed with Irene, taking on the role of maid as well as accompanist, living life vicariously through Irene’s triumphs and affairs.

Director: Assi Dayan
Stars: Gila Almagor, Akram Tillawi, Smadar Kilchinsky
Genre: Drama
Country: Israel

The film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub’s name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.

Director: Hal Hartley
Stars: Martin Donovan, Matt Malloy, Rebecca Nelson
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Jude, a college literature professor, falls for one of his students. She is more interested in the empirical experience of a relationship with a man whose life is ruled by the themes of the Russian Lit. he extolls in class. Jude shows an interesting side of the stigmas associated with transgenerational relationships and how to deal with the inevitable pain of a love doomed to failure.

Director: Gianni Amelio
Stars: Enrico Lo Verso, Valentina Scalici, Giuseppe Ieracitano
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy | France | Switzerland

Antonio, a policeman (carabiniere), has an order to take two children (Rosetta and her brother Luciano) from Milan to Sicily to an orphanage. Their mother has been arrested for forcing Rosetta (11 years old) to work as a prostitute. First the relation between Antonio and the children is tough, but it relaxes so they become temporary friends.

Director: Rosa von Praunheim
Stars: Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, Jens Taschner, Ichgola Androgyn
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Drama
Country: Germany

The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, born Lothar Berflede. Miss Charlotte survived the Nazi reign and the repression of the Communists as a transvestite and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.

Director: István Szabó
Stars: Johanna ter Steege, Enikö Börcsök, Péter Andorai
Genre: Drama
Country: Hungary | Germany

The story shows Emma’s and Böbe’s fight for survival, for keeping their position in society which they achieved with hard work in the previous regime. They don’t want to lose their place and become village girls again.

Director: Eliseo Subiela
Stars: Darío Grandinetti, Sandra Ballesteros, Nacha Guevara
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama
Country: Argentina | Canada

Oliveiro is a young poet living in Buenos Aires where sometimes he has to sell his ideas to an advertising agency to make a living or exchange his poems for a steak. In Montevideo, he meets a prostitute, Ana, with whom he falls in love. Back in Buenos Aires, he accepts a contract with a publicity agency to get the money for three days of love with her. Will he get what he’s searching for when his ideal of love’s pleasure is literally going in levitation while making love?

Director: Joshua Waletzky
Stars: Philip Bosco, Elmer Bernstein, Claudine Bouché
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: USA | UK | France

This documentary is a good introduction to the genius that was Bernard Herrmann. It is a good overview of his turbulent personality as well as providing brief examples of his music.

Director: Robert Morin
Stars: Gildor Roy, Jean-Guy Bouchard, Brigitte Paquette
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Canada

The last three days in the life of a notorious criminal as seen through the eyes of eight different people.

Director: Tracy Atkinson, Joan Baran, Dave Flitton
Stars: Patrick Allen, Madjid Blavatsky, Rudolf Gorsleben
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA

Four volume documentary set (“Adolf Hitler”, “The SS Blood and Soil”, “The Enigma of the Swastika”, and “Himmler The Mystic”) containing mainly B&W as well as some color archival footage, with narration explaining the influences of alternative belief systems (occult, paganism, mysticism, etc) on the Nazi ideology and Hitler’s personal philosophy. Also documents the history and development of the ideas and symbols that would be used along with eugenicist racial politics to perpetrate the murder and oppression of millions during World War II.

Director: Aleksandr Petrov
Stars: Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy
Genre: Animation, Short, Drama
Country: Russia

Dostoevsky’s “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” tells the story of a desperate man disenchanted with the world and at the verge of committing suicide. But when a little girl comes his way asking for help, he changes his mind. Back at his home, he falls asleep and dreams about strange revealing things that somehow put everything into a new perspective. And then comes the questioning: the visions were just another dream or something real?

Director: Vera Chytilová
Stars: Bolek Polívka, Miroslav Donutil, Anna Pantuckova
Genre: Comedy
Country: Czech Republic

A hillbilly inherits millions and goes to the city, leaving his village to live a rich man’s life in post communist Czech Republic.

Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Stars: Michael Caine, Carol Burnett, Denholm Elliott
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA

A travelling theater group find so much action going on behind-the-scenes, they almost ruin the performances.

Director: Nancy Savoca
Stars: River Phoenix, Lili Taylor, Richard Panebianco
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Before leaving to fight in Vietnam, a group of teenagers play a game where they try to seduce the ugliest girl they can find.

Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Barbara Sukowa, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: Denmark | Sweden | France | Germany | Switzerland | Poland

Just after W.W.II, an American takes a railway job in Germany, but finds his position politically sensitive with various people trying to use him.

Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Stars: Hugo Weaving, Geneviève Picot, Russell Crowe
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Australia

The life of a blind photographer who is looked after by a housekeeper is disrupted by the arrival of an agreeable restaurant worker.

Director: Stanley Kwan
Stars: Maggie Cheung, Han Chin, Tony Ka Fai Leung
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: Hong Kong

Biopic of 1930’s Chinese actress Ruan Ling Yu.

Director: John Sayles
Stars: Vincent Spano, Tony Lo Bianco, Stephen Mendillo
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: USA

City of Hope is a portrait of a typical middle-sized American city of the present day. The crux of the story is an old apartment block which stands in the way of a major commercial development.

Director: Satyajit Ray
Stars: Utpal Dutt, Dipankar Dey, Mamata Shankar
Genre: Drama
Country: India | France

A well-off family is paid an unexpected, and rather unwanted, visit by a man claiming to be the woman’s long-lost uncle. The initial suspicion with which they greet the man slowly dissolves as he regales them with stories of his travels, tales that are at odds with their conventional middle-class perspective on the world.

Director: Ang Lee
Stars: Sihung Lung, Lai Wang, Bozhao Wang
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Taiwan | USA

All the while, Master Chu tries to find his place in the foreign American world.

Director: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay
Stars: Joy Constaninides, Witold Schejbal
Genre: Short, Animation
Country: UK | France

A porcelain doll and a sleeping woman. How will they interact through her dreams?

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Stars: Badema, Bayaertu, Vladimir Gostyukhin
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Soviet Union

A curious friendship develops between Gombo, a young Mongolian shepherd living with his wife and family in a hut, deep in the wilderness of the steppes, and Sergei, a Russian worker whose truck breaks down not far from Gombo’s hut.

Director: Mike Newell
Stars: Alfred Molina, Joan Plowright, Miranda Richardson
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

Four English women, after World War I, who are unhappy with their lives, and their time away on vacation in a beautiful Italian villa.

Director: Christopher Munch
Stars: David Angus, Ian Hart, Stephanie Pack
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: USA

A fictionalized account of what may have happened when John Lennon and Brian Epstein went on holiday together to Spain in 1963.

Director: Takeshi Kitano
Stars: Claude Maki, Hiroko Ôshima, Sabu Kawahara
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Japan

The lives of a young, hearing-impaired and gloomy couple are fulfilled after the boy holds interest in surfboarding.

Director: Jonathan Heap
Stars: Jane Alden, Don Amendolia, John Bachelder
Genre: Short, Sci-Fi
Country: USA

A man is stuck living his life in the same 59 minute time frame. He tries various methods of finding out why, eventually consulting a physicist.

Director: Seiji Arihara
Stars: Masako Ikeda, Katsue Miwa, Masako Nozawa
Genre: Animation, Drama, War
Country: Japan

Kayoko is a young girl in 1940, just starting first grade. She’s a bit of a crybaby, which is no secret to those around her. She loves playing with friends and singing cute schoolyard chants, and occasionally having fun with her three older brothers. Her mother is pregnant, and so she looks forward to being a big sister, only partially understanding the responsibility that might bring. Meanwhile, the war effort is growing, and it’s only the natural thing to do to be patriotic and support the country…

Director: Jaco Van Dormael
Stars: Michel Bouquet, Mireille Perrier, Jo De Backer
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Belgium | France | Germany

Thomas and Alfred were born around the same time; a fire in the nursery had nurses scrambling to save the newborns. Because he felt that he deserved Alfred’s good fortune at being born into a wealthy family, Thomas conceives the idea that he and Alfred were switched at birth, and he can’t help seeing that his unhappiness should be Alfred’s, from the loss of his sister to his inability to have a relationship with the woman Evelyne. So, as his life is ending, he formulates a plan of revenge against his bitter enemy, his lifetime adversary, the man who stole his existence.

Director: Julie Dash
Stars: Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbarao
Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Country: USA | Germany

Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastions of these mores in America. Set in 1902.

Director: Alan Parker
Stars: Robert Arkins, Michael Aherne, Angeline Ball
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Ireland | UK | USA

When Jimmy Rabbitte wants to start a band, he has open auditions at his house.

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short
Country: UK

A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to 1989 (the Velvet Revolution). Some knowledge of the subject is essential in order to understand the film, which is entirely visual.

Director: Ken Burns
Stars: Jason Robards, Red Barber, Erik Barnouw
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA

For 50 years, radio dominated the airwaves as the first mass medium. Ken Burns examines the lives of three men who shared the responsibility for its invention and early success.

Director: Theodoros Angelopoulos
Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Gregory Patrick Karr
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Greece | Switzerland | Italy

A reporter stuck in a border town with an overcrowding of refugees sees a man he believes to be a long lost politician.

Director: Bernt Amadeus Capra
Stars: Liv Ullmann, Sam Waterston, John Heard
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

Philosophical conversations between a poet, politician, and scientist.

Director: Louis Malle
Stars: Miou-Miou, Michel Piccoli, Michel Duchaussoy
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Country: France | Italy

During the events of May 1968 in France, different worldviews of conflicting relatives are collide in their family estate.

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Stars: Wojciech Pszoniak, Ewa Dalkowska, Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska
Genre: Biography, Drama, War
Country: Poland | Germany | UK

Account of the last days of life of the legendary Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his heroic dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.

Director: Jim Sheridan
Stars: Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: Ireland

When a field (which has been farmed by the McCabe family for generations) goes up for auction, the patriarch of the McCabe family will stop at nothing to prevent a rich American from buying it.

Director: Jirí Menzel
Stars: Rudolf Hrusínský, Vlastimil Brodský, Václav Neckár
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Czechoslovakia

Set in the late 1940s, the film concerns the treatment of suspect “bourgeois elements”, a professor, a saxophonist, and a milkman, who are put to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation.

Director: Su Friedrich
Stars: Jessica Meyerson
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Through a series of twenty six short stories, a girl describes the childhood events that shaped her ideas about fatherhood, family relations, work and play. As the stories unfold, a dual portrait emerges: that of a father who cared more for his career than for his family, and of a daughter who was deeply affected by his behavior. Working in counterpoint to the forceful text are sensual black and white images that depict both the extraordinary and ordinary events of daily life. Together, they create a formally complex and emotionally intense film.

Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Stars: Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn
Genre: Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
Country: USA | Germany

In a dystopian, polluted right wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.

Director: Satyajit Ray
Stars: Ajit Banerjee, Haradhan Bannerjee, Soumitra Chatterjee
Genre: Drama
Country: India | France | UK

Four brothers converge around an ailing father.

Director: James Foley
Stars: Jason Patric, Rachel Ward, Bruce Dern
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA

An ex-boxer is drifting around after escaping from the mental hospital. He meets a widow who convinces him to help fix up the neglected estate her ex-husband left. Her Uncle talks them both into helping kidnap a rich boy for ransom money, and the ex-fighter must make decisions about his loyalties and what is right.

Director: Nicolas Philibert
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

A voyage into the museum’s reserves, and part of the extra work involved to mount the expositions after the renovation of the Louvre in the 1980s, when the glass pyramid was added to the classic buildings. From the preservation rooms through the frame and painting retouches by experts, to the personnel instruction on how to be efficient in protecting the collections, and look nice to the visitors.

Director: Mark Kitchell
Stars: Jentri Anders, Joan Baez, Frank Bardacke
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA

A documentary about militant student political activity in the University of California-Berkely in the 1960’s.

Director: Richard Pearce
Stars: Sissy Spacek, Whoopi Goldberg, Dwight Schultz
Genre: Drama, History
Country: USA

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott lead by Martin Luther King.

Director: Charles Burnett
Stars: Danny Glover, Paul Butler, DeVaughn Nixon
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A charismatic old acquaintance drifts into town, stirring up trouble for a mild-mannered family.

Director: Vitali Kanevsky
Stars: Dinara Drukarova, Pavel Nazarov, Elena Popova
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union

Two children living in a remote mining town in the distant wastes of Siberia in 1947, survive poverty and hardship through the warmth of their friendship and a shared sense of humour.

Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: France

Famed swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with his cousin Roxane. He has never expressed his love for her as he his large nose undermines his self-confidence. Then he finds a way to express his love to her, indirectly.

Director: Edward Zwick
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA