Tag: Priority 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A documentary on the mysterious and influential pianist.

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

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

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

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

Director: John Woo
Stars: Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama
Country: China | Hong Kong | Japan | Taiwan | South Korea | USA

The first chapter of a two-part story centered on a battle fought in China’s Three Kingdoms period (220-280 A.D.).

Director: Todd Kessler
Stars: Elisabeth Harnois, Jesse McCartney, Margo Harshman
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Natalie, head of her curriculum activities in high school and riding on a tennis scholarship for college, gets Keith as her Chemistry lab partner. As Natalie can be uptight, Keith proves to be the opposite, even while hiding a secret.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Tom Hardy, Kelly Adams, Luing Andrews
Genre: Action, Biography, Crime
Country: UK | Cayman Islands | Denmark | USA

A young man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending three decades in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter-ego, Charles Bronson.

Director: Eran Creevy
Stars: Riz Ahmed, Daniel Mays, Jason Flemyng
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: UK

Shifty, a young crack cocaine dealer in London, sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend returns home. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs, and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer intent on setting him up for a big fall. As his long time friend Chris confronts the dark past he left behind him, Shifty is forced to face up to the violent future he’s hurtling towards.

Director: Haile Gerima
Stars: Aaron Arefe, Abiye Tedla, Takelech Beyene
Genre: Drama
Country: Ethiopia | Germany | France

The Ethiopian intellectual Anberber returns to his native country during the repressive totalitarian regime of Haile Mariam Mengistu and the recognition of his own displacement and powerlessness at the dissolution of his people’s humanity and social values. After several years spent studying medicine in Germany, he finds the country of his youth replaced by turmoil. His dream of using his craft to improve the health of Ethiopians is squashed by a military junta that uses scientists for its own political ends. Seeking the comfort of his countryside home, Anberber finds no refuge from violence. The solace that the memories of his youth provide is quickly replaced by the competing forces of military and rebelling factions. Anberber needs to decide whether he wants to bear the strain or piece together a life from the fragments that lie around him.

Director: Steve Jacobs
Stars: John Malkovich, Natalie Becker, Jessica Haines
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia | South Africa

After having an affair with a student, a Cape Town professor moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.

Director: Christian Petzold
Stars: Benno Fürmann, Nina Hoss, Hilmi Sözer
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany

The dishonorably discharged Afghanistan veteran Thomas returns to his home village of Jerichow. Ali, a local Turkish-German businessman, owner of a snack-bar chain, hires him as a driver. That’s when Thomas meets Laura, his Turkish boss’s young and attractive wife. A classic love triangle is born, unfolding in desolate northeast Germany, where thick forests suddenly end on cliffs overlooking the Baltic Sea. Caught between guilt and freedom, between passion and reason, the protagonists have no hopes for fulfillment of their dreams.

Director: Marek Losey
Stars: Alex Macqueen, Phil Campbell, Laura Hopwood
Genre: Thriller
Country: UK

On the windswept Suffolk mudflats creaks a bird-hide, inside which hovers Roy Tunt, a prematurely aged, mildly obsessive-compulsive birder. With one more sighting – the elusive sociable plover – he will have ‘twitched’ the entire British List. Tunt has his shortwave radio, packed-lunch and a portrait of his ex-wife Sandra for company. Suddenly, in the midst of a conversation with Sandra’s portrait, the hide door blows open and a bedraggled stranger – unshaven, edgy and bloodied introduces himself as Dave John, a fugitive from the storm. After a tense introduction, the two men discover that they have a good deal in common, sharing sandwiches, tea and personal exchanges which are frank, poignant and often funny.

Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Stars: Mahnaz Afshar, Pegah Ahangarani, Taraneh Alidoosti
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran

A hundred and fourteen famous Iranian theater and cinema actresses and a French star: mute spectators at a theatrical representation of Khosrow and Shirin, a Persian poem from the twelfth century, put on stage by Kiarostami. The development of the text — long a favorite in Persia and the Middle East — remains invisible to the viewer of the film, the whole story is told by the faces of the women watching the show.

Director: Michael Joy
Stars: Grant Dodwell, Don Reid, Paul Gleeson
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia

Six strangers meet up every week to talk, finding they are not alone with their issues. Secrets are revealed as their friendships grow but when tragedy strikes, they realize that it is up to them to take responsibility for their own lives.

Director: Ann Hui
Stars: Hee Ching Paw, Chun-lung Leung, Cheuk Man Au
Genre: Drama
Country: Hong Kong

“The Way We Are” tells the story of a hardworking, widowed, single mother (Mrs. Cheung) and her teenage son (Ka-on) living in the troubled housing estate of Tinshuiwai, a suburb regularly featured in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Director: Kenneth Glenaan
Stars: Robert Carlyle, Steve Evets, Rachael Blake
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | Germany

While caring for a dying friend, a man reflects back on their youth together.

Director: Atom Egoyan
Stars: Devon Bostick, Rachel Blanchard, Louca Tassone
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Canada

For his French-class assignment, a high school student weaves his family history in a news story involving terrorism, and goes on to invite an Internet audience in on the resulting controversy.

Director: Yoon-ki Lee
Stars: Do-yeon Jeon, Jung-woo Ha, Il-hwa Choi
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Country: South Korea

Jobless, single and in her early thirties, Hee-soo is miserable. Desperate, she sets out to find her ex-boyfriend, Byoung-woon, who owes her $3,500. Rather inconveniently, it turns out that Byoung-woon is also penniless, but he cheerfully claims he can get the money from a series of girlfriends. Suspicious, Hee-soo decides to trail Byoung-woon as he makes the rounds of his varied lady chums, just in case he tries to deceive her. Thus the pair embark on a strange, nostalgic journey together.

Director: Pieter Van Hees
Stars: Eline Kuppens, Matthias Schoenaerts, Sien Eggers
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Country: Belgium

When Marie moves into her boyfriend’s apartment, she uncovers a disturbing mystery.

Director: Robert Kenner
Stars: Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Richard Lobb
Genre: Documentary, News
Country: USA

An unflattering look inside America’s corporate controlled food industry.

Director: Arsen A. Ostojic
Stars: Alen Liveric, Mustafa Nadarevic, Biserka Ipsa
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Croatia | Slovenia

Ivan, a 36-year old ex-rock singer and a disillusioned war veteran who lost both legs in the recent Croatian Homeland War, discovers a dark family secret, which fundamentally changes his life he now wants to end.

Director: Fernando Eimbcke
Stars: Diego Cataño, Hector Herrera, Daniela Valentine
Genre: Drama
Country: Mexico | Japan | USA

A story of a teenager and the strange events that take place in his small town.

Director: Yves Christian Fournier
Stars: Maxime Dumontier, Chloé Bourgeois, Maxime Bessette
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

Josh is an ordinary teen living in an ordinary suburb, wedged between the high school, the mine and the skate park. One morning, he finds his friend Thomas’s dead body. Next, he discovers that three more friends also killed themselves, leaving him out of their pact. As the sole survivor, Josh becomes more and more detached from the world around him. Only Mia, his best friend’s girl, can reach him. With more questions than answers, Josh’s is the story of a survivor. It is a modern portrait of today’s teens: invincible yet fragile, clear-thinking yet confused, idealistic yet jaded.

Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy
Stars: Danny Glover, Daryl Hannah, Antonio Villaraigosa
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

From the ashes of the L.A. riots arose a lush, 14-acre community garden, the largest of its kind in the United States. Now bulldozers threaten its future.

Director: Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza
Stars: Dan Bustard, Ashley Esqueda, Andrew Monkelban
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

An intimate, fascinating look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging, hugely popular genre of computer games.

Director: Eran Riklis
Stars: Hiam Abbass, Rona Lipaz-Michael, Ali Suliman
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Israel | Germany | France

The story of a Palestinian widow who must defend her lemontree field when a new Israeli Defense Minister moves next to her and threatens to have her lemon grove torn down.

Director: Gianfranco Rosi
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA | Italy

During a five year period an Italian filmmaker documents the world of down-on-their-luck individuals who live in a Californian desert trying to get by one day at a time. None of them has more than a vehicle, a dog and some clothes.

Director: Fred Cavayé
Stars: Vincent Lindon, Diane Kruger, Lancelot Roch
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: France | Spain

With no legal means left to him, a high school teacher devises a daring plan to rescue his wrongfully imprisoned wife from jail.

Director: Tom Lin
Stars: Rhydian Vaughan, Chieh Chang, Jennifer Chia-Ching Chu
Genre: Drama
Country: Taiwan

The “Winds of September” are the wind of Hsinchu, a strong wind that visits the county and city between September and November. Lin Shu Yu’s semi auto-biographical debut, produced by Eric Tsang, takes us back to 1996, during the time of the tragic Taiwan baseball scandal, an event that devastated many teenage boys. The story follows Yen and Tang and their gang through the last year of their high school life. From chasing girls to midnight skinny dipping to rooting for their favorite baseball team, they do everything together. When an accident throws Yen into a coma, their world starts falling apart.

Director: James Watkins
Stars: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Tara Ellis
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Country: UK

Refusing to let anything spoil their romantic weekend break, a young couple confront a gang of loutish youths with terrifyingly brutal consequences.

Director: Tanaz Eshaghian
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Canada | Iran | UK | USA

An intimate and unflinching look at life in Iran, seen through the lens of those living at its fringes, ‘Be Like Others’ is a provocative look at a generation of young Iranian men choosing to undergo sex change surgery.

Director: Chung-ryoul Lee
Stars: Won-gyoon Choi, Sam-soon Lee
Genre: Documentary
Country: South Korea

An elderly farmer lives out his final days with his wife and a loyal ox in the Korean countryside.

Director: James Honeyborne
Stars: Paul Newman, Rufus Beck
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

An inspiring exploration of one family’s resilience and fortitude shot using innovative and groundbreaking filming techniques.

Director: Juraj Lehotsky
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Slovakia

A poetic story about love and happiness between doc and fiction.

Director: Gianni Di Gregorio
Stars: Valeria De Franciscis, Marina Cacciotti, Maria Calì
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy

Gianni is a middle-aged man living in Rome with his imposing and demanding elderly mother. His only outlet from her and the increasing debt into which they are sinking, are the increasingly frequent quiet sessions at the local tavern. As an Oriental saying goes, ‘Moments of crisis are moments of opportunities’. These appear during the celebration of the holiday of Ferragosto on 15 August. That’s when everybody leaves town to have fun. Opportunity knocks on Gianni’s door in the most unexpected way.

Director: Steven Greenstreet
Stars: Richard Atkinson, Denise Austin, Brooke Bates
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

An overview of the politics, social effects and problems associated with the rising epidemic of American obesity.

Director: Mariana Chenillo
Stars: Fernando Luján, Enrique Arreola, Ari Brickman
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Mexico

This story begins when José finds out that Nora, the woman he’d been married to for 30 years and then divorced, has committed suicide. The rabbi explains to José that due to the celebration of the Passover festivities, together with a few other factors, if Nora is not buried that same day, they will have to wait almost five days to be able to carry out the burial. It turns out that before she died, Nora had devised a Machiavellian plan in order for him to take care of her funeral. But she missed something, a mysterious photograph left under the bed will lead to an unexpected outcome which will remind us that sometimes the greatest love stories are hidden in the smallest places.

Director: Murray Siple
Stars: Murray Siple
Genre: Documentary
Country: Canada

This documentary follows a group of homeless men who have combined bottle picking with the extreme sport of racing shopping carts.

Director: Radu Muntean
Stars: Dragos Bucur, Anamaria Marinca, Mimi Branescu
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Romania

On his spring break at the seaside, with his wife and his four year old son, Bogdan Ciocazanu runs into his best friends from high-school at the precise date and time that reminds all of them of their most glorious drinking trips and sexual escapades of their younger days. Frustrated that, between his job and his family, time is no longer his to manage and play with, Boogie now takes his shock dosage of freedom and spends a night to tick off all the items on the map of his youth (drinking, games, flirting, prostitutes). In the morning, after the disillusionment of the remake he experiences with his former friends, he returns to his wife.

Director: Chris J. Ford
Stars: John Ratzenberger, Shelly Cole, Cindy Pickett
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

A fading smalltime barber is forced to hire the last person on earth he’d want working in his shop – a woman.

Director: Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Phrasavath
Stars: Thavisouk Phrasavath
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The epic story of a family forced to emigrate from Laos after the chaos of the secret air war waged by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Kuras has spent the last 23 years chronicling the family’s extraordinary journey in this deeply personal, poetic, and emotional film.

Director: Peter Galison, Robb Moss
Stars: Steven Aftergood, Thomas Blanton, James Bruce
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Amidst the American hunger for instantaneous news and up-to-date “facts,” this unflinching film uncovers the vast, invisible world of government secrecy.

Director: Roberto Hernández, Geoffrey Smith
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Mexico

Two young Mexican attorneys attempt to exonerate a wrongly convicted man by making a documentary. In the process, they expose the contradictions of a judicial system that presumes suspects guilty until proven innocent.

Director: Agnès Jaoui
Stars: Agnès Jaoui, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jamel Debbouze
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France

Agnes Jaoui plays a local political candidate Agathe Villanova, who returns to her childhood home in the south of France in order to help her sister Florence (Pascale Arbillot) sort through their recently deceased mother’s belongings. While she’s there, the son (Jamel Debbouze as Karim) of family maid (Mimouna Hadji) takes advantage of her presence and attempts to interview her as part of a documentary about successful women that he’s undertaken with his film school teacher, Michel (co-writer Jean-Pierre Bacri). However, Michel’s intentions aren’t quite what they seem, as he’s having an affair with Florence and hoping to persuade her to leave her husband. Meanwhile, Karim finds his own marriage threatened when his attractive hotel co-worker (Florence Loiret-Caille) declares an interest in him.

Director: Léa Pool
Stars: Marianne Fortier, Élie Dupuis, Hugo St-Onge-Paquin
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

Summer 1966. It’s time to enjoy the summer holiday, total freedom. Teenage Élise discovers that the sudden departure of her mother completely disrupts the family. Her brother Coco seeks solace in the garage, building a super racing car. Her youngest brother Benoît throws himself into his own inner world. The father seems absolutely knocked out by the situation. Élise decides to take control of her family, in an eloquent attempt to save them. With the assistance of flourishing nature around her, she stands on the threshold of an incomparable summer.

Director: Yôji Yamada
Stars: Tadanobu Asano, Mayumi Tanaka, Mirai Shida
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

Based on childhood days of Teruyo Nogami.

Director: Bill Plympton
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

Much to his surprise, an utter misanthrope is transformed into a reluctant do-gooder, when a glorious pair of angelic snow-white wings sprouts up from his back. Now, everyone in town wants a piece of his feathered appendages.

Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Christopher Carley
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany | USA

Disgruntled Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, Thao Lor, a Hmong teenager who tried to steal Kowalski’s prized possession: a 1972 Gran Torino.

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Stars: Yavuz Bingöl, Hatice Aslan, Ahmet Rifat Sungar
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey | France | Italy

A family suffers from a major communication breakdown during their struggle to get through their hardships.

Director: Tom Gustafson
Stars: Tanner Cohen, Wendy Robie, Judy McLane
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: USA

A bullied and demoralized gay student at an all-boys school uses a magical flower derived from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ to turn many in his community gay, including a comely rugby player for himself.

Director: David Fincher
Stars: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: USA

Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with consequences.

Director: Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte
Stars: Muhammad Ali, James Brown, Don King
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

A filmed account of the Zaire 74 soul music festival, originally intended to be in concert with the famous Rumble in the Jungle bout in Kinshasa, Zaire in 1974.

Director: Raymond Depardon
Stars: Paul Argaud, Louis Brès, Marcelle Brès
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

Third documentary of a trilogy produced on the long term (together with Profils paysans: l’approche (2001) and Profils paysans: le quotidien (2005)), showing the simple lives of farmers in contemporary Southern France.

Director: Özgür Dogan, Orhan Eskiköy
Stars: Emre Aydin, Rojda Huz, Vehip Huz
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Turkey | Netherlands

On the Way to School is a film about a Turkish teacher who is alone in a village as an authority of the state, and about his interaction with the Kurdish children who have to learn Turkish. The film witnesses the communication problem emphasizing the loneliness of a teacher in a different community and culture; and the changes brought up by his presence into this different community during one year. The film chronicles one school year, starting from September 2007 until the departure of the teacher for summer holiday in June 2008. During this period, they begin to know and understand each other mutually and slowly.

Director: Stacy Peralta
Stars: Jim Brown, Tony Muhammad, Kershaun Scott
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Country: USA

With a first-person look at the notorious Crips and Bloods, this film examines the conditions that have lead to decades of devastating gang violence among young African Americans growing up in South Los Angeles.

Director: Jean-François Richet
Stars: Vincent Cassel, Cécile de France, Gérard Depardieu
Genre: Action, Biography, Crime
Country: France | Canada

The story of the notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine, with the focus on his life before the early 1970s and the events that led to him being declared Public Enemy No. 1 in France.

Director: Jean-François Richet
Stars: Vincent Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier, Mathieu Amalric
Genre: Action, Biography, Crime
Country: France | Canada

The story of the notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine, with the focus on his life and death as France’s Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1970s.

Director: Davis Guggenheim
Stars: Jimmy Page, The Edge, Jack White
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

A documentary on the electric guitar from the point of view of three significant rock musicians: the Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White.

Director: Arash T. Riahi
Stars: Navid Navid, Pourya Mahyari, Elika Bozorgi
Genre: Drama
Country: Austria | France | Turkey

Centers on a group of weary Middle Eastern refugees who have made their way to Turkey to apply for European visas.

Director: Daniel Leconte
Stars: Elisabeth Badinter, François Bayrou, Christophe Bigot
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

When twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad were published by Denmark’s largest newspaper in 2005, European muslim groups denounced the cartoons as insulting and sacrilegious. To everyone’s surprise, the protests against the Muhammad drawings took a worldwide scale, even leading to violent demonstrations in several Muslim countries. In France, the satirical news magazine Charlie Hebdo joined the conversation and reprinted the controversial cartoons, causing an uproar among the country’s growing Muslim population. Months later, the Great Mosque of Paris, the World Muslim League and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France took Charlie Hebdo’s editor Philippe Val to court for defamation and incitement of hatred.

Director: Chris Bell
Stars: Chris Bell, Mike Bell, Mark Bell
Genre: Documentary, Sport
Country: USA

An examination of America’s win-at-all-cost culture from the perspective of bodybuilding and performance enhancing drugs, as it focuses on a pair of siblings chasing their dream.

Director: Henry Bernadet, Myriam Verreault
Stars: Marie Frédérique Auger, Caroline Beauséjour, Yann Bernard
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Canada

A mosaic look at a day in the lives of twelve Quebec high schoolers strikingly captures the unique nature of the teenage years.

Director: David Prior
Stars: Pierre Bidou, Russell T. Butterbach, Les Lundblad
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Country: USA

Retrospective documentary covering aspects of the Zodiac investigation, including interviews with the original investigators and surviving victims.

Director: Stephan Komandarev
Stars: Predrag ‘Miki’ Manojlovic, Carlo Ljubek, Hristo Mutafchiev
Genre: Drama
Country: Bulgaria | Germany | Slovenia | Hungary | Serbia

The story of Alex, who, with the help of his charismatic grandfather, Bai Dan, embarks on a journey in search of his real self.

Director: Mark Becker, Jennifer Grausman
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Infamously blunt, Wilma Stephenson runs a “boot camp” teaching Culinary Arts at Frankford High, disciplining her students into capable chefs and responsible students. But behind her tough exterior is a teacher who cares passionately about getting the best out of her kids.

Director: Ben Hopkins
Stars: Tayanç Ayaydin, Genco Erkal, Senay Aydin
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany | Turkey | UK | Kazakhstan

A Turkish small time black marketeer wants to enter the cell phone business. To get enough money, he promises the local doctor to get medicine for sick children.

Director: James Chressanthis
Stars: Karen Black, Peter Bogdanovich, Sandra Bullock
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The lifelong friendship of the great Hungarian-born cinematographers László Kovács and Vilmos Zsigmond and their impact on American cinema.

Director: Wendy Keys
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

Profiles Milton Glaser (1929- ), America’s foremost graphic designer: designer of the iconic “I [heart] N.Y.” logo, teacher, and humanitarian. Interviews with Glaser are arranged to take him through a rough chronology of his life: study at New York High School of Music and Art and at Cooper Union, a seminal stay in Italy, his marriage, and his various partnerships – founding Push Pin Studios and “New York” magazine, designing Grand Union supermarkets, and working with “The Nation.” Interspersed are examples of his work. Glaser is, throughout, charming in manner, memorable in his observations, and generous of spirit.

Director: Frank H. Woodward
Stars: Robin Atkin Downes, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A chronicle of the life, work and mind that created the Cthulhu mythos.

Director: Rémi Bezançon
Stars: Jacques Gamblin, Zabou Breitman, Déborah François
Genre: Drama
Country: France

Five key days in a family’s life.

Director: Petr Zelenka
Stars: Michaela Badinková, Jerzy Michal Bozyk, Igor Chmela
Genre: Drama
Country: Czech Republic | Poland | France

A film that examines the relationships between lives on both sides of the proscenium, Petr Zelenka’s Karamazovi finds a Prague-based theatrical ensemble arriving in Krakow, Poland – where its members prepare to mount a stage production of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

Director: James Colquhoun, Carlo Ledesma
Stars: Vicky Blewitt, Ian Brighthope, Jerome Burne
Genre: Documentary
Country: Australia

Food Matters examines how the food we eat can help or hurt our health. Nutritionists, naturopaths, doctors, and journalists weigh in on such topics as organic food, food safety, raw foodism, and nutritional therapy.

Director: Nahid Persson
Stars: Farah Pahlavi, Nahid Persson, Zinat S. Lloyd
Genre: Documentary
Country: Sweden

Filmmaker and Iranian exile Nahid Persson Sarvestani talks with the widow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the late Shah of Iran, who was overthrown in 1979.

Director: Jean Becker
Stars: Albert Dupontel, Marie-Josée Croze, Pierre Vaneck
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

The back story is a marvelous and gorgeous social commentary on the type of generous actions we could all take – to enrich our often-solitary elder-citizens’ lives.

Director: Toa Fraser
Stars: Jeremy Northam, Sam Neill, Bryan Brown
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: New Zealand | UK

Set in Edwardian England where upper lips are always stiff and men from the Colonies are not entirely to be trusted, Fisk Senior has little time or affection for his son, but when the pair visit an eccentric Indian, they start a strange journey that eventually allows the old man to find his heart.

Director: Anders Østergaard
Stars: George W. Bush, Ko Muang, Aung San Suu Kyi
Genre: Documentary, History, News
Country: Denmark | Sweden | Norway | UK | USA | Germany | Netherlands | Israel | Spain | Belgium | Canada

Using smuggled footage, this documentary tells the story of the 2007 protests in Burma by thousands of monks.

Director: Melissa Maclean, Luke Walker
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Australia

To the Australian media Kenja is a ‘secretive cult’, their leader described in Parliament as a ‘seedy conman’. Despite preparing to fight yet another court case Ken Dyers and Jan Hamilton allow a film crew unprecedented access to the ‘spiritual evolvement centre’ they founded in 1982. How can the view from inside Kenja be so different to the one outside? Through remarkable verite footage and candid interviews, Beyond Our Ken explores the anatomy and ambiguity of the ‘cult’ enigma.

Director: Dan Stone, Patrick Gambuti Jr.
Stars: Paul Watson, Alex Cornelissen, Peter Hammarstedt
Genre: Documentary, Action, Adventure
Country: USA

At the Edge of the World chronicles the controversial Sea Shepherd Antarctic Campaign against a Japanese whaling fleet. The international volunteer crew, under-trained and under-equipped, develop a combination of bizarre and brilliant tactics with which to stop the whalers. But first they must find the Japanese ships, a far more difficult challenge than ever imagined – long-time activist Paul Watson and first-time captain Alex Cornelissen employ an array of strategies in the hopes of finding an elusive adversary in the vast expanse of the Ross Sea.

Director: Takeshi Kitano
Stars: Takeshi Kitano, Kanako Higuchi, Kumiko Asô
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Japan

Machisu is a painter. He never had the success he thinks he is entitled to. Regardless of this, he always remains trying to be successful. His wife Sachiko keeps supporting him, despite all setbacks.

Director: Abdullah Oguz
Stars: Talat Bulut, Özgü Namal, Murat Han
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey | Greece

When an unmarried teenage girl is believed by her family to have given up her virginity, she is ordered to be killed out of shame. But before her relative is able to complete the task, the two encounter a college professor.

Director: Billy Ray
Stars: Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Dennis Haysbert
Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama
Country: USA

FBI upstart Eric O’Neill enters into a power game with his boss, Robert Hanssen, an agent who was put on trial for selling secrets to the Soviet Union.

Director: Jay Chou
Stars: Jay Chou, Gwei Lun-Mei, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Music
Country: Hong Kong | Taiwan

Ye Xiang Lun, a talented piano player is a new student at the prestigious Tamkang School. On his first day, he meets Lu Xiao Yu, a pretty girl playing a mysterious piece of music.

Director: Carlos Saura
Stars: Chico Buarque, Camané, Carlos do Carmo
Genre: Documentary, Musical
Country: Portugal | Spain

A drama steeped in Portugal’s Fado music culture.

Director: Yûichi Satô
Stars: Shun Oguri, Yûsuke Santamaria, Keisuke Koide
Genre: Comedy, Mystery
Country: Japan

One year after the suicide of C-list model Kisaragi Miki, five of her fans come together for a commemorative meeting; fan club leader Iemoto, Oda Yuji, “Snake”, Yasuo, and “Strawberry Girl”. After meeting each other for the first time, they reminisce about their idol, wondering how someone so bright and happy could have possibly taken her own life. As they discuss her death, the facts, and evidence, they slowly come to the realization that her death didn’t occur they way they thought it did. The more they talk, the more the case takes shape in their minds, and the closer they come to the truth.

Director: Rodrigo Plá
Stars: Daniel Giménez Cacho, Daniel Tovar, Alan Chávez
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: Spain | Mexico

Residents of an enclosed neighborhood in the middle of Mexico DF are shocked by a violent crime, and for one resident in particular, young Alejandro, the drama is ratcheted up when he encounters the lone kid who escaped the event and is hiding out within the neighborhood’s borders.

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Stars: Sergey Makovetskiy, Sergey Garmash, Apti Magamaev
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Russia

Twelve jurors must decide the fate of a Chechen adolescent charged with murdering his stepfather.

Director: Peter Askin
Stars: Dalton Trumbo, Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

Through a focus on the life of Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976), this film examines the effects on individuals and families of a congressional pursuit of Hollywood Communists after World War II. Trumbo was one of several writers, directors, and actors who invoked the First Amendment in refusing to answer questions under oath. They were blacklisted and imprisoned. We follow Trumbo to prison, to exile in Mexico with his family, to poverty, to the public shunning of his children, to his writing under others’ names, and to an eventual but incomplete vindication. Actors read his letters; his children and friends remember and comment. Archive photos, newsreels and interviews add texture.

Director: Sandra Kogut
Stars: Thiago da Silva Mariz, Wallison Felipe Leal Barroso, Maria Juliana Souza de Oliveira
Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil | France

Thiago lives with his family on an isolated farm in the arid backlands of Minas Gerais, Brazil. As the story unfolds and Thiago is forced to confront separations and betrayal within the home, Thiago begins, little by little, to see and understand a place that he had never been able to before, thus slowly letting go of his innocence.

Director: Hideo Nakata
Stars: Kikunosuke Onoe, Hitomi Kuroki, Mao Inoue
Genre: Drama, Horror, Romance
Country: Japan

Japan, 250 years ago. Soetsu is a moneylender who is killed by the cruel samurai Shinzaemon. His body is dumped in the Kasenega-Fuchi river. According to legend, all who drown in the river will never surface again. 20 Years later, Shinkichi, the handsome son of Shinzaemon, coincidentally meets Toyoshiga, the daughter of Soetsu. They fall in love. It is a doomed love, as the spirit of Soetsu is far from dead.

Director: Bent Hamer
Stars: Baard Owe, Espen Skjønberg, Ghita Nørby
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Norway | Germany | France | Denmark

A drama focused on a life-changing moment in 67-year-old train engineer Odd Horten’s existence: the evening of his retirement.

Director: Naoko Ogigami
Stars: Satomi Kobayashi, Mikako Ichikawa, Ryô Kase
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Japan

Taeko is a stressed career woman who leaves her life in the city for an island vacation. The vacation does not become what she expected as everyone on the island is strange.

Director: Satoshi Miki
Stars: Joe Odagiri, Tomokazu Miura, Kyôko Koizumi
Genre: Comedy
Country: Japan

Takemura has no friends and no family. He’s a student but he doesn’t have any particular ambitions. In other words, he isn’t going anywhere fast. Were all this not enough, the sorry sad sack has a debt of 800,000 yen. Fukuhara, a surly debt collector with a glorious mullet, is on his case. After roughing Takemura up, he gives him an ultimatum-72 hours to pay up, or else. Takemura barely has his wits about him again when he runs across Fukuhara a second time, and this time the thug has a different proposal-a walk. That’s right, in exchange for a million yen, Takemura must accompany Fukuhara on a walk across the city of Tokyo.

Director: Ayelet Menahemi
Stars: Mili Avital, BaoQi Chen, Alon Aboutboul
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Israel

At thirty-seven, Miri is a twice-widowed, El Al flight attendant. Her well-regulated existence is suddenly turned upside down by an abandoned Chinese boy whose migrant-worker mother has been summarily deported from Israel. The film is a touching comic-drama in which two human beings — as different from each other as Tel Aviv is from Beijing — accompany each other on a remarkable journey, one that takes them both back to a meaningful life.

Director: Aaron Woolf
Stars: Bob Bledsoe, Earl L. Butz, Dawn Cheney
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat-and how we farm.

Director: Kris Carr
Stars: Aura Carr, Kenneth Carr, Kris Carr
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Crazy Sexy Cancer is an irreverent and uplifting documentary about a young woman looking for a cure and finding her life. Weeks after she was diagnosed, filmmaker Kris Carr began documenting her story. Taking a seemingly tragic situation and turning it into a creative expression, Kris shares her inspirational story of survival with honesty, courage, and lots of humor.

Director: Harris Fishman
Stars: Joy Holiday, Ron Holiday, Chuck Lizza
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The story of the Cat Dancers, one of the world’s first exotic tiger entertainment acts, and the tragic accidents that brought their tale to an end.

Director: Veiko Õunpuu
Stars: Rain Tolk, Taavi Eelmaa, Juhan Ulfsak
Genre: Drama
Country: Estonia

A film about the loneliness, despair and hope of six people who all live in a bleak Soviet-era apartment complex in Tallinn, Estonia.

Director: Christophe Honoré
Stars: Ludivine Sagnier, Louis Garrel, Clotilde Hesme
Genre: Drama, Musical, Romance
Country: France

Ismael and Julie enter a playful yet emotionally laced threesome with Alice. When tragedy strikes, these young Parisians are forced to deal with the fragility of life and love.

Director: Aleksey Balabanov, Laura Obiols
Stars: Agniya Kuznetsova, Aleksey Poluyan, Leonid Gromov
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Russia

A young woman is taken hostage by a police officer gone mad.

Director: Jan Sverák
Stars: Zdenek Sverák, Daniela Kolárová, Pavel Landovský
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic | UK | Denmark

A comic love story about a man who refuses to accept that old age is empty of love, meaning and value to society.

Director: Scott Frank
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA

Chris is a once promising high school athlete whose life is turned upside down following a tragic accident. As he tries to maintain a normal life, he takes a job as a janitor at a bank, where he ultimately finds himself caught up in a planned heist.

Director: Chris Atkins
Stars: David Morrissey, Ashley Jensen, Riz Ahmed
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

An examination of the erosion of civil liberties that has gradually taken place in recent years.

Director: Ernesto Contreras
Stars: Cecilia Suárez, Enrique Arreola, Magali Boysselle
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Mexico

Marina wins a paradise vacation for two, but when she realizes that she has no one to bring along, she decides to invite a stranger named Victor. The pair soon discovers that true love depends more on compatibility rather than idyllic scenery.

Director: Yang Zhang
Stars: Benshan Zhao, Qiwen Hong, Dandan Song
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: China | Hong Kong

A black comedy about a farmer who tries to bring home the body of his friend, who died far from their town.

Director: Ulrich Seidl
Stars: Ekateryna Rak, Lidiya Oleksandrivna Savka, Oksana Ivanivna Sklyarenko
Genre: Drama
Country: Austria | France | Germany

A nurse from Ukraine searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason.

Director: Adam Shankman
Stars: John Travolta, Queen Latifah, Nikki Blonsky
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Musical
Country: USA | UK | Canada

Pleasantly plump teenager Tracy Turnblad teaches 1962 Baltimore a thing or two about integration after landing a spot on a local TV dance show.

Director: Paddy Considine
Stars: Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, Paul Popplewell
Genre: Short, Drama
Country: UK

Joseph is a man plagued by a violence and rage who is driving him to self destruction. As he falls further into turmoil, Joseph scours the landscape in search of a single grain of redemption that might restore hope to his fractured life.

Director: Jacques Nolot
Stars: Jacques Nolot, Jean-Pol Dubois, Marc Rioufol
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

A portrait of a 58-year-old man battling his inner demons on the search for self-discovery.

Director: Geoffrey Smith
Stars: Henry Marsh
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

This documentary offers a glimpse into the life of an English neurosurgeon (Henry Marsh) situated in Ukraine as we are exposed to the overwhelming dilemmas he has to face and the burden he has to carry throughout his profession.

Director: Claude Lelouch
Stars: Fanny Ardant, Dominique Pinon, Audrey Dana
Genre: Drama
Country: France

A popular novelist researches unlikely sources to find characters for her next bestseller.

Director: Olivier Dahan
Stars: Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory
Genre: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: France | UK | Czech Republic

Biopic of the iconic French singer Édith Piaf. Raised by her grandmother in a brothel, she was discovered while singing on a street corner at the age of 19. Despite her success, Piaf’s life was filled with tragedy.

Director: John Sayles
Stars: Danny Glover, LisaGay Hamilton, Yaya DaCosta
Genre: Crime, Drama, History
Country: USA

1950. Rural Alabama. Cotton harvest. It’s a make-or-break weekend for the Honeydripper Lounge and its owner, piano player Tyrone “Pine Top” Purvis. Deep in debt to the liquor man, the chicken man, and the landlord, Tyrone is desperate to lure the young cotton pickers and local Army base recruits into his juke joint, away from Touissant’s, the rival joint across the way. His plan to hire a guitar legend go awry and Tyrone is forced to take drastic action in a final scheme to save the club.

Director: Janine Hosking
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Australia

A behind-the-scenes look at the trial of Schapelle Corby, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for smuggling marijuana into Indonesia.

Director: Matthew Bonifacio
Stars: Hugo Aleman, Sophia Antonini, Michael Aronov
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A look at the bond between an illegal immigrant and a blue-collar Italian-American from Queens.

Director: Adrienne Shelly
Stars: Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Jeremy Sisto
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Jenna is a pregnant, unhappily married waitress in the deep south. She meets a newcomer to her town and falls into an unlikely relationship as a last attempt at happiness.

Director: Laura Dunn
Stars: Curtis Peterson, Gary Bradley, Willie Nelson
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary about the development around Barton Springs in Austin, Texas, and the environment’s unexpected response to human interference.

Director: Leslie Iwerks
Stars: Stacy Keach, John Lasseter, Brad Bird
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios – from the success of “Toy Story” and Pixar’s promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company’s relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits.

Director: Jeff Nichols
Stars: Michael Shannon, Douglas Ligon, Barlow Jacobs
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA

Shotgun Stories tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.

Director: Pil-sung Yim
Stars: Jeong-myeong Cheon, Eun Won-jae, Eun-kyung Shim
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country: South Korea

After meeting an mysterious girl on an dark stretch of road, a young salesman is invited to a beautiful house with bizarre secrets and no way to escape.

Director: Claude Berri
Stars: Audrey Tautou, Guillaume Canet, Laurent Stocker
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

When Camille (Audrey Tautou) falls ill, she is forced to live with Philibert and Franck (Guillaume Canet). A moving trio story.

Director: Stephane Gauger
Stars: Cat Ly, The Lu Le, Han Thi Pham
Genre: Drama
Country: Vietnam | USA

In modern-day Saigon, three lonely strangers form a unique family as a ten-year old orphan plays matchmaker to a zookeeper and a beautiful flight attendant.

Director: Amin Matalqa
Stars: Nadim Sawalha, Rana Sultan, Hussein Al-Sous
Genre: Drama
Country: Jordan

When an old airport janitor finds a captain’s hat in the trash, he gets pulled into the lives of children in his poor neighborhood. He weaves imaginary stories of his world adventures to offer hope in the face of their harsh reality.

Director: Emmanuel Mouret
Stars: Julie Gayet, Michaël Cohen, Virginie Ledoyen
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Country: France

When Gabriel and Emilie meet by chance, he offers her a ride, and they spend the evening talking, laughing and getting along famously. At the end of the night, Emilie declines Gabriel’s offer of “a kiss without consequences”. Emilie admonishes him that the kiss could have unexpected consequences, and tells him a story, unfolding in flashbacks, about the impossibility of indulging your desires without affecting someone else’s life.

Director: Scott J. Gill
Stars: Neil Armstrong, David Baker, Penelope Boston
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Visionary rocket scientist, Robert Zubrin, has a plan for getting humans to Mars in the next ten years and ultimately turning the Red Planet blue. But can he win over the skeptics at NASA and the wider world?

Director: Tony Ayres
Stars: Joan Chen, Yuwu Qi, Joel Lok
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia | Singapore

A man remembers his childhood and his mother, a Chinese night club singer who struggled to survive in Australia with her two children.

Director: Philippe Aractingi
Stars: Nada Abou Farhat, Georges Khabbaz, Rawia Elchab
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France | Lebanon | UK

In the wake of Israel’s 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, a determined woman finds her way into the country convincing a taxi cab driver to take a risky journey around the scarred region in search of her sister and her son.

Director: Weijun Chen
Stars: Cheng Cheng, Luo Lei, Xu Xiaofei
Genre: Documentary
Country: China | South Africa | Denmark

Democracy in China exists, that is, in a primary school in Wuhan where a grade 3 class can vote who they want as class monitor.

Director: Naomi Kawase
Stars: Shigeki Uda, Machiko Ono, Kanako Masuda
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan | France

A care-giver at a small retirement home takes one of her patients for a drive to the country, but the two wind up stranded in a forest where they embark on an exhausting and enlightening two-day journey.

Director: Eric Guirado
Stars: Nicolas Cazalé, Clotilde Hesme, Daniel Duval
Genre: Drama
Country: France

Antoine moves home to help his mom drive the mobile grocery, when his dad’s hospitalized. He brings Claire along, hoping she’ll become more than a friend. He drives around Provence’s countryside, selling mainly to old people.

Director: Carlo Mazzacurati
Stars: Giovanni Capovilla, Valentina Lodovini, Ahmed Hafiane
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy

A writer’s need to maintain an appropriate amount of professional “distance” from his or her subject; the journalist in question here is Giovanni, a late adolescent with a flair for journalistic correspondence.

Director: Ken Loach
Stars: Kierston Wareing, Juliet Ellis, Leslaw Zurek
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | Italy | Germany | Spain | Poland

After being fired from her job, Angie teams up with her flatmate to find employment for immigrants.

Director: Irene Taylor Brodsky
Stars: Sally Taylor, David Taylor, Paul Taylor
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary memoir following a filmmaker’s deaf parents as they receive a complex surgical implant, which allows them to experience sound for the first time.

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Stars: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow
Genre: Crime, Drama, History
Country: Austria | Germany

The story of the Operation Bernhard, the largest counterfeiting operation in history, carried out by Germany during WWII.

Director: Cristian Nemescu
Stars: Armand Assante, Jamie Elman, Razvan Vasilescu
Genre: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Romania

A railway chief delays a NATO train transporting military equipment during the war in Kosovo in 1999.

Director: Mike Jacobs
Stars: Richard Gazowsky, Pietro Manigrasso
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary following a Pentecostal minister who receives a vision from God to create an epic science fiction movie based on the biblical story of Joseph, sending him and his followers on a journey of extreme faith.

Director: James Mangold
Stars: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Ben Foster
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: USA

A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who’s awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher.

Director: Jake Kasdan
Stars: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, David Krumholtz
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: USA

Singer Dewey Cox overcomes adversity to become a musical legend.

Director: Catherine Breillat
Stars: Asia Argento, Fu’ad Aït Aattou, Roxane Mesquida
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Italy

Secrets, rumors and betrayals surround the upcoming marriage between a young dissolute man and virtuous woman of the French aristocracy.

Director: Alison Thompson
Stars: A.P. Darmedesa, Bruce French, Oscar Gubernati
Genre: Documentary, Adventure, Drama
Country: USA | Sri Lanka

Four volunteers travel to Peraliya, Sri Lankan after the 2004 tsunami, and their planned two-week journey becomes a year of heartbreak and rebirth.

Director: Chookiat Sakveerakul
Stars: Sinjai Plengpanich, Songsit Roongnophakunsri, Pimpan Buranapim
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: Thailand

Two boyhood friends are separated due to the disappearance of the sister of one of them, then later meet again as teenagers, when one of them has become a pop singer, and they discover feelings that they did not know they had.

Director: Jeremy Stulberg, Randy Stulberg
Stars: Cowboy, Gecko, Dreadie Jeff
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Twenty-Five miles from town, a million miles from mainstream society, a loose-knit community of radicals live in the desert, struggling to survive with little food, less water and no electricity, as they cling to their unique vision of the American dream.

Director: Daniele Luchetti
Stars: Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Angela Finocchiaro
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Italy | France

Two brothers come of age in a small Italian town in the ’60s and ’70s.

Director: Ömer Vargi
Stars: Sener Sen, Kenan Imirzalioglu, Ismail Hacioglu
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Turkey

Ali Osman is living a quiet life after years of struggle, and tears. And he is slowly slipping into dementia. He made his peace with the horrible life he had and waiting for his final day to come. He then learns a long kept secret about a rebel boy whom happens to be his son. The boy is targeted by an insane mobster over a pretty singer girl. After a bloody firefight in a bar where she performs, the boy and the girl takes refuge in Ali Osman’s life. Now Ali Osman is at a junction; will he break his vow of peace and take the matter into his hands or will he let dementia make him forget about everything?

Director: David Volach
Stars: Assi Dayan, Ilan Griff, Sharon Hacohen
Genre: Drama
Country: Israel

A respected rabbi is forced to come to terms with the demands of his faith and the welfare of his own family.

Director: Ben Affleck
Stars: Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Casey Affleck
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA

Two Boston area detectives investigate a little girl’s kidnapping, which ultimately turns into a crisis both professionally and personally.

Director: Marcos Jorge
Stars: João Miguel, Fabiula Nascimento, Babu Santana
Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil | Italy

In the great restaurant of life, there are those who eat and those who get eaten. Raimundo Nonato finds an alternative way, a life of his own: he cooks in order to survive and find a place in society. He arrives in town without a penny in his pockets and starts working as help in a decadent bar, a nasty place, lost amid the urban desert. He sleeps in the storage room on the back, and under a cold neon light learns how to fry “pastel” and “coxinhas”, outdoing his “master”, Zulmiro, the owner of the bar. Nonato is ignorant, but talented. He knows how to work the kitchen, soon others realize it too. The first one to notice him, is Iria, a prostitute, who doesn’t know how to cook but loves to eat and starts an affair with him.

Director: Pere Portabella
Stars: Christian Atanasiu, Féodor Atkine, George-Christoph Biller
Genre: Musical
Country: Spain

Blending historical reconstruction with very loosely linked ‘dramatic’ scenes and documentary sequences, the film constitutes a playful, painterly sequence of variations on the argument that Johann Sebastian changed the way the world hears thanks to his extraordinary ear for harmony.

Director: Les Blank, Gina Leibrecht
Stars: David Lee Hoffman, Song Diefeng, Werner Herzog
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

During the 1990s, David Lee Hoffman searched throughout China for the finest teas. He’s a California importer who, as a youth, lived in Asia for years and took tea with the Dali Lama. Hoffman’s mission is to find and bring to the U.S. the best hand picked and hand processed tea. This search takes him directly to farms and engages him with Chinese scientists, business people, and government officials: Hoffman wants tea grown organically without a factory, high-yield mentality. By 2004, Hoffman has seen success: there are farmers’ collectives selling tea, ways to export “boutique tea” from China, and a growing Chinese appreciation for organic farming’s best friend, the earthworm.

Director: Brook Silva-Braga
Stars: Scott Erikson, Rebecca Filmer, Sabrina Hezinger
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

On a trip around the world, every day feels like Saturday. A MAP FOR SATURDAY reveals a world of long-term, solo travel through the stories of trekkers on four continents. The documentary finds backpackers helping neglected Thai tsunami victims. It explains why Nepal’s guesthouses are empty and Brazil’s stoplights are ignored. But at its core, SATURDAY tracks the emotional arc of extreme long-term travelers; teenagers and senior citizens who wondered, “What would it be like to travel the world?” Then did it.

Director: David Schisgall, Nina Alvarez
Stars: Laura Guzman, Rachel Lloyd
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Country: USA

Very Young Girls, whose title reflects the fact that in the United States the average age of entry into prostitution is just thirteen. The film takes us into the work of a former sexually exploited youth-turned-activist named Rachel Lloyd, who started the New York City organization GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services) to help victimized young women escape their pimps and find another way of life.

Director: Chris Martin, John Pilger, Sean Crotty
Stars: John Pilger, Philip Agee, Salvador Allende
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK | Australia

Venezuela, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Salvador, Bolivia: people’s struggle for democracy versus US imperialism in Latin America since the 1950s, backing coups and supporting dictatorships.

Director: Antonio Ferrera, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Matthew Prinzing
Stars: Michael Bloomberg, Christo, Rudy Giuliani
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary on New York City’s biggest public art project ever, an installation called “The Gates,” by Christo and Jeanne Claude.

Director: Nae Caranfil
Stars: Marius Florea Vizante, Ovidiu Niculescu, Mirela Zeta
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Romania

In 1911-12, the Romanian movie director Grigore Brezianu and the financial tycoon Leon Popescu made together the 2 hours long movie “Romania’s Independence” – an as faithful as possible screen adaptation of the real Independence War that had been fought in 1877. Now, “Restul e tacere” tells us, in a loose and half-fictionalized way, the story of this movie making.

Director: Dorota Kedzierzawska
Stars: Danuta Szaflarska, Krzysztof Globisz, Marta Waldera
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

When the witty old lady Aniela finally gets rid of her last lodger, she thinks it’s finally time for her to feel at home in her beautiful old wooden house. But her greedy son and neighbours have other plans.

Director: Richard Robbins
Stars: Sharon D. Allen, Beau Bridges, Colby Buzzell
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A unique documentary about troops’ experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, based on writings by soldiers, Marines, and air men. Some writings were published in the New Yorker in summer 2006. A larger assortment was published as a book by Random House last September. The film drew upon the submissions by soldiers for the book.

Director: Ben Niles
Stars: Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Harry Connick Jr., Hélène Grimaud
Genre: Documentary, Family, Musical
Country: USA

A feature-length independent documentary that follows the creation of a Steinway concert grand, #L1037- from forest floor to concert hall.

Director: Sergei Bodrov
Stars: Tadanobu Asano, Amadu Mamadakov, Khulan Chuluun
Genre: Action, Biography, Drama
Country: Russia | Germany | Kazakhstan | China

The story recounts the early life of Genghis Khan who was a slave before going on to conquer half the world in 1206.

Director: Jason Kohn
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Brazil | USA

An examination of corruption and class warfare in Brazil as told through the stories of a wealthy businessman, a plastic surgeon who assists kidnapping victims and a politician whose income relies on a frog farm.

Director: Joan Brooker-Marks
Stars: Larry Flynt, Al van Schaik, Simon L. Leis Jr.
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary that celebrates and examines an unabashed vulgarian.

Director: Barbet Schroeder
Stars: Jacques Vergès, Klaus Barbie, Barbet Schroeder
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Country: France

A documentary on Jacques Vergès, the controversial lawyer and former Free French Forces guerrilla who has defending unpopular figures such as Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.

Director: Brad Isaacs
Stars: Cayden Boyd, Lara Flynn Boyle, Matthew Modine
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Set in the 1960s, a magical tale of two 12-year-olds embarking on an adventure to find new, cool parents and escape their neglected, overly adult existence.

Director: Craig Zobel
Stars: Pat Healy, Kene Holiday, John Baker
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: USA

When a man answers an advertisement to train as a record producer, he’s excited by the prospect of signing undiscovered musicians, only to discover his new job isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Director: Stelios Kouloglou
Stars: John Perkins
Genre: Documentary, Thriller
Country: Greece | Ecuador | Venezuela | UK | USA

In front of an angry audience somewhere in Latin America, a North American discloses the secret network that used the World Bank, payoffs, extortion and sex, military coups and political assassinations to create the American empire. The definitive answer to President Bush’s question: “why do they hate us?”

Director: César Charlone, Enrique Fernández
Stars: César Troncoso, Virginia Méndez, Mario Silva
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Uruguay | Brazil | France

A small South American village is in a flurry over the Pope’s 1988 visit.

Director: Jean Becker
Stars: Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Fanny Cottençon
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France

A successful artist, weary of Parisian life and on the verge of divorce, returns to the country to live in his childhood house. He needs someone to make a real vegetable garden again out of the wilderness it has become. The gardener happens to be a former schoolfriend. A warm, fruitful conversation starts between the two men.

Director: Tina Mascara, Guido Santi
Stars: W.H. Auden, Don Bachardy, Ted Bachardy
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Romance
Country: USA

The love story between British writer, Christopher Isherwood (whose book ‘The Berlin Stories’ inspired the musical and film Cabaret) and Don Bachardy, American portrait artist.

Director: Noah Thomson
Stars: David Berg, Ricky Rodriguez, Joey Thomson
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A first-person account of growing up in an evangelical Christian cult.

Director: Hana Makhmalbaf
Stars: Abbas Alijome, Abdolali Hoseinali, Nikbakht Noruz
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Iran | France

A young girl zealously wants to go to school and learn to read and write. Almost everywhere she is met with hostility or indifference. The only young boy who takes her to his school is thrown out by the teacher, because helping her prevented him from coming in time. – It must not go unnoticed that the schoolgirls and the female teacher are likewise hostile toward this girl. None of them want her in the classroom. On her way home she and other girls are taken as prisoners by boys playing talibans.

Director: Anand Tucker
Stars: Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, Juliet Stevenson
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: UK | Ireland

The story of a son’s conflicting memories of his dying father.

Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura
Stars: Gaku Hamada, Eita, Megumi Seki
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

A university student finds himself wrapped up in the bizarre world of his next door neighbor, learning about his history and relationship with a girl who changed his life.

Director: Tarsem Singh
Stars: Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA | South Africa | India

In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story of five mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality blurs as the tale advances.

Director: Erik Richter Strand
Stars: Nils Jørgen Kaalstad, Mikkel Bratt Silset, Edward Schultheiss
Genre: Drama
Country: Norway

Trouble starts when Lars, a 25-year-old with few prospects for the future, discovers that an older man is fooling around with the teenage boys in his suburb. A terrible rage is triggered in Lars, and he embarks on a crusade to stop the abuser. But it soon spins out of control, and Lars’ actions end up endangering those he set out to protect.

Director: Tom Hooper
Stars: Lee Boardman, Jim Broadbent, Tam Dean Burn
Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama
Country: UK | USA

A portrait of Lord Longford, a tireless British campaigner whose controversial beliefs often resulted in furious political debate and personal conflict.

Director: Malik Bader
Stars: Malik Bader, Wesley Walker, Frank Zieger
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Country: USA

The movie follows the life of Chicago burglar Kaspar Karr. Kaspar cases and robs stores. He counts up his score and a small interview follows where Kaspar introduces himself. He shows his expertise in social engineering, stalking, and intelligence gathering and discusses his careful, meticulous planning cycles.

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Stars: Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Nazan Kesal
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Turkey | France

A dowdy university instructor Isa is an inattentive husband to his younger, TV-business wife Bahar. Self-absorbed and selfish, Isa only communicates in the most rudimentary way, while she, similarly, detaches into crying jags and juvenile behavior.

Director: Lucy Walker
Stars: Gavin Attwood, Sally Berg, Sonam Bhumtso
Genre: Documentary, Adventure
Country: UK

Six blind Tibetan teenagers climb the Lhakpa-Ri peak of Mount Everest, led by seven-summit blind mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer.

Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Stars: Ismail Ghaffari, Allah-Morad Rashtian, Farzin Sabooni
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Austria | France | Iran | Iraq

Mamo, an old and legendary Kurdish musician living in Iran, plans to give one final concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. After seven months of trying to get a permit and rounding up his ten sons, he sets out for the long and troublesome journey in a derelict bus, denying a recurring vision of his own death at half moon. Halfway the party halts at a small village to pick up female singer Hesho, which will only add to the difficulty of the undertaking, as it is forbidden for Iranian women to sing in public, let alone in the company of men. But Mamo is determined to carry through, if not for the gullible antics of the bus driver.

Director: Dror Shaul
Stars: Tomer Steinhof, Ronit Yudkevitz, Shai Avivi
Genre: Drama
Country: Israel | Germany | France | Japan

Set in mid-70’s, 12-year old Dvir Avni navigates between the equality values of his home-born Kibbutz and the relationship with his undermined mother, whom the Kibbutz members will to denounce.

Director: Ragnar Bragason
Stars: Gísli Örn Garðarsson, Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson
Genre: Drama
Country: Iceland

Karitas is a single mother of four who desperately tries to make ends meet. Fighting a losing battle with her ex-husband for custody over her three daughters, she’s oblivious to what’s going on with her twelve year old son Gudmund, a victim of brutal bullying at school and whose life is on the fast track to destruction. Gudmund’s only friend in the world is Marinó, a schizophrenic in his forties, who lives with his mother in the same apartment building.

Director: Emanuele Crialese
Stars: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Vincenzo Amato, Vincent Schiavelli
Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Italy | France

A Sicilian peasant begins the journey to the promised land and meets a beautiful Englishwoman. But neither is prepared for the harsh realities of Ellis Island. Can they make it through the golden door to the America of their dreams?

Director: Robert Sarkies
Stars: Karl Urban, Matthew Sunderland, Lois Lawn
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: New Zealand

Based on the Aramoana Massacre that occurred on 13 November and 14 November 1990. Resident David Gray, an unemployed gun collector, went on a rampage in which 13 people were shot dead, before Gray himself was shot by police.

Director: John Jeffcoat
Stars: Josh Hamilton, Ayesha Dharker, Asif Basra
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

After his entire department is outsourced, an American novelty products salesman (Hamilton) heads to India to train his replacement.

Director: Peter Miller
Stars: Anton Coppola, Henry Fonda, Arlo Guthrie
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The story of two Italian immigrant radicals who were executed in 1927 offers insights into present-day issues of civil liberties and the rights of immigrants.

Director: Deborah Scranton
Stars: Zack Bazzi, Duncan Domey, Ben Flanders
Genre: Documentary, War
Country: USA

Called up for service in Iraq, several members of the National Guard were given digital video cameras. This film, edited from their footage, provides a perspective on a complex and troubled conflict.

Director: Serdar Akar
Stars: Erkan Can, Haldun Boysan, Yildiray Sahinler
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Turkey

Sailors want to remain in their small world, warm and cozy and full of lies, but they kidnap a prostitute from some pimps.

Director: Reha Erdem
Stars: Ozen Ozkan, Ali Bey Kayali, Elit Iscan
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey

A small, poor village leaning over high rocky mountains, facing the immense sea, flanked by olive yards. Villagers are simple and diligent people who struggle to cope with a harsh nature. They earn their living, on a daily survival basis, out of the earth and of a few animals they feed. Just like the animals and trees around them, they have the knowledge of their temporary existence, hence a sober resignation prevails. They live according to the rhythm of the earth, air and water, day and night and seasons.

Director: Zeki Demirkubuz
Stars: Ufuk Bayraktar, Vildan Atasever, Engin Akyürek
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey | Greece

Bekir loves Ugur, who loves Zagor, who loves to commit crimes.

Director: John Curran
Stars: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: China | USA | Canada

A British medical doctor fights a cholera epidemic in a small Chinese village, while being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife.

Director: Neil Burger
Stars: Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, Paul Giamatti
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, History
Country: USA | Czech Republic

In turn-of-the-century Vienna, a magician uses his abilities to secure the love of a woman far above his social standing.

Director: Emilis Velyvis
Stars: Donatas Ivanauskas, Mindaugas Papinigis, Andrius Paulavicius
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Country: Lithuania

ZERO is an 0 sucking in a young deserter, a casino victim and three heroin brothers. That is a destiny, a mixture of objectives and desires of heroes. That is a lifestyle balancing on the edge – bullets, numbers and needles.

Director: Marion Hänsel
Stars: Issaka Sawadogo, Asma Nouman Aden, Carole Karemera
Genre: Drama
Country: Belgium | France

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality. Rahne and his family travel across hostile lands under a lethal sun, walking endlessly onwards and frequently crossing paths with death. But “Sounds of sand” is also a parable about determination and eternity that takes us in the footsteps of Shasha, a nomad child full of the joys of life, whose tenacity and strength will conquer her father’s love.

Director: Ham Tran
Stars: Kieu Chinh, Long Nguyen, Diem Lien
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

Thirteen years after the end of the Vietnam War, a family who was tragically affected by the war are forced to emigrate to America.

Director: Nicholas Hytner
Stars: Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Clive Merrison
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK

An unruly class of gifted and charming teenage boys are taught by two eccentric and innovative teachers, as their headmaster pushes for them all to get accepted into Oxford or Cambridge.

Director: Paul Verhoeven
Stars: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman
Genre: Drama, Thriller, War
Country: Netherlands | Germany | UK | Belgium

In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, a Jewish singer infiltrates the regional Gestapo headquarters for the Dutch resistance.

Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Stars: Katharina Thalbach, Dominique Horwitz, Andrzej Chyra
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany | Poland

A nearly illiterate woman becomes one of the founders of Poland’s Solidarity union.

Director: n/a
Stars: Bobby Bailey, Laren Poole, Jason Russell
Genre: Documentary
Country: Lebanon

Invisible Children is an American documentary which shows the human rights abuses by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) in Uganda.

Director: Jon Einarsson Gustafsson
Stars: Andrew Rai Berzins, Gerard Butler, Martin Delaney
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: Canada | Iceland

When Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson set upon Iceland to film Beowulf & Grendel in 2004, they expected the usual complication involved in making a movie, but what they encountered made them wonder if the Norse gods were actually working against them.

Director: Quan’an Wang
Stars: Nan Yu, Ba’toer, Sen’ge
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: China

Set in Inner Mongolia, a physical setback causes a young woman to choose a suitor who can take care of her, as well as her disabled husband.

Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Stars: Mamhoud Chokrollahi, Mahnour Shadzi, Karl Maass
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Country: Iran | France | India

A girl believing in God marries an atheist, who is consumed by doubt. They decide to spend their honeymoon in India. Searching the countryside for a guru called the “perfect man,” who fobs them off with a message in invisible ink. Seeking for the truth, the wife starts performing rituals by dunking herself in the Ganges river, while naked old men cavort around her…

Director: Rolf de Heer, Peter Djigirr
Stars: Crusoe Kurddal, Jamie Gulpilil, Richard Birrinbirrin
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Country: Australia

In Australia’s Northern Territory, a man tells us a story of his people and his land. It’s about an older man, Minygululu, who has three wives and realizes that his younger brother Dayindi may try to steal away the youngest wife.

Director: Louise Osmond, Jerry Rothwell
Stars: Tilda Swinton, Donald Crowhurst, Jean Badin
Genre: Documentary, History, Sport
Country: UK

A documentary about the disastrous 1968 round-the-world yacht race.

Director: Doug Atchison
Stars: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Keke Palmer
Genre: Drama, Family
Country: USA

A young girl from South Los Angeles tries to make it to the National Spelling Bee.

Director: Michael Hofmann
Stars: Josef Ostendorf, Charlotte Roche, Devid Striesow
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Germany | Switzerland

A successful chef falls for a married woman.

Director: Marek Koterski
Stars: Marek Kondrat, Andrzej Chyra, Michal Koterski
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

Son’s painful memories of his father’s lifelong alcohol addiction turn to be traumatic for both of them. These memories make them realise the booze inheritance in their family. Will they get out of this vicious circle?

Director: James Longley
Stars: Mohammed Haithem, Suleiman Mahmoud, Muqtada al-Sadr
Genre: Documentary, War
Country: USA

Stories from modern day Iraq as told by Iraqis living in a time of war, occupation and ethnic tension.

Director: Laura Poitras
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Documentary by Oscar winner Laura Poitras about the war in Iraq.

Director: Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck
Stars: Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Martie Maguire
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: USA

A documentary on the The Chicks in the wake of singer Natalie Maines’ anti-George W. Bush statement at a 2003 concert.

Director: Christopher Dillon Quinn, Tommy Walker
Stars: Panther Bior, John Bul Dau, Nicole Kidman
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Four boys from Sudan embark on a journey to America after years of wandering Sub-Saharan Africa in search of safety.

Director: Ming-liang Tsai
Stars: Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Norman Atun
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Malaysia | China | Taiwan | France | Austria

A day laborer is badly beaten, and a young man nurses him back to health.

Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Jens Albinus, Peter Gantzler, Friðrik Þór Friðriksson
Genre: Comedy
Country: Denmark | Sweden | France | Italy | Germany | Iceland

An IT company hires an actor to serve as the company’s president in order to help the business get sold to a cranky Icelander.

Director: Chan-wook Park
Stars: Soo-jung Lim, Rain, Seong-hun Cheon
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: South Korea

A girl who thinks she is a combat cyborg checks into a mental hospital, where she encounters other psychotics. Eventually, she falls for a man who thinks he can steal people’s souls.

Director: Jasmine Dellal
Stars: Maharaja, Esma Redzepova, Taraf de Haidouks
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

A brief look into Romani culture and Rom (Gypsies) from around the globe as five famous Romani groups tour the USA. The film visits their families at home in Spain, India, Macedonia and Romania.

Director: Joanna Kos-Krauze, Krzysztof Krauze
Stars: Jowita Budnik, Arkadiusz Janiczek, Ewa Wencel
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A story of a married couple with two children, whose housing problems, the man’s infidelity and the woman’s fragility lead the family to destruction.

Director: Luu Huynh
Stars: Thien Tu Tran, Truong Ngoc Anh, Khanh Quoc Nguyen
Genre: Drama
Country: Vietnam

Wartime epic involving a poverty-stricken family who struggle to make ends meet, and the mother who does the unthinkable to provide her daughters with the traditional silk dresses required to attend school.

Director: Radu Muntean
Stars: Paul Ipate, Adi Carauleanu, Dragos Bucur
Genre: Action, Drama
Country: Romania

Out of enthusiasm, a Militia soldier abandons his platoon and decides to fight for the cause of the Revolution. His Lieutenant and the rest of the crew look for him during the confused night of 22-23 December 1989.

Director: Zdravko Sotra
Stars: Dragan Nikolic, Zoran Cvijanovic, Petar Kralj
Genre: Documentary
Country: Serbia

Warriors from Salonica front in the First World War. The narrator tells us how much they struggled to go back to Serbia, but many of them never came back – their remains lie on the Island of Corfu.

Director: Manuel Huerga
Stars: Daniel Brühl, Tristán Ulloa, Leonardo Sbaraglia
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Spain | UK

A profile of anarchist and bank-robber Salvador Puig Antich, whose 1974 execution under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco ushered in a period of unrest that helped Spain transition to democracy.

Director: Dong-hoon Choi
Stars: Seung-woo Cho, Yun-shik Baek, Hye-su Kim
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Country: South Korea

A guy with a talent for cards makes his way into the dangerous world of underground gambling in this crime thriller from South Korea. Go-ni (Jo Seung-woo) is a small-town guy with a big appetite for gambling. Convinced he?s on a hot streak one evening during a card game, Go-ni bets his life savings on a hand of hwatu, only to lose to a crooked cardsharp. Determined to get revenge, Go-ni sets out to find the guy who cheated him and win back his money.

Director: David Leaf, John Scheinfeld
Stars: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Stew Albert
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: USA

A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist.

Director: Robert Altman
Stars: Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: USA

A look at what goes on backstage during the last broadcast of America’s most celebrated radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren, and a host of others hold court.

Director: Steven Ascher, Jeanne Jordan
Stars: Jesse Abbott-Dallamora, Robert Bonazoli, Tyler DiVittorio
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A man suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease deals with the woman falling for him and a brother who becomes obsessed with finding a cure.

Director: Jake Clennell
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Welcome to The Great Happiness Space: Rakkyo Café. The club’s owner, Issei (22), has a staff of twenty boys all under his training to become the top escorts of Osaka’s underground love scene. During their training, they learn how to dress, how to talk, how to walk, and most importantly, how to fake relationships with the girls who become their source of income. Join us as Osaka’s number one host boy takes us on a journey through the complex and heartrenching world of love for sale in the Japanese underground.

Director: Takashi Koizumi
Stars: Akira Terao, Eri Fukatsu, Takanari Saito
Genre: Drama, Family, Romance
Country: Japan

This is the story between a single mother housekeeper and mathematics professor, who has a brain damage.

Director: Rick Ray
Stars: The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Bagdro, Bob Dole
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray.

Director: Bård Breien
Stars: Fridtjov Såheim, Kirsti Eline Torhaug, Henrik Mestad
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Norway

The local disability support group visits an involuntary member, not realizing that it will bring them to a critical mass.

Director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Stars: Ken Watanabe, Kanako Higuchi, Kenji Sakaguchi
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

A successful businessman’s family life is shattered by an early onset of Alzheimer’s.

Director: Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels
Stars: James Naughton, Bev Harris, Deanie Lowe
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK | USA

The film the voting machine corporations don’t want you to see. HACKING DEMOCRACY follows investigator/grandmother, Bev Harris, and her citizen-activists as they set out to uncover how America counts its votes. Proving the votes can be stolen without a trace culminates in a duel between the Diebold corporation’s voting machines and a computer hacker – with America’s democracy at stake.

Director: Jasmila Zbanic
Stars: Mirjana Karanovic, Luna Zimic Mijovic, Leon Lucev
Genre: Drama
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina | Croatia | Austria | Germany

A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Bosnian War.

Director: Chris Paine
Stars: Martin Sheen, Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A documentary that investigates the birth and death of the electric car, as well as the role of renewable energy and sustainable living in the future.

Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Stars: Giacomo Rizzo, Laura Chiatti, Gigi Angelillo
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy | France

Geremia, an aging tailor/money lender, is a repulsive, mean, stingy man who lives alone in his shabby house with his scornful, bedridden mother. He has a morbid, obsessive relationship with money and he uses it to insinuate himself into other people’s affairs, pretending to be the “family friend”. One day he is asked by a man to lend him money for the wedding of Rosalba, his daughter. Geremia falls in love at first sight with the bewitching creature and and soon indulges in a “beauty and the beast” relationship.

Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Stars: Mircea Andreescu, Teodor Corban, Ion Sapdaru
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Romania

A local talk show host organizes an alcoholic professor and a pensioner known for playing Santa Claus to decide whether there was ever a revolution in their town Vaslui.

Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Stars: Emily Rios, Jesse Garcia, Chalo González
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

As Magdalena’s 15th birthday approaches, her simple, blissful life is complicated by the discovery that she’s pregnant. Kicked out of her house, she finds a new family with her great-granduncle and gay cousin.

Director: Marwan Hamed
Stars: Adel Emam, Nour El-Sherif, Youssra
Genre: Drama
Country: Egypt | France

Meditations on corruption, fundamentalism, prostitution, homosexuality, and drugs in central Cairo.

Director: Tetsuya Nakashima
Stars: Miki Nakatani, Eita, Yûsuke Iseya
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Musical
Country: Japan

When Matsuko dies of murder, her nephew Sho gets to progressively unveil many details of her mysterious past, discovering she wasn’t only a forgotten outcast but led a very interesting yet bizarre life.

Director: Davis Guggenheim
Stars: Al Gore, Billy West, George Bush
Genre: Documentary, News
Country: USA

Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim follows Al Gore on the lecture circuit, as the former presidential candidate campaigns to raise public awareness of the dangers of global warming and calls for immediate action to curb its destructive effects on the environment.

Director: Yimou Zhang
Stars: Yun-Fat Chow, Li Gong, Jay Chou
Genre: Action, Drama, History
Country: China | Hong Kong

During China’s Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.

Director: Jirí Menzel
Stars: Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Czech Republic | Slovakia

A look at the glamorous life at an old-world Prague hotel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Director: Zhangke Jia
Stars: Tao Zhao, Taishen Cheng, Jue Jing
Genre: Drama
Country: China | Japan | France

An exploration on the impact of urbanization and globalization on a traditional culture.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Mads Mikkelsen, Leif Sylvester, Anne Sørensen
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Denmark | UK

Tonny is released from prison – again. This time he has his mind set on changing his broken down life, but that is easier said than done.

Director: Nobuhiro Doi
Stars: Yûko Takeuchi, Shidô Nakamura, Akashi Takei
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Japan

A young woman returns from the dead to her guilt-ridden husband and son, but she cannot remember them.

Director: Kirby Dick
Stars: Jeff Anderson, Barbara Blaine, David Clohessy
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A man confronts the trauma of past sexual abuse as a boy by a Catholic priest only to find his decision shatters his relationships with his family, community and faith.