On a water-skiing outing, a girl drives a speedboat and pulls a young man, when a crash occurs. After waking up from a coma, the man embarks on a mysterious travel – an odyssey where intuition and telepathy accelerates the journey in time. Dharma Guns revisits the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice fighting with the tyranny of Time-God. At a time when the industrial death of cinema seems to have been rationally, technically and economically organized, a cinema of poetry and fantastical adventure – intentionally created in a B-movie style – is possible.
Cast: Guy McKnight, Elvire, Lionel Tua, Diogo Doria
Directed by: F.J. Ossang
Habemus Papam is a traditional announcement in Latin, meaning “We Have a Pope!” The conclave of cardinals has spent several days in isolation, considering the candidates. The crowd of people in the St. Peter’s Square has also been waiting patiently. Everyone’s attention is suspended in tension until the moment the new pope appears on the balcony and greets all the believers. However, an unexpected problem occurs as the new pope has a panic attack. A famous psychoanalyst, an atheist, is called to help.
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Jerzy Stuhr, Renato Scarpa
Directed by: Nanni Moretti
“Dance, dance... otherwise we are lost” are the words of Pina Bausch (1940 – 2009), a legendary German avant-garde dancer and choreographer. Her unique creations transformed the language of dance and offered a visual experience like no other. This revolutionary 3D film by Wim Wenders captures the aesthetics of Pina Bausch’s greatest works in a thrilling way. Partly musical, partly documentary, the film is a magical ode to the love of movement.
Cast: Pina Bausch, Dominique Mercy, Regina Advento, Malou Airaudo
Directed by Wim Wenders
Scriptwriter: Wim Wenders
The film revolves around the life and mind of world-renowned musician José González. Using video diary, surveillance camera, concert footage, tour documentation and animation, directors Mikel Cee Karlsson and Fredrik Egerstrand give form to something as elusive as the creative process of one of Sweden’s finest – and most secretive – musicians. The film was shot over a three year period on location in Sweden, Japan, Singapore, United States, South Africa, England, Chile and Argentina.
Cast: José González, Erik Bodin, Don Alsterberg
Directed by: Fredrik Egerstrand, Mikel Cee Karlsson
Bettina and Marcus is a passionate couple living in a canteen in the middle of a plain field dotted by never-ending rows of poles. Marcus, trying to create his own company, has become an electrician. Bored Bettina manages the workers’ canteen and longs for a better life. Their nine-year-old daughter Tessa avoids school whenever possible and wanders through the industrial area, looking for various things to entertain herself. The casual way of life changes its pattern when Marcus hires a Hungarian engineer to work in the company. A tragic accident shatters the fragile harmony.
Cast: Lisbeth Gruwez, Sam Louwyck, Kimke Desart, Zoltan Miklos Hajdu
Directed by: Caroline Strubbe
Claire, a beautiful young actress, is in relationship with Ethan, an aspiring arthouse
filmmaker. When she accepts the lead role in a werewolf film to be directed by a young horror filmmaker, Ethan begins to spiral into a dangerous depression and self-doubt. In retaliation against Claire, he casts her best friend, Charlie, also an actress, as his girlfriend in his new film. As both productions move forward, Claire's life becomes more surreal and starts to resemble the werewolf film she is working on.
Cast: Kate Lyn Sheil, Joe Swanberg, Ti West, Amy Seimet, Jane Adam, Larry Fessenden
Directed by: Joe Swanberg
Scriptwriter: Joe Swanberg
Producer: Joe Swanberg
This witty romantic comedy proves that not everything in this genre has to be shallow and cheap. The story involves a husband, Gabriel, and his wife, Gabriela, who, tired of their twenty years of marriage, yield to the temptation of online dating. Despite their seeming mutual alienation, the slightest nod now stirs up the passion. Moreover, their teenage son has taken a fancy to a future work in the porn industry. It is possible they will be able to satisfy their cravings, however – by what means and through which people – remains a mystery.
Cast: Dana Voicu, Ionel Mihailescu, Paul Diaconescu, Jordi Garcia, Ana Popescu, Ioan Andrei Ionescu
Directed by: Alexandru Maftei
JØRGEN LETH (Denmark, 1937) is a true living cultural icon. Theatre, film and jazz critic, poet, writer, sports commentator, and anthropologist, having travelled to Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and India, and having written volumes on his observations. He is also a leading figure in experimental documentary filmmaking with several dozens of films in his filmography. His surrealistic short The Perfect Human (1967) was later famously explored in The Five Obstructions (2003), co-directed with Lars von Trier. The Erotic Man, Leth's docu-fictional account of his sexual encounters with women in third world countries, is a collection of scenes based on documents, letters, pictures and poems that depict man's erotic nature. The controversially reviewed film premiered at the 2010 Toronto IFF.
Cast: Alexander Gruszynski, Dan Holmberg, Adam Philp
Directed by: Jorgen Leth
Marian, a middle-aged nurse, devotes herself to her patients like a saint. Sometimes she even takes on the role of a redeemer, by helping the gravely ill to the soothing order of ultimate silence. When she gets linked to a neighbour in an act of common voyeurism she becomes fascinated by him. Faced with the fragility of these newfound emotions, Marian surrenders to her human needs...
Cast: Bien de Moor, Lars Eidinger, Annemarie Prins, Sophie van Winden
Directed by: Urszula Antoniak
The meditative film from the newcomer Thai director is a beautifully atmospheric, poetic and spiritual journey through time and space. The film shows the wandering spirit of a dead man returning to the landscape of his youth and reliving the love that was meant for eternity. Imbued with impressive soundscapes, dreamlike and slow-paced, this film is a world where everything is possible and the boundaries between the present and the past, the waking life and the afterlife, are seamlessly blurred.
Cast: Pattraporn Jaturanrassmee, Wanlop Rungkamjad, Namfon Udomlertlak, Prapas Amnuay
Directed by: Sivaroj Kongsakul
It is Saturday, April 26th 1986, and a reactor has just exploded in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The Party leadership is silent, the population clueless. Only the loyal Party member Valery attempts to flee the invisible danger with his girlfriend Vera. But the vitality and high spirits of his merry-making friends keep him firmly in their grip... The story of the apocalypse in the Ukrainian village Prypiat has stirred the fantasy of the acclaimed Russian scriptwriter and director ALEKSANDER MINDADZE (Russia, 1949), who has created a surreal drama about the dance on the edge of a volcano. One of the most exquisite qualities of the film is its cinematography by the distinguished Romanian cinematographer Oleg Mutu.
Cast: Anton Shagin, Svetlana Smirnova-Marcinkevich, Vasilij Guzov, Aleksej Demidov
Directed by: Aleksander Mindadze
A former actor is fascinated by an idea. He meets with a scientist, a speech therapist and a juggler and convinces them to stage Endgame by Samuel Beckett. An incurable disease – multiple sclerosis, unites them all. Although their bodies become weaker day after day, Beckett’s play about four people trapped in a world that is about to collapse gives them so much emotional fulfilment that no matter what happens to them physically they will continue to perform…
Directed by Līga Gaisa
Scriptwriter: Krista Vāvere, Līga Gaisa
Producer: Mistrus Media