A couple has to make a decision to leave Iran to better the life of their child or to stay and take care of a parent suffering from Alzheimers; however, the couple's marriage may end in divorce. Ostensibly simple on a narrative level yet morally, psychologically and socially complex, it succeeds in bringing Iranian society into focus in a way few other films have done. The film was a triumph at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, receiving Golden Bear for Best Film.
Cast: Peyman Moaadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat
Directed by: Asghar Farhadi
1970s, Amsterdam. Karo, a ten-year-old girl with a jet-black hair, lives in a hippie commune with her parents. Her father is a charismatic idealist who believes in life with no boundaries and restrictions, whereas her mother would much rather prefer faithfulness and private space for her own work. The moment a young woman enters the family life, Karo is a witness to changes in her parents’ relationships, as well as experiences the aggressive attitude of the authorities directed at the commune. However, the girl’s life is not short of lightness and joy as everyday life in the squat is cheerful and beautiful.
Cast: Anna Franziska Jaeger, Déborah François, Matthias Schoenaerts, Maria Kraakman
Directed by: Dorothee van den Bergh
Every morning, François, a bailiff, bids goodbye to his wife and begins the unpleasant task of evictions. However this morning, September 11th, the usual course of events is upset when, having arrived at one of the apartments, he coincidentally falls hostage to its tenants. In a wink of an eye the neighbourhood is surrounded by the usual crowd – François wife, a committed negotiator, police, snipers, and reporters. Little by little the local residents become annoyed by the irritating presence of the mob, and the captors realize there is a rather strange but possibly one chance to escape.
Cast: Hippolyte Girardot, Mohamed Fellag, Aymen Saïdi, Michel Vuillermoz
Directed by: Angelo Cianci
Oliver works as an air traffic controller at Bratislava airport. He is of Czech origin, and while he has worked in Slovakia for many years, he has never managed to assimilate. He leads a lone existence in a large housing community where he has a view into the windows of other tenants. Oliver's attention is mainly focused on a young family who live opposite him. The family embodies the happiness which has always eluded him. Soon, however, his feelings of admiration turn to envy and desire as Oliver becomes intent on procuring a contented life for himself, even if it means breaking the law.
Cast: Ivan Trojan, Jana Hlavacova, Kristína Turhanová, Dagmar Bruckmeyer
Directed by: Peter Kristúfek
Azam returns to his native village to visit his friend Ali and his wife. At night, the three of them depart on a boat trip to an uninhabited island. Slowly adjusting to the rhythm of the waves, Azam yields to a flashback of memories, hoping they would help to explain the lonesome void he has been unable to fill with the career of a successful singer in the city. Between the voyage and visions of past the spectator is also entertained by mythical and humoresque stories that bear an indirect link to the main character’s life.
Cast: Nam Ron, Azman Hassan, Mislina Mustaffa
Directed by: Tan Chui Mui
Charlotte is a tender human being, having found her life’s fulfillment in a way that is strange enough to be hidden. She is married, has a son, and works in a hospital. When Charlotte’s husband Max finds out his wife’s secret passion, their marriage is put to a test, and she is sacked from the work at the hospital. Wishing to save their relationship and to flee from the ghosts of the past, Charlotte and Max embark on a exotically saturated voyage to India.
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Dragan Bakema, Sabine Timoteo, Rvan Brodie
Directed by: Nanouk Leopold
He fought in Afghanistan and went missing in action there. 21 years later he returns to Estonia to attend his father’s funeral. Estranged from the Western society and converted to Islam, his only bond to life there is the memory of his daughter, Angel, whose crying he believes he once, long ago, heard on the telephone. Ever since he has been writing letters to her into his dog-eared notebook. The town that used to be his home and where he begins to look for his daughter and his wife now feels like a ghostly and alien place. Slender young women dictate its life and rhythm, yet something has gone hopelessly astray in their lives. When the man whom they thought for years to be dead arrives, the women see him as someone who could resolve their troubles.
Cast: Tõnu Oja, Tiina Tauraite, Ragne Pekarev, Mirtel Pohla, Katariina Lauk
Directed by Sulev Keedus
Scriptwriter: Sulev Keedus
Don Alfonso, a victim of an extortion scheme, fearfully flees his home, accompanied only by his marimba. When he loses his job as a musician due to a dwindling interest in marimba music, he decides to take drastic measures and begins to fuse traditional marimba music with heavy metal. Together with his godson Chiquilin, a street-wise kid hooked on sniffing glue, and Blacko, a medical doctor and ex-Satan-worshiper turned fundamentalist-Orthodox-Jew-born-again Christian, the trio comes together as Marimbas del Infierno, playing a new style of music never imagined nor heard before.
Lomās: Alfonso Tunche, Roberto González Arévalo, Víctor Hugo Monterroso
Režisors: Julio Hernández Cordón
Scenārists: Julio Hernández Cordón
After finishing studies in the US, Ananda returns home to Thailand, unsure of what to do with his life next. He tries his hand in acting in a film by a famous director. On a small seaside village film set, he is visited by his girlfriend and course mate Zoe. However, their relationship is fraught with something unusual and soon again she leaves. Some time later, Ananda meets May. It is difficult for him to find a grip in the world between different languages, cultures, and classes of society. Ananda visits his childhood town, but does not recognize it any more. Estrangement soon enters his relationship with others.
Cast: Ananda Everingham, Cerise Leang, Sajee Apiwong
Directed by Aditya Assarat
Scriptwriter: Aditya Assarat
A simple story told on the backdrop of Thai post-rock soundtrack – a tale of ambivalent feelings between an embittered disabled man and his caretaker. Ake is paralyzed from the waist down following an accident. Pun is his male nurse, who, despite Ake’s resistance, continues to take care of him with candid affection. The mellow and meditative film, taking unexpected visual turns, will be a delight to those who love films with a satisfying aftertaste longing quite a while after leaving the cinema.
Cast: Phakpoom Surapongsanuruk, Arkaney Cherkham, Paramej Noieam, Anchana Ponpitakthepkij
Directed by Anocha Suwichakornpong
Scriptwriter: Anocha Suwichakornpong
After 25 years of working at the Cinemateca Uruguaya film archive, Jorge (real-life Uruguayan critic Jorge Jellinek), still finds inspiration in caring for the films and audiences that grace the seats and screen of his beloved arthouse cinema. But when dwindling attendance and diminishing support force the theater to close its doors, Jorge, who has never worked anywhere else except in film, loses his job. Once faced with unemployment, the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred.
Cast: Jorge Jellinek, Manuel Martínez Carril, Paola Venditto
Directed by: Federico Veiro
Investment-firm analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) uncovers sensitive information that could easily plunge the entire business into peril, inadvertently destroying the lives and careers of his colleagues in this tense thriller set during the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. Over the course of the next 24 hours, Sullivan realizes that the decisions he makes will not only affect the employees of the firm, but the lives of everyday Americans from coast to coast as well.
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary Mcdonnell, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Aasif Mandvi, Ashley Williams, Susan Blackwell, Maria Dizzia, Jimmy Palumbo, Al Sapienza, Peter Y. Kim, Grace Gummer, Oberon K. Adjepong, Jason Denuszek, Matthew J. Walters.
Directed by: JC Chandor