It took Mehran Tamadon, Iranian filmmaker exiled in France, laic and an atheist, three years to persuade four compatriots, advocates of the Iranian regime, to spend a few days with him in a country house so that they could all experience living on a plural society. During the time spent together, which the film documents, some controversial topics are discussed: advantages and disadvantages of a secular society, the use of veil, abortion and freedom of press. The guests are masters of rhetoric and skilful in twisting the host’s words. The plural society is due to fail its test as neither side is willing to let go of fundamental convictions, but was the experience really a failure?
The singer Sky Ferreira is the protagonist of IRL, in which an alienated young woman reconstructs the steps from the previous night that may unravel the mysterious images of a suicide.
A television switches on. A mind snaps. A man discovers his murdered wife. As he stares at her lifeless body, the events leading to her death play before him, like in a movie. “Here” follows the journey of He Zhiyuan, a middle-aged man who struggles to make sense of his reality. As he adjusts to life within the Island Hospital where he’s interned, he is selected for an experimental treatment, which forces him to confront the devastating truth behind his past, present, and Future. Meanwhile, a filmmaker visits Island Hospital to document the lives of the staff and patients.
Necessity may be the mother of invention. But who is the parent of a child when the sperm comes from Israel, the egg comes from the United States and the surrogate pregnancy takes place in Gujarat, India? Welcome to the brave new world of outsourcing birth.
Jerry and Me traces the significance of Hollywood films, particularly Jerry Lewis’, in the life of Iranian director Mehrnaz Saeedvafa.
Jessy is a short documentary about Jessica Cristopherry, a glamorous character that the Brazilian actress Paula Lice, invented as a child. Now an adult, Paula is finally going to bring Jessy to life and for that she relies on those who know best about how to be a woman: a group of drag-queens who will help her transformation and to whom this film pays a beautiful tribute.
Life proceeds at a gentle pace in Ahatovici, a picturesque village in the green hills outside Sarajevo. But more than 80% of its population, mostly men, were imprisoned and killed during the civil wars. 10 years later, the women carry on with the chores and rituals of the day-to-day, still weighted with grief.
Roger Greenberg, single, fortyish and at a crossroads in his life, finds himself in Los Angeles, house-sitting for six weeks for his more successful/married-with-children brother. In search of a place to restart his life, he tries to reconnect with old friends including his former bandmate Ivan. But old friends aren’t necessarily still best friends, and Greenberg soon finds himself spending more and more time with his brother’s personal assistant Florence, an aspiring singer and also something of a lost soul. Greenberg and Florence manage to forge a connection, and Greenberg realizes he may at last have found a reason to be happy.
Jewels is an experimental film about hypnosis, diapausing insects and a broken heart.
A gripping mix of friendship, violence and redemption erupts in the contemporary South in this adaptation of Larry Brown’s novel, celebrated at once for its grit and its deeply moving core. The film brings actor Nicolas Cage back to his indie roots in the title role as the hard-living, hot-tempered, ex-con Joe Ransom, who is just trying to dodge his instincts for trouble – until he meets a hard-luck kid, (Tye Sheridan) who awakens in him a fierce and tender-hearted protector.
Summer of 82, a southern beach. Rui and his parents are living inside their own closed worlds, unaware of the failure which defines them as a family and condemns them to a lonely survivaluneasiness. Rui is approaching his final term exams, but the only things that interest him are music and exploring imaginary worlds, which he constantly sketches and draws. Only Joana seems to drive him away from his autism. The girl’s vigour fascinates him. Helena is not capable of filling the gap that keeps her away from her son. While waiting for her husband, she has a liaison with Zé, twenty years younger then her. Summer is coming to an end.
Border was filmed around the temporary border of the ‘Republic of Serbian Krajina’ (1991-95), one of the focal points in the Yugoslavian/Croatian war. Twelve years after the end of the conflict, delapidated, destroyed houses act as unintentional memorials, warding off oblivion.
Journey to the West, by Tsai Ming Liang follows a Buddhist monk on a wondrously patient journey throughout the city of Marseille city of Marseille; there is also a second man played by Denis Lavant whose presence in the film begins as almost omniscient – or at least physically abstracted – until he finally manifests in the French streets following the monk in a careful replication of his measured pace.
Junk Head 1is a stop-motion animation set in a distant future, when mankind begins a research on clones that live underground in search of lost genetic information.
He was very happy in primary school, until he was moved to that boys-only school. Through his school memories, the son of the Argentinean painter Alicia Boffi, gives us another look over the paintings of his mother and the discovery of his place out of the picture.
After months of being alone, sad, sidetracked, free, lofty, late and away from his kids, Lenny, 34 with graying frazzled hair, picks his kids up from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7. Lenny juggles his kids and everything else all within a midtown studio apartment in New York City. He ultimately faces the choice of being their father or their friend, all with the idea that these two weeks must last 6 months. The film is a swan song to excuses and responsibilities; to fatherhood and self-created experiences, and to what it’s like to be truly torn between being a child and being an adult.
Kush is based on a true story that occurred in India, in 1984, shortly after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Ghandi by one of her Sikh bodyguards, which originated a wave of violence across the country; that day, a school teacher returning from a field trip, struggled to protect Kush ‚ her only Sikh student ‚ from the escalating violence.
An impressionistic episodic comedy about laziness, wandering and wasting time. Hanging out with teenagers when you’re thirty, smoking nutmeg to get high and eating pie until you fall asleep. Set to the rhythm of the school-year calendar, the film tracks the changes to the collected spirit of a group of graduate students through 1992-93 as they go on various vacations.
