It’s a story of a brother and sister, Sergio and Maria, told backward in time, from adulthood to childhood. Through the years the two siblings invent a game that they call “mikles”: their very own survival technique used to resist the abuse brought upon them by their father and, at the same time, helps them to become more self sufficient.
A modern variation on Medea, the tragedy of Euripides, in little more than an hour Рan impressively intense hour. 31-year-old Pascale decided to make a fresh start for her live with 30-year-old Didier. 45-year-old Jan reluctantly allowed Pascale to have custody of their 7-year-old son Thomas as well as keeping the family home. Now going against his promise, Jan refuses to leave. In less than 24 hours, the destiny of the protagonists will change forever… As Medea, Jan cannot accept the separation.
A flower. A boy. A long way to go. The only way to get anywhere. The flower has not yet bloom, but the boy found his own unique path.
A performance! The alarm clock morning of Stian is activated. Will he awake? Will he arrive on time at the office? A film about the hardest, most common fight of them all.
At night, it’s raining outside. Mom, Dad and Ji-Soo are watching TV with anxious. The news report the fire at the kindergarden, where the little daughter Ji-Hye goes to. Her name is on the dead list. The family moans about her death. There is a knocking on the door. Ji-Hye is waiting outside.
Everyone harbours a dark secret. But it’s obvious that Titta Di Girolamo has more than one. Why else would a fifty-year-old man from southern Italy choose to li-ve for eight years in an anonymous hotel room in an anonymous town in Switzerland? Eight years of not working, eight years of silence and cigarettes, sitting in the lobby or the hotel bar, elegantly dressed but never allowing himself any luxuries. A nullifying routine, he’s constantly waiting for something daring to happen, but what will happen? Titta observes. He apparently has his life completely under control. He impassively peers at the life that goes by in front of him, revealing neither sentiment nor emotion. Or so it appears‚Ķ The Mafia is orderly. Switzerland is orderly. A hotel is orderly. Titta Di Girolamo lives inside the cage of these three coordinates. He can be nothing but an orderly man. In situations like these the king of disorder turns up: love. But for someone crushed by order, even less would be enough. Even just the possibility of love could completely explode the cage.
A visual and delicately poetic story about the relationship between a swimmer and water. A young competitive swimmer Sirja Luomaniemi meets the world’s fastest woman swimmer in her dreams and races her. It speaks of devotion and a search for one’s own place in sports and life.
A mannequin love triangle divided by a closing down sale, becomes more complex in a department store.
This short film describes the interactions of two men and is dedicated to all those who have carried somebody on their back in any way or another.
Ben, a sensitive and small 11-year-old, faces bullying at school and neglected at home. His mother is completely insensitive. Ben ends up in a bad and traumatising situation, but in the end the child finds a resolution to his problems.
Silvana, Maninho’s wife, first lady of the Vidigal shanty town. Maninho is a very popular drug dealer in the community. Silvana’s life is a mess because she’s found out she’s pregnant and needs to tell her husband.
On Dutch country is a farm. Sounds of chickens or cows are not there. It doesn’t stink to pigs either. There is no smell or sound. In the long low barns live 20 000 white rabbits.
It takes courage to love life, says Eva, and the pregnant 22-year-old should know. She has a low-paying, unre-warding job, a mother who refuses to see what she doesn’t want to, a father who is losing his mind, and a baby growing within her from a boyfriend who left her. Yet Eva loves life. And when she suddenly realizes that there is a little human being within her, listening to her every word, she decides against an abortion. Little by little, she begins to share her love of life with the child in her womb. With words, music and sounds, she describes the world to her baby, shyly at first, then more and more confidently. Her spirits rise even more when she meets and falls in love with the sensitive Michal, who is perhaps her guardian angel ‚ or a fallen angel. Just as she is reaching an inner freedom, she learns that her delivery will be difficult and that there is a chance her child could die. By now, however, Eva has found the courage to face every challenge: through her unborn child, who responds to her and urges her to go on ‚ for its sake, and for hers.
A young country boy, Adrián, tries to make his life in Buenos Aires. He moves into the modest one-room apartment of his cousin Nancy and finds a job as pin boy, putting up bowling pins and returning balls, in one of the few remaining manual bowling alleys in the city. His work schedule is exactly the opposite of Nancy’s but the brief moments they share are full of warmth and mutual respect. Through the connection with his cousin and the other pin boys he tries to find and define his own place in life and society. Adrián is someone who is very curious. He is eager to know and enjoys listening to the stories and philosophies of his colleagues. El Turco is a gem of a teacher and brings humor to the narrow workspace and the job. Nippur is a mixture of a hippy and a heavy metal fan, tattooed, full of dreams and contradictions. Daniel is a man who radiates serenity and kindness. Quiroga used to work in a mine, a job even worse than working at the bowling alley. Adrián, Nancy, El Turco, Nippur, Daniel and Quiroga might be going unnoticed through life and society, but all of them care and have respect for each other.
The dawn of midsummer is tempting her from outside. She’s just going to break up with her girlfriend first.
The family B. is the protagonist of the story. Their house is located halfway between Israeli settlements and an Arab village. The family B. is quite well off and educated. The father Mohammad is a principal in a secondary school. After a gunfight the Israeli army occupies the second floor of the house for security reasons and asks the family to leave the house. Mohammad says no, he does not want to leave, the house is the border of his dignity, loosing it means giving himself and his family forever to the hatred against the Israelis. Mohammad is a dreamer, an active pacifist, a man who insists in seeing in the others the possibility to love and not to hate. But he is also a Palestinian, he lives for his principles and is ready to accept even the most extreme consequences. As soon as the group of Israeli soldiers occupies Mohammad’s house thorough and painful divisions occur within the family. The family splits between those trying to understand the father’s message and those who simply cannot do so or let themselves be attracted by violence. Those able to see, to meet, though just for one second, the enemy’s eyes are the ones who will be saved.
This film starts off as three different stories that gra-dually intertwine into one. The characters reveal their passion and anxiety through the means of modern communications such as the Internet and cell phones. Sund@y Seoul delves into an aspect of how the medium that is the Internet constructs and dismantles people’s lives. These characters live gradually intertwine in the large city of Seoul, revealing their hidden desires and anxieties. College professor, Dong-Chun, sets up a hid-den camera in a motel room in a desperate attempt to keep going his secret love affair with his student, Eun-young. Ordinary middle-age housewife, Myung-joo, takes a stab at making a sexual breakaway through antisocial and free-spirited Shin-ae. High-school student, Jung-hwan, falls in love with a call girl named Soo-hee. By chance, he also meets Myung-joo while chatting on line. Soo-hee makes love regularly to Jee-wook, a married cop who she met when she was caught in his sting. Junior-high student, Hae-mee, has a puppy love for Jung-hwan so she follows Soo-hee and secretly takes pictures of her. These characters are like sensationalistic stories found in cheap tabloids.
Charlotte learns how to take the best out of her situation by transmuting feelings of emotional pain into constructive and beautiful real moments. She learns how to shine even in the darkness…like stars.