Accused of crimes ranging from bicycle theft, cocaine smuggling, armed assault and premeditated murder, young Brazilians under 18 are brought before the Court of Justice in Rio de Janeiro before being sent to the Padre Severino Institute, a correctional institution for minors. Using real cases, Juízo follows these young criminals who have committed more or less serious offenses, from their incarceration until the moment their cases come up for review. Played by amateur actors due to a ban on filming the real protagonists, these minors accept their punishment, but do not seem to learn any lessons from it. For them, prison is an image of their whole lives.
In this unexpectedly-named halfway house, asylum-seekers from all over the world kill time waiting to find out if their requests will be accepted. Like in The Arabian Nights, time flies by as the tale is told. Together, we make a pact of fiction: a game, a step back from ourselves, our dreams and desires. Thus the château is inhabited, little by little, by a snake-spitting princess, a magnanimous king, ghosts that haunt the passages.
Three episodes of a project created by the Jeonju Film Festival to produce and distribute short films created in digital format and directed by three directors with complete creative freedom: Respite by Harun Farocki, The Rabbit Hunters by Pedro Costa and Correspondences by Eugène Green. Farocki’s film is made of archive footage shot in Westerbork, a transit camp for deportees to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz.Costa focuses on the lost community of Fontainhas, showing the day-by-day stories of the residents eager for the new, better life announced with its promises of warm comfort and economic growth. In the Green segment, Virgile and Blanche, who are both 17 years old, exchange e-mails.
John the polar bear apologizes to Karen the penguin after an argument they had and then has some tea and a biscuit.
The police reconstruct the disappearance of a teenage girl in a park. Off-screen, we hear the personal reflections of a female police officer about the process of leaving childhood behind and entering the world of adulthood. Lyrical, virtuoso prelude to the first feature-length film by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor.
A Michael Jackson impersonator lives alone in Paris and performs on the streets to make ends meet. At a performance in a retirement home, Michael falls for a beautiful Marilyn Monroe look-alike, who suggests he move to a commune of impersonators in the Scottish Highlands. At the seaside castle, Michael discovers everyone preparing for the commune’s first-ever gala – Abe Lincoln, Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Stooges, the Queen, the Pope, Madonna, Buckwheat, Sammy Davis Jr‚Ķ And also Marilyn’s daughter Shirley Temple and her possessive husband Charlie Chaplin.
Krystyna is attractive, full of energy and independent woman. She wants to take of her daughter, against her will, for the casting to the vocal girls band. Unexpected car damage forces Krystyna to look for the help from a man, whom she hasn’t seen for a long time. This meeting will change a lot in life of each of them.
Separated since birth siblings Jack and Amy reunite in their teens. Their attraction is innocent but intense. Kin asks us to bear witness to what happens when a relationship isn’t simply ‚Äòblack and white’.
You will be cold. You will be scared. You will want to give up. Only true heroes triumph.
A girl in her twenties tries to bring a little light and levity to her life that she finds inadequate, futile and lacking in the intensity that she requires. She decides to give her love. Not to the most seductive guy, nor the most deserving or most admirable one. No, they don’t need her. She will give her love to just anybody.
A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. He meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him with her father. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes out at night. Coinciding with Eli¬¥s arrival is a series of disappearances and murders… it doesn’t take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. A subtle romance has blossomed between them, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. He becomes increasingly aware of the tragic, inhuman dimension of Eli¬¥s plight, but cannot bring himself to forsake her. When Oskar faces his darkest hour, Eli returns to defend him the only way she can.
A film about a man and his parents; a father who is a Croatian scientist and a mother who comes from a Swedish upper class family. A personal and poetic story about the lack of contact – not only physical.
Her photo was published in numerous newspapers. She appeared on TV. She got thousands of letters with proposals of friendship and love. Some time all Soviet Union knew her. Maria is the name of a tractor heroine famous in the Soviet era, now alone in her cottage in the country.
A personal portrait of the filmmaker hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, as well as his own childhood. Starring his mother, and filmed partly in the house where he grew up.
An investigation into the authenticity of home movies. In 12 minutes, the director refutes the idealized image he had of his parents, and reveals how an international drama gave their marriage a new beginning. When his father was kidnapped with the Israeli Olympic team during the 1972 Games, and was the only released hostage, his mother came to her senses in Munich. The marriage endured, and one week after his father’s return, the filmmaker was born.
Village of Reboleiro, north of Portugal. 103 old people live at Santa Catarina Residence. They used to be country people. The major part of those old people have missed already the idea of Time in a strange Space for them. There’s a great desire to communicate, they don’t want to be alone. They need to come back to their homes.
After the split of Czechoslovakia in 1992, former political dissident, leader of the Velvet Revolution, playwright and essayist Vaclav Havel became the first president of a new country, the Czech Republic. He permitted his friend, filmmaker Pavel Koutecky, to be with him, to capture as much of it as possible, whether in the Prague Castle or around the world. The result is a feature-length documentary of never-before-seen footage that provides an intimate look at a man thrust into the spotlight of international politics and celebrity, trying to maintain a balance between public and personal life while bringing his nation out of its communist past and into a free, democratic future.
In China, culture and the arts are very closely linked to people and their lives. The street life in Beijing is a 24-hour live show full of music, dance and sports. Over a period of month residence time (September 2007), I was observing Chinese life, collecting road images, documenting quotidian performances. I saw a city that’s literally exploding, in early transition from the ancient to the modern, (‚Ķ) preparing for hosting the 2008 Olympics.
