Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
An astrophysicist (Marion) and an extraterrestrial (Thomas) are in love. Tomorrow, they must say goodbye. It's the price they must pay to free Thomas from the horrible affliction he is suffering from on Earth. Thomas will leave our world and return to his planet. Marion accompanies him to the point of no return.
Zooni Ali Beg is a blind Kashmiri girl who travels without her parents for the first time with a dance troupe to Delhi to perform in a ceremony for independence day. On her journey, she meets Rehan Khan, a casanova and tour guide who flirts with her. Although her friends warn Zooni about him, she cannot resist falling in love with him and he takes her on a private tour of New Delhi. But there is more to Rehan than meets the eye and Zooni will have to make a heartbreaking decision.
William Thatcher, a knight's peasant apprentice, gets a chance at glory when the knight dies suddenly mid-tournament. Posing as a knight himself, William won't stop until he's crowned tournament champion—assuming matters of the heart don't get in the way.
Martin (Joe Newton) is a casualty of society. He is under appreciated and overworked as a salary man in the city. With mounting pressure on his shoulders, he experiences a breakdown at work and loses his job. After visiting his childhood home to collect some possessions, he opts not to go home but instead chooses to live off grid in the vast woodland. Here he attempts to survive, to try and find himself again, through being amongst nature and his love of writing poetry.
The film follows Manuel Maria du Bocage, 18th-century poet, as he travels through the world from orgy to orgy and from excess to excess.
While Donna MacGonigal is tempted by a business offer by an old love, her father and friends decide to put on an old timers celebrity hockey game and auction for charity, only to find themselves cheated by con artists.
In a Canadian mountain resort, Vixen Palmer resides with her naive pilot husband Tom. While he's away flying in tourists, she sleeps with practically everybody including a husband and his wife, and even her biker brother. However, the only one she won't bed is her brother's friend... who is Black.
In 1840, Sam Lash heads west for adventure. He meets up with some Mountain Men, and they head for the Rockies to trap beavers and cats. In Taos he meets Lola, a beautiful Mexican girl from a proud and rich family. They fall in love and he persuades her to elope with him. After they get married, Sam is torn between his love for Lola and his yearn for traveling.
A young boy nurses an injured Canadian goose back to health before it flies south for the winter.
From the music of Uruguayan composer Florencia Di Concilio, English filmmaker Terence Davies does a cinematic reading of his own poem about his late sister, delivered over a single serene shot of the countryside near his home in Essex. This short film is part of the 2x25 Project of Film Fest Gent and the World Soundtrack Awards. The project commissioned 25 composers to compose a short piece of music, after which 25 filmmakers made short films that are the ultimate symbioses of music and cinematography, fitting completely within the DNA of the festival. The result: 25 exceptional films where the music inspired the form, narrative and texture.
A poem about a flower going through an existential crisis
Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.
Follows French writer Arthur Rimbaud from his schoolboy days in Charleville to his final years in Africa.
Almost a decade since larger-than-life glam-rock enigma Brian Slade disappeared from public eye, an investigative journalist is on assignment to uncover the truth behind his former idol.
A dramatization of the true story of four men of the North West Mounted Police who, in 1910, set out on a patrol from Fort McPehreson in Canada's Nortwest Territories to Dawson City, Yukon, 500 miles away - and who never reached their destination.
A Blustery winter's night - a warm trapper's cabin up ahead. The dark, cold woods might prove safer lodging. A true story from Cow Head Newfoundland 1809.
A young man pretends to sleep while he watches his lover go through her morning routine.