Someone Else's America

The Day and Night of a Korean-American

Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.

A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.

In New York City in the days following the events of 9/11, Monty Brogan is a convicted drug dealer about to start a seven-year prison sentence, and his final hours of freedom are devoted to hanging out with his closest buddies and trying to prepare his girlfriend for his extended absence.

A frustrated and unemployed architect experiences flashbacks of his youth and 1968 protests while the life passes by. Unable to adapt and to accept the reality, he’s constantly getting into conflicts with the people around him.

Middle-aged cinephile and film projectionist Pera still lives with his mother - and best friend - Mara, in Belgrade. It's 1999 and when NATO bombs start raining down on Serbia, the two of them become refugees. After a surreal journey, they end up in New York, where Pera realizes that he can no longer do the old job he loved so much. While he and Mara were struggling to survive, the new age of digital projection was born. Then Pera stumbles upon some discarded projectors and his new mission in life becomes clear: he will travel around and show people the magic of Real Cinema - the magic that can only be created by celluoid, mechanical projectors, the silver screen and flickering light.

Urban horticulturalist Brontë Mitchell has her eye on a gorgeous apartment, but the building's board will rent it only to a married couple. Georges Fauré, a waiter from France whose visa is expiring, needs to marry an American woman to stay in the country. Their marriage of convenience turns into a burden when they must live together to allay the suspicions of the immigration service, as the polar opposites grate on each other's nerves.

Disgruntled Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, Thao Lor, a Hmong teenager who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: a 1972 Gran Torino.

Belgrade in 1963. In a yard surrounded by buildings, a group of young people of different backgrounds and social status, but of similar views about love and self-affirmation, spend their time together. Their friendship is dyed with various events typical for socialism, such as working actions or Youth Day's parade. All what happens within this yard may become an allegory of one generation's destiny.

An Inuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles.

"Hijos de la tierra" presents a drama set a little before the 1920s, in which scattered news, stories and rumors spread the presence of a new wealth, oil, leading to the suspicion that a great change was about to take place.

Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck and they join his neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin.

Djamel and his deaf-mute companion Karim, both of North African origin, live in the middle of the materials they collect in their suburb. One evening Djamel rescues Claude, a young student who has been raped, and falls in love with her. They share a few moments of happiness despite the jealousy of Najet, in love with Djamel. Thus, they wake up together. But this budding love is soon broken by the differences that separate Djamel and Claude. This one sees itself taking back by force the chainette which he had offered to her. Shortly after, the young Maghrebi dies, victim of racism...

Amsterdam

A college professor travels to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple living in his apartment.

They meet in Yugoslavia. Katharina, daughter of a Yugoslavian immigrant worker, has grown up in the Federal Republic of Germany. She is a confident, energetic career woman who has managed to work her way up to become a successful television journalist. She goes to visit her parent's country, to do a story about the children of immigrant workers in their home country. Although she says she doesn´t need a "home" any more, even she feels strange in her own country. Peter is a rather "untypical" sort of man: a dreamer, a thinker. He has given up his steady job as a composer for advertising films and is divorced. He goes to Jugoslavia to find something out about the past. He travels to the places where his father was stationed during the Second World War.

Mateo, 17, prepares to migrate to Los Angeles in order to support his humble family in their small Zapotec village in southern Mexico, yet before he can depart, the leader of the local gang demands that he commit murder to become a member.

On the day of their green card interview, a young couple confronts a dangerous immigration process.

An ex-partisan and current political activist sets out to Styria region in Slovenia to buy out the wheat from peasants and convince them to form the farming collective. His ostensible success (based on blackmailing rather than convincing), as well as his love defeat, make him disturbed and he kills an innocent man while performing a social mission.

A young mexican smuggler and a little girl travel illegally on top of a cargo train, called La Bestia, to get to the USA. An injury transforms his perception of the journey.