Young computer enthusiast Liam runs a website streaming video of his every action captured on a webcam. He lives a reclusive life, temporarily staying in a friend’s apartment in Paris until waitress Alison and her British husband, James, move in.
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to choose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.
When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big, he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight, but he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups, including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.
Iranian Iradj Azimi directed this French historical drama re-creating events depicted in the famous 1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa by Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault (1791-1824). The ill-fated voyage of the frigate Medusa begins when it departs Rochefort for Senegal in 1816. After striking a sandbar off the African coast, 150 civilians row safely to shore, but Captain Chaumareys (Jean Yanne) orders 140 soldiers and sailors onto a raft (minus supplies) and has it cut loose. Only 14 survive from the 140, creating a scandal back in France. Gericault (Laurent Terzieff) later talks to three of the survivors while researching his painting. Work on this film began in 1987, but sets destroyed by Hurricane Hugo caused delays, so the film was not completed until 1990. However, it then remained undistributed until an incident in which writer-director Azimi slashed his wrists in front of French Ministry of Culture officials.
A dark comedy about a family of five brothers, a single and unemployed mother, and a grandmother. They live tight in a small apartment in Benfica. Everything gets complicated on the day when the emblematic Sardoal FC mascot escapes and the club is at risk of losing the championship..
A girl and a boy. They have a relationship. One morning they face inevitable questions. Do you have to be in love with the person you have a relationship with? And how do you really know if you are in love or not? About love and closeness, and how easy they are to confuse.
Madrid, Spain. A mutilated man, a war veteran, walks, leaning on a crutch, through the stadium of the Ciudad Universitaria, a place that still preserves in walls and buildings the terrifying traces of one of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish Civil War.
In this tale, halfway between reality and fantasy, a mysterious narrator tells us the story of Amani, a young boy passionate about dance. But as the night begins to rumble, Amani’s joie de vivre disappears to give way to his pain.
Set during the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Flamingos tells the story of Alice, a nine year old girl who spends one last day in the park with her father. The story develops around the delicate and uneasy relationship between a lost father and a daughter on the verge of understanding the difficult dynamics of her family. Flamingos is a story about the loss of innocence and the moment when we realize we are fundamentally alone on our journey through life.
Horas a Solas
A short story of two strangers meeting in a train journey, not knowing that something stranger is coming their way.
Zack, a lonely, troubled boy, is on the slippery slope towards a life of crime, until Tony, a former con himself, helps turn Zack's life around with a few simple words of wisdom.
Reflections in a surrealist tone about the art of cinema.
Something pierces the boredom and unconscious dailiness of life for a young woman working in a dress shop.
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
The story of three couples, one of which just broke up, one that seems to be about to, and one perfectly okay. They are all friends, and from time to time, they gather to talk about everything. One time, they gather for dinner at the second couple's "mansion“— the husband became rich with his business. We see each couple as they prepare themselves for the party and learn a lot about their relationships. At the dinner, they get to talking about recognizing each other's peer with closed eyes and decide to try it, naked.
The peaceful daily routine of father and son is interrupted by an encounter of an unfamiliar boy, different from them in color. An allegory to the phenomena of racism as an acquired cultural epidemic, the story discusses the question of the personal conscience of each of us, versus the education we receive from our families and environment. Can we really insist on our personal belief system, when what we must believe in, is dictated to us? The film presents how easily we acquire fear and hatred of foreigners, as well as how easily we might become the "strangers" and "others" ourselves.
In the course of one afternoon, Raphael's paradise turns into a spiral of guilt and paranoia.
An estranged couple are brought back together for their daughter’s wedding, but the unavoidable presence of their past reopens old wounds, allowing historic mistakes to be renewed.
A young woman struggles with her fractured home life, failing to find common ground with her volatile yet emotionally repressed mother. Longing for a maternal figure, she continues to be haunted by visions of a mystical woman, and soon, dream intertwines with reality as she discovers a deeper connection to the mysterious lady of the woods.