Three couples at different parts of life navigate big turning points in their lives over the holidays.
Safira
With a sense of strange timelessness, this fable immerses us in the daily life of a child fascinated by the elusive rays of the sun that stir life on the atypical lands of Himalia.
Roya is a middle-class Muslim woman that struggles to find herself in the sprawl of urban Bangladesh. When she discovers that she will be replaced by a younger actor for the role of Nandini —a central character of Rabindranath Tagore’s political play Red Oleanders —she battles to reconstruct the part, reclaiming her identity and sexuality in the process. As she sets the play in a modern day ready-made garment factory in Dhaka, her journey to establish her individuality is juxtaposed with the journey of her housemaid Moyna, who later joins the industrial workforce.
Two estranged brothers return to the family cottage after the death of their father. Over the course of three days they must learn to let go of the man they thought they knew, and accept responsibility for the men they have become.
An awkward teenage outcast finds unlikely companions in two aged residents of the retirement home in which she works.
After the death of uncle Olivier, his estate, a small chateau in Provence and the small town's only undertaker firm in its cellar, befall equally and jointly to his local stepson André Vidal, who runs the business since Olivier semi-retired ill, and German cousin, business consultant Charlotte. She arrives from Frankfort to sell the estate at the skyrocketing prices for such idyllic hospitality industry sites. André is shocked, determined to preserve the town's social fabric by preserving Olivier's heritage, and disappointed she doesn't even recognize him as childhood best playmate. It turns out the backward taxes are a ticking bomb, which she sneakily intends to ignite, only André's charms and the lavender-scented bucolic way of life appeal ever more even to businesslike Charlotte.
A man and woman staying in a hotel decide to end the mundanity of their day and quickly become intimate. Noteworthy as Spain’s first real pornographic short film, accompanied by a song from the Galician rock band Novedades Carminha.
Sent to Afghanistan for 6 months, legionnaires Markov and Hamilton are caught in an ambush during an unauthorized expedition. Markov saves Hamilton, seriously wounded by rebel fire, but leaves the Legion without honors. Once back in Paris, Hamilton, convalescing, hopes to remain a legionnaire, while Markov, now a civilian and without working papers, tries to make ends meet with his son Khadji. Hamilton lends his identity to his Chechen friend, so that he can work legally. But one day, Markov disappears, leaving Hamiltion disorientated and Khadji alone in the world.
After experiencing a devastating breakup, Bass is set up on a series of disastrous dates by his concerned family. However, dating isn't easy and sometimes love hides where you least expect it.
Nadia is an apathetic 16-year-old girl with no friends of sorts, in or outside school. One day, she takes a walk with local no-good Brando, and the boy rapes her. From that moment on, Nadia's life changes forever.
A woman wants to graduate to the Italian Naval Academy in the 60s. She has to fight her family, her friends and a world not ready to accept her.
A troubled teen turns his life around with the help of a classmate. Years later, their reunion sparks old feelings, but uncertainty clouds their story.
Mohammad Javad Halimi is a simple government's employer who manages after years to buy a house for himself outside the city's limits. But in the second night in his new house a thief is coming to his house. He manages to catch the thief but delivering him to the authorities is another story.
Sergio is a brooding, alienated man who works as a trash collector in Lisbon by day and roams the city streets by night seeking rough, anonymous sex with men. One night he meets a man who seems to be the embodiment of his tormented fantasies, and he becomes obsessed with the stranger until loneliness and unfulfilled desire propel him finally into a dark and dangerous animalistic state.
China, 1997. An unhappy marriage, a love affair and a child who holds all the secrets.
A few minutes in the life of two people: a young woman who has her whole life in front of her and an old man ill with asthma who has only one more night to live.
Lisa, an aspiring songwriter, whose farming family has suffered foreclosure is forced to work at a new, 'urban farm' where she meets Dalia. Her casual racism leads her to be fired but the women end up drawn into a passionate affair.
Anna, the daughter of an elderly owner of Kõrboja farm, is told by her father that if she won't move in their home farm then it will be sold to strangers. But the farm needs also a master, and Anna has been living in town for years. She comes back home and reunites with Villu, her friend from childhood.
During the German occupation of Estonia a young mother finds a Red Army soldier hiding in the hay in her barn.