Carapace

Anna and Beca meet for the first time after texting for weeks, and find that they have a hard time connecting to each other in real life.

The film is a high-concept project with five stories exploring the themes of motherhood and pregnancy, directed by women filmmakers from five former Yugoslav republics. “Croatian Story” follows an anguished painter who must decide whether or not to keep one of her unborn twins, diagnosed with Down syndrome. “Serbian Story” finds an expectant mother in the same emergency room with a charming killer. “Bosnia-Herzegovina Story” centers on a financially strapped Sarajevo family whose son?s lover is pregnant. “Macedonian Story” unfolds in a clinic where a drug addict struggles to keep her baby, and “Slovenian Story” ends the omnibus on a humorous note with a nun who finds her own way to immaculate conception.

When a thief enters a house desperately looking for money, he finds something more valuable.

Set in France during the mid-1970s, Vanessa, a former dancer, and her husband Roland, an American writer, travel the country together. They seem to be growing apart, but when they linger in one quiet, seaside town they begin to draw close to some of its more vibrant inhabitants, such as a local bar/café-keeper and a hotel owner.

An experimental collective film lasting little more than an hour, compiled from 10 episodes by a total of 14 different young Brazilian filmmakers. The project was an initiative of the directing duo Felipe Bragança and Marina Meliande, who sent a ‘letter of concern’ to inspire the participants. In it, a 16-year-old girl wrote about her dreams, which have been translated by the directors into films about love, youth and the possibilities of cinema.

It’s the early 1950s and little Franzi is growing up in the small Austrian town of Judenburg. Her oppressive family home is dominated by her feverish and mentally ill father, who is rigid and unpredictable. Her father, who regularly delivers halves of pork for the butcher, spent several years in the French Foreign Legion in Morocco, Algeria and Syria – a period which he partly glorifies but which still also haunts him. Franzi immerses herself in this world by looking at an abundance of beguiling yet disturbing photographs taken at the time by her father. Her own childish fantasy realm of fairy tales and picture books soon intermingle with nightmares as reality merges with imagination, war, horror and beauty.

After a suicide attempt, Jason spends the summer with his grandmother, Aimée. Each week, a taxi takes him to his physiotherapy sessions, driven by Agatha. To escape the truth about his accident, Jason invents a new life for himself during the rides, turning the road into an imaginary and romantic escape.

Gerry is a talented but down-on-his-luck gambler whose fortunes begin to change when he meets Curtis, a younger, highly charismatic poker player. The two strike up an immediate friendship and Gerry quickly persuades his new friend to accompany him on a road trip to a legendary high stakes poker game in New Orleans. As they make their way down the Mississippi River, Gerry and Curtis manage to find themselves in just about every bar, racetrack, casino, and pool hall they can find, experiencing both incredible highs and dispiriting lows, but ultimately forging a deep and genuine bond that will stay with them long after their adventure is over.

The film follows the rise and fall of a family in Shanghai. Once wealthy and capitalist, the family unraveled during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. Their home, once a French concession mansion, was converted into a multi-family dwelling.

Wanyu (Yuan Quan) has married into a wealthy family but is irresistibly drawn into the world of the movies and famous actor Ah Chuan.

The protagonists are mainly Huirong, Zhaobai, and Jikan, who have studied business management in the USA and have returned to their hometown, Shanghai. Huirong and Zhaobai are engaged, and although three of them are close friends, problems arise when they find out that their opinions clash on the matter of what the objective for building a new China should be and what direction it should take.

Actress-turned-director and first-time producer Xu Jinglei presents her third feature film, titled Dreams May Come. Like her widely acclaimed directorial piece Letter From An Unknown Woman, Dreams May Come also stars Xu as the female lead. Written by top Chinese novelist Wang Shuo, witty dialogues between a TV actress and a TV director occupy over 90% of the film’s running time. The actress is tired of good-girl roles in TV dramas and wants to quit, but the director persuades her not to.

Margaret Tait described this title as 'An eightsome reel played by Orkney Strathspey and Reel Society, recorded in about 1955 - 1956, later transferred to 35mm optical stock with clear picture and gradually painted over the years. Eights of different things - figures, antlers, or sometimes just blobs in tartan colours - dance their way through the figure of the reel.

Women’s Story was the first work to garner international acclaim for Peng Xiaolian. It is about three women living in China’s northern countryside and straightforwardly raises the issue of gender inequality hidden in a communist society.

When a mother returns to her musical roots, she rediscovers the passion of her youth, and finds a way to connect with her troubled youngest son.

Hand painted directly onto film stock by Margaret Tait, this film features animated dancing figures, accompanied by authentic calypso music.

Uitgesloten is set in 1983. Jonathan is 18 and, just like his best friend Coen, he has grown up in the Jehovah's Witnesses. In this world with its strict rules, Jonathan and Coen however have their own ideas. Both have girlfriends, Marjan and Annemiek, who live in a very different world: the girls study at art school and mix with squatters. The boys do not tell their girlfriends about their background and they anxiously keep Marjan and Annemiek hidden from their own community. The friends lead a double life: they ring doorbells to distribute the Ontwaakt! and play in a band for the Jehovah's Witnesses, while they also visit ska concerts and squatters' bars and become increasingly caught up in the worldly life of Marjan and Annemiek.

When Louise (70) and Max (72) meet, it is love at first sight: they abandon their sleepy lives and travel to the South of France, where they become the terrors of the 'Route du Soleil'. They rip off naïve tourists with their act as a sad old couple: a second youth that goes further than their wildest dreams. Based on a true story.

While her life is falling apart, single mother Christine finds a magical family heirloom that leads to love and good fortune during Christmas.

Arif, who is trying to write his first book, believes that life contains many unanswerable questions, especially about women and relationships. But when Müzeyyen appears unexpectedly, everything he has ever known or tried to learn is suddenly turned upside down.