Rhythm of Life

In Memphis, Tennessee, over the course of a single night, the Arcade Hotel, run by an eccentric night clerk and a clueless bellboy, is visited by a young Japanese couple traveling in search of the roots of rock; an Italian woman in mourning who stumbles upon a fleeing charlatan girl; and a comical trio of accidental thieves looking for a place to hide.

Old lovers reunite, a friendship is betrayed, a pet is killed, a runaway discovered, and a co-worker comes back from the dead in these five interconnected tales about suffering from kindness. Shot over five-years worth of weekends featuring a massive cast and crew, this ambitious, feature-length, no-budget indie shows a side of Maine not seen anywhere else (no lobstermen here, sorry) and finds bleak comedy in a backwater state being dragged into a diverse and inclusive 21st century.

Part-time model Valentine unexpectedly befriends a retired judge after she runs over his dog. At first, the grumpy man shows no concern about the dog, and Valentine decides to keep it. But the two form a bond when she returns to his house and catches him listening to his neighbors’ phone calls.

Wealthy socialite Charlotte Cartwright and her dear friend Alice Pratt, a working class woman of high ideals, have enjoyed a lasting friendship throughout several decades. Recently, their lives have become mired in turmoil as their adult children’s extramarital affairs, unethical business practices, and a dark secret threaten to derail family fortunes and unravel the lives of all involved. Charlotte and Alice decide to take a breather from it all by making a cross-country road trip in which they rediscover themselves and possibly find a way to save their families from ruin.

Episodic study of feelings where six stories intertwine over one Saturday in a small town. Two boys save a young woman, Anni, and her baby from suicide by drowning. Esa, a down-on-his-luck musician in need of a loan, arrives to his father's 60th birthday party. Waitress Leena tries to stir up a romance between her co-workers at a pizza parlor. Middle-aged Ilpo comes home early from the paper mill and finds a strange man in their bedroom. Old Milja waits for her daughter Merja at the hospital where she is visiting her terminally ill husband Henri. Teenage Santeri tries to cope with his homosexuality.

A butterfly, a creature symbolising rebirth and a new beginning, epitomises Romina’s and Germán’s world, a world that consists of two parallel realities. In one of them they grow up as siblings who desire each other and try to give shape to their love without sexual fulfilment; in the other they are a young man and woman who form an awkward friendship instead of succumbing to their feelings for each other. Germán finds himself in a discordant relationship with Mariela. Mariela’s brother is interested in Bruno. Bruno is with Romina, but wants to be with Germán. Playfully alternating between these two realities, the lovers find themselves drawn into ever new couplings in order to explore their intuitive feelings – cautiously, but at the same time prepared to lose everything.

Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR

Three friends navigate the ups and downs of love, relationships, and adulthood, each facing their own romantic challenges. One struggles with commitment, another finds himself caught in a web of misunderstandings, and the third embarks on a series of flirtations that lead to comedic complications. As their lives intersect, their friendships are tested through humorous and often absurd situations. Through a mix of heartwarming and chaotic moments, they each attempt to find happiness while dealing with the unpredictability of love and life.

Two best friends in college Mitch and Elizabeth make a pact that if in ten years after graduation they are both not married they will marry each other. Ten years later Mitch (still single) finds out Elizabeth never got married so he decides to travel across the country, find her and follow through on their pact. What he soon realizes is it wont be a simple as he thought.

A young woman who comes to Liverpool for domestic employment and finds romance with a young sailor who winds up in hospital after a fight.

Mueller is a young and unsuccessful actor who has one big problem. He does not have time. He does not have time for his little daughter Elina and he does not have time for Petra who actually just wanted to make an interview with his room-mate Willy. Mueller is busy, always busy in every kind of situation. All his problems seemed to be solved when he realizes that Willy has invented a time-machine. Everything could be fine now, if just Mueller had listened better to Willy's warnings about the rules of time travelling.

An inveterate gambler Mikhail Vasilievich Krechinsky loses a large sum of money. In order to avoid shame and pay debts, Krechinsky decides to marry a rich girl. But in order to receive the blessing of his father and speed up the wedding, he again has to go to deception...

Correspondence between young lovers nearly ends in disaster through a mistake in postal district. Fortunately the GPO spots the error and all ends well, but with the moral that correspondents should get the address right.

Steph, Jean-Claude and Jacques work in a Parisian art shop, but they mainly work in the field of eroticism, which they conceive as a wide-ranging field of exercises and experiments.

The parallel fates of a few inhabitants of a strange planet : the world of Internet gay encounters...

One guy wants to step out of the friendzone and be MADE into the ultimate ladies man.

An out-of-work comedian persuades a drunken nobleman to join a protest against the closing of a village hall.

Count Nado, is in love with Fénix, an intergalactic singer. Unable to achieve it with traditional methods, the evil Nado kidnaps the scientist Avelina to make a replica of the singer, creating Supernova.

A disk jockey goes to Vietnam to work for the Armed Forces Radio Service. While he becomes popular among the troops, his superiors disapprove of his humor.