Retired farmer and widower Alvin Straight learns one day that his estranged brother Lyle has suffered a severe stroke. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. He then has the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
Renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou has sworn vengeance upon the rare shark that devoured a member of his crew. In addition to his regular team, he is joined on his boat by Ned, a man who believes Zissou to be his father, and Jane, a journalist pregnant by a married man. They travel the sea, all too often running into pirates and, perhaps more traumatically, various figures from Zissou's past, including his estranged wife, Eleanor.
Matti and Niila, growing up in the mid-sixties in the harsh and conservative environment of a Finnish-speaking part of Tornedalen in Swedish Laponia, close to the Finnish border. Their big dream is to become rock stars. In the present the now grown-up Matti feels guilt for the death of his drug-addicted rock star friend Niila.
As the host of a literary TV show, Georges begins receiving anonymously filmed videos of his family alongside cryptic, disturbing drawings, but as the tapes become increasingly intimate, they reveal a stalker who has known him for a very long time.
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
June R, an orphan, was born in the month of June, for which she was named. She works in an advertising agency. One day she happens to come across a middle-aged woman hurt badly in an accident.
Helen Thomas is an unhappily married woman. While spending Christmas alone at home, she forms a brief yet passionate relationship with Tarik El Bez, a quiet immigrant worker who comes to fix her computer on a cold December night. Trapped in a small living room, the two loners find themselves engaging in a gentle struggle between intimacy and privacy.
The annual Chinese spring festival dinner gets a little complicated when the family's only son brings home his Senegalese girlfriend.
Ragna "Rags" Jansen has found local success and acclaim in her small town as an actress, but dreams of stardom on Broadway.
The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a devastating secret that turns the night into a battle of truth and denial.
Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.
A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.
Ronia lives happily in her father's castle until she comes across a new playmate, Birk, in the nearby dark forest. The two explore the wilderness, braving dangerous Witchbirds and Rump-Gnomes. But when their families find out Birk and Ronia have been playing together, they forbid them to see each other again. Indeed, their fathers are competing robber chieftains and bitter enemies. Now the two spunky children must try to tear down the barriers that have kept their families apart for so long.
A father and daughter live a perfect but mysterious existence in Forest Park, a beautiful nature reserve near Portland, Oregon, rarely making contact with the world. But when a small mistake tips them off to authorities, they are sent on an increasingly erratic journey in search of a place to call their own.
An average, everyday metalworker and volunteer firefighter content in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart finds his emotions unexpectedly stirred when he falls for a pretty waitress from a nearby town.
A young woman sabotages her own wedding in order to reclaim her identity and obliterates her life in the process.
In the winter of 1959, a single mother and her young daughter arrive in a rural French town, where they open an unusual chocolate shop that disrupts the moral fiber of the strictly Catholic townsfolk and mayor.
Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.
Filmmaker Talya Lavie steps into the spotlight with a dark comedy about everyday life for a unit of young female Israeli soldiers. The human resources office at a remote desert base serves as the setting for this cast of characters, who bide their time pushing paper, battling for the top score in Minesweeper, and counting down the minutes until they can return to civilian life. Amidst their boredom and clashing personalities, issues of commitment—from friendship to love and country—are handled with humor and sharp-edged wit.
A mysterious young woman materializes in the middle of the southwestern desert, where each step teaches her about her new world and her new body. As she assumes her new life, she discovers she has a twin with whom she shares more than just an outward appearance.