The Cricket

The soundtrack to a radio soap opera set in a luxury hotel is acted out by characters who are riding a ramshackle bus from Bangkok to a small town in Thailand’s Northeast.

A true Canadian iconoclast, acclaimed transgender country/electro-pop artist Rae Spoon revisits the stretches of rural Alberta that once constituted “home” and confronts memories of growing up queer in an abusive, evangelical household.

A Handful of Pennies is a short film about a disturbed man who simply wants some answers. Lyle and Arnold are having a discussion. Lyle has a question, Arnold has an answer.

Driving home one night in London, a woman hits a man who shouldn't be there.

A mother and daughter end up in two different dimensions as the result of an ice skating accident.

Venturing from Venice Beach to Watts, Varda looks at the murals of LA as backdrop to and mirror of the city’s many cultures. She casts a curious eye on graffiti and photorealism, roller disco & gang violence, evangelical Christians, Hare Krishnas, artists, angels and ordinary Angelenos.

Trusts and Estates is a hand-drawn animated documentary satire adapted from a conversation overheard in a Santa Monica restaurant in 2011. Four lawyers engage in a bantering dinner conversation that quickly devolves into a grotesque and brutal comedy of cruelty and hypocrisy.

In spite of their disinterest in marriage, two very different people find love.

What became of Hitler’s last array, born in 1928, visited 40 years later?

A single mother and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in the off-beat dramatic comedy. In order to raise the tuition to send her young son to private school the mom starts an unusual business – a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service.

Avant-garde short by Ono.

The film consists of continuous panning shots up a series of 367 human legs.

‘You have no choice about being here, you’ll have no choice about when you leave’ proclaims a woman in Xiaolu Guo’s latest film, a documentary about the personal and physical journeys of the people of London’s East End. Herself an immigrant to the area, Guo’s sensitive character studies hint at an affinity with the push and pull of feelings of alienation, a theme she has previously explored as a filmmaker (She a Chinese, LFF 2009) and novelist (A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers). This empathy is also apparent in her playful stylistic approach that layers Warhol-esque news reports, archival material and a soundtrack including Linton Kwesi Johnson and Fela Kuti, to comment on the human cost of capitalism. The resulting film is both a penetrating portrait of a frenetic place that feels deeply authentic, and a powerful piece of protest film.

When Marvin Hamlisch passed away in August 2012 the worlds of music, theatre and cinema lost a talent the likes of which we may never see again. Seemingly destined for greatness, Hamlisch was accepted into New York’s Juilliard School as a 6-year-old musical prodigy and rapidly developed into a phenomenon. With instantly classic hits ‘The Way We Were’ and ‘Nobody Does It Better’ and scores for Hollywood films such as The Swimmer, The Sting and Sophie’s Choice and the Broadway juggernaut A Chorus Line; Hamlisch became the go-to composer for film and Broadway producers and a prominent presence on the international Concert Hall circuit. His streak was staggering, vast, unprecedented and glorious, by the age of 31 Hamlisch had won 4 Grammys, an Emmy, 3 Oscars, a Tony and a Pulitzer prize: success that burned so bright, it proved impossible to match.

Taşkafa is a real dog and also a legend on the streets of Istanbul. John Berger begins Taşkafa’s story, reading from his novel, King, the story of the disappearance of a community told from a dog’s perspective. The area’s ordinary people – taxi drivers, shopkeepers, street traders – care deeply about the welfare of the city’s street dogs and they tell us stories about Taşkafa and their other canine neighbours. The animals are a symbol of community living, where people (and dogs) look out for each other, but this is a community in transition; one from which dogs are starting to be expelled. Eccentric, amusing and very warm, the film is a powerful indictment of the impact of global politics and the economic appropriation of public space but, even more, it is a tribute to both the spirit of resistance and to city life that can accommodate people and dogs together.

Koliba

Gloria returns to her bleak home town after failing as a singer in New York. She falls for a grifter who claims to be the former manager of a famous singer. Her passion for singing is reborn, but she is pushed into uncharted territory.

From the south of France, a science fiction film about the end of the Leisure Class and that which came to replace it.

The uneventful lives of three young men who live in a small, poverty-stricken village in southern Italy.

Luminal