The Dead Die Once

Shin-ae moves to her recently late husband’s hometown. Despite her efforts to settle in this unfamiliar and too-normal place, she finds that she can’t fit in. After a sudden tragedy, Shin-ae turns to Christianity to relieve her pain, but when even this is not permitted, she wages a war against God.

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.

A former war photographer tries to ward off his personal ghosts by taking pictures of trees only. He lives alone among olive trees in southern Italy. One day he decides to cross the sea. Once in Albania, he goes near the location where he had made his last war picture, as if he was retracing his steps. He finds a tree he wants to photograph. He is just about to do so, when he discovers a runaway girl hiding in it with the sole objective of crossing the sea and getting to the other side. The man has no choice. He has to flee with her, follow her and guide her along until a storm separates them.

Released from prison and terminally ill, Parvis Karimpour is determined to be reunited with his daughter, Nasrin, who fled Iran for Europe many years before. Crossing the Mediterranean only to be unceremoniously dumped on the Spanish coast, Karimpour makes for Madrid in search of his erstwhile only child. Along the way he meets failed Italian pianist Fabrizio and spoilt German dreamer Almut – fellow migrants struggling to make their way in a Europe beset by economic turmoil. The search for Nasrin lends Karimpour’s new friends a sense of purpose, and the unlikely threesome take up her trail.

On a ferry travelling towards Lampedusa, we find a teenager on his first day of work as a gravedigger and a boy on his first mission as a diver. They do not know each other, but when they will set foot on the island, both their lives will change forever: one has to retrieve the bodies of drowned shipwreck victims, the other one has to bury them. A sort of dance between life and death, innocence and its loss.

Tahir Agha sells all his assets when his business in Maraş deteriorates. He immigrates to Istanbul with his wife Hatice, sons Selim, Murat, Kemal and daughter Fatoş, where he sets his mind to open a repair shop. But in the metropolis, things don't go as planned.

Afghani refugee Ali and his brother have just arrived in Turkey where, surrounded by many other refugees, his family tries to build a new life. The boys earn their living shining shoes. When one day their spot has been taken, their fragile existence and dreams of a better future hang by a thread.

La línea

The imprint of the past is made present by the return of three migrants to a community in the upper Mixteca region of Oaxaca, where the three stories intersect.

Just married Hong Kong couple Chen & Lily emigrate to England, soon to become parents to a little baby boy and generally struggle through life. Chen works long days in a restaurant, while Lily does the housekeeping, daydreaming of setting up their own business, much to Chen's chagrin. When Chen lets his colleague Fok seduce him down a path of mounting gambling debts, he is recruited as a drug courier for a shadowy Chinese triad. Suddenly he realizes that getting their own enterprise could be their only means of escape.

ADRIFT- People of a Lesser God is the story of an incredible odyssey made by several-times Pulitzer Prize-nominated undercover reporter Dominique C. Mollard. In this gripping story, Mollard sails with 38 African migrants, among them a five-month-old baby, out of West Africa on a quest to reach the golden shores of Europe. All aboard are packed together like sardines in a leaky fishing canoe as they set off under full moon on their harrowing journey. ADRIFT-People of a Lesser God captures the struggle of these desperate migrants as they brave their way across the cold Atlantic, risking their lives in search for a better future. —Ziad H. Hamzeh

The story of Alex, who, with the help of his charismatic grandfather, embarks on a journey in search of his real self.

Struggling with the move to Australia, a father concedes that he might not be the only one having a hard time with the transition.

People who have to leave where they live, let their photo taken for the last time in front of a backdrop. The photographer gives the photographs to everyone and they move away from the backdrop. "The Photograp"h takes a glimpse into the lives of all refugees who are forced to leave their country, from the point of view of the last moment they were together and happy. In doing so, the director who does not use any dialogues and thus does not offer any description, reveals his discourse on a global basis.

During a random check, the commander of the Czech Customs Unit notices that there are immigrants in the back of a van. In the turmoil that followed, a minor is injured while trying to escape into the forest. The officers scatter the woods to look for the boy who managed to escape. Their aim is to find him and cover up the event. When the child's father refuses to cooperate, the incident becomes insurmountable and the officers start to mistreat the refugees. It is a fairly harsh short film about human emotions and views against immigrants.

The story of Masoud, who is trying to emigrate to Europe to make a better life for himself, his mother and his fiancé. After embarking on a difficult and dangerous immigration journey with his best friend, Masoud meets a pregnant doctor and an old man on the way and they band together. Having to flee because of war and terror, Masoud tries to reach his goal with a hopeful but painful journey.

Soriba Samb is a Senegalese who has just received a much sought after internship to study filmmaking in Paris. Soriba heads to Paris, accompanied by the five-year old son of a friend who he believes to be still living in Paris. On arrival he struggles to find the boy’s father. In addition to coping with his new internship, Soriba has to also spend time tracking down the boy’s father ‘Issa’.

Stephen Tan, the youngest and the only photographer in his family, is tasked with creating his grandmother's funeral portrait. Never having taken his grandmother's photograph, he searches for old photographs in his family's ancestral home. There, he finds his Aunt Ellen who is hastily preparing for the wake later the same day. As the clock ticks closer to the funeral, a mishap in the house catches them off guard, opening up sentiments long left in the past.

Ramin flees from persecution in Iran and ends up living in the limbo of exile, far from everything he knows, in the tropical port town of Veracruz, Mexico. There his nostalgia and melancholy are confronted with new friendships, while he starts to rediscover his own desires.

A young man receiving medical treatment in the hospital reminisces about fishing in the small dory his grandfather owned.