A Muslim woman wears a mandatory hijab in public while secretly unveiling her true self in acting class. When her religious husband finds out, she is forced to choose between her faith and passion. Her freedom of choice comes at a costly price as their daughter is torn apart between the two.
Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity. Finally the Vietnamese have had enough and confront the skinheads in an all-out confrontation, sending the skinheads running. A woman who is prone to epileptic seizures joins the skins' merry band, and helps them on their run from justice, but is her affliction also a sign of impurity?
Jussi Ketola, returns to Finland from the great depression struck America only to face growing political unrest. One summer night of 1930, nationalist thugs violently abduct Ketola from his home. Beaten and forced to walk the Eternal Road towards a foreign Soviet Russia, where cruelty seems to know no end, his only dream is to return to his family cost it what it may. Hope dies last.
Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.
Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.
After World War II, 4,000 Polish families came to Australia. They were Jews, Fascists, anti-Communists, and others dispossessed. In a large hostel, where even married men and women were housed in separate barracks, the adults lived for two years while they worked off the government's payment of their passage. Even though he is married to Anna and has a son, Julian falls in love with Nina and she with him. As they and others face the new situations and prejudices that await immigrants and as they take on aspects of Australian culture, old-country values reassert themselves. Julian decides what to do about love and family, and Nina must find a way to move on.
In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.
In southern France, a Franco-Arabic shipyard worker along with his partner's daughter pursues his dream of opening a restaurant.
Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and grad student Emily Gardner fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family's expectations, and his true feelings.
After living as an immigrant in the USA for 15 years, Azat flies to Kyrgyzstan to his family village. His father, Murat, died in the USA a year ago. It was his dying wish to pay back the money he owed to the villagers. Azat discovers the family home derelict. Choro, the younger brother of Murat, and their relations left a long time ago. Despite most villagers not liking him. One day, Choro, who was imprisoned because of Murat, arrives and the most important question about Murat's will is decided.
The unexpected arrival of a Nigerian migrant in the Belgian countryside shakes up the fragile daily life of two men living a secret relationship.
Following the unexpected death of his fiancée the night before his wedding, Ralph's desire to ever love again is shattered. Then he meets Joanne. Will her love and her charm be enough for him to start living again; for good this time?
Every night while the city sleeps, Ahmad, a former Pakistani rock star turned immigrant, drags his heavy cart along the streets of New York. And every morning, he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own. One day, however, the pattern of this harsh existence is broken by a glimmer of hope for a better life.
Sister's Keeper
Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.
Roro, a foreign worker in Swedish parks, loves his girlfriend but is about to marry another girl to prevent her from being sent back to Lebanon. Meanwhile, Roro's best friend, Måns, has serious problems getting an erection.
A young mexican smuggler and a little girl travel illegally on top of a cargo train, called La Bestia, to get to the USA. An injury transforms his perception of the journey.
Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.
A young South American man struggles to build a new life for his wife and children in Australia. Dreams turn to lies. Lies become reality. Does he have the will to see the light of Amanecer?
Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create -- in 21st century L.A.