Waitress Saara meets handsome journalist Joni, and soon moves in to live with him. Joni tries his best to satisfy Saara sexually but, disturbed by violent lesbian fantasies, she is unable to experience orgasm. Trying to cope with the situation, Saara has another brief affair back in her old home town.
A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family. The film version of the stage production was shot during the play’s 2022 run at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo.
Hayat, her father and bedridden grandfather live in a riverside shack near the dangerously dark but breathtakingly beautiful waters of the Bosphorus. Hayat's father owns a small boat that secures the family's survival through a miscellany of not always lawful ventures. Beyond the motion and romance of the water, Hayat's life is harsh and unrelenting. But Hayat has an instinct for survival. Her capacity for courage, endurance and hope in the face of these trials suggest that there is Life despite the manifold injustices of an unjust world.
George Nader plays a reporter whose career is ruined by liquor. A comeback opportunity presents itself when Nader is a bystander at the arrest of a well-known criminal.
Dunya and Desie are two 18 year old best friends from Amsterdam North. Dunya is Moroccan and Desie is Dutch. On Dunya's Birthday she is told that her marriage has been arranged with a distant cousin in Morocco. Dunya and her family will travel to Morocco to meet him. After Desie discovers that she is pregnant she joins Dunya in Morocco in a search for Desies father.
Tobacco heiress Doris Duke develops an unlikely friendship with her butler, Bernard Lafferty.
Rita, a witty 26-year-old hairdresser, wants to 'discover' herself, so she joins the Open University where she meets the disillusioned professor of literature, Dr. Frank Bryant. His marriage has failed, his new girlfriend is having an affair with his best friend and he can't get through the day without downing a bottle or two of whisky. What Frank needs is a challenge... and along comes Rita.
After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
Die Polizistin is a drama by Andreas Dresen about the life of a young police woman who is faced with the difficulties between her responsibilities at work and her personal responsibilities.
The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.
A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the original film musical.
At the end of the 1990s the Internet comes to Northern Norway and coincides with the sexual awakening of young Mads (12). The introduction of pornographic images into his life complicates his relationship with his parents, and their house becomes a minefield filled with uncomfortable interactions.
The film sensitively portrays the struggles of a father whose main priority in life is the well being of his children, and who is determined to see his children grow up to become decent, successful persons.
A young Arab-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist, and her strict father during the Gulf War.
A heroic fire captain values dedication and service to others above all else, but the most important partnership in his life, his marriage, is about to go up in smoke.
Mia, an ex-prostitute, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the abusive Quan (Sunny Pang, who also stars in Headshot in this year’s Festival lineup), a butcher who runs a roast meat shop. When she meets sensitive funeral director Wu, their passion for one another escalates into an affair. But the path to true love is fraught with jealousy, forcing someone to make a deadly move.
Buddy Amaral, a successful and self-absorbed Los Angeles advertising executive, switches airline tickets with a stranger just before boarding a long-delayed flight so that he might enjoy an overnight fling with a pretty Dallas businesswoman. When the plane goes down, killing all aboard, Buddy's guilt soon turns into an alcohol problem. As part of his 12-step program, Buddy seeks atonement and decides to seek out the woman he thinks he's left a widow.
A cat burglar is forced to take a bickering, dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.
Joe Dirt is a janitor with a mullet hairdo, acid-washed jeans and a dream to find the parents that he lost at the Grand Canyon when he was a belligerent, trailer park-raised eight-year-old. Now, blasting Van Halen in his jacked-up economy car, the irrepressibly optimistic Joe hits the road alone in search of his folks.
A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.