Ave

A Short Film by Lars Ostenfeld. Inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale, this Danish film tells the story of a Christmas tree from a most unusual angle - through the 'voice' of the tree itself. The tree has big ambitions, doing everything it can to grow so tall that it reaches the sky. Featuring extraordinary photography, the film follows the adventures of its life from sapling to maturity, culminating in a triumphal Christmas Day. Along the way, viewers experience the natural - and human - world from a strangely moving perspective.

Over the course of three days Ross, a college dropout addicted to crystal-meth, encounters a variety of oddball folks - including a stripper named Nikki and her boyfriend, the local meth producer, The Cook - but all he really wants to do is hook up with his old girlfriend, Amy.

PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.

The short drama film follows the daily life of the Juan and Jorge, two brothers living on the streets of Mexico City. It won an Academy Award in 2001 for Best Live Action Short Film.

A contest is being held in Cremona for the best violin, with Giannina's hand in marriage as the prize. Filippo is secretly in love with her, but is also ashamed of being a cripple, so he switches his superior violin with that of another apprentice, Sandro, whom Giannina loves.

A fathers love for his chicken causes tension between him and his son.

A man who trains fighting cocks vows to remain silent until one of his birds wins a championship.

Ira wanders around the streets of Moscow. She's pregnant with the child of Adrissa, an african student.

A stark portrayal of life among a group of heroin addicts who hang out in Needle Park in New York City. Played against this setting is a low-key love story between Bobby, a young addict and small-time hustler, and Helen, a homeless girl who finds in her relationship with Bobby the stability she craves.

A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.

An awkward young farm boy undergoes a profound and painful rite of passage in Michael Burke's masterful drama of nascent sexuality and friendship. Ridiculed for his love of animals (his best friend is a chicken), the boy's acceptance by his peers requires a stunning choice.

Phyllis is a moving and atmospheric portrait of a ‘psychic’ vampire, a woman obsessed with synthetic Nollywood dramas, that lives alone in Lagos, Nigeria. The central idea of this short experimental film is the practise and significance of wig-wearing in Nollywood film; a practise the director has invested with deeper psychological as well as science-fiction layers. Underpinning this central idea however is a critique of the unforgiving treatment of single women in Nollywood and Nigeria. The film is an example of what the director, Zina Saro-Wiwa, has termed “alt-Nollywood”, a genre that plays with and reworks certain narrative, stylistic and visual conventions of Nollywood. Phyllis explores the gothic possibilities of the Nollywood aesthetic creating a new kind of low-budget atmospheric film that is very much of Nollywood and yet subverts the genre. Using Nollywood to subvert Nollywood.

In the Second World War, probably in a concentration camp somewhere, Gary Sinise is a soldier who conducts Jews everyday to some place where only clothes come back, under the eyes of an young prisoner boy (Elijah Wood). This witness disturbs the soldier, driving the story to a tragic and sad end and a new beginning.

Two poor farmers spend all their money on a chicken, while waiting for her first egg they slowly start to get the feeling there’s something very wrong with the animal.

Chronicling the troubled existence of Duncan Mudge, a 14-year-old misfit who—while vying for the attention of his vacant father—struggles to fill the void brought on by his mother's sudden death.

Ort Flack is 12 years old and lives with his mother and his sister Tegwyn in the Australian outback. The three of them also have to take care of their old grandma and their paralyzed father. It is not easy for one mother to take care of everybody. But one day a mysterious stranger, Henry, comes to their desolate house to help them...

When Milo the cat and Otis the dog are separated, they each set off on an adventurous and often perilous quest across mountains, plains, and snow-covered lands to reunite with one another.

A young woman, stressed by her busy and continually crowded New York City existence spontaneously retreats to a solitary lake deep in the Adirondacks.

A splendid 10-minute animated film by Sharon Smith. It is an adaptation of a tale by Frank Key. Narrated by Key himself, it has been screened at film festivals and competitions all over the world, including Annecy, Edinburgh, Brazil and last month’s Raindance in London.

On the edge of a crumbling city, 11-year-old Alexander lives in a sequestered commune alongside other children, their mothers, and charismatic leader, Gregori. Gregori teaches the children how to raise livestock, grow vegetables, work as a community - and how to kill. With the birth of a new baby brother weighing on his mind, Alexander begins to question Gregori’s overpowering influence on the children and their training to become assassins. Threatened by his increasing unwillingness to fall in line, Gregori’s behavior turns erratic and adversarial toward the child he once considered a son. With the two set dangerously at odds and the commune’s way of life disintegrating, the residents fear a violent resolution is at hand.