Everything Beautiful Is Far Away

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.

A barrage balloon appears unexpectedly over a Bulgarian village during World War II. The startled villagers decide to knock it down with a fusillade yet the balloon flies off to the mountains. The villagers, armed to their teeth, set off after it. But they are not alone in this undertaking...

"Hatsukoi" (The First Love, 1989) is a rarely-seen early short film from a Goth-lolita-oriented experimental film-maker, Mari Terashima. Ritualized action and repetitive elements might remind some viewers of Maya Deren's strategy.

Luke Skywalker leads a mission to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, while the Emperor seeks to destroy the Rebellion once and for all with a second dreaded Death Star.

Bruce Banner, a genetics researcher with a tragic past, suffers massive radiation exposure in his laboratory that causes him to transform into a raging green monster when he gets angry.

Jacq Vaucan, an insurance agent of ROC robotics corporation, routinely investigates the case of manipulating a robot. What he discovers will have profound consequences for the future of humanity.

One of humankind’s greatest achievements has been to walk on the moon. It was marked in history as a phenomenal success. What if that first step had turned out a little differently? As Neil Armstrong is about to take his first step on the moon, something catches his eye in the distance. Naturally curious, he leaps out into the unknown territory to investigate. What he finds will forever change the course of human history.

A robot designed for flawless precision follows a life of strict routine and mathematical order. One day, a small disruption breaks his rhythm, sparking curiosity about imperfection. As he ventures off his programmed path, he begins to fall in love with errors for their unpredictability, each mistake drawing him deeper into a journey of self-discovery and revealing the beauty of flaws, and the raw essence of human nature.

With over 500 publications to his name, from the 50’s to the 80’s, he had anticipated computers and electronic gadgets invading the household, autonomous vehicles and man’s withdrawal from nature. Science fiction and anticipation stories have never been as popular as today. It inspires literature, drama series, films, even politics and the military. As the world we live in faces an unprecedented technological acceleration, we are more concerned than ever by the issue of our future.

Charlie Kenton is a washed-up fighter who retired from the ring when robots took over the sport. After his robot is trashed, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son to rebuild and train an unlikely contender.

Inventor Goro Ibuki creates a humanoid robot named Jet Jaguar. It is soon seized by an undersea race of people called the Seatopians. Using Jet Jaguar as a guide, the Seatopians send Megalon as vengeance for the nuclear tests that have devastated their society.

After a freak, fatal accident, the soul Karl—aka The Address Book Killer—ends up trapped in the electrical grid. He targets Terry and her son for his next victims, turning home technology against them as deadly weapons.

Elli is an android and lives with a man she calls her father. Together they drift through the summer. During the day they swim in the pool and at night he takes her to bed. She shares his memories and anything else he programs her to recall. Memories that mean everything to him but nothing to her. Yet, one night she sets off into the woods following a fading echo… The story of a machine and the ghosts we all carry within us.

Poor Bibi - due to her bad marks in maths she has to spend the whole summer in the boarding school of Altenberg to scrape through a series of exams - otherwise she'd stay down in school, being forced to repeat the year. No camping, no white-water rafting, no vacation at all. So it doesn't surprise anyone that the young witch is quite disgruntled when arriving at Altenberg Castle. Her roommate is a touchy unpleassant fashion victim and headmaster Quirin Bartels is so muddle-headed that he can't even remember the names of his students properly. But then Bibi makes friends with Elea, a girl wheelchair-bound since a terrible accident where she also lost her beloved parents. Now Bibi is determined to help the sensitive Elea, searching a way to heal her from her palsy legs.

After receiving word about a mysterious carcass/skeleton unearthed in the Arizona desert, a father and his daughter decide to remove it from the burial grounds for further study. Once they do so, they, as well as the town, are besieged by a colony of gargoyles living in some nearby caverns.

The surface of the Earth is under attack, thousands of people are killed in this unprovoked attacked. The cause, Princess Dragonmon and her army of monsters have decided to invade. Princess Dragonmon is an alien whose race has been hiding under us for centuries waiting to attack at the time is right. A doctor has been preparing for something like this and turns his assistant Rayma into the cyborg hero known as Inframan. Now only Inframan stands between the Earth and Princess Dragonmon but when a close friend is captured and brainwashed, can she be stopped with this inside man feeding her info?

The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.

James Keaton invents a time machine and goes back seven years to try to thwart the plans of his rival, Frederic Nichols. Meanwhile, Keaton's neglected girlfriend, Leila Locke, finds the time machine and uses it to convince her younger self to not get involved with Keaton in the first place. While in the past, however, she falls in love with the younger Keaton all over again.

The tale of rock band KISS and their efforts to thwart a diabolical plan by mad scientist Abner Devereaux. Devereaux has found a way to clone humans into robots in his laboratory at an amusement park. It just so happens that he plans to use the KISS concert as a platform to unleash his plan on the world. KISS must use their special powers to stop him.