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When her mother dies, Fausta is forced to face her fears, that she got as ababy with the milk of her mother. Fausta now sets out on a journey - a journey that will lead her out of her fear and into freedom. Peruvian director Claudia Llosa’s film addresses a dark era of her country’s history. It won the Golden Bear in Berlin and was nominated for the Oscars in 2010.

Two sisters and a brother live in the center of İstanbul today. They are in their thirties and forties, and lead very different lives, self centered on their upper-middle class preoccupations. One day, a phone call brings them together on a voyage through Turkey’s suburbs and villages to the small town in the Black Sea mountains where they were born. Their aged mother, Nusret, has dissappered. As the siblings start reminiscing about her, the tensions between them quickly become apparent; like a Pandora’s Box which is spilled open, all the unresolved disputes are scattered around. It is only Nesrin’s rebellious son Murat who emphatises with Nusret and who ultimately sneaks her out of the institution where her daugters have committed her, leading his grandmother back to her home in the mountains which she is desparate to return to.

On a chaotic Friday in Buenos Aires, Alma and Roberto meet in the pouring rain. In the middle of the traffic chaos, the door of Alma's car opens. Roberto gets in, injured and wet to the bones. "Please close the door! As soon as this is all over, I'm getting out." Without knowing why, Alma does what Roberto asks her to do. They have no idea that this sudden and unexpected encounter will change their lives. Alma made aimless rounds in the city in her car before, and Roberto wanted to find himself. None of them know what to do or how to progress in their lives. Alma and Roberto - excellently played by Valeria Bertuccelli and Ernesto Alterio - are people like all of us, vulnerable and therefore grow close to our hearts.

Amal is 14 years old when she ends up on Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, after the death of her boyfriend in the Port Said Stadium riot. During the protests, she is beaten by police and dragged across the square by her hair. This coming-of-age film follows her over the years after the revolution. As the film cuts between the unfolding current events and Amal’s rapidly changing life and appearance, we see her searching for her own identity in a country in transition. Amal is fiery and fearless, sinking her teeth into the protests and constantly lecturing her mother, who works as a judge. A girl among men, she also has to fight for respect and the right to take part, both in the street and in the rest of her life. In Egypt, even for a young woman like Amal-her name means "hope"-the choices open to her for her future are limited.

Gabriel keeps his head above water with odd jobs. When his son Eric moves in with him, the money runs out. So they follow the well-meant invitation of the wealthy Maria to spend the holidays with her family. An encounter full of challenges.

During a student party, Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, meets the mysterious Youssef and leaves with him. A long night will begin, during which she’ll have to fight for her rights and her dignity. But how can Justice be made when it lies on the side of the tormentors?

“The King of San Gregorio” is a story about a pure and simple love. The film talks about the life of Pedro Vargas – who plays himself – a 30 years-old man living in the slum of San Gregorio and presents a physical handicap and a certain grade of mental disability. Nevertheless, none of these factors will stop him from being the protagonist of this beautiful love story with his “princess” Cati, a girl who has a severe mental disability. As any other romantic drama, there are antagonists who do not approve this love. Pedro’s mother, María is hard to accept that her man-son is in love and she is even willing to prevent the relationship. Besides, the frustrated sister of the female protagonist, Marta, fears the sexual arouse of Cati, interfering in her relation with Pedro. Nevertheless, Pedro struggles for being with his princess, entrusting to God and to the wise advices of Juan, an old man who teaches him how to believe in love. • Pedro Vargas - Chief Character Known as “the King” in San Gregorio hood, Pedro Vargas is a 30 years-old man, who presents a certain grade of physical and mental handicap. Nevertheless, he is a very sensitive, romantic and optimistic person. He strongly wishes to live the intense love he feels for his princess Cati, in a place beyond clouds. Cati, the princess – (María José Parga) She is Pedro’s sweetheart. She is a very beautiful green-eyed girl of a naïve aspect. She is 28, but looks younger since she is especially delicate. She presents a severe handicap, because of a poliomyelitis she underwent when she was 3. Due to this illness, she nearly can’t speak and when she does, she uses very short words. She is always laughing and it seems she is always thinking about another thing. The only thing she wants is to be with Pedro and when her sister forbids it, she cries and has violent attacks of nerves. She has a kind of obsession with the Dorothy, the character of the “Wizard of Oz” • María – (Gloria Münchmeyer) Explosive and melancholic, María - Pedro´s mother and his main antagonist - is a 64 years -old widow who works as a domestic servant. Her strong black eyes are her most outstanding feature. She is very over-protective with Pedro, not only due to his handicap, but also because he is her only child. In this context, María emphatically objects his son´s relationship with Cati. • Marta – (Giselle Demelchiore) Marta is Cati´s sister and the second antagonist in the story. She is 34 and in spite of being very pretty, she looks neglected, dark and sad. Due to the mother desertion, Marta takes care of her sister and it is the reason why she has postponed herself deciding to live alone with no boyfriend. She fears for Cati´s relationship with Pedro and especially for her sister sex life. • Juan – (Andrés Rillón) He is Pedro’s mentor and he is the one who will help Pedro to achieve his goal of being with Cati. He is 73, bald, with a neglected face and he moves in a noisy and old wheelchair. He is hypochondriac and has an ironic sense of humor.

Twenty-two-year-old Koli is studying at Tirana university. When he hears of his father’s death, he returns to his native mountain village in the north to attend the funeral. During a walk through the countryside of his childhood, someone takes a shot at him. In a state of shock, the young man discovers that he is part of a blood feud sparked by his grandfather sixty years earlier. He goes to see the family to whom, according to custom, he owes his life - and, in doing so, he makes the acquaintance of the murderer whom fate has determined will take it. Away from his modern urban environment, Koli suddenly finds himself in a world of ancient, inexorable rituals, from which he is unable to extricate himself even after his return to Tirana. How deeply entrenched in people are the traditions of their forebears? And to what extent are they able to accept them as part of their modern, superficial lifestyle? How far-reaching is the perception of one’s own destiny and affinity with one’s roots? Director Artan Minarolli dedicated his film drama to the eighty-six illegal immigrants who drowned off the coast of Italy during an attempt to flee their native country in March 1997.

Wandering aimlessly after losing his memory in a car accident, a man is taken in by the inhabitants of a farm in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, whose secret business is the drugs they manufacture in a laboratory on the closely guarded property. The presence of this nameless stranger has consequences for the clandestine community. Little separates beauty and horror here. A latent sense of danger pervades the vast swathes of sublime landscape. A catastrophe looms. Tensions also rise in the cramped quarters of the house. The identity of the man without a past becomes an increasing issue as doubts regarding his amnesia rear their head. Is he a doctor or a mechanic? An angel or a spy? Like a blank page, he lends himself to fantasies of all kinds and ultimately becomes a prisoner. At once concrete and otherworldly, with a powerful soundtrack and images of great intensity, the film shows a set of melancholy existences on the eve of the apocalypse. Alongside radio news reports on current political crises, it leaves ample room for poetry, painting and a love song, and thus questions the status of art in times of terror and war, that is, in the here and now.

From the 2008 Beijing olympic games to the avant-guard art scene, new chinese talent is heating up audiences around the world. Wu Hongyan, woman executioner in her thirties, works at the court in the province of Shaanxi in China, where she executes women condemned to death only. In spite of her macabre job, Wu Hongyan travels every weekend to a town nearby to join parties organized by a marriage bureau. The result of her dating is mediocre, until she meets the mysterious Li Jun. But she is thousands of miles away of imagining that Li Jun’s wife is the last of the women she executed. Electrifying!

Inspired by the famous story “The Abduction of Sita” from the great classic of ancient Indian and South East-Asian literature the Ramayana, OPERA JAWA is a musical like no other in cinema. It tells of a passionate love triangle that leads inexorably to conflict, violence and death. Setio and his wife Siti, run a pottery business in a small village where Ludiro, a powerful and ruthless butcher, controls all the trading activities. When the couple’s business collapses, Ludiro, who has always been in love with Siti, seizes his chance, abducts and tries to seduce her. Inevitably the two men begin to fight over Siti...

In rural Afghanistan, people believe in the stories they invent to tell each other, explaining the mysteries of the world, they don’t understand. Shepherd children own the mountains. Even though there are no grown ups around, they know the rules very well; the main one is that boys and girls are not allowed to be together, they have to be separated. The boys practice with their slings to fight the wolves should they attack the flock. The girls smoke dried branches of wheat secretly and play wedding, dreaming of getting a husband soon. They gossip about every one and everything, but mostly about Sediqa, 11, an outsider among the shepherd children. They think she is cursed, as an evil ghost disguised as a snake bewitched her grandmother. Sediqa picks up her sheep and goats every morning and drops them in the owner’s house every evening. She dreams of having a sling and learn to swing it like the boys and hit a wolf. Qodrat, 11, becomes the gossip topic of everyone after his mother remarries with an old man with two wives. He prefers to be alone in the most isolated parts of the mountains. This is where he meets Sediqa and they become friends until Qodrat’s mother has to send him away.

Yo is an intellectually limited 30-year-old who lives with his mother in an isolated Mexican restaurant. Unsettled by a new man in his mother's life, he sets off in search of his first romantic experiences.

Juan Desouza is a 38 years old argentinean businessman, whose life is going to change after a simple business trip: having arrived at the destination, he realizes that the man that sits next to him is dead. Thereupon he decides to adopt the identity of his neighbour, to create himself a new job, find a new apartment and to possibly not return to his own life. Suddenly Juan experiences nature as an adventure, discovering his senses and instincts. And after all new perspectives open up: His previous life suddenly isn't the only possibility anymore...

Istanbul is in political chaos. Armed groups have taken control of the shantytowns. The police response is brutal. In the midst of this, two brothers are drawn into the violence. Kadir is released after a 15-year prison term and goes in search of his younger brother Ahmet. Meanwhile, Istanbul is in the grip of political violence. Hamza, a high-ranking police officer helps Kadir find a job as an informer. He collects garbage, checking to see whether it contains material related to bomb-making. Ahmet works at the municipality as part of a team responsible for destroying stray dogs. When Ahmet shuts himself up in his house to care for a wounded dog, Kadir thinks he is being threatened by terrorists. Kadir relays his concern to Hamza, who sends the police to investigate.

Vicente is a young, reckless loner who comes back to his parents’ beach house after a year studying in LA. One of those random nights of downing shots and chasing girls changes his life forever when Vicente becomes the prime suspect in a hit-and-run that kills a local fisherman. Vicente was wasted. His memories are a blur. Yes, he was in the car, but he swears he wasn’t driving. And what’s worse, the guy he remembers being behind the wheel is the son of a powerful politician. A tangled web of lies engulfs the truth, crushing out a social scandal before it can begin.

Lamb is a drama about 9 year-old Ephraim and his constant companion sheep, Chuni, in the vast volcanic canyon land of Ethiopia. Ephraim’s affection for Chuni deepened after he lost his mother to famine the year before. Consequently, his beloved father sends him and Chuni faraway from their drought-stricken homeland to live with his distant relatives in a greener part of the country. Ephraim soon finds himself to be a homesick outcast who is always getting into trouble. When his uncle orders him to slaughter the sheep for the upcoming holiday feast, Ephraim devises a devious scheme to save Chuni and return to his homeland.

Set on the eve of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, the first feature from director Leyla Bouzid follows an up-and-coming underground band as they are pulled in all directions by creative energy, authoritarian oppression, and rebellion. As I Open My Eyes (À peine j'ouvre les yeux) gives us a look at Tunisian youth on the eve of the Jasmine Revolution as they are pulled in all directions by conflicting forces: disenchantment, fear, creativity, rebellion against dictatorship, rejection of conservatism, and the courage to pursue their desires. Farah (Baya Medhaffer) is a young woman at a crossroads. Her medical-school application has just been accepted, and nothing could please her mother, Hayet (Ghalia Benali), more - but Farah's passion is for music, and her underground band is just beginning to get noticed. Their music blends rock with daring lyrics that have the raw poetry of spoken word. Soon enough, the police are alerted to the band's subversive performances and begin to harass them, and when Farah is detained and interrogated, she realizes that one of her friends is a snitch. (tiff)

María, a 17-year-old Kaqchikel Maya, lives with her parents on a coffee plantation at the foot of an active volcano. She is set to be married to the farm’s foreman. But María longs to discover the world on the other side of the mountain, a place she cannot even imagine. And so she seduces a coffee-harvester who wants to escape to the USA. When this man leaves her behind, María discovers her own world and culture anew. Director Jayro Bustamante grew up in the region of the Kaqchikel Maya in Guatemala and returned there to make his film. He held workshops, asked people to tell stories from their own lives and examined the current living conditions of the Maya at close range. In doing so, he learnt about the special connection the women there have with the rituals of their mothers and grandmothers. The plot picks up the rhythm of a life defined by ancestral beliefs and traditions. An unfamiliar daily routine awaits the audience, far from the globalised world. IXCANUL is not a film about Indigenous culture but one that was developed from within it.

Three friends strive to preserve their loyalty to each other in spite of a corrupt society. These young men live in Tétouan, an impoverished Moroccan city. Soufiane, the youngest, spends his days pilfering. Allal, the oldest, is trying to gain a foothold as a drug dealer. Malik falls in love with Dounia who works as a prostitute in a night club. The three friends part to make their own way in life, but before long it looks as though their futures will founder in a maelstrom of violence, greed, jealousy and betrayal. Seeing no other way out, they decide to get together and raid a jeweller’s shop. The film opens with Malik walking towards Dounia, silently laughing. Behind her, knots of video tape float up from a rubbish dump like paper dragons. Faouzi Bensaïdi gives his relaxed young actors plenty of room to manoeuvre. His work casts a spell on account of a visual style that is both laconic and pow- erful and demonstrates how each friend’s dream of happiness only serves to drive a wedge between them. Beneath permanently leaden city clouds they nonetheless find a way to treat each other with gen- erosity and trust.

We are in the year 2001, a temporary ceasefire brings a much-needed break to a small war-torn village in Northern Nepal, bringing much joy among the residents. Prakash and Kiran, two young close friends, are also starting to feel the change in the air. Though they are divided by caste and social creed, they remain inseparable, and start raising a hen given to Prakash by his sister, with hopes to save money by selling her eggs. However, the hen goes missing. To find it, they embark on a journey, innocently unaware of the tyranny brought by the fragile ceasefire.

The Broken Screen is about a very special friendship, which turns into obsession for one of the characters and leaves him to use technology, and social networks as a weapon to destroy a love story that stands between him and his friend. The story takes place in northern Nicaragua, land of traditions, coffee farms and cattle raisers. Octavio, a young student from a poor family, makes friends with Alex, the charismatic young son of one of the region’s wealthiest families. Octavio’s fascination with his new friend makes him want to sideline anyone who comes between the two of them. But Alex is in love with Esperanza, a university classmate, and to have a memory of their passion, he uses his cell phone to film them making love. Octavio ends up with the phone and spreads the video all over town. From that moment on, nothing will be the same and the life of the two lovers will be devastated.

Tunisia, before the revolution. A man on a motorbike, razor blade in hand, prowls the streets of Tunis slashing women's buttocks. They call him The Challat, aka "The Blade", and the mere mention of his name provokes fascination and terror. Is he a lone criminal, an urban legend, or could he be the creation of a political group or religious fanatics? 10 years later, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, a stubborn young female director sets out on an investigation to unravel the mystery and discover the true Challat of Tunis.

Xiaoli, a 16 year old Shanghainese boy, has recently turned 16, in the summer of 1988. His life revolves around his one-room apartment in a beautiful brick house in the picturesque Shikumen neighborhood of Da Zhongli which he shares with his grandfather. Xiaoli's grandfather was brought up in this neighborhood, and was one of original owners of the houses, built in the 1930s by British architects. The houses were confiscated from their original owners by the government during the Cultural Revolution and made to share with lower-income families. Xiaoli's father died in prison during the Cultural Revolution and his mother immigrated to the United States in the hope of obtaining a green card for her and her son. Xiaoli yearns to graduate from high school and open a photo shop as he is numbed by the routine of his life: his boring political education classes, his English study, the sternness of his grandfather and the lack of comforting parental figure. At the same time, he is wary of the idea of following in his mother's footsteps to America. His interest lies in his blossoming next door neighbor, a girl of twenty named Lanmi. Lanmi failed her college entrance exams and works in the Shanghai no. 2 Toothbrush Factory. She lives in the adjacent apartment with her mother and step-father. She comes from a lower class income family and was relocated in Da Zhongli with her father and mother, before her father was sent off to labor prison were he also eventually died. Lanmi does not get along with her mother and stepfather and new born sibling, and yearns to get out of Da Zhongli, if only she could afford it. She turns to Xiaoli for comfort, albeit of a different kind than Xiaoli is looking for. While Xiaoli looks at her for a mix of motherly figure and teenage lust, Lanmi plays with him. She flirts with him, arouses his senses, and yet has no interest in pursuing their relationship any further, thus giving false hopes to Xiaoli. She starts leading a double life, one which Xiaoli does not even know exists. One day, as she is delivering toothbrushes to a hotel, she is hired to work there for one of the 'sisters'. To Xiaoli, her job oddly consists of going to dances or accompanying foreign businessmen, as Shanghai progressively opens up to foreigners, foreign exchange notes and coca-cola. Xiaoli slowly becomes suspicious of Lanmi's new job yet gives her the benefit of the doubt. Until one day when Lanmi dispappears down south in search of a better life. In Lanmi's absence, Xiaoli turns to Lili who is more of his age but never looses interest in his deviant neighbor. When Lanmi comes back two weeks later, the student demonstrations start monopolizing everyone's life in the spring of 1989. They offer new opportunities to Xiaoli and Lanmi, depending on how each one looks at the events. Xiaoli becomes absorbed by the new developments and slowly looses his naivesness about the country he is living in and his interest in his next door neighbour's Lanmi turns to drugs and alcohol as an escape to her everyday life. When the situation gets so bad that Xiaoli's grandfather urges Xiaoli to leave for America, Xiaoli agrees to and flees.

Movie director Hussein would like to shoot a film in his homeland of Iraqi Kurdistan about the Anfal military operation of the 1980s that led to the murder of more than 182,000 Kurds. The viewer follows the entire crew’s efforts to achieve the goal of making the film despite the numerous problems that accompany the shoot. They are forced to struggle with inadequate financing, the mistrust of the local inhabitants, the exaggerated and inappropriate demands of a nationally-adored movie star, and to fight the disapproval of Sinur’s father, even though the young woman would love to take on the starring role.... Memories On Stone is a visually sophisticated movie in which the director gently and effortlessly brings together the Kurdish past and present, while investigating with sincerity and gracious humor the traumatizing events suffered by his nation. Korki entirely avoids sentimentality, offering instead a personal and vigorous look at Kurdish history and mentality.

Char is an island in the river that forms the border between India and Bangladesh. It is there that a boy named Rubel and his family live, along with others who lost their homes. The island emerged like a gift that the river gave to the people as a refuge after it tore away their native village when the water levels rose. But this gift is built on sand, a fleeting environmental reaction after the dam upstream was put into operation. Out of necessity, the people - much like the birds - have made use of this new terrain and built up a contraband business. Livestock, alcohol, rice, and other wares are smuggled past the border patrols with admirable finesse: a heroic battle for survival that provides Rubel with just enough to let him dream of a better future, although (or because) Char will be merely one stage in his life. Sourav Sarangi observed this soggy microcosm over a number of years, using various different cameras to capture heterogeneous, at times almost apocalyptic images on film. His story of a boy growing up is left with an open ending, mixed with an oddly wonderful feeling of amazement.

Arash is an Iranian academic who lives in the West. He returns to teach classes in Shiraz, where his mother lives, far from Tehran. Trapped in a whirlwind of family and financial intrigues, he plunges back into the difficult hours of his childhood at the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war in 1981. Following the death of his father and discovering what has become of his "respectable family", he is forced to make choices.

Carla duda. Tiene 37 años, está casada, posiblemente embarazada y debería estar feliz mientras viaja hacia las vacaciones de verano con su marido y una moto de agua enganchada al auto. Pero quizás no quiere estar ahí. Quizás preferiría estar en la carretera con algún mochilero noruego, yendo a un hermoso parque nacional donde podría caminar entre grandes árboles y hablar sobre pájaros y viejas canciones pop con el guardaparques. Sí, quizás eso sería mejor.

Jordan, 1967. The world is alive with change: brimming with reawakened energy, new styles, music and an infectious sense of hope. In Jordan, a different kind of change is underway as tens of thousands of refugees pour across the border from Palestine. Having been separated from his father in the chaos of war, Tarek, 11, and his mother Ghaydaa, are amongst this latest wave of refugees. Placed in "temporary" refugee camps made up of tents and prefab houses until they would be able to return, they wait, like the generation before them who arrived in 1948. With difficulties adjusting to life in Harir camp and a longing to be reunited with his father, Tarek searches a way out, and discovers a new hope emerging with the times. Eventually his free spirit and curious nature lead him to a group of people on a journey that will change their lives. Starring Mahmoud Asfa, Ruba Blal, and Saleh Bakri

This is the story of Yuma a strong-willed and rebellious girl from the poor neighborhoods of Managua who dreams of being a boxer. Managua, today. Yuma wants to be a boxer. In her poor neighborhood, gangs fight for control of the street. In her home, lovelessness is the name of the game. She dreams of the ring, energy and agile feet and hands. They are also her only options. A street, a theft, a chance encounter: Yuma meets Ernesto, a journalism student from the other side of the city. Despite their differences, they fall in love, attracted to each other by their shared desire to find their own space in the world.

En el Nombre de la Hija tells the story of a nine-year old girl whose name is in dispute. Manuela has been named alter her socialist-atheist father, but her catholic-conservative grandmother insists she should carry the name the first daughters of the family have carried for generations: Dolores. The story takes place in a Valley in the Ecuadorian Andes, during the summer of 1976. Manuela and her little brother, Camilo, are spending vacations with their cousins and grandparents at the family's farmhouse. Eager to defend her father's ideas, Manuela confronts her cousins and grandparents, but an unexpected encounter leads her to confront herself instead. Hidden in the family's abandoned library, schizophrenic uncle Felipe is devoted to setting words free from the constraints of dogmas. His wisdom sets Manuela free from her own dogmas and forever changes her relationship with words, including her own name.

Told through captivating imagery and visuals this long-awaited movie from a renowned Georgian filmmaker is an unusual psychological drama that demonstrates just how unnecessary dialogue can be for creating maximum audience effect. An old peasant and his innocent 16-year-old granddaughter sow corn on an island in the middle of the Inguri River dividing Georgia from Abkhazia. The intense bond between nature and the two individuals is disturbed, however, by the arrival of the border police.

In the Ottoman province of Hijaz during World War I, a young Bedouin boy experiences a greatly hastened coming of age as he embarks on a perilous desert journey to guide a British officer to his secret destination. In 1916, in the Hejaz Province of the Ottoman Empire, the young Bedouin Theeb (Jacir Eid) is learning from his elder brother Hussein (Hussein Salameh) the skills for everyday survival in their harsh environment. Immersed in a way of life that has endured for centuries, the brothers are unaware of the tremendous upheavals taking place at the fringes of their world: the First World War is raging in Europe, the Ottoman Empire is coming undone, the Great Arab Revolt is brewing, and the British officer T.E. Lawrence is plotting with the Arab Prince Faisal to establish an Arab kingdom. When British officer Edward (Jack Fox) and his Bedouin guide Marji (Marji Audeh) stumble wayward into their tribe's camp, the two brothers' destiny is forever changed. Abiding by the Bedouin custom that guests cannot be refused aid, Hussein is assigned to accompany the two strangers to their destination - with the uninvited Theeb, eager for adventure, following close behind. The ensuing journey, filled with danger and hardship, will result in Theeb's greatly hastened maturation in a culture where a man's honour and righteousness determines his inclusion or expulsion from the community.

Jacob Kaplan lives an ordinary life. Nothing differentiates him from his other Jewish friends who fled Europe to South America because of WWII. Turning 70 has had a strange effect on him: he refuses to accept he is getting old. Grumpy, fed up with the new rabbi, his community and his family’s lack of interest in its own heritage, he embarks on an unusual and quixotic project: to capture a restaurant owner, who he is convinced is a runaway Nazi. Ignoring his wife’s concerns about his health, Jacob secretly recruits the help of a more loyal than honest police officer named Contreras. Together, they will try to emulate the historic case of Adolf Eichmann’s capture, to unmask and kidnap a quiet and elderly German man and secretly take him to Israel. In this way, he hopes to recover his family’s pride, dignity and prestige in the community. His journey triggers a number of curious situations, characters and events that all lead to a surprising and unexpected conclusion.

After studying literature at Cairo University, Dunia, 23 years old, wants to become a professional dancer. She attends audition for an oriental dance contest where she recites Arabian poetry without any body movement. She explains to the perplexed jury that a woman can't move her body or evoke act of love when society ask women to hide their femininity. She is selected and meets Beshir, an intellectual and activist who will supervise her thesis on ecstasy in Sufi love poetry. Their attraction is mutual. This could be liberation for Dunia but the constraints on women in Egyptian society goes deeper than she suspects.

CHINESE PORTRAIT investigates the current state of China, taking the audience on a journey to discover the complexity of the country through the path of one family. The film is entirely composed of fixed long shots and is narrated from the personal point of view of established Chinese director WANG Xiaoshuai. Tracing his ancestors’ movements both on his father and mother’s sides, Wang tracks the history of an ordinary Chinese family over the course of the tumultuous last century. Wang Xiaoshuai is our main character and guide throughout the film. He introduces us to people from all walks of life: from Beijing’s white-collar workers who work tirelessly in the grind of urban life, to rural ethnic minorities who have lived according to the same customs for generations.

A film that pays tribute to the history of cinema, via six episodes inspired by the different forms of cinematic art. Each episode has a genre. The first episode could be regarded as a B movie, the kind that Americans used to shoot with their eyes closed and now just can’t shoot anymore. The second episode is a sort of musical with a touch of mystery. The third episode is a spy movie. The fourth episode is difficult to describe. The fifth one is inspired by an old French film. The last one is about some captive women in the 19th century who return from the desert, from the Indians, after many years.

A woman visits her home on an island in the Tigre Delta in an attempt to reconnect with her son, but finds that returning and reconciliation are never easy, in this atmospheric family drama from Silvina Schnicer and Ulises Porra Guardiola.

Vlada works as a truck driver during the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Tasked with transporting a mysterious load from Kosovo to Belgrade, he drives through unfamiliar territory, surrounded by the consequences of the war. When his job is over, Vlada needs to return home and face the consequences of his actions.

Marcela’s world becomes strange and unfamiliar after her sister Rina dies. She feels lost in her own house, and her relationship with her husband and children seems to suffer. But when Nacho, a young friend of her daughter’s, unexpectedly drops by, she starts to talk and walk with him. Gradually Marcela begins to have conversations with relatives from another dimension.

A small coastal town in China has half-hearted ambitions to make more of its touristic potential. In one of the many, more or less interchangeable hotels along the beach, 12-year old Wen is the victim of and receptionist Mia a witness to a crime. Mia came to the town illegally and is frightened of reporting what she saw to the authorities. But she's not the only one who fears the consequences of what happened, and the net draws ever tighter around Mia and Wen. Vivian Qu's delicate neo-noir drama concentrates on the perspectives of the complex female figures to expose patriarchal structures.

After a short investigation, the police concludes that the shot that almost killed justice commissionner Constantino Zegarra was in fact a stray bullet. But Constantino, convinced that someone wants him out of the way, re-opens the investigation. This soon leads him to exceed his own powers to prove he is right.

At early age children begin to work in the Mexican countryside. The Inheritors is a portrait of theirs lives and their daily struggle for survival. These children work farming, sculpting and painting alebrijes, shepherding, making bricks, weaving cloth, looking after their little siblings, collecting water, harvesting tomato, chili, maize, and laboring in a myriad of other activities. They have inherited tools and techniques from their ancestors, but they have also inherited their day-by-day hardship. Generations pass and child workers remain captive in a cycle of inherited poverty.

Five teenagers, three boys and two girls, live in a refugee neighborhood south of Lima paradoxically known as Los Jardines del Paraíso, the gardens of paradise. Together with their parents, their share memories of wartime massacres between the army and the Shining Path. Despite their trauma, they yearn to move on with their life. But in an isolated world without opportunities, they have little hope of succeeding.

While editing her last film in Toronto, filmmaker Maria Teresa Larraín starts to lose her sight. She decides to experience her pain alone and close the doors to her past, convinced she’ll never be able to work as an artist again. However, the news of her mother’s passing means she returns to her native Chile, which she left behind 30 years back. Walking the streets of Santiago she gets to know a new world which inspires her: that of the blind street vendors of La Alameda, the city’s main avenue. A compelling journey into the depths of blindness in an autobiographic narration full of courage and a sense of humour when facing a new life.

This restrained and realistic record of a personal crisis slowly but surely acquires allegorical dimensions. After a failed marriage about which he doesn’t want to speak, a young man, Selim, returns from Istanbul to his birthplace, Izmir - which just happens to be the birthplace of the filmmaker, who refers in his first full-length feature to autobiographical material as well as the state of the country. Selim doesn’t seem able to pick up where he left off. He roams aimlessly through the city, has sex with a married former girlfriend and watches as his affluent father’s company is threatened with bankruptcy. But while the stink of a burning oil tanker drives a lot of people out of town, Selim seems to be one of the few who doesn’t mind. A strange encounter with someone who alleges he knows Selim from military service puts him in touch with new people from the poorer areas of Izmir.

Anina Yatay Salas is a pensive redhead who really does not like her name. Each part is a palindrome, which means it reads the same both forwards and backwards. Her schoolmates are always teasing her about this, especially Anina’s arch-enemy Yisel. When these two get into a playground fight one day they are sent to the school head who disciplines them with a nerve-racking punishment: they are both given a sealed black envelope which they are not allowed to open for an entire week. Haunted by nightmares, the days drag by endlessly for Anina. She and her inquisitive best friend try to devise all sorts of ways to discover what is inside the envelope. Gradually, Anina begins to realise that not only does Yisel share her fate: she also has much bigger problems to contend with than Anina. Tentatively, the two rivals begin to get to know each other. Narrated by the voice of the young protagonist, the film is able to follow Anina’s thought processes and provide an insight into her emotional world. Anina’s day-dreams are not always about her troubles and woes - they also reflect her awakening feelings of love.

Three women in a bus in Lebanon. They have the same destination: a men's penitentiary. The first woman wants to visit her husband whom she hasn't seen since their day of marriage. The second one has only one goal: to get her husband who has to serve a long sentence to sign the divorce papers and thus gain back her freedom. The third woman is afraid. She carries the gun that her husband, a prison guardian, has forgotten at home. A straight road seems to be leading them quickly to their destination: from Beirut centre to the Mermel prison in the desert. However, the journey becomes complicated. The sound of a stray bullet causes quite a stir and also indicates that dangerous and terrible things are going on in this country which is at civil war. There are rumours about a massacre. Groups of refugees are spotted. The journey of the three women continues, a journey to the inner self of the country.

An aging, Argentine, Serge Gainsbourg wannabe struggles to deal with a career he can't seem to get on track, an affair he doesn't want, and a crime he didn't mean to commit.

An old Laotian hermit discovers that the ghost of a road accident victim can transport him back in time fifty years to the moment of his mother's painful death. An atypical ghost story, The Long Walk takes unexpected turns as it traverses the distorted mind of someone who has suffered a deep childhood trauma. Mattie Do's camera and bold narrative gracefully combine to craft a film that defies categorization, confirming the director as a brave new artist in Southeast Asian cinema — a strong, singular voice in the male-dominated landscape of the region.

A woman, Luisa, and her 14 year-old daughter, a sleepwalker in the teenage awakening. A marriage at the edge of a silenced crisis. A ritualistic and endogamic family: grandmother, siblings, and cousins. Summer, sweat, alcohol. Naked bodies, bodies in transition and their gazes upon those new bodies. A New Year’s celebration in the family’s ancestral country home is the necessary trap to awaken the sleepwalkers.

Abu Shadi is a divorced father and a school teacher in his mid-60s living in Nazareth. After his daughter's wedding in one month he will be living alone. Shadi, his architect son, arrives from Rome after years abroad to help his father in hand delivering the wedding invitations to each guest as per local Palestinian custom. As the estranged pair spend the day together, the tense details of their relationship come to a head challenging their fragile and very different lives.

Sebastián (Rodrigo De la Serna, THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES) is a slacker who is not keen on getting a proper job, much to the disappointment of his wife. When Sebastián and his wife move to a new apartment, they constantly get wrong phone calls intended for a car service company. One day, Sebastián impulsively decides to answer the phone and pretends to be employed by the car service. Just like that, Sebastián has a new job and enjoys driving people in his beloved vintage Peugeot 505. He isn’t fond of one of his passengers, an elderly man named Jalil (Ernesto Suárez) who depends on Sebastián’s car services quite a bit; then one day, Jalil asks Sebastián to drive him almost 3000 kilometres, from Buenos Aires to La Paz, Bolivia. Sebastián agrees only for the money but as the two men take the long road journey, they encounter unexpected challenges which change their lives.

In coastal Kenya, a frenzied mix of consumerism & christianity is turning hundreds of families against their elders, branding them as witches as a means to steal their land. Filmed with a gentle pace and incredible closeness, The Letter is an intimate family portrait that weaves a complex story of shakespearean proportions.

Keti (36) and her son Nika (16) find themselves in a precarious situation when Nika hits an old man in a car accident. The victim’s family promises to refrain from pressing charges against Nika if he compensates their loss in cash. Within a single day Keti has to raise a large amount of money to prevent her son Nika from being imprisoned. An unexpected turn gives the drama a tragicomical air.

A small group of indigenous Bolivian soldiers, under the commandment of a retired German General, wander in the Chaco desert looking for the Paraguayan enemy that they haven’t seen for months, and that they will never find. The monotonous grey landscape of the forest confuses them. The lack of water and food pressures them and all of their decisions are wrong, weakening the group’s spirit and generating a violent and quarrelsome environment between all of them, officials and soldiers, to the point that they try and get rid of one another. They are overcome by despair and constant uncertainty.

In the middle of the Algerian sahara, in her relay, a woman writes her History. She welcomes, for a cigarette, a coffee or eggs, truckers, wandering beings and dreams... Her name is Malika.

Lebanon, July 2006. Israel is fighting Hezbollah. Even though Marwan is about to emigrate to Canada with his wife, Rana, he wants to take advantage of a brief ceasefire to get his father out of the war zone. But the fighting flares up again. Marwan, who becomes separated from the worried Rana, is forced to take refuge with two friends of his father in one of the few houses still standing. A desperate married couple join them. Suddenly, they hear the voices of Israeli soldiers above them, unaware of their downstairs 'neighbours'. As bombs rain down, the tension rises.

The cyclist Joana is involved in an odd accident, where she is carried on the hood of a car for a block. Joana decides to hide this incident from her partner Cecilia. When a strange video of the accident emerges, Joana's omission is exposed. She starts little by little to get involve in the life of the family who run over her.

In Costa Brava, Lebanon, the free-spirited Badri family escape the overwhelming pollution and social unrest of Beirut by seeking refuge in a utopic mountain home they built for themselves. Unexpectedly, an illegal garbage landfill begins construction right next door. With it comes the very trash and corruption they were trying to escape. As the landfill rises, so do family tensions. The Badris are left with a choice: stay off the grid or leave their idyllic home and face the reality they fled, hoping to stay true to their ideals.

Yuni is a teenage girl — smart with big dreams of attending university. When two men she barely knows ask to marry her, she rejects their proposals, sparking gossip about a myth that a woman who rejects three proposals will never marry. The pressure is building when a third man asks for her hand, and Yuni must choose between the myth of a final chance at marriage, or her dream of future happiness.

Samnang faces the demolition of his lifelong home in Phnom Penh coupled with pressures from family, friends, and neighbours, which all arise and intersect at this moment of sudden change.