Berlinale Winners

Aden, Yemen. Isra’a and Ahmed put all their efforts offering a normal life and education to their three young children. When they find out that Isra'a is pregnant again, they have to make difficult decisions guided only by their family's interest.

Black dust, shrill metallic noises, dark tunnels, muscular bodies – all that is the past. At the end of 2018, extraction of coal throughout Germany came to an end. That same year, the voices of the emerging climate protest movement Fridays for Future grew louder. Against the backdrop of these media and socio-political events, the film follows five miners on their tragic, humorous and heartwarming search for a new role in life.

"Sterben" follows the very individual members of the Lunies family, who haven’t been a family for a long time. Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) is quietly happy about her demented husband Gerd (Hans-Uwe Bauer) slowly wasting away in a home. But her new freedom is short-lived: Diabetes, cancer and kidney failure mean that she doesn't have much time left either. Son Tom (Lars Eidinger), a conductor in his early 40s, is working on a composition called "Sterben", while at the same time being made the surrogate father of his ex-girlfriend’s child. And Tom's sister Ellen (Lilith Stangenberg) starts an affair with the married Sebastian (Ronald Zehrfeld), with whom she shares a love for alcohol. As Death finally turns up on the doorstep, the estranged family members finally meet again. Matthias Glasner's family epic features an outstanding cast and performances by Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch and other acting greats. It was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the 2024 Berlinale. Tender and brutal, absurdly funny and extremely sad, terribly bitter and sometimes surprisingly beautiful: "Sterben" is a film about the intensity of life in the face of death and transience.

Larks on a String is a Czech film directed by Jiří Menzel. The movie was banned by the Czechoslovak government. It saw release in 1990 after the fall of the Communist regime. Menzel tells the stories of various characters considered bourgeois by Czechoslovakia's communist government in the 1950s, who have been forced to work in a junkyard for the purposes of re-education.

Jia Zhang-ke’s debut film tells the story of pickpocket Xiao Wu, who drifts aimlessly through the streets of the poor and dirty small town of Fenyang. He tries to hide his insecurity and lack of prospects behind a pair of big glasses and a cool demeanour but is increasingly losing his footing. His former friend Xiao Yong doesn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore; his love Mei Mei, who he met in a dingy karaoke bar, runs off with a richer man; and Xiao Wu’s father, who lives in a small mountain village, throws him out of the house after a fight. In the end, Xiao Wu is caught and handcuffed and taken away in full view of everyone on the whole street. Largely filmed with an ensemble of amateur actors, Xiao Wu draws a bleak picture of everyday life in China. The film premiered in the Berlinale Forum in 1998 and was an instant hit, making the director famous overnight.

Cocó is eight years old and no longer wants to be called by her birth name, Aitor. But on summer vacation with her family in the Basque country, her wish is ignored by almost everyone, especially her traditional grandmother. Her mother Ane tries to be there for her child despite her own challenges, but Cocó only really is met with understanding by her unwavering great-aunt, who is a beekeeper. This gives Cocó the self-confidence she needs to stand up for her own identity and its acceptance. "20'000 especies de abejas" is a touching feature film debut in which women from three generations deal with questions of identity. Director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren manages to show the complexity of family and identity in a sensitive way. The film is carried by Sofía Otero, who was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actress at this year's Berlinale for her portrayal of Cocó.

For as long as they can remember, the Solé family has spent every summer picking the peaches in their orchard in Alcarràs, a small village in Spain’s Catalonia region. But this year’s crop may well be their last, as they face eviction. The new plans for the land, which include cutting down the peach trees and installing solar panels, cause a rift in this large, tight-knit family. For the first time, they face an uncertain future and risk losing more than their orchard.

Emi, a school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked on the Internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, Emi refuses to surrender to their pressure.

Heshmat, an exemplary husband and father, gets up very early every day. Where does he go? Pouya cannot imagine killing another man, yet he is told he must do so. Javad doesn’t know that proposing to his beloved won’t be the only surprise on her birthday. Bahram is a physician but is unable to practice medicine. He has decided to explain to his visiting niece the reason for his life as an outcast. The four stories that comprise Sheytan vojud nadarad (There Is No Evil) offer variations on the crucial themes of moral strength and the death penalty, asking to what extent individual freedom can be expressed under a despotic regime and its seemingly inescapable threats. Mohammad Rasoulof only creates a loose narrative link between these stories, and yet they are all tragically and inexorably connected. In the context of structural oppression, choice seems to be limited to either resisting or surviving. But with each abruptly interrupted story, we are urged to consider how men and women can assert their freedom even in such situations.

Rabiye Kurnaz is someone you might generally call an ordinary woman, except that she is a real dynamo. Taking care of her children and much more, she is the one running the show in her terraced house in Bremen. Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, her son Murat is accused of terrorism and is (one of the first) shipped off to Guantanamo prison camp. This marks the beginning of a journey into the heart of world politics for this resolute German-Turkish woman. Together with human rights lawyer Bernhard Docke, whom she soon has completely on her side (like almost everyone around her), she battles for the release of her son – using her very own brand of self-taught English – all the way to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. Cologne-based comedienne, author, presenter and much more Meltem Kaptan is the perfect fit for Andreas Dresen’s special talent for combining explosive topics (in this case based on actual events) and the everyday concerns of the average citizen. Kaptan’s, or rather Rabiye’s, performance is overwhelming, and not just for the lawyer (played by Alexander Scheer) who quickly becomes a friend. A portrait of a passionate woman who holds the steering wheel of her beloved vehicle as firmly in her hand as she does the reins in this turbo-charged film.

‘We’re waiting to grow old’. This sentence briefly sums up Yaoyun and his wife Liyun’s bitter realisation about their lives. They were once a happy family – until their son drowned playing by a reservoir. And so Yaojun and Liyun leave their home and plunge into the big city, although nobody knows them there and they cannot even understand the local dialect. Their adopted son Liu Xing does not offer them the comfort they had hoped for either. Defiantly rejecting his ‘foreign’ parents, he one day disappears altogether. The married couple are repeatedly enmeshed in their memories. Finally, they decide to return to the site of their lost hopes. In this family saga spanning three decades of Chinese history, the private and the political merge and the individual gets caught up in the gears of a society in the throes of constant change. Part melodrama, part critique of the times, this film takes us from the country’s upheaval in the 1980s following the Cultural Revolution to the prospering turbo-capitalism of the present day. Told in sweeping tableaux, it makes visible the deep scars that lie beneath the surface of an ostensibly unbroken success story.

In the week leading up to their 45th wedding anniversary, the Mercers’ get news that causes a crisis in their marriage. The remains of a woman have been found in the Swiss Alps; the body is Katya, Geoff’s former girlfriend, who died in an accident on the glacier 50 years ago. Geoff’s wife Kate is unnerved as she realises that her husband still clings to memories of the dead woman, worrying that she was never more than “second choice”. When Kate looks through stuff Geoff has stored in the attic, she discovers his secret … Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay deliver confident performances in this story of how a crack in faraway, seemingly permanent ice can shatter the tectonics of a marriage that appears completely intact on the surface. With few words and almost imperceptible gestures, they reveal Kate and Geoff standing at the edge of an abyss. The actors’ nuanced portrayals of an ageing couple questioning a relationship that has lasted almost half a century, and struggling to reassure themselves of its future, were rewarded with Silver Bears for acting at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival.

Sara and Jean have been in a loving, stable relationship for ten years. They are happy. He is her rock, someone she can hold on to. When they first met, Sara was in a relationship with François, Jean’s best friend. One day, Sara sees François on the street. He does not see her, but she is overwhelmed by a sensation that her life could suddenly change. François does indeed get in touch with Jean to suggest that they work together again. Before long, things are in danger of spiralling out of control. "Avec amour et acharnement" is Claire Denis’s third collaboration with acclaimed writer Christine Angot, with whom she wrote "Un beau soleil intérieur", which also starred Juliette Binoche. In a performance that is just as brave and committed, the actor proves to be exceptionally supple as her body becomes the terrain for a captivating theatre of emotional opposites. Eric Gautier’s precise cinematography shows us contrasting images of fingers comfortably intertwined, but also Sara’s entire body in forward motion, erupting in deep, uncontrollable moans. Encircled by a wall of passionate flames, Denis’s protagonists appear to be under siege, seemingly oblivious to society and its inexorable tendency to separate all things into opposing categories.

A small holiday house by the baltic sea. The days are hot and it hasn’t rained in weeks. Four young people come together (Thomas Schubert, Langston Uibel, Paula Beer and Enno Trebs), friends old and new. As the parched forests around them begin to ignite, so do their emotions. Happiness, lust and love; but also jealousies, resentments and tensions. Meanwhile the forests burn. And before long, the flames are there. Christian Petzold’s «Roter Himmel» was the winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

In 16th-century Japan, two rival clans wage war against each other. Two poor, greedy peasants try to bypass the front lines and return home. Stumbling across a piece of gold hanging from a tree, they are convinced they are on the trail of the vanquished clan's treasure. In their hunt for the loot, they are surprised by a man who is none other than General Rokurota (Toshiro Mifune). They follow the same route, but it is fraught with pitfalls, as the two peasants only manage to make mistakes in their haste to escape with the gold. Kurosawa's first film produced in CinemaScope, it was primarily aimed at the general public, recounting an epic adventure with plenty of humor and gags. Kurosawa was determined to make this film a success so that he could go on to make more personal films and while it's certainly the most mainstream film he ever made, its quality is on a par with that of his other works. "The Hidden Fortress" gained new notoriety after George Lucas revealed that he had drawn inspiration from it for "Star Wars" by telling a story from the point of view of the weaker characters (in this case, the peasants who become the two droids in Lucas' film).

Situated some 200km off Italy's southern coast, Lampedusa has hit world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants hoping to make a new life in Europe. Rosi spent months living on the Mediterranean island, capturing its history, culture and the current everyday reality of its 6,000-strong local population as hundreds of migrants land on its shores on a weekly basis. The resulting documentary focuses on 12-year-old Samuele, a local boy who loves to hunt with his slingshot and spend time on land even though he hails from a culture steeped in the sea.

Marina (Daniela Vega) and Orlando (Francisco Reyes) are in love and planning for the future. When Orlando suddenly dies, Marina faces the hostility of his relatives: a "holy family" that rejects everything Marina stands for. She fights back, with the same energy she has always needed to invest in order to become the woman she is: a complex, strong, forthright and fantastic woman. Director Sebastián Lelio has succeeded – not least thanks to Daniela Vega's fantastic performance – in creating a mixture of thriller, love story, documentary, revenge film and sensitive character study, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018.

Seven-year-old Sol spends the day at her grandfather’s home, helping her aunts Nuri and Alejandra with the preparations for a surprise party they are throwing for Sol’s father, Tonatiuh. As daylight fades, a strange and chaotic atmosphere takes over, shattering the bonds that hold a family together. Sol will come to understand that her world is about to change dramatically, embracing the essence of letting go and cherishing the breath of life.

New technologies are transforming a 19th-century watchmaking town in Switzerland. Josephine, a young factory worker, produces the unrest wheel, swinging in the heart of the mechanical watch. Exposed to new ways of organizing money, time and labour, she gets involved with the local movement of the anarchist watchmakers, where she meets Russian traveller Pyotr Kropotkin.

Alma is a scientist at Berlin's famous Pergamon Museum. In order to obtain research funds for her studies, she accepts an offer to participate in an extraordinary experiment. For three weeks, she must live with a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence designed to allow it to morph into that of her ideal life partner. Enter Tom, a machine in human form, created to make her happy.

At the end of the Second World War, the Pestalozzi Children's Village in Trogen brings together orphans from many different nations. When the order arrives from Poland that the Polish children must return to their country, it comes as a shock to 13-year-old Andrzey: he does not want to leave Anja, for whom he has developed a strong affection. The two children decide to flee and go into hiding... Longer Swiss version with more Swiss German passages than the international version, as it was shown in Swiss cinemas.

As with the rest of his oeuvre, duplication and mirroring of female characters once again informs Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest work, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy. It would not be out of place to make a literary analogy and, if one were to regard his two previous films (Drive my Car, Asako I & II) as novels, this new work could be described as a collection of short stories. The film’s recurring rhythm amplifies this effect. The three episodes, which each revolve around a woman, are in turn divided into three movements, like a piece of music. They tell stories of an unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction trap, and an encounter that results from a misunderstanding. The fragmentation serves to emphasise rather than undermine the exquisitely organic storytelling and mise en scène. Although most of the action takes place in a single space and involves just two actors, not once does it feel like filmed theatre. The secret lies not only in the writing, but also in the notion of a more complex temporality in each episode that flirts with science fiction in the final instalment. The moments we witness are crystallised into touching universal destinies marked by choices, regrets, deception and coincidences. They are the film’s true protagonists.

The 1960s in Indonesia were a period of dramatic political change and turmoil, with Suharto’s coup ousting Sukarno and leading to a violent anti-communist purge. Nana, a gentle, beautiful young woman, has been badly affected by the conflict. Her husband was kidnapped and taken into the forest. Although she managed to escape from the gang leader who wanted to force her to marry him, the incident cost her father his life and drove her into poverty. Several years later, she is living comfortably as the second wife of a rich Sundanese man, with a maid to help her adjust to her new environment. But Nana’s past re-emerges in her dreams. Kamila Andini’s elegant direction effectively adopts her protagonist’s point of view, integrating her trauma into the film’s narration. Played with subtlety by Happy Salma, the secretive Nana seems never quite certain about her husband’s death and her memories are, perhaps for her own good, not always complete. This ambiguity informs the film and, combined with lush cinematography and a deep sense of nostalgia, makes Nana an elegiac wonder. At its heart lies an unexpected female friendship that feels like a crucial lifeline among the sea of adversities caused by men’s brutality.

Youngho tries to find a way between his dream of becoming an actor and his parents' expectations. While his girlfriend leaves to study in Berlin, the young man sees the opportunity for a fresh start.

Lisa is moving. Upheaval all around: Her mother flirts with a handyman. An eccentric woman seems to be preparing for a glamorous event. A family next door returns from vacation. And a girl documents the adventurous day. As boxes are transported, walls painted white, and furniture is assembled, underlying problems in need of fixing are revealed, a to-do list expands, and desires and needs flair up... A tragicomic catastrophe film. A poetic ballad about change and transience. After The Strange Little Cat, this is the second part of a planned trilogy about human togetherness.

A poker-playing restaurateur and former traveling salesman befriends a group of refugees newly arrived to Finland.

Undine is a historian who works as a museum guide in Berlin. She knows all about the Humboldt Forum, and has the knack of choosing just the right blouse and suit. She is nonchalantly beautiful, and the way she imparts her knowledge about the city that was built on a swamp is as professional as it is graceful. And yet, time and again, her gaze wanders over to the courtyard café at the Stadtmuseum to see if he is there, or is still there, or if he’s there again. Him. But Johannes is leaving, leaving her, and Undine’s world is collapsing. The magic has gone... Christian Petzold reworks the myth of the mysterious water spirit as a modern fairy-tale in a disenchanted world. His Undine defies her role as a powerless and spurned woman and falls in love anew, with Christoph, who dives into the sunken world of a reservoir. Petzold’s deeply assured work reimagines this legend by way of his own cinematic vision, in which precise everyday gestures are combined with ghostly hyperrealism. The story of a life-or-death love, splendidly and effortlessly told.

She is small, but dangerous. Wherever Benni ends up, she is immediately expelled. The wild 9-year-old girl has already become what child protection services call a “system crasher.” And she is certainly not looking to change her ways. Because Benni has one single goal: to be back at home with her mommy! But Bianca is scared of her own daughter. Mrs. Bafané from child protection services is trying her best to find a permanent placement for Benni. She hires the anger management trainer Micha as Benni's school escort and suddenly there is a seed of hope. Will Micha be able to succeed where all others failed?

A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive…

At the end of the Second World War, the Pestalozzi Children's Village in Trogen brings together orphans from many different nations. When the order arrives from Poland that the Polish children must return to their country, it comes as a shock to 13-year-old Andrzey: he does not want to leave Anja, for whom he has developed a strong affection. The two children decide to flee and go into hiding... English international version as it was shown in cinemas worldwide.

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.

Six-year-old Yusuf has just begun attending primary school where he is learning how to read and write. His father, Yakup, is a beekeeper. He goes about his trade deep inside the woods where he hangs up his bee hives in the treetops of the highest trees. The mountain forest is a place of deep mystery to Yusuf and he derives great pleasure from accompanying his father there. One morning Yusuf tells his father about a dream he had the night before. Yakup turns on him curtly telling him never to share his dreams with others. The same day, Yusuf is asked to read out a text in front of the class. He suddenly begins to stutter and he is laughed at by the rest of the class. One day the bees suddenly disappear, throwing into question the family’s means of earning a living. Yakup decides to set off for the remote mountains. But no sooner has he left, than Yusuf stops speaking. His mother Zehra, who works on a tea plantation, suffers a great deal on ac count of her son’s sudden loss of speech, but is unable to persuade him to speak. The days pass - and still Yakup does not return. Mother and son begin to worry. Yusuf goes to his grandmother’s place in a neighbouring village where he spends the magical night during which the prophet’s arrival is celebrated. When he hears the story of the prophet he is convinced that his father, with whom he identifies the holy man, will come home again. Yusuf and his mother set off on a fruitless search for signs of his father’s whereabouts after which Yusuf decides to continue the search for his father on his own. His is a journey into the unknown. Will the dream he had be - come reality?

The sweltering summer heat beats down on a sterile residential estate in the suburbs of Rome. Many a family lives here that no longer belongs anywhere. There is a mysterious sense of unease that can explode at any moment. Parents are constantly frustrated because they are not from a better suburb, and the kind of middle-class life they had hoped for is beyond their reach. But their children are the real protagonists of the shock wave that propels the entire estate towards collapse. An almost atavistic rage glimmers in the relationships and events portrayed in the directors' rigorous mise-en-scène. An unreliable narrator guides us, sweetly and sarcastically, through this dark fairy tale. A story about women and men who see their hopes and dreams falling by the wayside all too soon

Alexandre lives in Lyon with his wife and children. One day, he discovered by chance that the priest who abused him to scouts always officiates with children. He then starts a fight, quickly joined by François and Emmanuel, also victims of the priest, to "release their word" on what they suffered.

Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. She has already made all the necessary arrangements. Nader, however, is having second thoughts. He is worried about leaving behind his father, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. For this reason he decides to call off the trip altogether. As a result of Nader’s decision, Simin decides to sue for divorce at the family court. When her request is rejected, however, she refuses to live with Nader, moving instead into her parents’ home. Termeh decides to stay with her father, hoping that her mother will soon come back to live with them.Nader finds it difficult to cope with the new situation - not least because it turns out to be so time-consuming. And so he hires a young woman named Razieh to look after his father. This young woman is pregnant and has accepted the job without her husband’s knowledge. One day, Nader arrives home to find that not only has his father been left alone, he has also been tied to a table! When Razieh returns, a blazing row ensues, the tragic consequences of which not only shatter Nader’s life, but also the image his daughter Termeh has of her father.

Two introverted people find out by pure chance that they share the same dream every night. They are puzzled, incredulous, a bit frightened. As they hesitantly accept this strange coincidence, they try to recreate in broad daylight what happens in their dream.

Jo, a witty 9-year old terminally ill girl is taken back to her rural village to live out the rest of her short life. Her only comfort during these dull times are her dreams of being a Superhero, which prove to be something her rebellious teenage sister Mwix, overprotective mother Kathryn and the entire village of Maweni think they can fulfill.

Félicité is a proud and independent woman who works as a singer in a bar in Kinshasa. Whenever she goes on stage, she appears to leave the world and her everyday worries behind. Her audiences are quickly infected by the rhythm of her music and her powerful, melancholy melodies. But then one day Félicité’s son has a terrible accident. Whilst he is in hospital she desperately tries to raise the money needed for his operation. A breathless tour through the impoverished streets and the wealthier districts of the Congolese capital ensues. One of the bar’s regulars is a man named Tabu who has been known to get carried away in every sense of the term. Tabu offers to help Félicité. Reluctantly, she accepts. After his spell in hospital, Félicité’s son has a hard time picking up his old life, but it is lady’s man Tabu of all people who manages to coax him out of his shell. Félicité’s sparsely furnished flat with its permanently defunct fridge becomes a mini utopia in a country that holds no hope for most of its population. The trio forms an eccentric community thrown together by fate, each of whom is free to go their separate ways together.

After her mother's death, six-year-old Frida is sent to her uncle's family to live with them in the countryside. But Frida finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life.

Since their parents split up, Sara and her younger sister live with their mother, whose new partner is a woman. Everyday life for the four of them is hardly any different than it is for other families. The situation is actually totally fine with Sara. But not everyone sees it that way - her father in particular has his doubts. As Sara’s 13th birthday approaches, she’s feeling rather overwhelmed: her first crush, a body in the midst of changes and to top it off, conflicts over loyalty with her parents ... Everything feels wrong. The empathetic feature-length debut of director Pepa San Martín is based on a true story.

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.

Janusz is not a man to be easily shocked. As coroner he undertakes precise research, analysing the crime scene in minute detail. Despite the extreme situations he comes up against, he works hard. Perhaps too hard. Yet when faced with his anorexic daughter Olga, still grieving for her dead mother, he feels helpless. Fearing that she might kill herself, he commits her to a clinic where Anna, a psychologist, carries out her duties. Years before, Anna lost her baby to cot-death and now sequesters herself and her big dog in a heavily barricaded flat and conjures up spirits who communicate with the living from beyond the grave. Małgorzata Szumowska works with elements of black comedy to tell of the difficulties people encounter when struggling to cope with the loss of loved ones. The film explores the fear of and yet longing for intimacy, self-harm due to mental anguish and escaping into the esoteric. A complex meditation on the loneliness of the heart and the conflict between the rational and belief in a supernatural universe.

Aleksei is willing to do anything to escape Belarus. He travels to Paris and enlists in the Foreign Legion. He is sent to fight in the Niger Delta, where the young revolutionary Jomo is fighting the oil companies that have devastated his village. While Aleksei looks for a new family in the legion, Jomo imagines becoming a dancer, a disco boy. In the jungle, their dreams and destinies will cross. Giacomo Abbruzzese’s hypnotic debut work was greeted as a breath of fresh air at the Berlinale and awarded the Silver Bear for Hélène Louvart’s cinematography. Franz Rogowski’s usual intense acting is in harmony with the examination of the simultaneity of different lifeworlds, blurred boundaries, and the demand for new, contemporary stories in this drama about a foreign legionnaire.

The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.

A Roma family living far away from the urban centres of Bosnia- Herzegovina. The father Nazif salvages metal from old cars and sells it to a scrap-dealer. The mother Senada keeps the house tidy, cooks, bakes and cares for their two small daughters. One day, she feels a sharp pain in her abdomen. At the clinic she is told there is something wrong with the baby she is carrying: "They say it’s dead." She is at risk of septicaemia and they must operate immediately. But Senada has no medical insurance; since the operation will cost much more than the family can afford the hospital’s head refuses to treat her. A race against time and Senada’s mounting sense of hopelessness begins ... Danis Tanović weaves these dramatic events, his protagonists’ economic hardship and fear of death into a wintery tale. The fact that the non-professional cast are re-enacting an episode from their own lives contributes greatly to the film’s sense of authenticity and social realism. At the same time, the film demonstrates one Roma family’s extraordinary courage and unerring will to survive.

Gloria is a 58-year-old divorcée. Her children have all left home but she has no desire to spend her days and nights alone. Determined to defy old age and loneliness, she rushes headlong into a whirl of singles’ parties on the hunt for instant gratification – which only leads to repeated disappointment and enduring emptiness. But when Gloria meets Rodolfo, an ex-naval officer seven years her senior, she begins to imagine the possibility of a permanent relationship.

After having spent many years in Germany, Ahmad returns to his native Iran for a holiday. His friends from his student days organise a three-day break on the Caspian Sea. One of the party, a fun-loving woman named Sepideh takes the matter in hand. Unbeknown to the rest of the group, she has also invited a young woman named Elly, who is a nursery school teacher at her daughter’s kindergarten. Ahmad has just emerged from an unhappy marriage and is now divorced from his German wife. He would very much like to begin a new life with an Iranian woman. His friends are aware of his desire and it gradually dawns on them that this is why Sepideh has asked Elly to accompany them on their trip. The others all begin to lavish their attentions on Elly, singing her prai - ses unequivocally. But then, on the second day of their holiday, something happens and Elly disappears. All at once their light-hearted mood evaporates. The friends begin to agonise about the whys and wherefores of Elly’s disappearance, bringing to an abrupt end the sense of harmony that once pervaded their get-together. They contact Elly’s parents, but when they learn that they have no news of Elly’s whereabouts their anxiety begins to turn into panic. Carefully, the friends begin to go over the conversations of the previous day and their phone calls to Elly’s relatives, trying to identify a moment that could give them a lead. Finally, they blame Sepideh for having invited Elly in the first place and ruining their holiday. During the course of just two days, their opinion of Elly has turned about face. Until, on the last day of their holiday, the truth emerges.

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...

The young priest Don Giulio left his first parish on the small Italian island of Ponza. Here he spent ten happy years: he shared the joys and sorrows of the villagers, was their friend and advisor. His new church is located in a middle-class district of Rome, where his parents, brothers and sisters and his old friends from their student days also live. Here, too, he hopes to be able to help the people, but his optimism is soon destroyed. Not even his closest relatives can save him from disaster: his father leaves the family because of a younger woman, and his mother commits suicide. Finally, Don Giulio resigns and is transferred to a remote village in the mountains, where he hopes to be useful.

Christian, a reclusive young man from Leipzig, gets a job working the night shift at a big-box store. He's trained to stocks goods and operate a forklift by Bruno, a wistful former truck driver, who introduces Christian to a colorful group of overnight workers, including Marion, with whom Christian develops a troubled infatuation.

Chela and Chiquita have been a couple for a very long time. Over the years they have become adapted to a fixed allocation of roles. Extroverted Chiquita is responsible for managing their life together. Chela on the other hand is reluctant to leave the house, preferring to spend the day at her easel. Financial difficulties force them to sell some of their inherited furniture, each part of which is a beloved piece of memorabilia. When Chiquita is sent to prison for debt, Chela is suddenly left on her own. She uses her old Daimler to provide a taxi service to wealthy older ladies in the neighbourhood. In her new role as chauffeur, she meets one of these ladies’ daughters – the young and life-affirming Angy. The encounter lures the rather passive Chela out of her reserve and helps her rediscover her own desires. Exploring the outside world as tentatively and carefully as its heroine, the film increasingly trains its gaze on a social strata that is strangely cut-off from reality and lives without a thought for tomorrow. However, when Chela visits her girlfriend in prison, a completely different picture emerges of conditions in Paraguay.