A Simple Life

Ann Hui : 2011
Táo Jiě

Ah Tao has worked as an amah, a domestic servant, for the Leung family. Now, after 60 years of service, she is looking after Roger, who works in the film industry and is the only member of the family still resident in Hong Kong. One day Roger comes home from work to find that Tao has suffered a stroke. He rushes her to hospital, where she announces that she wants to quit her job and move into a nursing home. Roger researches the possibilities and finds her a room in an establishment run by an old friend. Tao moves in and begins acquainting herself with a new 'family'. Giving ever more time and attention to Tao's needs and pleasures, Roger comes to realise how much she means to him. His mother visits from California and suggests reclaiming an apartment building the family owns to provide Tao with a final home of her own. But as Tao's health begins to deteriorate rapidly, Roger slowly transforms from the detached single man to the devoted carer of an elderly servant, as if she were his own mother. Based on real people and events, a moving story of unsung heroism and everyday love. This award winning film premiered at La Biennale di Venezia 2011.

Redemption Street

Miroslav Terzić : 2012
Ustanička ulica

Dušan is the new deputy prosecutor in the Special Court for War Crimes in Belgrade. He is given the task to investigate a paramilitary formation, the First Pioneer's unit, that was operating on the battlefields in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, where they disappeared without a trace. Dušan is determined to bring the case to an end and to show his father, a famous retired professor at the law faculty, but to his boss too, that he is capable for this job. This becomes for Dušan much more than a simple case – it becomes a personal confrontation. A political thriller, Miroslav Terzić's debut feature premiered in competition at Sarajevo Film Festival 2012, where it won the award for Best Actor.

Après mai

Olivier Assayas : 2012
Something in the Air

Paris region, in the early 1970s. Reacting to the rapid social change and political activism following the May '68 protests, eighteen-year-old student Gilles is caught up in both the political ferment and creativity of his time. Like his comrades, he is torn between a radical commitment and more personal aspirations, but above all he wants to paint and make films. From romantic encounters to artistic discoveries, which will lead them to Italy, then to London, Gilles and his friends will have to make decisive choices to find their place during some of the most defining moments of the post-war period. As the weight of reality presses down on him, issues of personal responsibility and the nature of idealism will cause him to question his actions and his hopes for the future. The film premiered in competition at La Biennale di Venezia 2012, where it won the award for Best Screenplay.

Found Memories

Júlia Murat : 2011
Histórias que só existem quando lembradas

Every morning Madalena makes bread for Antonio's old coffee shop. And every day she crosses the railroads where no trains have passed for years, cleans up the gate of the locked cemetery, listens to the priest's sermon and then shares lunch with the other old villagers. Clinging to the memory of her dead husband and living in her past, Madalena is awakened by the arrival of Rita, a young photographer who comes to the village of Jotuomba where time seems to have stopped and people are stuck in their memories and daily routines. With her homemade pinhole camera and boundary-pushing curiosity, Rita slowly endears herself to the village, imbuing it with new life while it subtly claims her own. Stories that only exist when remembered. This beautifully photographed narrative feature by documentary maker Júlia Murat is a melancholy ode to the heydays of Brazil's Paraíba Valley, once a flourishing region that prospered from its coffee plantations, now a derelict area full of empty estates, ghost towns and the stories of its remaining inhabitants.

Habermann

Juraj Herz : 2010

It is 1937, in a small village in Sudetenland. The saw mill owner August Habermann, a Sudeten German, is the biggest employer in his village and a respected and rich man. He marries Jana, a young, beautiful Czech woman. The fact that she is half Jewish does not really bother him. Habermann is not interested in politics or ideology, least of all the national socialist one. Just like his best friend, the Czech forester Brezina. In his mill, Habermann employs German and Czechs alike, he speaks both languages and is deeply attached to the country where both nationalities have lived for centuries. However, when the German army invades his town, he is forced to compromise in a futile attempt to protect Jana and his employees, setting off a chain of violent events which lead to tragedy. Based on true events, depicted in the novel by Josef Urban, the film addresses the taboo subject of the atrocities during the so-called "wild transfer" of Czechoslovakia's German population immediately after World War II.

Abrir puertas y ventanas

Milagros Mumenthaler : 2011
Back to Stay

In Buenos Aires the summer is drawing to a close. Following the death of the grandmother who raised them, sisters Marina, Sofía and Violeta live alone in their family home, each trying to deal with her absence in their own way. Marina concentrates on her studies whilst looking after the household, whereas Sofía becomes obsessed by her appearance and goes out with friends. As for Violeta, she wanders around between bedroom and sitting room where, from time to time, she receives an older man. The rhythm of this period of transition and uncertainty is determined by disagreements, laughter, mean remarks and affectionate gestures. But beyond the teasing, there is the urge of each of the three sisters to separate, an urge to be different, to be unique and to find an identity beyond the experiences that bind them. Suddenly, one autumn day Violeta disappears without warning, leaving only a letter for her sisters. Winner of the Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival 2011.

Akam

Shalini Usha Nair : 2011

Srinivasan is a young and talented architect with a good job and a lovely girlfriend, Tara. But following a car accident in which Srini is seriously injured and scarred, Tara leaves him, and with his life shattered along with his confidence, Srini withdraws into a shell. Then he meets Ragini who is willing to accept him in spite of his physical disfigurement. They marry and spend a brief period of shared happiness, but after a while, doubts and confusion begin to creep into Srini's mind about her true identity and he is left with the suspicion that his beautiful wife is a yakshi. Examining the psyche of a man who is torn between bourgeois happiness, physical and mental pain and a rising delusional phobia, Shalini Usha Nair's first feature is a contemporary retelling of the 1967 psycho-thriller novel Yakshi by Malayattoor Ramakrishnan. Though embedded in the Malayalee psyche and firmly rooted in the culture of Kerala, the story is a glimpse into the universal phenomenon of the demonisation of female sexuality that is found in the myths of cultures around the world.

Navidad

Sebastián Lelio : 2009
Christmas

It's Christmas Eve, Aurora and Alejandro have run away to a secluded cabin in the hills outside Santiago, where she once lived and now her mother has sold with everything in it, including furniture and its many memories. She's there with the excuse of recovering some of her dead father's records. The two friends confront one another over the mysterious Luisa, a girl who has been sending Aurora love letters. Alejandro becomes jealous and paranoid about Aurora's secret relationship, and her plans to spend New Year's Eve with Luisa in Argentina. Alejandro is no longer interested in a relationship and leaves the cabin, but finds 15-year-old Alicia, unconscious in the greenhouse, running from home and searching for her father, whom she never met. Aurora persuades Alejandro to stay and the couple nurse Alicia back to health, becoming more and more intrigued by this attractive and waifish young woman – a three-way attraction simmering beneath their fascination. From now on, the three will only have each other, as orphans, each one in their own way, eventually discovering a closeness that will soothe their alienation and loneliness, even if only for the night.

Róża

Wojciech Smarzowski : 2011

Summer 1945. The end of World War II brought continuing chaos and violence for Poles living in former East Prussia, the lands that had belonged to Germany and after the war were granted to Poland. This harrowing tale of survival centres on Róża, a Masurian woman whose German soldier husband was killed in the war, leaving her alone on their farm. As a single woman she had no defence against Russian soldiers who raped as a form of revenge, nor against plundering Poles who found themselves in desperate straits. The law of the jungle had replaced the rule of law. Help arrives for Róża in the form of Tadeusz, a former officer in the Polish Home Army who survived the Warsaw uprising and is attempting to hide his identity. Against the background of a landscape devastated by war, where hope has become a propaganda tool, two people from distant worlds meet and love is born. This award winning drama explores the suffering of the Masurian population, considered traitors by everyone, and also the fate of the forlorn wartime women, who, whilst not cannon fodder were fodder for sexual abuse.

Your Beauty is Worth Nothing...

Hüseyin Tabak : 2012
Deine Schönheit ist nichts wert...

Twelve-year-old Veysel, who came to Vienna from Turkey with his parents, feels like a stranger in his new country. At school he doesn't understand the language, and at home his family is on the verge of crisis. The one bright spot on Veysel's horizon is his great love Ana, a classmate who knows nothing of his feelings. Only when Veysel meets his neighbour Cem, who teaches him how to say a poem in German for school, does he work up the courage to recite this to Ana, his secret love. The film draws on the contrast between the idyllic notions that fill the boy's head and the difficult living conditions within an immigrant community trying to integrate, whilst constantly under threat of deportation. Writer/director Hüseyin Tabak's graduation project from the Vienna Film Academy premiered in competition at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2012.

La dame de trèfle

Jérôme Bonnell : 2009
The Queen of Clubs

Aurélien and Argine have never managed to part ways. Orphans in their late twenties searching for an identity. The bond between brother and sister remains child-like since they have always lived together and never come to terms with the loss of their parents. Aurélien secretly supplements his income by selling off stolen metal. One night, his accomplice Simon suddenly arrives. Wanted by the police, he demands money and starts threatening them. After a brief struggle Aurélien accidentally kills Simon in self-defence and leaves the body in a ditch. It's the beginning of things spiralling out of control for Aurélien, the encounter with his own violence.