Pora umierać

A film by Dorota Kędzierzawska

Time to Die is the story of the elderly Aniela and her life in what once was a grand and beautiful house. During the Communist regime she was forced to share her home with other comrades, but as the last of them leaves her house Aniela is left alone with only her border collie, Philadelphia, her attentive and constant companion. Her 50-year-old son, Wituś, occasionally visits, accompanied by his overweight 10-year-old daughter who Aniela finds a spoiled, demanding and undisciplined brat. Aniela blames her daughter-in-law, Marzenka, for her son's and granddaughter's laziness.

To one side of her lives a family who host a rather noisy children's music club that Aniela spies on daily and she is often taunted by and bothered by the local kids. On the other side is a nouveau riche couple, apparently scheming with Aniela's cold-hearted and greedy son to buy her old timber house, demolish it and build a modern apartment building on its site. Everybody it seems wants Aniela's house, or her land, so she finds a way to outsmart them all. Aniela is no fool – as she spies and learns of her neighbours' ways and true intentions she is always ahead of the game, and some surprises may yet be in store for those who are not wise to her thinking and abilities.

Throughout much of the film, which is shot entirely in black and white, we follow Aniela inside her house, with fractured views at the hostile world outside through its multitude of unevenly-glazed windows. There are also soft-focus slow-motion scenes in which the young Aniela is seen dancing in the moonlight as a young bride or playing with her young son, recalling the wonderful memories of her younger days. In the end Aniela comes to terms in some way with the difficulties she faces and makes peace with those who deserve to have peace made with them.

Jestem

A film by Dorota Kędzierzawska

Kundel is an eleven-year-old boy who escapes from an orphanage to return to his home town. There, his young alcoholic mother disowns him and kicks him out. He is also rejected by the other kids who call him "Mongrel", but undaunted and resolute, he finds an abandoned barge in which he makes a home for himself. Kundel is not only a very resourceful child with a strong survival instinct, he is also a fundamentally good person, being especially sensitive to creatures weaker than himself. He then meets Kuleczka, a pretty girl of his own age, from a well-off family living in a house nearby, and soon they discover a sense of affection and love in each other's company. Kundel forages, collecting scrap metal which he sells in town, while he dreams about being a poet one day – and he is marginal and independent enough to create his own wholly separate world, at least for a while.

Jestem (I am) tells the story of a boy searching for his place in life, his identity, whilst trying to avoid both the social pressures of his peers and the de-personalising life of the state-run institution. The splendid cinematography, with soft-coloured sepia-toned images, gives a comforting warmth to this beautiful film and Michael Nyman's musical score is both a sweeping and intimate addition. Writer and director Dorota Kędzierzawska, who has an extraordinary way with child actors, based Kundel, the main character of this award-winning film, on a real child she met who lived in the woods and dreamed of being a poet.

Helen

A film by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor

Helen is a 17-year-old girl with a complex and troubled past who has lived in care since she was an infant. She is on the threshold of her 18th birthday, which signals the end of her care order, and she awaits this new beginning full of anticipation and anxiety, knowing that her entry into adulthood is something she must ultimately undertake alone. Given everything that has happened to her in her life, being left alone is Helen's greatest fear, and her greatest challenge to overcome.

At the same time, and in the same city, there is a missing girl called Joy. A fingertip search led by the police is being carried out in a local woods following the discovery, the day before, of a jacket and personal effects belonging to Joy who has been missing for some time. Until now, Joy's parents have been clinging to the belief that her disappearance was nothing more than a teenage girl's cry for help, and they have lived in hope that one day soon she will return home safely to them. Although not hopeless, the situation following this new development looks somewhat more ominous.

A police reconstruction is organised that will retrace Joy's last known movements, to be screened on national television in the hope that it will provide valuable clues as to what happened to Joy in the twenty-four hours leading up to her disappearance. Helen is chosen to play the part of the missing girl in this reconstruction and both the police, and especially Joy's parents, agree that Helen is the perfect choice for the role. But the parents sense that there is something uncanny about Helen's resemblance to their daughter and are slightly unnerved by the similarity. Somehow their encounter with Helen makes them even more vulnerable and it is clear that they might actually need her help to get them through this very difficult time in their life. What they do not know is that Helen also needs their help.

For Helen, the role of stand-in represents an important opportunity, and she senses that to inhabit someone else's life, if only temporarily, could help her with her own life. Joy, who is the same age as her, had many of the things she never had: a secure home; loving parents; success at school; popularity amongst her peers; and a steady boyfriend. Gradually Helen begins to immerse herself into the role, visiting the people and places that Joy knew; quietly and carefully insinuating her way into the lost girl's life. But is Helen trying to find out what happened to Joy that day, or is she searching for her own identity?

Valley of Flowers

A film by Pan Nalin

Along the highest mountain passes of the Himalaya, the intrepid Jalan and his gang of outcasts make their living by robbing unsuspecting travellers. Abiding by their own unique codes of honour and dividing the spoils equally, all is routine until the arrival of the mystifying, beautiful Ushna. Appearing mysteriously after the raid of a pilgrim caravan, Ushna adheres to Jalan, claiming to have seen him in her dreams, and refusing to leave his side. Sensing the unease of the rest of the men, Ushna offers to help them in their endeavours, on condition that they do not ask why or how she is able to guide them to success.

In the time that follows, Ushna leads the gang to tremendous exploits, gaining the respect of the men, and the admiration of Jalan, who begins to fall passionately in love with this mysterious woman. As their success increases, seemingly unstoppable, so the love between Jalan and Ushna mounts in intensity, until they seem to have entered a world of their own. No longer heeding of the world around them, Jalan and Ushna venture too far in their exploits, progressing from the theft of material objects to tampering with the elements of nature – stealing energy, fortune and even the powers of levitation – the two cross over into the bounds of the supernatural.

Word of the duo and their strange exploits reaches the shrewd Yeti, who goes after them with his three bounty hunters. In the confusion of pursuit, Jalan and Ushna face a temporary separation, the shock of which drives each to desperation. Having lost luck, wealth and friends, the fated two are nevertheless fortuitously reunited. Their passion running higher than ever, they vow never to be separated again, even if this entails deceiving fate and cheating mortality. But life always reserves surprises, and karma will eventually restore the balance and their destinies, but in the most unexpected ways.

The story, Valley of Flowers, is inspired by an incident mentioned in Alexandra David-Néel's Magie d'Amour et Magie Noire where she narrates her meeting with an Indo-Tibetan highwayman. This bandit-chief in his youth had a passionate love affair with a beautiful young woman whom he believed to be an incarnate demon. Their adventure took them right across Tibet through the wildest and most inaccessible Himalayan regions and brought them into contact with some fascinating and mysterious people. Their extraordinary journey as Alexandra explains in her book is "a true story which has been lived".

A magical Himalayan tale of love and longing, karma and reincarnation, death and immortality, spanning two centuries, from the Silk Route of the early 19th century to the bustling metropolis of modern-day Tokyo.