Mai Ratima

Yoo Ji-tae : 2012

The story of Soo-young, a Korean man in his thirties living on the bottom rung of society and Mai Ratima, a 22-year-old Thai girl who accepts a mail-order marriage in order to realise her Korean dream. To support her sister and Alzheimer's-afflicted mother back in Thailand, Mai Ratima enters into an arranged marriage with mentally challenged Sang-pil. Stuck in the drab coastal town of Pohang, Mai is physically and emotionally abused by her in-laws. She endures the daily harangues of her mother-in-law and sexual harassment by her brother-in-law, Sang-rim. When her visa renewal comes up she narrowly escapes deportation thanks to the spur-of-the-moment kindness of Soo-young, a social outcast who can't even afford to renew his national ID. Mai and Soo-young fall in love and elope together to Seoul. But their days of happiness are soon shattered when Young-jin, a hostess, enters their relationship, slowly turning it into a love triangle. Eventually, Soo-young decides to leave Mai. One day, when life becomes unbearable for Soo-young, he goes in search of Mai, only to find that she is not who she used to be. Depicting the process by which a couple deviates from the accepted rules of society and then endures a hostile reality as a result of their choices, Yoo Ji-tae's directorial debut premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2012.

Bienvenue parmi nous

Jean Becker : 2012
Welcome Aboard

Despite his fame, Paul Taillandier, an artist in his sixties, abruptly stops painting. Then, aimlessly and without explanation, he decides to leave his home and family. He writes a note for his long-suffering wife Alice, declaring, "I can't take it any more," and drives off. During his journey, he meets Marylou, a runaway 15-year-old hitchhiker rejected by her mother, who has left home to find her own way in life. Although they have nothing in common, together they travel the beautiful landscapes of France's west coast. The two runaways may be separated by decades, but gradually they help one another heal. They rent a small cottage by the beach and as they grow closer, each recognises the other's predicament. As Marylou develops a lovely rapport with Paul, he becomes protective towards the girl. The artist regains his lost inspiration with his unlikely young muse, and a delicate sense of hope emerges with the old learning as much from the young, as the young from the old. Living like a father and daughter, in the quiet of their seaside home, they begin to find a new meaning to their lives.

Fynbos

Harry Patramanis : 2012

Richard, a real estate developer on the brink of bankruptcy, travels with his wife Meryl to a lavish and remote glass house bordering on a sweeping landscape in the Western Cape of South Africa. He is desperate to sell it. The transparent, glass Fynbos mansion blends into the hills with a beauty almost too great for the human eye to take in. The house stands between heaven and earth, like a virtual blind spot in the retina's perception. It is here that Meryl and Richard meet with a couple interested in buying the house, with the two hippie-like house-sitters also forming part of the group. When Meryl goes inexplicably missing, stifled by a sense of looming distrust and financial pressure, Richard is caught in a maze of missteps and uncertainty. The blind spot begins to expand, opening up the increasingly enigmatic story to new interpretations that bring themselves to bear on the occurrences both from without and from within. What transpires within the walls of this glass house then has little to do with money and everything to do with the human condition: souls are left pondering the line between what is real and what is perceived. Focusing more on people's actions and reactions, than on plot development, Harry Patramanis's debut feature is an exercise in minimalism. With its elliptical storytelling and evocative atmospherics, it is a unique and haunting dramatic thriller, allowing seemingly specific events to remain open to multiple interpretations. The film premiered at Durban International Film Festival 2012 and its European premiere screened in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Echolot

Athanasios Karanikolas : 2013
Sonar

A sonar is a device for electro-acoustic measurement of water depths. Measured is the time that elapses between the emission of a sound pulse and the arrival through the water of the ground-reflected sound waves. What is measured here is the emotional closeness and distance of a group of people who gather in a house in the country, a year after the suicide of their friend Franz. It's not unusual for extreme situations to lure people out of their shells. In this case, the suicide prompts them to switch off for a while. This weekend at least, these young people are no longer thinking about tomorrow. Instead, they surrender entirely to the moment and give their feelings free reign. They dance, love, argue, drink, go for walks, or take naps. But they also remember their dead friend, who is present in all their thoughts and conversations. The film premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Facing Mirrors

Negar Azarbayjani : 2011
Aynehaye Rooberoo

Rana, a traditionally devout wife with conservative values, is secretly working as a taxi driver in Tehran to support her family whilst her husband is in a debtors' prison. Although a woman driving a taxi isn't illegal, it's considered highly dangerous and unsuitable. Edi, previously a woman named Adineh, is desperately trying to get a passport in order to return to Germany to have gender reassignment surgery. He is trying to avoid an angry father wanting to marry his daughter off as soon as possible, to put an end to what he views as shame brought upon the family. Even though a ruling under Islamic Law in 1979 may sanction gender reassignment in Iran, it is not necessarily accepted in general society. Fleeing from a group of men his father has sent to kidnap him, Edi flags down the taxi driven by Rana. At first Rana is overwhelmed when Edi tries to explain that he is really trans, but as they realise that despite their differences they have a lot in common, the bond that forms between them helps each to navigate the narrow path their society allows. In time an unlikely friendship develops, transcending social class and ethical differences. Negar Azarbayjani's film, her debut feature, premiered at Montréal World Film Festival 2011 and won Best First Feature at San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2012.

Gnade

Matthias Glasner : 2012
Mercy

Hammerfest is a Norwegian city on the Arctic Ocean. In winter, life alternates between pitch-black night and endless twilight. A German couple and their son live here. Niels is an engineer on a gas liquification plant, Maria a nurse in a hospice. They adapt well to the occasionally unreal world of night shadows but soon after they arrive, Niels and Maria sense that their new surroundings will not be able to save their withering relationship. Niels throws himself into his work and into an affair. Maria does overtime at the hospice, and Markus struggles with puberty and his new fellow students. Then one night a terrible accident occurs that changes everything. Maria runs over someone or something. Feeling unable to deal with the situation, she races home in panic. The coldness in the couple's hearts subsides and, miraculously, the tragedy becomes a turning point for all three family members. Caught in their own lies, isolated in the darkness of the polar night, the secret shared by Maria and Niels forces them to confront their lives and the existential questions that arise. Can one live without mercy and forgiveness? The film premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2012.

La rizière

Xiaoling Zhu : 2011
The Rice Paddy

In a small mountain village lives A Qiu, a 12-year-old girl with hopes of becoming a writer and travelling the world. She is Dong, an ethnic minority in southern China, a people with their own language, without writing but with a culture rich in artistic traditions. A people who moulded mountains all around and covered them with terraced rice paddy. But life is tough in the autonomous Guangxi province and A Qiu's dreams seem hard to reach. Her parents have left to work in the city, and A Qiu and her little brother, Abao, stay with their grandparents. They go to school and help out in the family's rice paddy every day. When the grandmother suddenly dies, the parents have to come home to work in the rice paddy, but life is a constant struggle to make ends meet. A Qiu's family try to adjust to new conditions, between tradition and modernity, and try to face the future as serenely as possible. Through A Qiu's diary notes we follow her ups and downs during one eventful year, through different weather conditions and rice seasons. This touching psychological story, shot in settings of stunning beauty with non-professional actors, is the first film made entirely in the Dong language. Writer and director Xiaoling Zhu was born and grew up in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Her international award-winning first feature screened at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Marussia

Eva Pervolovici : 2013

In cities like Paris there are countless people from Eastern Europe who have forsaken their homelands because they can see no future there. Lucia and her 6-year-old daughter Marussia are two such people. They have been thrown out by the Russian acquaintances they were staying with and must tramp the streets with their trolley suitcases searching for somewhere else to live. They sleep wherever they can. A Russian Orthodox priest offers them their first night's shelter. They spend the second night in a homeless hostel and party through the third with a chance acquaintance. On the fourth night they sleep clandestinely in a cinema and on the fifth with a Russian artist in a hotel. They live each day as if it were the day that could change their life, meeting different kinds of people, wandering aimlessly and waiting for something wonderful to happen to them. In spite of all the uncertainties in their lives, the two frequently share tender moments. But then they have to drag their suitcases once more through the cold city with no money in their pockets and no idea where they are going. As their situation is not getting any better and they end up sleeping under a bridge, the Russian community decides to buy them a ticket back to Russia. Marussia revolts against her mother and runs away. She doesn't want to go back. And at the same time she wants to have a real childhood. What kind of decision is her mother ready to make? Eva Pervolovici's debut feature premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Cold Bloom

Atsushi Funahashi : 2012
Sakura namiki no mankai no shita ni

Exploring the consequences of the tsunami of March 2011, the story follows Shiori and Kenji, a young couple working at a small metal factory on Japan's eastern coast that produces parts for other companies. Recovering from the tragedy, they are looking forward to having a baby. Ever since the tsunami struck, which also hit the industrial town of Hitachi, the workers are unmotivated, they harrass their Chinese colleagues. It's only thanks to the creativity of Kenji that the company has landed another contract. But when Kenji dies in an accident at the clients' site, his death results in a serious business slump, leaving other employees feeling hopeless. His colleague Takumi who is to blame, becomes the object of hatred for the whole workforce, as all take sides with Kenji's widow Shiori. Takumi keeps asking for her forgiveness and gradually Shiori develops sympathy for him, her hatred turning over time into love. Marked by an altered atmosphere in Japan, throughout the film we witness the scale of misfortune, defeat and desperation that strikes ordinary people who believed that they would be rewarded for their hard work. When the cherry blossoms come into bloom after a long winter, the life of Shiori, haunted by Kenji, finally comes into full bloom when she finds forgiveness within herself towards Takumi. The film premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2012 and its European premiere screened in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Born This Way

Shaun Kadlec & Deb Tullmann : 2013

Like everywhere else in the world, gays and lesbians in Cameroon seek refuge in the city. The two young gay men in this film are crazy about Rihanna and Lady Gaga, who has been a gay icon since her hit song 'Born this way'. But the tolerance Lady Gaga sings about is just a dream for them. In their country, homosexual relations are subject to punishment of up to five years in prison, and it is almost impossible to come out to your own family. This film describes both the impossible and the possible. The filmmakers' unobtrusive proximity to their protagonists has yielded conversations in which their interlocutors discuss their longing for a love life they are forbidden to have. Alice Nkom is a lawyer and human rights activist fighting to protect the rights of gays and lesbians. Thanks to her, there is quiet hope and small niches can be discerned where there is something akin to a life not based upon self-denial. The film premiered in the Panorama Dokumente section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Die Wiedergänger

Andreas Bolm : 2013
The Revenants

The time after. After a catastrophe? A loss? A shock? In any case, after an event which reverberates in the present like an echo from the past. A group of people somewhere in Germany: an ageing hippie couple, Ada and Volker, have settled in a hermitage on the edge of a forest with lots of lovingly tended plants and tools. A mellow vitality. Not far away: a boy, Fabian, who has stepped out of a corn field, wandered the forest in a daze and built himself a shelter. At some point in the story he enters Ada and Volker's life and takes the position of their lost son, Tom. Later in the film, radio news: the sale of field-grown salad, spinach and chard has been prohibited. Somewhere else in the forest: two musicians, a guitarist and a drummer. A voice-over talks about Ada, Volker and Fabian being on their way to the sea, where helicopters, the military and men in white radiation suits will appear. By then, Ada will have revealed she knows Tom is dead and Fabian is his killer. The musicians are still playing. A film about longing, loss and eternal recurrence. The film premiered in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Chiralia

Santiago Gil : 2013

Summertime. A lake in the forest. Father and son go for a swim. Suddenly, the boy dives under the water and disappears. Has he drowned? The missing child unleashes a shockwave which reverberates from one person to the next. The story departs from its beginning, reawakening memories which may be deceptive. Expanding over time and space, the narrative starts to transform and lose its shared reality with the actual event. In the end nobody knows what really happened – or even if there ever was a child who disappeared. What remains is a feeling of uncertainty that grows out of the unreliable interplay between reality, perception and memory. Santiago Gil's short fiction received a Special Mention in the FGYO-Award Dialogue en perspective at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Dolgaya schastlivaya zhizn

Boris Khlebnikov : 2013
A Long and Happy Life

Sascha lives in a village on the Kola Peninsula in northern Russia and dedicatedly manages what is left of an old collective farm. He gets on well with his farm workers who respect him and also tolerate his more or less clandestine love affair with Anya, a secretary at the local government office. But then Sascha is suddenly faced with a dilemma: the district's self-seeking administrators, none of whom could be termed squeamish, offer him a lucrative deal for the farm. In legal terms, Sascha doesn't have much of a leg to stand on since his lease on the farm was only agreed with a handshake. The pressure mounts, and even more so when his employees convince him to stand firm. Against the backdrop of a landscape exposed to the elements, this unflinching man's destiny takes its course. The tragedy of a decent man who risks everything that is dear to him by refusing to surrender to a quagmire of greed and corruption. Boris Khlebnikov's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Zwei Mütter

Anne Zohra Berrached : 2013
Two Mothers

Katja, 43 and Isabella, 37, decide to have a child. However, like many lesbian couples in Germany, they soon discover that this is much more difficult than they first imagined. Citing legal reasons, most of the sperm banks and fertility clinics refuse to treat them. Fortunately, they are able to find one doctor willing to help, for a large sum, but after several months fertilisation is unsuccessful. Katja decides she wants to call a halt to their project on account of Isa's psychological and emotional stress and the toll it is taking on their relationship, not to mention their beleaguered bank balance. But Isa cannot give up. She finds a dealer who sells them a kit enabling them to perform the insemination comfortably at home. There are plenty of men on his website willing to sell their sperm for various sums, sometimes with one or two additional conditions. And so they begin the lengthy task of casting for a potential donor. A sensitively told story that is part experiment and part salutary tale charting the vibrant terrain between fiction and reality. Anne Zohra Berrached's first feature won the FGYO-Award Dialogue en perspective when it premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

I kóri

Thanos Anastopoulos : 2012
The Daughter

A girl in her teens, an eight-year-old boy, and a father suddenly no longer there. When fourteen-year-old Myrto learns her father has fled to avoid paying his debts, she kidnaps the son of his business partner whom she blames for bankrupting her father's joiner's workshop. Memories resurface as she wanders through the aisles of the workshop, where she hides her victim between stacks of spruce, oak and ebony. Were things really better in the old days? Myrto waits desperately for some sign that her father is alive, entertaining perfidious, sadistic fantasies about her young prisoner. Portraying a society whose key players flee their responsibilities and where the crisis sends its children out into a moral no-man's land, yet the suspicion remains that the relationship between the generations was already out of sync beforehand. The film's international premiere screened in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Bambi

Sébastien Lifshitz : 2013

Bambi was born Jean-Pierre Pruvot in a tiny Algerian village in 1935. Even as a child, she refused to meet the expectations of her extended family, choosing instead to find a way to become the woman she always knew herself to be. A Cabaret Carrousel de Paris performance in Algiers in the 1950s proved to be all the encouragement she needed to emigrate to the French capital, assume the stage name of 'Bambi' and lead the life she longed for on the music-hall stages. Jean-Pierre, known since then as Marie-Pierre, is now 77 years old. Her extraordinary life of perpetual reinvention included twenty-five years as a French teacher at a variety of public secondary schools in France. Hers is a story of deep-seated confusion, painful rejection and impassioned courage. An impressive collage of photographs and chansons, archive footage, excerpts from feature films, Super-8 diary clips and visits to the places of her childhood provides a sensitive chronicle of her liberating transformation into a radiant transsexual woman. The film was the winner of the Teddy Award for Best Documentary when it premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Kashi-ggot

Lee Don-ku : 2012
Fatal

A group of youths imprison a young girl in a room and drug her so they can rape her. Awkward Sung-gong is more than reluctant, but the others threaten to beat him up if he chickens out and so he is forced into the room with the unconscious girl. Ten years later, Sung-gong is leading a humble existence working at a small sewing shop in Seoul. On his usual way to work he encounters a group of people handing out brightly coloured flyers advertising a Christian community. One day, curiosity, loneliness and a bad conscience prompt him to slip into a pew at their church. This is also where Jang-mi seeks refuge. This young woman was the rape victim all those years before. A tender relationship evolves between these two which may enable Sung-gong to bring about reconciliation, but the young woman has no idea with whom she has taken up. Sung-gong is a young man desperate to unburden himself from his guilt but the extreme choices he makes, in a bid to atone for his actions, will bring about a tragic and violent conclusion. Lee Don-ku's debut feature premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2012. The film's European premiere screened in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Bellas mariposas

Salvatore Mereu : 2012
Pretty Butterflies

Eleven-year-old Caterina lives in a sombre, poverty-stricken neighbourhood of Cagliari, capital of Sardinia. She has a tyrannical father and a horde of brothers and sisters, most of whom are up to no good. And yet the girl is in a good mood. She talks openly about her love for Gigi, the boy next door, and her bond with her best friend Luna. She spreads her optimistic view of the world on the large-scale wrongs she sees around her. The story follows a day in Caterina's life: the day on which she fears for Gigi because her brother Tonio has just threatened to kill him, and she discovers that Gigi is in love with the local slut. It is also the day when Caterina and Luna go to the beach, eats lots of ice cream, giggle and swim. A day filled with youthful recklessness and unruffled optimism. But her beloved Gigi is in danger. And when everything seems lost, during the night a beautiful woman appears out of nowhere, the mysterious Aleni, a witch who apparently can see into people's futures. The film premiered in the Orizzonti section at La Biennale di Venezia 2012.

Halbschatten

Nicolas Wackerbarth : 2013
Everyday Objects

On an overcast summer's day, Merle arrives at her lover Romuald's villa, jacket and luggage in hand, to find the doors are locked. He had invited her to visit him in the south of France but seems to have headed off somewhere. She thus has to come to some arrangement with his uncooperative children, help celebrate Emma's 13th birthday and put up with Felix's impudence, the 16-year-old son who sees her presence as a provocation. It doesn't take long for the host's absence to become barely noticeable. Merle attempts to fit in, to take on this unexpected role as naturally as possible. But soon she loses the battle of wills. When Romuald finally calls, she decides to side with his children rather than her distant lover, and quietly enjoys her breakthrough. A subtle portrait of a person ill at ease with being the centre of attention, in the glaring sunlight. The film premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Belleville Baby

Mia Engberg : 2013

A long distance call from a long lost lover makes Mia reminisce about their common past. She remembers the spring when they met in Paris, the riots, the vespa and the cat named Baby. As a film student, Mia Engberg lived in the Parisian district of Belleville. Today, this wild episode of her life is far behind her. She is now a mother with a young daughter and lives in Sweden. One day, a voice from the past bursts into her life. It is Vincent, the love of her life, who suddenly abandoned her years ago. Calling from Paris, he asks her to recount memories of their time together. After eight years in prison he is seeking to reconstruct his earlier life and the memories that now escape him. But Mia is reluctant to dig up the past. In long telephone conversations and films shot using his mobile phone, Vincent takes stock of his life and tells the story of the poor boy from the banlieue who slid inexorably into crime. Meanwhile, Mia goes through her filmed diaries and recalls a love affair which at the time defied convention. A film about love, time and things that got lost along the way. A personal exploration of how one's self at each moment is affected by hidden memories and elusive inner layers. The film premiered at Göteborg International Film Festival 2013 where it received the Jury's Special Mention, and screened in the Panorama Dokumente section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

White Night

LeeSong Hee-il : 2012
Baek Ya

Won-gyu is a flight attendant and is constantly in transit. Anonymous hotel rooms are all the home he knows. Tae-jun is a motorbike courier who spends almost all his time on the streets. Two men with two jobs that keep them on the move. Two lives that are just a series of fleeting moments. Having clicked on the internet they arrange to meet in Seoul. But they only have a few hours. Won-gyu never wanted to return to the city because Seoul reminds him of an event that has left him sad and angry. His past casts a long shadow over their date, and their night together is pitch-black in spite of the big city lights. Since they must soon part again, both are afraid to get too close and a strange power game begins. Tae-jun joins his new friend as he sets out in search of something. They go to a place that was once the site of a brutal attack on gays. An urban odyssey through a city, pervaded by anger and longing, in which not everyone can live their life and experience love. But for one brief but beautiful moment these two are allowed simply to be together. The film premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Jîn

Reha Erdem : 2013

A bitter conflict has raged between guerrillas and the army in Turkey's Kurdish regions for over 30 years. Large expanses have now become war zones. Countless young people have lost their lives to the conflict. This dangerous but incredibly beautiful mountainous country is home to 17-year-old Jîn. But she is no longer safe since she secretly stole away from a group of rebels with whom she was fighting. Now she wanders alone, caught between two fronts. All of a sudden, the sound of gunfire and explosions rend the air. Attack is threatened from all sides. Desperate to find peace, Jîn decides to escape to another part of the country – an impossible plan, since the military is omnipresent and there are road blocks everywhere. As a Kurd without identity papers she risks arrest at every turn. In addition, as a woman with no family to shield her, many men will see her as fair game. But her courage is unbroken and the mountains are her greatest protectors. The film premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Princesas Rojas

Laura Astorga Carrera : 2013
Red Princesses

The Nicaraguan border in the 1980s. Eleven-year-old Claudia and her younger sister experience the street fighting at first hand outside their car window. Their parents are Sandinista activists, now escaping to neighbouring Costa Rica to create a clandestine front to support the revolution, and the girls are packed off to their relatives. Claudia hordes her treasured collection of revolutionary badges and fantasises about forming a secret pioneer movement in conservative Costa Rica. Passports are forged, there are nocturnal meetings and car number plates are switched. One day, her mother disappears. They say she's gone to Miami. The children piece together fragments that give them an insight into their parents' dilemma of trying to balance their political struggle with family life. The story focuses on the point of view of the two sisters, who are very close, as they learn more than they are able to cope with, but too little really to understand. A political thriller about a revolutionary struggle, seen through the eyes of children. The film premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

W imię...

Małgorzata Szumowska : 2013
In the Name of

Adam is a Catholic priest who discovered his calling at the relatively late age of twenty-one. He now lives in a village in rural Poland where he works with teenagers with behavioural problems. His energy appreciated, the locals accept him as one of their own. Everybody wants to be close to him, feeding off of his vitality and power. Nobody but Adam knows that he harbours a secret, the desire for men, and that his embrace of the priesthood has been a flight from his own sexuality. When he meets Łukasz, the strange and taciturn son of a simple rural family, Adam's self-imposed abstinence becomes a heavy burden, forcing him to confront a long forgotten passion. Małgorzata Szumowska's controversial and visually powerful film is about confused emotions, repression and loneliness, broaching the still taboo topic of homosexuality in the priesthood. It is a plea for love to be taken into account by the Catholic Church. The film won a Teddy Award when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Grzeli nateli dgeebi

Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon Groß : 2013
In Bloom

Tbilisi, Georgia, 1992. The Soviet era is over and Georgia must fend for itself. Civil war is raging in the province of Abkhazia. For Natia and Eka, barely fourteen-year-olds, childhood is coming to an end. Eka is growing up without her father, rebelling against her concerned mother and her older sister. And Natia's father, a choleric alcoholic, terrorises the entire family. The two friends cannot find peace outside of the family either – not in school, not on the street, and not in the bread lines. Chaos, insecurity and fear of what the future might bring hold sway in everyday life. An admirer gives Natia a pistol with one single bullet. A little later, she's abducted by another admirer. Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß's debut feature weaves together melancholy and missing love, eruptions of violence and a sense of the idyllic, precocious cold-bloodedness and childlike naïveté. The film won the CICAE Award when it premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Soğuk

Uğur Yücel : 2013
Cold

Balabey and his family live in the traditional way in a small town in Turkey close to the Georgian border. Here, marriages are arranged, and happiness is elsewhere. Balabey lives in his own world and enjoys exercising what little power he has as a sergeant – chiefly being able to make the trains stop and start at will. In the middle of winter, when the landscape and the houses are covered in a thick blanket of snow, he falls in love with the beautiful Russian Irina who works in a brothel with her sisters. For the menfolk, the bordello is a warm place in a cold town, while their wives despair at their husbands' adulterous behaviour. Balabey's fragile happiness is soon threatened by his irascible brother, who was forced to marry the sister of Balabey's heavily pregnant wife. Balabey is determined to do everything in his power to prevent his beloved Irina from sticking to her plan of returning to Moscow. The film premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Salma

Kim Longinotto : 2013

In villages inhabited by India's Muslim minority in Tamil southern India, as soon as a girl reaches puberty she is locked away until her wedding. When Salma was 13 years old, her family locked her up, forbidding her to study. Hungry for an education, she avoided an arranged marriage for nine long years by keeping herself confined in a bare room. When she finally agrees to wed local politician Malik, she finds herself imprisoned once again – this time in her husband's home where the only things she has to read are the newspapers wrapping the vegetables. She begins covertly composing poems on scraps of paper and, through an intricate system, is able to send them out of the house, eventually getting them into the hands of a publisher. Against the odds, Salma becomes the most famous Tamil poet – the first step to discovering her own freedom and challenging the traditions and code of conduct in her village. She begins to apply for government positions and inspires her sisters and other women also to fight for their freedom and independence. For, she argues, it is the mutual oppression of women by other women that perpetuates the status quo. Kim Longinotto's documentary premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2013. Her film's European premiere screened at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Mes séances de lutte

Jacques Doillon : 2013
Love Battles

A bucolic summer landscape. A nameless couple meet. The woman has returned to her village following the death of her father, who never loved her. Here she meets a man, a sort of Pan, who spends his days farming and writing. Every encounter culminates in the need for them to confront each other physically. The woman's arguments with her siblings about the distribution of their father's estate unearth deep-seated conflicts and old wounds which begin to take on absurd dimensions. The man and woman embark on a playful exploration, each making use of their own weapons, which becomes increasingly sophisticated as it develops. Improvised at first, it soon develops into a codified ritual, a high-stakes game of increasing physical and psychological surrender and self-revelation. He perhaps puts his finger on something that has stopped them from living correctly, while she perhaps finds something for her amusement. An astonishing pas de deux of erotically charged, dynamic encounters and repulsions. The film premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.