Stockholm

Rodrigo Sorogoyen : 2013

The story of the encounter between a boy and a girl. He confesses that he fell in love with her at first sight, but she does not believe him. However, little by little, just as it happens in Before Sunrise, as they walk through the night in Madrid, they share their desires, secrets, and maybe a few little lies. But soon, like a violent blow, the film brings us back to the harsh reality of power struggles, psychological games and conflicts between the sexes, offering an incredible reading of the relations between young people today. Rodrigo Sorogoyen's first solo feature received the Best Direction Biznaga de Plata Award at Festival de Cine Español de Málaga 2013.

Salvo

Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza : 2013

A hitman for the Sicilian Mafia, Salvo is solitary, cold and ruthless. When he sneaks into a house to eliminate a man, he discovers Rita, a young blind girl who powerlessly stands by while her brother is assassinated. Salvo tries to close those disturbing eyes, staring at him yet unseeing. Something impossible happens. Rita's eyes see for the first time. Salvo decides to spare her life. From then on, these two beings, both haunted by the world they belong to, are linked together forever. Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza's first feature won the Grand Prix Nespresso and Prix Révélation France 4 awards at Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes 2013.

Wakolda

Lucía Puenzo : 2013
The German Doctor

In 1959, a German immigrant arrives in Bariloche to coincide with the opening of an inn on the shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi, the most desolate region of Patagonia. There his attention is drawn to Lilith, a girl on the verge of adolescence but with a body too small for her age. A perfect specimen, but for this defect impossible to tolerate. The fascination is mutual. He approaches her parents who own the inn, and will be watched closely by a woman who seems to know his true identity. Based on the director's own novel detailing the true story of an Argentine family who lived with the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele without knowing his true identity, and of a girl who fell in love with one of the greatest criminals of all time. Lucía Puenzo's third feature premiered in the Un Certain Regard selection at Festival de Cannes 2013.

Suzanne

Katell Quillévéré : 2013

The story of a family and a love affair through the journey of a young woman. Sisters Suzanne and Maria have an intensely close relationship. They experience a happy childhood even though their mother died when they were still very young. Nicolas, their father, copes as best he can, sometimes loving, sometimes difficult, sacrificing himself for them instead of rebuilding his own life. As a teenager, Suzanne becomes pregnant and when Charlie is born, the family expands. She then meets Julien, a young man who is a bit of a rogue, and they fall deeply in love. Suzanne will flee with him, abandoning her child. There will be years of wandering, prison, waiting, then an accident. It will be a difficult journey, strewn with obstacles, before this family can finally rebuild itself, and the father, daughter and grandson are reunited. Katell Quillévéré's second feature premiered out of competition at Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes 2013.

Le passé

Asghar Farhadi : 2013
The Past

After four years of separation, Ahmad arrives in Paris from Tehran, at the request of Marie, his French wife, to carry out the formalities of their divorce. During his brief stay, Ahmad discovers the adversarial relationship that Marie has with her daughter, Lucie. Ahmad's efforts to try to improve this relationship will unveil a secret past. He will also meet Marie's new partner in his home beside his children. The film won the award for Best Actress at Festival de Cannes 2013.

Heli

Amat Escalante : 2013

Set in a small Mexican city where most of the population work for an automobile assembly plant or the local drug cartel. The story follows Heli, who is looking for answers about the mysterious disappearance of his father. During his search he is confronted with police corruption, drug trafficking, sexual exploitation, love, guilt and revenge. Amat Escalante's third feature won the award for Best Director at Festival de Cannes 2013.

Mother's Soul

Phạm Nhuệ Giang : 2011
Tâm hồn mẹ

Thu is an independent young girl and helps her mother Lan whenever she can. Together they sell fruit at the weekly market but the income hardly makes them a living. Things are different for her class-mate Đăng. His mother has died. His father has remarried and Đăng has been left with his grandparents. He yearns for the maternal love that Lan shows her daughter. But when Lan gets into a fraught relationship with a married man, Thu's emotional needs are also neglected. She places her yearning for affection in Đăng, assuming the role of the "little mother" for him. Through these tender relationships the film follows the life of women and children from underprivileged circles. A difficult life, full of adventure and disillusion in the end, but also filled with great affection and humanity. Phạm Nhuệ Giang's film, her third feature, was winner of the award for Best Leading Actress at Dubai Film Festival 2011.

La grande bellezza

Paolo Sorrentino : 2013
The Great Beauty

It's summer in Rome and the eternal city shines with an elusive and definitive beauty. Indifferent and seductive, it offers itself up to the astonished eyes of tourists. Jep Gamberdella is sixty-five and his character emanates a charm that time has not ravaged. In his youth he was the author of a single novel, "The Human Machine", but has written nothing since. He is a successful journalist who flits between culture and high society in a Rome that never ceases to be a sanctuary of wonder and greatness, and his life is a succession of appointments and eccentric festivals. Behind the decadence and decay of reality, the city continues to preserve a hidden and sometimes desperate beauty. Jep, now cynical, disenchanted and suffering, witnesses the crisis of a society that seems to have turned men into monsters. As he watches the procession of vacuous and dissatisfied humanity, as powerful as it is depressing, he bitterly recollects the passionate, innocent love of his lost youth. Perhaps it is time for him to start writing again? The film premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2013.

Miele

Valeria Golino : 2013
Honey

Irene lives an isolated life, alone. She devotes herself to people looking for help and tries to alleviate their suffering even when they make extreme decisions. Her clandestine job is to help terminally-ill people to die with dignity by giving them a drug. One day she supplies a new "client" with a fatal dose, only to find out he's perfectly healthy. Irene is determined not to be responsible for his suicide. From this moment, Irene and Grimaldi are locked unwillingly in a tense and unusual relationship which will change Irene's life forever. Adapted from the novel Vi Perdono by Angela Del Fabbro, actress Valeria Golino's feature directorial debut premiered in the Un Certain Regard selection at Festival de Cannes 2013.

La vie d'Adèle

Abdellatif Kechiche : 2013
Blue is the Warmest Colour

At 15, Adèle doesn't question it: a girl goes out with boys. For the adolescent, questions about identity are ultra-relevent and Adèle, a school-girl from a working-class family in the suburbs of Lille, is of an age when the appetite for love and sexuality awakens. With a fondness for literature in an environment in which culture is virtually non-existent in conversations among girl-friends and at family dinners lulled by TV, she soon feels uncomfortable in an adventure with a boy. Adèle's life changes the night she meets Emma, a girl with blue hair who unexpectedly invites herself into her erotic dreams, and who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adèle grows, seeks herself, loses herself, finds herself. Abdellatif Kechiche's fifth feature was winner of the Palme d'Or at Festival de Cannes 2013.

Sleepless Night

Jang Kun-jae : 2012
Jam mot deuneun bam

A bittersweet and atmospheric love story about a young couple who are considering whether they should have a baby. Just as new feelings can drift to the surface during a stroll on a hot summer night, intangible issues gradually take shape in this intimate study. Hyun-soo and Joo-hee have been happily married for two years, but in their innocent conversations on the sofa and in bed, or in discussions with friends, there are signs of discomfort. Minor irritations about unpaid overtime and of course the question of whether to have a child or not. They generally live a happy and fulfilled life as it is, with time for things like bike trips at night and sharing a glass of beer in their apartment. Although the film is fairly minimalist dramatically, we can feel that a lot is at stake. Whilst their relationship is still tender, a lot remains unanswered. Apart from in dreams. Then a stolen bicycle provides unexpected insights. Built around episodes from his own life, director Jang Kun-jae's feature is a magically evocative, universal story about making one's own choices in life. Winner of the audience award at Jeonju International Film Festival 2012, the film's European premiere screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2013.

Ombline

Stéphane Cazes : 2012

A young woman with a baby a little over one year old reads from a Noah and the Ark book. The room she is sitting in is a cell and guards are waiting for the story to finish so that they can take the child away. Ombline is twenty and full of anger. Her mother died when she was too young to remember her, her father has been in prison for years and she was brought up in an institution where she fell in love with a man caught up in the underworld who also ended up dying. Ombline is sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a police officer who was about to arrest her boyfriend for drug possession. But she has not served her sentence for long before finding out that she is pregnant. When she gives birth to her son Lucas, her life in prison takes on an entirely new dimension. Ombline is able to spend 18 months with him behind prison walls. Moments of tenderness are mixed with fights with guards and the knowledge that she will soon have to decide who to entrust her baby with. As she becomes aware of her situation, Ombline learns to deal with her anger and takes on the responsibility associated with her new role. Stéphane Cazes's debut feature is an intense and unsentimental story, set in the almost docu-realistic tradition.

Jeunesse

Justine Malle : 2012
Youth

Juliette, 20 years old, falls in love with Benjamin. At the same moment, her father starts to show signs of a mysterious illness. Her naive approach to love makes her vulnerable. In spite of the inevitable defeat, she undauntedly continues her quest for love, but when her father is diagnosed with a fatal disease and moves out into the countryside, the summer takes on a more serious twist. She is caught between the feelings that her father's illness and decline give her, and her own burning desire to feel and understand the emerging need for love, which her life at the same time offers her. The story of a young woman who innocently and naively enters into a Paris summer, but comes out the other end a great deal richer in knowledge about life, love and death. By exposing the weaknesses of youth and highlighting its infinite resources, Justine Malle's debut feature is a brutally honest story, largely inspired by her own life during the time up to her father, director Louis Malle's death in 1995. The film premiered in the Alice nella Città section at Rome Film Festival 2012.

Diablo

Ramon Mez de Guzman : 2012

In a small village in the Philippines, an elderly lady called Nana Lusing leads a lonely life. A normal day starts with a meal by herself, continues with prayers at church and ends with her going to bed while listening to a Christian radio station. Her five sons rarely visit: Ruben takes care of his mother's farm but doesn't ever talk to her, and actively avoids her; soldier Fernando drops by once in a while; Ronaldo, a miner, takes the time to call and say hello every so often; and Oscar leads a cult-like existence with his devoted followers, but nonetheless also visits from time to time. However, it is unemployed Alberto who has the most contact with her. Keen to get his hands on a fat inheritance, he disguises his girlfriend as a care worker and has her stay with his mother. Surrounded by corrupt or negligent children, Nana Lusing's repetitive life crumbles into chaos. As she becomes weaker, we are slowly given a look at the sons' individual stories with their mother. The film received its international premiere at Busan International Film Festival 2012.