Leidi

Simón Mesa Soto : 2014

Leidi lives with her mom and her baby. Her boyfriend, Alexis, hasn't shown up in days. That sunny morning, after she bathes her baby, Leidi is sent by her mother to buy plantains. She meets a guy who tells her he has seen Alexis with another girl. She forgets about bringing home the plantains and embarks on a journey to find him. Leidi won't return home until she finds the father of her child. The film shows us a few hours of Leidi's life. Her wait on the balcony, her search for Alexis in the streets, at his home and on the football pitch, always holding her baby. Finally when she finds him at his workplace, Leidi, Alexis and their baby spend some tender moments together, as a family. But Alexis is too busy, he has other priorities, or he's just not ready to be a father. He promises he'll visit them, maybe. Simón Mesa Soto's graduation work from the London Film School was awarded the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film when it premiered at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Kumun tadi

Melisa Önel : 2014
Seaburners

A harsh wintery scene on the Turkish Black Sea coast. Denise, a foreign botanist, has ended up here for research purposes. She stoically trudges through water knee-deep to get to the remote site where she cultivates her plants. With the same resolve and fearlessness, she also makes her way through the night to the secluded cabin where she meets her lover Hamit. He is a have-not who has only remained in this desolate region following a failed attempt to set up a livelihood abroad. And because of his relationship with Denise. It's a dilemma, since Hamit cannot let her know that he works as a human trafficker, making a living by helping others flee to Europe. But Denise is tired of his mysterious behaviour. When she is called back to her home country and one of Hamit's jobs spirals out of control, he makes a decision that ends in catastrophe. A poignant tale in which a state of inner displacement prevails; it's striking, sombre images corresponding to a world of little hope or solidarity. Melisa Önel's feature debut premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2014.

La voz de los silenciados

Maximón Monihan : 2013
The voice of the voiceless

Olga is seventeen years old. She is deaf. She's leaving home for the USA, she thinks for a better life. As she bids farewell to her family on her way to New York from Central America, Olga thinks that she is going to study at a Christian sign language school. Her family believes in the so-called representatives and has no qualms about entrusting them with their daughter's life. Upon arrival she enters a world of immigrant trafficking, and life is turned upside-down as she's enslaved by a merciless international criminal ring. Forced to sell "I am deaf" trinkets on the subway and subjected to physical and psychological torture, Olga uses courage, cunning, and even humour, to face an unimaginable nightmare-on-loop. Based on a real case broken by the New York Police Department, the film is a dialogue free, fully integrated silent movie, utilising a vibratory, low frequency sound design that places the audience into Olga's headspace, telling the story in her language. Maximón Monihan's feature debut premiered at Mumbai International Film Festival 2013 where it won the Young Critics Jury Award.

Refugiado

Diego Lerman : 2014
Refugee

Matías and his mother Laura, find themselves forced to hurriedly abandon the house they live in to escape another outburst of violence from Fabian. Laura, a two-month pregnant mother, and Matías, her eight-year-old son, begin a journey of flight away from the son's violent father. They will receive some help along the way, but hardly enough to escape the grips of a man she loved. Thus they begin a wandering journey in search of a place they can feel safe and protected. They embark on an unusual road-movie of everyday life, a drama shot through with great humanity, with a delicate and modest insight into human relationships. Diego Lerman's fourth feature premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Gui lai

Zhang Yimou : 2014
Coming Home

Lu Yanshi and Feng Wanyu are a devoted couple forced to separate when Lu is arrested and sent to a labour camp as a political prisoner, just as his wife is injured in an accident. Released during the last days of the Cultural Revolution, he finally returns home only to find that his beloved wife has amnesia and remembers little of her past. Unable to recognise Lu, she patiently waits for her husband's return. A stranger alone in the heart of his broken family, Lu Yanshi determines to resurrect their past together and reawaken his wife's memory. The film premiered out of competition at Festival de Cannes 2014.

The Captive

Atom Egoyan : 2014
Captives

A pick-up truck pulls off the highway at a diner. Confident that his young daughter is safe in the back seat and promising to return with ice cream, the father slips out of his truck and into the diner. When he returns, she is gone. Eight years after the disappearance of Cassandra, some disturbing indications seem to suggest that she is still alive. The police, her parents and Cassandra herself, will try to unravel the mystery of her disappearance. Examining how the kidnapping destroys the relationships among those involved, this psychological drama teases out the complex threads weaving together the victim, her family, the predators and the investigators, revealing the mystery as to what happened to the child during the eight years she was missing. The film premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Sils Maria

Olivier Assayas : 2014
Clouds of Sils Maria

At the peak of her international career, Maria Enders is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago. But back then she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She departs with her assistant, Valentine, to rehearse in Sils Maria; a remote region of the Alps. Jo-Ann Ellis, a young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal is to take on the role of Sigrid, and Maria finds herself on the other side of the mirror, face to face with an ambiguously charming woman who is, in essence, an unsettling reflection of herself. Is she ready to face doubts, questions and uncertainties associated with the more mature age and which she had hitherto rejected? The film premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Incompresa

Asia Argento : 2014
Misunderstood

Rome, 1984. Aria is a nine-year-old girl. On the verge of divorce, Aria's infantile and selfish parents are too preoccupied with their careers and extra-marital affairs to properly tend to any of Aria's needs. While her two older half-sisters are pampered, Aria is treated with cold indifference. Yet she yearns to love and to be loved. At school, Aria excels academically but is considered a misfit by everyone. She is misunderstood. Aria finds comfort in her cat, Dac, and in her best friend, Angelica. Thrown out of both parents' homes, abandoned by all, even her best friend, Aria finally reaches the limit of what she can bear. She walks through the city with a striped bag and a black cat, touching the abyss and the tragedy and just trying to protect her innocence. Asia Argento's third feature premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Leviathan

Andrey Zvyagintsev : 2014
Leviafan

Kolya lives in a small town near the Barents Sea in north Russia. He has his own car repair shop. His shop stands right next to the house where he lives with his young wife Lilya and his son from a previous marriage Romka. Vadim Shelevyat, the mayor of the town, wants to take away his business, his house and his land. First he tries buying off Kolya but Kolya isn't interested in money, he doesn't want to lose everything he has: not only the land, but also all the beauty that has surrounded him from the day of his birth. As Vadim Shelevyat becomes more aggressive, Kolya asks his best friend Dmitri, a lawyer from Moscow, to help him, unaware that this would change his life forever. Andrey Zvyagintsev's fourth feature won the award for Best Screenplay when it premiered at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Cesta ven

Petr Václav : 2014
The Way Out

North Bohemia in 2013. Žaneta is a young mother living with her partner David, her little daughter and her sister in a poorly furnished flat. She aspires to an impossible future for a modern young gypsy woman – to live an ordinary life. Both she and David are jobless, dependent on social welfare in order to exist and struggling to maintain basic living standards, let alone ensuring a bright future for their child. Their unemployment and their difficulty in communicating with officials are both products of the frequent prejudices against the Roma. Under-equipped, Žaneta has to contend with a hostile society that denies them the right to a decent existence, and in spite of it all, strives to preserve both her dignity and her love. Things take a turn for the worse when they find themselves caught in a downward spiral of escalating debts and rapidly vanishing chances of employment, leading David to consider committing a crime in order to help his family. An authentic social-realist drama that reflects a recurrent and untreated problem. Petr Václav's third feature premiered at L'ACID au Festival de Cannes 2014, and was winner of the Blue Angel for Best Film at Art Film Fest, Slovakia 2014.

Bird People

Pascale Ferran : 2014

In the Paris airport zone, two strangers are trying to make sense of their lives. Audrey Camuzet, a young hotel chambermaid, is on her way to work at the Hilton at Charles-de-Gaulle airport, a job that allows her to continue her studies. Gary Newman, an American engineer, disembarks from his plane from California and settles into the same hotel before going to Paris for an important business meeting. All the while, Audrey pushes her trolley through the corridors and cleans rooms. But the following night, Gary who is under great professional and emotional pressure, has a panic attack and decides to give it all up, job and family. He settles his resignation with his business partners, confronts his wife, ending eighteen years of marriage, and moves into the hotel. As for Audrey, she continues to clean methodically, under pressure from the management, up until an extraordinary and life-altering phenomenon occurs which tips her into another dimension. Pascale Ferran's fourth feature premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Festival de Cannes 2014.

The Owners

Adilkhan Yerzhanov : 2014

Twenty-five-year-old John, his teenage brother Erbol, and their sickly twelve-year-old sister Aliya, are forced to leave their house in the Kazakh city of Almaty. They have only one alternative which is to return to a remote little village in Kazakhstan to live in the house left to them by their deceased mother. But once they arrive, the three siblings discover that the house has been occupied illegally for the last ten years by the District Officer's alcoholic brother, who has no intention of letting the house go without a fight. A tale depicting society's indifference to injustice, harassment and the despotism of corrupt public authorities. Adilkhan Yerzhanov's third feature premiered in the Séances Spéciales at Festival de Cannes 2014.

A Girl at My Door

July Jung : 2014
Dohee-ya

As a promising graduate from the National Police Academy, Young-nam gained a high-ranking position at the police headquarters in Seoul. But following an incident of misconduct involving her private life, she is transferred to a small coastal village. When she takes office as head of the local police station, she encounters Do-hee, a strange and sinister teenage girl. As Young-nam tries to adapt to her new surroundings, Do-hee's grandmother suffers ​​a fatal fall from a cliff into the sea. She then discovers that Do-hee is being physically abused by her violent stepfather, Yong-ha, since her mother ran away. Concerned for the girl, Young-nam takes Do-hee under her wing. Despite being abandoned by her mother and suffering the violence of her stepfather, Do-hee retains a childlike innocence. Affected by the personality of the girl and her plight, Young-nam lets Do-hee stay at her place but things turn out to be more mysterious as she gets to know her and Do-hee develops an obsessive attachment to Young-nam. July Jung's feature debut premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Jauja

Lisandro Alonso : 2014

The Ancient Ones said that Jauja was a mythological land of abundance and happiness. Many expeditions tried to find the place to verify this. With time, the legend grew disproportionately. People were undoubtedly exaggerating, as they usually do. The only thing that is known for certain is that all who tried to find this earthly paradise got lost on the way. An outpost in the depths of Patagonia in 1882, during the alleged "Conquest of the Desert", a genocidal campaign against the indigenous population of the region. Acts of savagery multiply on all sides. Captain Gunnar Dinesen of Denmark arrives with his fifteen-year-old daughter to take up an engineer position in the Argentine army. Being the only woman in the surrounding area, Ingeborg's presence causes a stir amongst the men. She falls in love with a young soldier and they flee together under the cover of darkness. Upon waking, Captain Dinesen learns of the situation and decides to drive into enemy territory to find the young couple. The story of a man's desperate quest to find his daughter, a solitary quest that leads us to a place outside of time, where the past is no longer and the future has no meaning. Lisandro Alonso's fifth feature was winner of the FIPRESCI Prize when it premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Festival de Cannes 2014.

That Lovely Girl

Keren Yedaya : 2014
Loin de mon père

Moshe and Tami share a modest apartment. But this is no ordinary couple. Moshe is aged 60; Tami is 22, and she feels adrift, restless and irritable. Her only emotional outlets are binging, purging and self-mutilation. Their unconventional relationship is infested with a deep-seated malaise from which she seems unable to set herself free, as if confined in a prison. Moshe and Tami are father and daughter. Tami can do nothing without her father, with whom she lives in this cruel and violent relationship and whose intimidation is so complete that she believes he is the only person who can love her. Loosely inspired by the book Far from his Absence by Israeli author Shez, whose sensitive and jolting treatment of an incestuous relationship made such a deep impression on the director. Keren Yedaya's third feature premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Festival de Cannes 2014.

The Search

Michel Hazanavicius : 2014

The Second Chechen War, 1999. A powerful story of conflict told through four lives that will be brought together by a shocking twist of fate. After his parents are killed in their village, a small boy flees, joining the flood of refugees. He meets Carole, a European Union delegation head and little by little, with her help, he will return to life. At the same time, his elder sister Raïssa searches tirelessly for him amongst the civilian exodus. Then there's 20-year-old Kolia – a recent Russian Army recruit, he will gradually be overwhelmed by the daily life of wartime. Michel Hazanavicius's fifth feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2014.

White God

Kornél Mundruczó : 2014
Fehér isten

A cautionary tale between a superior species and its disgraced inferior, tracing the misadventures of a girl and her best friend, a dog, in a world of winners and losers. Favouring pedigree dogs, a new regulation puts a severe tax on mixed breeds. Owners dump their dogs and shelters become overcrowded. 13-year-old Lili fights desperately to protect her pet Hagen, but her father eventually sets the dog free on the streets. Hagen and Lili search desperately for each other, whilst homeless Hagen, struggling to survive, realises that not everyone is a dog's best friend. In a world in which pedigree is a decisive factor, genuine affection can occasionally come out on top and rebel against an unjust fate. The film defends hope for peace and the belief that the eternal war between higher and lower beings will one day be brought to an end. Kornél Mundruczó's sixth feature was winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard when it premiered at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Still the Water

Naomi Kawase : 2014
Futatsume no mado

On the subtropical Japanese island of Amami, traditions about nature remain eternal. During the full-moon night of traditional dances in August, 16-year-old Kaito discovers a dead body floating in the sea. His girlfriend Kyoko will attempt to help him understand this mysterious discovery. Together, Kaito and Kyoko will learn to become adults by experiencing the interwoven cycles of life, death and love. Naomi Kawase's eighth feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2014.

When Animals Dream

Jonas Alexander Arnby : 2014
Når dyrene drømmer

Sixteen-year-old Marie is an outsider in the small coastal community where she has grown up. The townspeople live in fear of her and not least her mother who is suffering from a mysterious illness, is on medication and confined to a wheelchair. Her father, the local grocer, tries to make life as normal as possible for the small family. On the surface, everything seems fine, and yet, Marie cannot help feeling that he is hiding something about her mother's illness. At the same time, she senses that something strange is happening to her body, that she is losing control of herself. When she discovers long hair growing on her chest and back she begins searching for answers concerning her family's hidden past. Something that will have great consequences for herself and her family, and the choices she has to make. Jonas Alexander Arnby's feature debut premiered at Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes 2014.

Matar a un hombre

Alejandro Fernández Almendras : 2014
To Kill a Man

Jorge is a tranquil, hard-working family man whose neighbourhood has become overrun by a fringe class of street thugs. His comparatively fortunate existence makes him the target of their intimidation one night, when one of them robs him of his insulin needle. Jorge's teenage son boldly tries to stand up for his father, which only serves to unleash the bully's terrorising reign of threats upon the family. Jorge and his wife, Martha, seek protection from the legal system but are subjected to civic drones and bureaucratic procedure, so they remain vulnerable. As Jorge's family suffers from fear and humiliating anguish, the situation paints him as a deficient patriarch, until he's cornered into defending what's his. A thriller based on real events, accurately portraying an extreme tension that makes plausible the unthinkable. Alejandro Fernández Almendras's third feature premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2014, and was winner of the Grande Prémio at IndieLisboa 2014.

Winter Sleep

Nuri Bilge Ceylan : 2014
Kış uykusu

Set in the hilly landscape of Cappadocia in Central Anatolia. A former actor, Aydin owns a small hotel cut into the hillside, which he runs with his younger wife Nihal. He has also inherited local properties, but leaves the business of rent collection to his agent. When a local boy, resentful of his father's humiliation by Aydin's agent, throws a stone at a jeep whilst Aydin and his agent are driving in it, Aydin ducks out of any responsibility or involvement. As the story progresses, the cocoon in which this self-satisfied man has wrapped himself is gradually unravelled. In a series of set-pieces, Aydin is exposed in his encounters with his wife, sister, and the family of the stone-throwing boy. He is finally brought face-to-face with who he truly is. Nuri Bilge Ceylan's seventh feature received the FIPRESCI Prize and was awarded the Palme d'Or when it premiered at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Xenia

Panos H Koutras : 2014

Strangers in their own birthplace, 16-year-old Danny and 18-year-old Odysseus start a journey from Crete to Thessaloniki in search of their Greek father, after their Albanian mother passes away. Determined to force him to acknowledge paternity, little do they know that the road to the much-coveted Greek citizenship is paved with ghosts from the past, adult savagery and a dream that needs to come true, no matter what. Reaching the end of this initiatory journey they eventually come of age even if Greece refuses to follow. Panos H Koutras's fourth feature premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Le meraviglie

Alice Rohrwacher : 2014
The Wonders

Gelsomina, at twelve years of age, is head of the family and her three younger sisters must obey her and work under her watchful eye. Whilst all around them the Umbrian countryside is being burnt up by pesticides and rural life is falling apart and becoming something different, a TV competition arrives from the city offering prize money for the most "traditional" family. Gelsomina wants to participate, but her father Wolfgang won't even consider it. The new European laws regarding farm produce mean they will have to work very hard to expand their bee colonies and get the honey lab up to standard. In his desperate search for cheap labour, Wolfgang takes on Martin who comes from a youth rehabilitation programme run by the German government. The tension mounts between a silent evasive boy on to whom Wolfgang projects his desire for a son, and, counteracting this, the outward-reaching force of Gelsomina. A small but cruel love story between a father and daughter, their torments, jealousy and shyness. They give abundantly, and betray each other painfully. It tells of the ties that bind one family together, and a land undergoing a profound transformation. Alice Rohrwacher's second feature was awarded the Grand Prix when it premiered at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Faire l'amour

Djinn Carrénard : 2014
Making Love

Oussmane is a musician losing his hearing in a loveless relationship with Laure, an air hostess desperately trying to get pregnant. Kahina is a young woman doing time in a prison somewhere in Île-de-France who gets leave for a week to spend Christmas with her four-year-old daughter. Oussmane and Kahina will fall in love during this week on leave, clinging on to each other with the passion of their instinct to survive. Kahina can't see her daughter, Kahina falls in love, Kahina has to return to prison. The three of them will meet, fight and help each other, while trying to fulfil their dreams. Together they will wonder: How do you create love? How do you make love? Djinn Carrénard's second feature premiered as the opening night screening at Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes 2014.

Respire

Mélanie Laurent : 2014
Breathe

Charlie is a young girl of 17. The age of friendships, emotions and convictions. The age of passions. A teenager like any other, not a child anymore, but not quite an adult either. A talented and pretty young girl, who is nevertheless full of doubts, disillusions and loneliness. And then Sarah arrives. She's the new girl. Beautiful and cheeky, she has a path, and a temperament. She immediately becomes the star. In class and at parties, with boys and with girls, even parents see her as a breath of fresh air. Sarah chooses Charlie. So Charlie gets excited, Charlie laughs and Charlie is alive – resolutely, intensely and evidently. Irreparably. Sarah, however, is one of those who moves on quickly. She is the type to discard the cold and damaged leftovers, in order to move on to the next friend, the next prey. Charlie is lost, and it's all too normal. Charlie is hurt, and that could be fatal. Mélanie Laurent's second feature premiered in a special screening at Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes 2014.

Hope

Boris Lojkine : 2014

Dreaming of a better future, Léonard leaves Cameroon for Europe. His journey will end badly however. Abandoned by his travel companions in the middle of the Sahara, he finds himself blocked in a border village, without any resources. His path will cross with Hope's, a young Nigerian woman who is also stuck and has found herself forced into prostitution. She needs a protector and is looking for a way out of the desert. In a fiercely hostile world where safety requires staying with one's own people, Léonard and Hope try to find their way together, and to love each other. Boris Lojkine's feature debut was awarded Le Prix SACD when it premiered at Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes 2014.

Les combattants

Thomas Cailley : 2014
Love At First Fight

Between his friends and the family business, Arnaud's summer looks set to be a peaceful one. Peaceful until he runs into Madeleine, as beautiful as she is brusque, a concrete block of tensed muscles and doomsday prophecies. He expects nothing; she prepares for the worst. He takes things as they come, likes a good laugh. She fights, runs, swims, pushes herself to the limit. Given she hasn't asked him for anything, just how far will he go along with her? It's a love story. Or a story of survival. Or both. Thomas Cailley's feature debut was winner of the SACD and FIPRESCI Prizes when it premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Catch Me Daddy

Daniel Wolfe : 2014

Laila, a girl in her late teens has run away from her family with her drifter boyfriend Aaron. Holed up together in a West Yorkshire town on the edge of the moors, they live a hand-to-mouth existence. Aaron is AWOL from the army, whilst Laila knows her family won't let her run without a fight. Two car loads of bounty hunters roll into town asking questions and flashing a photo of Laila. Hardmen hired by the girl's father with her brother in tow. They find her, there's a confrontation and her brother is killed. The stakes have gone up. They've got to get out of town and head on to the moors, pursued by men who will stop at nothing to bring Laila back to Daddy. Forced to flee for her life, Laila faces her darkest night. Daniel Wolfe's feature directorial debut premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Bande de filles

Céline Sciamma : 2014
Girlhood

Sixteen-year-old Marieme has lived her life as a succession of prohibitions. Oppressed by her family environment, dead-end prospects at school and the boys' law in the tough Paris neighbourhood, she starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. They dance, they fight, they talk loud, they laugh at everything. Marieme becomes Vic, changes her dress code and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom, to live her youth. Céline Sciamma's third feature premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Next to Her

Asaf Korman : 2014
At li layla

Chelli, 27, is raising her mentally disabled sister Gabby, 24, all by herself. When the social worker finds out she leaves her sister alone in the house while at work, she is forced to place her in a day-care centre. For the first time in her life she shares the upbringing of her dear sister with someone else, her daily routine collapses and the huge void, left by her sister's absence, makes room for a man in Chelli's life. That man, Zohar, tears another crack in the symbiotic relationship of the two sisters. Chelli hangs on to his love as if it was a life belt. But her inability to lead a normal, intimate and emotional relationship with anyone but her sister, forces them into a twisted threesome, where boundaries between love, sacrifice, nurturing and torturing are broken. Asaf Korman's feature debut premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2014.

The Lake

Miyakawa Shin'ichi : 2013
Mizuumi wa hito wo nomikomu

A hand with a camera emerges from a lake. This surreal scene is like a period in the personal correspondence between two Japanese filmmakers. In the director's mind, the faded 8mm footage depicts artifacts that evoke phantoms of the past. But besides aimless wanderings through the streets of his hometown, a collection of photographs of a women's wrestling team, or the handmade mask of Mexican superhero El Santa, the camera also shows its own image. In this experimental correspondence written with a camera instead of a pen, the central theme is one of mirrors and reflections representing the connection between subject and object, life and film. Miyakawa Shin'ichi's film premiered in Spectrum Shorts at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2014, and won the Grand Prize at the Image Forum Festival 2014.