Melody

Bernard Bellefroid : 2014

28-year-old Melody, a confused child born under the name X, decides to rent out her body in order to get the money she needs to realise her dream of opening a hairdressing salon. To do so, she accepts to carry the child of Emily, a rich English woman, 48 years old, who can no longer have children. To make sure everything goes well and keep an eye on her future child, Emily decides to welcome Melody into her home and stay by her side throughout the pregnancy. Although they first appear to come from completely different worlds, the two women end up adopting each other: Melody finds in Emily the mother she never had, and Emily sees in Melody the daughter she always wanted to have. However, the bonds that emerge during this double maternity will create all kinds of doubts and questions. Bernard Bellefroid's second feature was winner of a joint Best Actress award when it premiered at Montréal World Film Festival 2014.

Jenata ot fara

Ana Kitanova : 2014
Lighthouse Woman

Eddie finds out that he has been adopted and starts investigating his mother's mysterious death – she has jumped from the top of the lighthouse. Following the evidence left behind, Eddie begins to suspect that his mother has been murdered. Spending time at the lighthouse helps Eddie to look back on his past, to fit together the parts of the puzzle and to realise the truth. Ana Kitanova's short premiered at Sofia International Film Festival 2014, and screened at International Film Festival Tofifest 2014.

Bloedlink

Joram Lürsen : 2014
Reckless

Two ex-convicts, Victor and Rico, have masterminded a foolproof plan to abduct 25-year-old millionaire's daughter Laura Temming. With the kidnapping they want to make the deal of their lives. When they sweep Laura away in a van in broad daylight and hold her in a flat, negotiations with her father about the ransom soon begin. But gradually the balance of power between Laura and her abductors shifts. Exactly who is the perpetrator and who is the real victim? Joram Lürsen's feature premiered in competition at Nederlands Film Festival 2014.

Triptyque

Robert Lepage & Pedro Pires : 2013
Triptych

A meditation on the influence of language and voices on the destinies of three people. In Québec, Michelle leaves a psychiatric clinic and returns to her work in an antiquarian bookstore which subsequently becomes a space for her inner voices. In London, a German neurologist meets Michelle's sister, Marie, a jazz singer whose ability to speak is jeopardised by a brain tumour. Marie is one of Thomas's last patients. He is suffering from a hand tremor – the result of a taxing marriage. Back home in Montréal, Marie starts a new life together with Thomas. With the aid of dubbing actors and Super-8 footage of her late father, she begins obsessively to retrieve her forgotten memory of his voice. Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires's feature premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2013, and received a Special Mention by the Ecumenical Jury at Berlin International Film Festival 2014.

Provincia

György Mór Kárpáti : 2014
Province

Otto works as a conveyor for a food store in Budapest. When his van breaks down during a countryside delivery, he finds himself on an archaeological excavation site. Otto spends one day on the excavation. In this unfamiliar location, he seems to awaken: he is out of his element, but really wants to fit in. He also displays a keen interest in the excavation, or maybe he is just trying to impress the archaeologist he meets on site. A reflection on the random nature of fate, on chance encounters that are destined to remain isolated instances – but will they really stay that way? György Mór Kárpáti's third short premiered in competition in the Cinéfondation selection at Festival de Cannes 2014, and screened in competition at Sarajevo Film Festival 2014.

Cloro

Lamberto Sanfelice : 2015
Chlorine

Seventeen-year-old Jenny lives in Ostia, a seaside town near Rome, and dreams of being a synchronised swimmer. But after her mother's death and her father's ensuing nervous breakdown, her family is forced to relocate to a remote mountain village, where Jenny drops out of school to work as a maid at a nearby ski resort and to support her younger brother. She is unwilling to give up her passion and promises herself and her best friend Flavia that she will be back in Ostia for the next synchro competitions. Sneaking into the hotel pool to train, she clings to some semblance of her dream. But with her father showing no sign of recovery, Jenny's 'temporary' circumstances appear increasingly permanent. Lamberto Sanfelice's feature debut premiered in competition at Sundance Film Festival 2015.

O primeiro verão

Adriano Mendes : 2014
The First Summer

The first summer shapes the first years of our lives: we are freer after our first summer, when we make our first decisions, when we have time to feel in our own terms, without hurrying. Isabel and Miguel meet during a driving lesson. They start hanging out and end up spending the summer together: temporary jobs, taking walks by the river and falling naively in love. Every day they get a little closer. One must know how to look after a summer love: the easiness of summer might not be perpetuated in time and the following season brings new ordeals. In autumn, he travels to visit his family, while she stays and takes care of his dog. When he returns, their love for each other will be tested. Adriano Mendes's feature debut was winner of the award for Best Portuguese Fiction Feature Film when it premiered at IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival 2014, and screened in competition at Moscow International Film Festival 2014.

La vive allure

Gabriela Christen : 2014
Life Returned

Chiara, 30 and fairly reserved, works as an editor. After a night of heavy drinking at an office party, her car crashes in a tunnel. When she awakens at home with a plaster on her temple, she has no recollection of the events. In order to be able to reconstruct the happenings, she begs the police officer present at the scene of the accident to tell her what happened. Gabriela Christen's short premiered at Solothurn Film Festival 2015.

Driften

Karim Patwa : 2015

Twenty-two-year-old Robert, a former driver in illegal races, returns to his hometown Dietikon wanting to start a new life. His addiction to the thrill of speed led him to prison. Having served his sentence, he is determined to put his past behind him and starts an apprenticeship in a repair shop. All goes well until he meets Alice. Robert and the English teacher older than him feel attracted to each other, they are connected by the strong bond of a dark past. To stay with her, Robert is taking English classes. Yet as the relationship gains in intensity, former guilt feelings resurface and Robert's life starts to unravel. Karim Patwa's feature debut premiered at Solothurn Film Festival 2015.

Strangerland

Kim Farrant : 2015

Newcomers to the remote Australian desert town of Nathgari, Catherine and Matthew Parker's lives are flung into crisis when they discover their two teenage kids, Tommy and Lily, have mysteriously disappeared just before a massive dust storm hits. With Nathgari eerily smothered in red dust and darkness, the townsfolk join the search led by local policeman, David Rae. It soon becomes apparent that something terrible may have happened to Tommy and Lily. Suspicions run riot, rumours spread and public opinion turns savagely against the Parkers. With temperatures rising and the chances of survival plummeting with each passing day, Catherine and Matthew find themselves pushed to the brink as they struggle to survive the mystery of their children's fate. Kim Farrant's feature directorial debut premiered in competition at Sundance Film Festival 2015.

De nærmeste

Anne Sewitsky : 2015
Homesick

When Charlotte, 27, who is longing for family bonds and acceptance, meets her brother Henrik, 35, for the first time as an adult, it becomes an encounter without boundaries, between two people who don't know what a normal family is. How does sibling love manifest itself if you have never experienced it before? An unusual family drama about seeking a family, and breaking every rule to be one. Anne Sewitsky's third feature premiered in competition at Sundance Film Festival 2015.

Volta

Stella Kyriakopoulos : 2014
Stroll

A struggling single mother and her five-year-old daughter start out from central Athens and head to the suburbs. Nina thinks she's going on a walk. The film follows their journey as they travel by foot, bus and train across the city. An ominous yet bittersweet take on the financial meltdown tormenting the country's working classes, via the story of a heartbreakingly tender walk through Athens, all the way to a very unexpected destination in the city's wealthy northern suburbs. Stella Kyriakopoulos's narrative short is her thesis film for the NYU Graduate Film programme. It won a Special Mention when it premiered at the Greek International Film Festival in Drama 2014, and had its US premiere in competition at Sundance Film Festival 2015.

Meurtre à Pacot

Raoul Peck : 2014
Murder in Pacot

Barely a couple of days after the Haitian earthquake destroys most of their villa, a man and his wife are visited by a team of foreign surveyors and given an ultimatum: fix it entirely in a few weeks, or it will be razed to the ground. The newly penniless couple rent the habitable part of the villa to Alex – a relief worker who benefits from the high remuneration granted to foreign humanitarian personnel in Haiti – in order to put his rent payments towards repairs. To their surprise, their new tenant also comes with a Haitian girlfriend, Andrémise, a sassy and enterprising young woman who has renamed herself Jennifer to attract foreign suitors in Port-au-Prince. As the ground rumbles with aftershocks, the once-privileged couple, now destitute and helpless, comes for the first time face-to-face with the stark contradictions of Haitian society. Raoul Peck's feature premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2014, and had its European premiere in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Waste Land

Pieter van Hees : 2014

Hard-edged and hard-working homicide detective Leo Woeste spends his days confronting the grim criminal underworld of Brussels, and finds solace in his domestic life with partner Kathleen and her five-year-old son. While Leo is working to solve the brutal murder of a young Congolese-Belgian man, he and Kathleen discover that she's unexpectedly pregnant with their first child together. He vows to make this his final homicide case, and follows the trail deep into a bizarre subculture involving the mysterious trade of Congolese idols. When he finds himself drawn to the victim's sexy and enigmatic sister, Leo begins to slip away from the very family life he is trying to protect, and his fears about fatherhood and the nature of evil consume him. His animal instincts take hold, and he spirals into the abyss of his own darkness, haunted by the question of whether he'll be able to claw his way back. Pieter van Hees's feature premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2014, and was winner of the Cineuropa Prize when it screened in competition at Festival de Cinéma Européen des Arcs 2014.

Princess

Tali Shalom Ezer : 2014

Adar, a bright and sensitive 12-year-old girl, must manoeuvre amid the tempestuous and fiery relationship between Alma, her workaholic mother and Michael, her young stay-at-home stepfather. While her mother is away from home, Adar is left in Michael's care, who gradually turns their strong love and attachment into risky role-playing games. Roaming the city streets, Adar meets Alan, a dreamy boy who keenly resembles her, and brings him into the family. Alan's presence seems to have a positive effect on their lives, until the relationship between Michael, Adar and Alan takes a sinister turn. After failing to enlist her mother's help, Adar finds she has no one to depend upon but Alan, and the two young friends embark on a dark journey between childhood and adolescence, reality and fantasy, which will forever change the rules of the game in the household. Tali Shalom Ezer's second feature was winner of the Haggiag Award for Best Israeli Feature at Jerusalem Film Festival 2014, and had its international premiere in competition at Sundance Film Festival 2015.

Musarañas

Juanfer Andrés & Esteban Roel : 2014
Shrew's Nest

Spain in the grey 1950s. Montse sacrifices her youth in order to take care of her younger sister, shut up in a sinister apartment in the centre of Madrid. Her mother died in childbirth after which her desperate father fled, leaving both daughters alone. Forced to take on the role of a father, mother and older sister, Montse who suffers from agoraphobia, develops an obsessive and unbalanced temperament. The only thing tying her to reality is the relationship she has with her younger sister. One day, her life is interrupted by an encounter with Carlos, a young and irresponsible neighbour. He has the misfortune of falling down the stairs and seeks help by knocking on the only door he can manage to reach. Someone has entered the shrew's nest – perhaps he'll never leave. This gothic melodrama in which family bonds are tightened to the point of asphyxiation, is a chilling depiction of festering neurosis and repressed desire. Juanfer Andrés and Esteban Roel's feature debut premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2014.

How to Dance in Ohio

Alexandra Shiva : 2015

In Columbus, Ohio, a group of teenagers and young adults on the autism spectrum prepare for an iconic American rite of passage – a spring formal dance. They spend 12 weeks practising their social skills in preparation for the event at a local disco. Working with their psychologist, they take the challenges expressed in their respective therapy groups from one level to the next: picking dates, dresses, and ultimately, a King and Queen of the Prom. We get to know this community through three girls transitioning into adulthood. The film takes us into their group therapy sessions, their relationship to their families, and into their private thoughts, as they navigate and struggle to understand and accept the social rules that surround this universally fraught experience. Through their stories, and a chorus of other young women and men confronting similar issues, these girls reveal the hard work, perseverance and resilience it takes to be a part of contemporary society, along with the extraordinary challenges of being different. Alexandra Shiva's documentary premiered in competition at Sundance Film Festival 2015.

A Matter of Interpretation

Lee Kwang-kuk : 2014
Kkum-bo-da hae-mong

A detective who is better at interpreting dreams than at solving murders, and an actress without an audience meet on a bench in the park. The actress has stormed out of a theatre after throwing a fit at her troupe members when no one came to her play. She then meets a suspicious detective who explains how he saw a woman who committed suicide nearby. The detective's tale of the woman who suffocated to death in a car is followed by the actress attempting suicide in a car, and her discovery of the detective locked up in the car boot. Her dream is the starting point of a story-within-a-story, using dream logic to play hide-and-seek with reality. What is real and what is not is a matter of interpretation. Lee Kwang-kuk's second feature received the CGV Movie Collage Award when it premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2014, and had its European premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

My Man

Kumakiri Kazuyoshi : 2014
Watashi no Otoko

When 10-year-old Hana is orphaned by the earthquake and tsunami which decimated Okushiri Island, Hokkaido in July 1993, she is adopted by 26-year-old Jungo, a distant relative. Over the next fifteen years the comfort of family they find in each other has them embrace a shared sense of loss, and despite Hana's traumatic past, they live as father and daughter. As they become absolutely dependent upon one another, their relationship slowly turns physical, and when their secret is disclosed, leading to various conflicts with the people around them, they flee Hokkaido in the hope of a new life in Tokyo. Based on Sakuraba Kazuki's controversial Naoki Award-winning novel. Kumakiri Kazuyoshi's feature was winner of the awards for Best Film and Best Actor at Moscow International Film Festival 2014.

The Summer of Sangaile

Alanté Kavaïté : 2015
Sangailė

Seventeen-year-old Sangaïlé is fascinated by stunt planes. Afraid of heights, she has never dared to even enter in one of the cockpits. At a summer aeronautical show, near her parents' lakeside villa, she meets Austé, a local girl of her age, who unlike Sangaïlé, lives her life to the full with creativity and dare. As the two girls become lovers, Sangaïlé allows Austé to discover her most intimate secret, and finds in her teenage love the only person to truly encourage her in flying. A coming-of-age story about personal fulfilment, the act of choosing what you become and the impact it could have on people's lives. Alanté Kavaïté's second feature was winner of the Best Director Award when it premiered in competition at Sundance Film Festival 2015. Her film had its European premiere in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Los ausentes

Nicolás Pereda : 2014
The Absent

In the south of Mexico, a poor man in his mid-seventies lives alone in a house near the beach. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the deed for this property and another man claims it's his. The old man attends a hearing to resolve the conflict, but nothing gets fixed and he starts losing his mind, with memories of his past beginning to haunt his daily life. When he ends up losing his property and his house is demolished, he embarks on a journey to the mountains in search of people he knew long ago. Throughout the trip he is haunted by a memory of his younger self, whom he meets, but does not recognise. Even though he eventually finds some of his old acquaintances, no one takes him in, so he continues to wander through the forest and into his memories. Nicolás Pereda's feature premiered at Locarno Film Festival 2014, and received an Honourable Mention when it screened in competition at Márgenes Film Festival 2014.

Olya's Love

Kirill Sakharnov : 2014

With two members of the political punk band Pussy Riot in prison and the Russian parliament adopting controversial anti-gay legislation, we follow enthusiastic twenty-something Olya in her unstinting struggle for equal rights for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people. She organises exhibitions and coming-out events and demonstrates actively on the streets, often right on the front line between demonstrators, riot police and opponents. The film's home-video style underlines the personal nature of this highly politicised issue. Olya learns to use the camera herself so she can film in the intimacy of her apartment – while Galiya, her girlfriend, is fitting a wall socket or they are talking with friends about having children. This private footage is interspersed with material shot by an external cameraman – often rough material from the street, just when something is happening: beatings not only during the demonstrations in front of the Duma, but also on the escalator in the metro, where women are attacked by members of an anti-gay group. By letting the camera into her life, Olya shows us what the price of standing up for your sexuality is in today's Russia. Kirill Sakharnov's first feature-length documentary premiered at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2014, and screened at Riga International Film Festival 2014.

Huba

Anka Sasnal & Wilhelm Sasnal : 2014
Parasite

An old, sick man who bears the scars of a life of factory work. A woman, alone apart from her small baby, who moves in with him. The day-to-day lives of the three of them, their cramped quarters and mutual dependency, thrown back on bare existence. The camera records and stages in equal measure: three bodies at the beginning of life, at its end and somewhere in between. Need, self-sacrifice, decline. And again and again, the inescapable necessity to eat. Along with the infant's cries, the only sounds to pierce their otherwise wordless life together are those of eating, together with the noises of their surrounding environment. Finally, a nocturnal foray out into life, a moment of great intimacy, of tender beauty, and a brief sense of release. Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal's third feature premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2014, and screened at Gijón International Film Festival 2014.

Kertu

Ilmar Raag : 2013
Love is Blind

A small village in Estonia. Kertu has lived here for over 30 years under her father's power. He is the reason she has a fear of strangers. Gentle and sensitive by nature, she is considered naive, reclusive and shy by the locals. One day the young woman makes an attempt to change something in her life. She sends a postcard with a poem she has copied to Villu, a handsome but degenerate village drunk and womaniser. She has never expressed feelings for anyone before and he is touched. After the Midsummer's Day celebrations Kertu goes missing without a trace. Her entire family panics because this has never happened before. After a long search she is found trembling under Villu's bed. The judgemental villagers and the family accuse Villu of taking advantage of the woman. But what really happened that night? The slowly unravelling truth is more shocking than anyone could ever imagine. An unusual love story that depicts hidden relationships of people in a small village and one family. Ilmar Raag's feature premiered at Warsaw International Film Festival 2013, and screened at Riga International Film Festival 2014.

Lacrau

João Vladimiro : 2013
Scorpion

If the viper could hear, and the scorpion could see, nobody would escape. The viper is deaf and the scorpion is blind, so it is and so shall it always be, the same way the countryside is peaceful and the city bustling and the human being impossible to satisfy. Lacrau demands the return 'to the curve where man got lost' in a journey from the city towards nature. The escape from the chaos and emotional void we call progress; matter without spirit, without will. The search for the most ancient sensations and relationships of mankind. Bewilderment, the fear of the unknown, the loss of basic comforts, loneliness, the encounter with the other, the other animal, the other plant. A dive in search of a connection with the world. Where beginning and end are the same, but I am not. João Vladimiro's documentary feature was winner of the Mejor Película Portuguesa and Árvore da Vida Award at IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival 2013, and screened in competition at Márgenes Film Festival 2014.

The Move

Marat Sarulu : 2014
Pereezd

In the village, in a small house by the river, an old man lives with his granddaughter. They live a simple life in harmony with the surrounding world. One day, the man's daughter, living in the city and doing everything in order to survive in a hostile social environment, comes home and asks him to sell the house and move in with her. The old man reluctantly agrees and moves with the child to live with his daughter in the city. However, it transpires that the daughter cannot repay a bank loan and soon the family lose their home. Being in a desperate situation, she leads the child to her ex-husband, but he refuses to take her into his house, even temporarily. She then attempts to attach her daughter first to one relative and then another, but all to no avail. Finally, in horror and despair, she places her father in a nursing home, and her child in an orphanage, and leaves for Russia to find work. Unable to bear the separation from his granddaughter, the old man goes to the orphanage to see her. Surrounded by the memories of their lost home, they sadly huddle together. One evening the girl runs away from the orphanage and comes to an urban wasteland. A shepherd passes her and for a long time she watches after him, until the night comes, in which the girl disappears. Marat Sarulu's feature premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2014, and won the award for Best Director at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2014.

Labour of Love

Aditya Vikram Sengupta : 2014
Asha jaoar majhe

The spiralling recession that hit India peaked a few years ago. Thousands of people lost their jobs without notice. Faced with financial uncertainty, a married couple living in a disintegrating district of Kolkata is under great pressure. They could lose their jobs at any time. Their lives are filled with an endless cycle of shift work and domestic routine, with long stretches of waiting in the silence of an empty house. These are no conditions for love to blossom. They are forced to negotiate between expectations and reality. They try to manifest their love wherever they can, through little acts like fixing a button or cooking for two. How do you trick time to be able to spend it together? Told almost without words, this is a story about two people during an economic crisis. Under constant pressure to sustain their livelihood, they share each other's solitude in pursuit of a distant dream that visits them briefly every morning. Aditya Vikram Sengupta's first feature won the award for Best Director of a Debut Film when it premiered at Venice Days 2014.

Juana a los 12

Martín Shanly : 2014
About Twelve

Twelve-year-old Juana goes to a British school in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where she fails both socially and academically. A week away from the exams that will determine her future in the institution, she is surrounded by the same routine, going to class and trying to pull her social life back together. She is unreachable for the teachers, disconcerting to her mother, indifferent to her schoolmates, and a steady patient of psychologists and other health specialists. Juana is a mystery for those around her. Her almost permanent disconnection from the world is not due to a psychological problem but a conscious choice. The film draws certain parallels with the historical figure of Juana I de Castilla, who in 1500 was falsely diagnosed as insane. Unable to disobey the orders of the dictatorial regime of her father and brother, the young heiress lost the best years of her life imprisoned in loneliness, heartbreak and tremendous injustice. Now, embodied as a pre-teenage victim of an oppressive educational system, Juana is a girl about to start the arduous road to adulthood, facing a hostile world with censorship at every moment. Martín Shanly's feature debut premiered in competition at Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema 2014, and was winner of the Argentine Feature Competition at Festival de Cine Latinoamericano de La Plata 2014.

The Avian Kind

Shin Yeon-shick : 2014
Joryu ingan

A novelist, Kim Jeong-seok has spent years searching for his missing wife. Fifteen years previously, she left him and their young daughter behind and disappeared. He wrote a novel about his experience. When Jeong-seok comes across a young girl, Alice, who read his novel and is also looking for someone who disappeared, she tells him she can help find his wife. Clues start suddenly appearing as to the fates of both women. Along the way they meet various people, but each one is secretly hiding the purpose of their own search. Rumours grow about the fate of the missing people: can they have really changed into another form of life? A road movie that develops thriller material into a fascinating fairy tale in which mythical elements come together to form a multi-layered allegory on the modern-day wish for self-discovery. Shin Yeon-shick's fifth feature premiered at Jeonju International Film Festival 2014.

The Survivalist

Stephen Fingleton : 2015

The dystopian future of 2023: a time of starvation. The Survivalist has been living off the grid before the grid went down. Growing food on a small farm hidden deep in a forest, he protects his land from thieves and foragers with man traps and a shotgun. But the long years alone have taken their toll on him, and he is beginning to lose his grip on reality. His isolation is broken by two visitors, Kathryn and her teenage daughter Milja. They are starving and desperate for food. Initially reluctant to share any, he relents when they offer a night with Milja. The exchange becomes an uneasy ongoing arrangement; as Kathryn schemes to take control of the farm, and Survivalist finds his feelings growing for her daughter. When the farm comes under attack from outsiders, they find they must work together to survive, developing loyalties which will be tested when food runs short. Stephen Fingleton's feature debut received the Best New Narrative Director, Special Jury Mention when it premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2015. His film had its UK premiere at Belfast Film Festival 2015.

The Cut

Fatih Akin : 2014
Kesik

Mardin, 1915: the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire which resulted in the forced migration and diaspora of the Armenian minority. One night, the Turkish police rounds up all the Armenian men in the city, including the young blacksmith, Nazaret Manoogian, who is separated from his family. He becomes a forced labourer and only survives the mass murder by chance and an act of kindness. Years later, he learns that his two daughters may still be alive. He becomes fixated on the idea of finding them and sets off to track them down. His search takes him from the Mesopotamian deserts to the sea, to Havana and the barren and desolate prairies of North Dakota, always looking for clues that might lead him to his children. On this odyssey, he meets all varieties of humanity: angelically good characters, but also the devil in human form. Fatih Akin's feature premiered in competition at Venice International Film Festival 2014.