La casa más grande del mundo

Ana V Bojórquez & Lucía Carreras : 2015
The Greatest House in the World

Every morning the herd has to be taken out to graze in the mountains and then brought home again at night. Every day Rocío, a wistful Mayan girl living in the Guatemalan highlands, accompanies her pregnant mother while she tends the sheep. When her mother goes into premature labour, Rocío has to tend the sheep on her own. She is really too young for the job but there is no other way. As ever, Rocío whiles away the time with a friend, building the largest houses in the world with little stones. And then, all of a sudden it has happened: one sheep – the smallest – is missing. Her friend cannot help in the search for long because she has to take her own animals back home. Left on her own, Rocío guides her flock through the rugged mountains in pursuit of the lost lamb. When she finally finds it, she loses the rest of the herd. Things could not get worse. Night begins to fall. What should she do? As the fog rises she has to make her way over a swaying rope bridge and into unfamiliar territory. Left to fend for herself, Rocío manages to rise above herself and conquer her fears. Poetically, we come full circle, as one girl grows up and another enters the world. Ana V Bojórquez and Lucía Carreras's collaborative feature debut premiered in the Generation Kplus section at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Lo Sum Choe Sum

Dechen Roder : 2015
3 Year 3 Month Retreat

In the traditional Buddhist meditation practice of Lo Sum Choe Sum, monks, nuns and other devout practitioners withdraw from worldly life for a three year and three month retreat. This period is defined as the time deemed necessary to attain a higher level of clarity and transformation. Lhamo is a young woman living in Bhutan. She is on a journey. Driving through the mountains by bus. During a stop, she climbs a mountain on her own and almost misses the bus. Then all the travellers are brought to a halt when police search the bus. Lhamo is arrested. In carefully composed tableaux that juxtapose city and rural life as well as traditional and contemporary ways of living, the director tells the story of a woman whose perception of autonomy is owed to the experiences and spiritual practices of her past. Dechen Roder's short premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Ciało

Małgorzata Szumowska : 2015
Body

Janusz is not a man to be easily shocked. As coroner he undertakes precise research, analysing the crime scene in minute detail. Despite the extreme situations he comes up against, he works hard. Perhaps too hard. Yet when faced with his anorexic daughter Olga, still grieving for her dead mother, he feels helpless. Fearing that she might kill herself, he commits her to a clinic where Anna, a psychologist, carries out her duties. Years before, Anna lost her baby to cot-death and now sequesters herself and her big dog in a heavily barricaded flat and conjures up spirits who communicate with the living from beyond the grave. Focusing on the difficulties people encounter when struggling to cope with the loss of loved ones, the film explores the fear of and yet longing for intimacy, self-harm due to mental anguish and escaping into the esoteric. Małgorzata Szumowska's feature won a Silver Bear for Best Director when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Dora or The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents

Stina Werenfels : 2015
Dora oder Die sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern

At the age of eighteen, Dora is just beginning to blossom. Her mother Kristin has recently decided that Dora's psychotherapeutic medications are no longer necessary. As the mentally challenged young woman rushes headlong into life, a man takes a liking to her. Soon, the two become sexually involved, he obviously taken with her unrestrained sensuality. Seeing the relationship as unscrupulous and abusive, her parents demand their daughter stops seeing her lover. But their efforts are to no avail and when Dora's affair leads to a more serious situation, everyone has to reassess the limits of their relationship to each other, and reconsider such topics as self-determination, trust and jealousy. Examining the responsibilities of parents as they try to protect their vulnerable child, the film questions the right to sexuality and freedom-of-self of individuals with mental disabilities. Stina Werenfels's third feature premiered at Solothurn Film Festival 2015, and had its international premiere in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Self-Portrait of a Dutiful Daughter

Ana Lungu : 2015
Autoportretul unei fete cuminţi

Cristiana is a 30-year-old woman, brought up in a 'proper', bourgeois middle-class family. Her time is split between writing for her PhD in Earthquake Engineering, conversations with Alex and Michelle, her two close friends and the occasional, eagerly awaited rendezvous with Dan, a married man with whom she is romantically involved. After her parents move out of the family apartment into a new house, Cristiana has the freedom of an adult for the very first time. She gingerly feels her way in this new space – literally and metaphorically. She can smoke as much as she likes, re-hangs her parents' art and decides to get a dog, something she has wanted ever since she was a child. However, the condescending attitudes of Cristiana's father and friends, which diametrically oppose her growth, become ever more challenging in her struggle for independence. Alone in the empty rooms, Cristiana has to fill the recently conquered space. She is happy she can finally be herself, but in fact has no idea who she is. Ana Lungu's second feature premiered in the Signals section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

A misteriosa morte de Pérola

Guto Parente : 2014
The Mysterious Death of Pérola

A slow, obscure murder mystery about a young Brazilian student who leaves her country, home and boyfriend to study art in a French city. Pérola lives alone in a beautiful, but dark, old apartment where paintings stare at her and doors seem to have a life of their own. Away from home, she's lonely and feels the effects of a time passing, being increasingly taken by nostalgia and fear to a point where dream, fantasy and reality lose their borders. Guto Parente's mid-length film premiered at Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife 2014, and had its international premiere in the As Long As It Takes section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

Journal d'une femme de chambre

Benoît Jacquot : 2015
Diary of a Chambermaid

In the early twentieth century, in a village in Lower Normandy. Célestine, a young chambermaid who is much courted for her beauty, has just arrived from Paris to work for the Lanlaire family. Fending off her master's advances, Célestine also has to cope with the strict Madame Lanlaire who rules the household with an iron fist. There, she meets Joseph, the mysterious gardener at the property, with whom she becomes deeply infatuated. Benoît Jacquot's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

The Man in the Wall

Evgeny Ruman : 2015
Haish shebakir

The story of Shir and Rami, an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv. One night, after walking their dog, Rami disappeared without his phone or wallet. Behind closed doors we will witness the sequence of events in the apartment, where a number of visitors join Shir: friends, family, the police and some unexpected guests, and with each visit more humiliating secrets come to the surface. Throughout the scenes, we discover the complex nature of Shir and Rami, as well as the nature of their relationship, which was nowhere near as harmonious as initially suggested. The long night, during which the mood in the apartment changes, as does Shir's, will come to an abrupt and unexpected end. Evgeny Ruman's psychological drama, his third feature, premiered in the Bright Future section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

Sworn Virgin

Laura Bispuri : 2015
Vergine giurata

The story of a woman who sacrifices her femininity for freedom, and then sacrifices her honour to go back to being a woman again. Hana is a girl that grows up in the Albanian mountains, where an archaic, sexist culture based on honour still reigns. This culture doesn't give women any freedom; fathers, brothers and husbands have a real power of life and death over daughters, sisters and wives. In order to escape her destiny of being a wife and servant, Hana calls on the old law of her land, the Kanun: she swears an oath of eternal virginity, takes the name Mark and becomes a man, thus obtaining the same rights as males, but by doing so she renounces her femininity and any form of love at the same time. This denial will become her prison. But a living force is bustling beneath her new clothes and this will mark the beginning of a journey that has been put off for a long time. After more than ten years spent in solitude in the mountains, Hana decides to change her life. Laura Bispuri's feature debut premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

I dine hænder

Samanou Acheche Sahlstrøm : 2015
In Your Arms

When Maria meets Niels for the first time, he comes across as an angry and unsympathetic young man. Maria is a young and caring nurse who wants to break free. Niels is an incurable patient who wants to travel to Switzerland for euthanasia. But in order to get there, he needs a volunteer escort. Maria doesn't sympathise with Niels's wish, on the contrary, but in him she finds something that she has been missing from her life. Together they embark on an intense journey that will bring them closer to each other but also closer to their dreams. Samanou Acheche Sahlstrøm's feature debut was winner of the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film and the FIPRESCI Award when it premiered in competition at Göteborg International Film Festival 2015.

Bridgend

Jeppe Rønde : 2015

Over a five-year period between 2007 and 2012, in the county borough of Bridgend in south Wales, 79 people, mostly teenagers, took their own lives by hanging, without leaving any clue as to why. Sara, with her father Dave, returns to a small community in Bridgend where Dave, a police officer, is investigating the suicide of a young person. Also a concerned father, he tries to stop Sara becoming involved with the insular, hostile local youths, and to avoid the dangerous tensions that arise when Sara falls in love. Juxtaposing a raw realism with almost magical images – misty woods, the invocation of the dead, naked teenagers, drifting on a lake – the film is an uncompromising story focused on the relationship between vulnerable, isolated teenagers and their parents who are left in the dark, as the inexplicable suicides gradually take on the character of a punishing ritual. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jeppe Rønde conducted extensive research in the former mining area, winning the confidence of the local population. Following a number of teenagers over six years, he incorporated their stories into the screenplay of this atmospheric, at times mysterious social drama. His first fiction feature premiered in competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

Alive

Park Jung-bum : 2014
Sanda

Jung-cheol, a building labourer in the mountainous province of Gangwon, takes care of his niece and his mentally unstable sister. You earn as much as you work, and you live off that money. This simple proposition has always been a problem for Jung-cheol. At the soybean curd factory he went to work for in the bitter winter, he dreams of travelling to warm Philippines in spring; as long as he survives the winter making his portion of the soybean paste that he promised the boss. But the more he struggles to live, the worse it gets. And soon, the fermentation room turns musty with the black mold spreading from the thousands of fermented soybean lumps. From here on, it's a downward spiral. A provocative film which examines the fate of those at the bottom of South Korea's social ladder. Park Jung-bum's second feature premiered at Jeonju International Film Festival 2014, and screened in the Bright Future section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

The Second of August

Jonathan van Essche : 2015

Two girls and a boy make a road trip to the woods, where they set up camp and spend the night. A speechless paean to slowness, quiet and intimacy. It remains unclear whether the film is improvised or not. The story reads like a page from a diary, about an empty day, that could have taken place any time. Jonathan van Essche's short premiered in the Signals: 24/7 section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

Angelus Novus

Aboozar Amini : 2015

Ali and his younger brother, together with their parents, are life-long immigrants from Afghanistan. They have just arrived in Turkey as refugees. Every day they go to school and work the rest of the day as shoe shiners on the street. Both have one dream in common: work hard to save money and go after their uncle Kakay who has not been traced since he left Turkey with the trafficker for the West. A great deal of their earnings goes towards the rent. One day they find that another kid has occupied their working spot for shoe shining. A fight breaks out and they kick the other boy badly. Since the fight, the peace and innocence of their lives as children disappears. More sadly, Ali's childhood is gone for good when he sees that the boy they kicked is a Syrian refugee and has the same destiny as them. The film's title is inspired by the notes of Walter Benjamin on the Paul Klee painting Angelus Novus – the Angel carries history but still dreams of flying forward. Neither history nor the future can take the heavy weight of daily life from the Angel's shoulders. Aboozar Amini's short premiered in the As Long As It Takes section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

Another Trip to the Moon

Ismail Basbeth : 2015
Menuju rembulan

Asa is the daughter of a seer. To escape her mother's clutches, she has withdrawn with a girlfriend to hide in a forest, where they live from hunting and fishing. One day, she is collected by a dog sent by her mother. Her life in the forest seems to take place in a remote prehistoric past, but when Asa leaves the woods following the death of her girlfriend, and because her mother is calling her, she is suddenly at a modern petrol station. After her return and the death of her mother, Asa leads a very different life. From the primitive woods, she arrives in a beautiful classical Javanese house. The dog who came to collect her turns out to be a man and they have a child together, like in the ancient fairy tale of Dayang Sumbi. The magical surrealist journey of Asa is a dreamy, absurdist fantasy based on Indonesian legends, in which the exceptional becomes everyday, which, in turn, makes the everyday exceptional. Ismail Basbeth's feature debut premiered in competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

Summers Downstairs

Tom Sommerlatte : 2015
Im Sommer wohnt er unten

Matthias is the younger of the two Landberg brothers. While his brother David has followed in their father's footsteps on the path to success, Matthias lives his life far away from ambitions and career options. He shares his family's holiday home on the French Atlantic coast with his girlfriend Camille and her 6-year-old son Étienne from a previous relationship. Together they idle about day after day. When David and his wife Lena arrive with the intention of spending their holiday in the family home. Matthias's carefree days are over in a beat, David's presence changes everything. Not ten minutes after his arrival, David insists on sleeping in the room Matthias and Camille have made their own and demands that Étienne is sent to his father, as he wants peace and quiet. Matthias quietly complies because "what David wants, David gets" has been a rule for him from an early age on. Camille, however, disgusted by David's bossy behaviour, and unwilling to accept his air of entitlement and superiority, secretly concocts a plan to rearrange the pecking order between the two brothers. Tom Sommerlatte's feature debut received the FGYO-Award Dialogue en perspective Special Mention when it premiered in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Nobody Wants the Night

Isabel Coixet : 2015
Nadie quiere la noche

Greenland, 1908. Josephine, self-confident and bold wife of famous Arctic explorer Robert Peary, embarks on a dangerous journey in pursuit of her husband who is seeking a route to the North Pole. But Josephine is also naïve and ignores warnings from experienced polar travellers about the onset of winter. At great sacrifice the expedition reaches Peary's base camp. Josephine refuses to go home and wants to spend winter in the hut. Only the young Inuit woman Allaka, who lives in an igloo and knows about the cold, stays with her. As the long nights draw nearer, Josephine realises she has more in common with this woman from a different world than she thought. Isabel Coixet's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Strange Heaven

Dariusz Gajewski : 2015
Obce niebo

Basia and Marek are a young couple from Poland. In a way, they have been running away all their lives. Now they live in a small Swedish town, where they lead immigrants' lives in a rich country. The only person that speaks Swedish is their seven-year-old daughter, Ula. Life is a struggle. When Anita, a Social Office worker visits them at home, she observes Ula's life through the prism of the local culture and feels that, to Swedish standards, the child is neglected and unhappy. The parents don't take her advice seriously, but due to a series of misunderstandings, Ula is taken away from them and placed in temporary foster care with a Swedish couple. Basia and Marek are desperate. They do not understand how the system can just take their child, but have to follow procedures to fight the decision. Will they decide to stick together and not give up on Ula? Will they rebuild their bond and their family? When the legal route to get her back brings no results, the couple decides to kidnap their child. A psychological drama set against a backdrop of socially orientated cinema, drawing inspiration from true events that have befallen people who have immigrated to Scandinavian countries.

Lily Lane

Bence Fliegauf : 2015
Liliom ösvény

When Rebecca receives news of her mother's death, she is driven to try to seek out her long-lost father and return to the place where she spent her childhood. At the same time, she starts to tell her son, Danny, a series of stories to reveal memories of her dark past. As often happens at that age, Danny's view of the world is magical. He is fascinated by death and birth, as well as what is real and what is imagined. Rebecca's symbiotic relationship with her son means that she, too, is forced to confront these questions. But when they both set off down Lily Lane, they have no idea what is in store for them, and they find themselves in a world of mystical urban awakening, full of wonder and secrets.

Boomerang

François Favrat : 2015

Forty-year-old Antoine Rey feels like he's losing it. His growing obsession with his mother's unexplained death, thirty years back, is taking a heavy toll on his life. His wife has left him, he's on the brink of ruining his relationship with his sister Mélanie, the only person truly close to him, his kids are confused and now the entire family seems to be turning against him. But Antoine has reached the point of no return in his quest for the truth. He knows he must face the past and confront his authoritarian father, who forbids everyone from bringing up the story of his wife's death, and who is obviously hiding something about it. But is there really a mystery, or is it just his overactive imagination? Antoine decides to return to the scene of her death and, with the help of free-spirited forensic pathologist Angèle, tries to shed light on the mystery that broke his ten-year-old heart. But some doors, once opened, can never be closed again.

The Sky Above Us

Marinus Groothof : 2015
Nebo iznad nas

Belgrade, 1999. Every day Ana, Sloba and Bojan put their lives at great risk, simply by going to work. Their jobs are in or next to the national television building in Belgrade, which because of the war has become a strategic target for NATO bombings. All three force themselves to deal with the fear, in order to hold on to their ordinary lives. But 'ordinary' has ceased to exist some time ago. The actress Ana, 35, wants to stay loyal to the theatre she loves dearly, but which is located next to the TV building. Although secretly terrified, she keeps compelling herself to go. To escape from reality, the hip youngster Bojan, 23, immerses himself in the club scene with its sex, drugs and house music. Broadcast technician Sloba, 46, has sent his wife and son to safety out of town, but has stayed behind to earn their livelihood. That's his mission and nothing can deter him from it. Every night Belgrade transforms from a vibrant city into a military target. While the bombs fall from the sky above, Ana, Bojan and Sloba struggle with the question: How can I survive, while staying sane in an insane world? Marinus Groothof's feature debut premiered in competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.