Song of Silence

Chen Zhuo : 2012
Yang mei zhou

Xiao Jing lives with her mother and grandparents in a small fishing village in Hunan Province. Her only real emotional connection is with her uncle, a mentally handicapped artist whom she occasionally poses for. Instead of going to school, the deaf-mute teenager spends her time on his fishing boat, until one day she gets too close to him. Xiao Mei, a city kid rock musician of the same age, travels from club to club with her guitar, dreaming of an independent life. When Jing goes to live in the city with her hardboiled police officer father Haoyang, the two girls come together. Mei is Haoyang's lover. Despite an initial stand-off, the three manage to open up and create an emotional tie that gives their lives new perspective. In elegantly nested sequences, the film tells of the meeting and separating of these three figures, each of which is isolated in their own way. Winner of the Golden Firebird at Hong Kong International Film Festival 2012.

La traversée

Jérôme Cornuau : 2012
The Crossing

Lola Arendt, a girl of eight years, vanishes whilst on vacation on a wild Scottish island. Their lives shattered by her disappearance, her parents, Sarah and Martin, separate. Two years later, Lola is found at the exact same spot where she had disappeared. She is alive, apparently in good health, but is immersed in a strange silence. Martin returns to the island to bring her home, but his delight at being reunited with his daughter soon gives way to suspicion and fear. Where was Lola? Why won't she talk? Who are these men watching them? What did Sarah know about Lola's disappearance? And who is the beautiful and mysterious Norah Kross? When the weather conspires to stop them leaving, Martin and Lola embark on a journey across the island with Norah, headed for a tragic discovery.

The House

Zuzana Liová : 2011
Dom

Stone by stone, Imrich is building a small house for his daughter Eva almost entirely on his own. But for Eva, who is about to graduate from school, the prospect of moving into the house is about as appealing as being imprisoned in a jail she herself has helped to build. She has very different plans for her future. Money is changing the society, challenging the absolute rule of patriarchy. Her grumpy, stingy, controlling father has already broken with Eva's sister, Jana, after she got herself involved with a scoundrel with whom she now has three children. So the father is twice as vigilant with Eva, but she still manages to indulge in a few little freedoms: skipping school for a couple of days, doing little jobs to save up cash for the trip she longs to make to London, and an affair with an older man who turns out to be her English teacher. Winner of the Audience Award for Best Slovak Film at Bratislava International Film Festival 2011.

Somewhere in Between

Yeşim Ustaoğlu : 2012
Araf

Zehra and Olgun spend most of their young lives working in a service station cafeteria near a lonely highway. Their monotonous work shifts are broken up only by sparks of naive expectations of a brighter future. Everything seems transient about their surroundings. The once important industrial area is now a faceless place of economic waste and unemployment. Most of the area's occupants have all escaped to the big city in search of opportunity. But Zehra, Olgun and their friends still remain, caught somewhere in between the past and an uncertain future. Zehra dreams that love will take her away from her meaningless job and life at home with her strict old-fashioned mother. She becomes fascinated by an older truck driver, Mahur, who spends much of his time on the road. As Zehra's desire for Mahur turns into a tragic first love, her rebellious friend Olgun becomes more and more frustrated, stuck at home, not yet a young man on his own. Zehra and Olgun will experience a bittersweet rite of passage, leading to both suffering and awakening. But as they say goodbye to their childhood innocence, love and hope will help them to move forward. The film premiered at La Biennale di Venezia 2012.

Mona

Ināra Kolmane : 2012

A story about different worlds – about a man and a woman, about city and countryside, about future and past. It is also a story about animals and their killers, about deep and short-lived passion and the ancient mystery of a woman. A businessman from Riga arrives at his uncle's funeral in a small Latvian village, a village whose main landmark and virtually the only source of income is a slaughterhouse. There he meets Mona, a local woman, and abandons the idea of ever returning to Riga. But the small-town environment, daily life, people and their mode of thinking have not yet been fully freed from the legacy of the Soviet times. Unlike the European Riga, everything is more conservative and less apt to change in the remote countryside. The dull life of several villagers is turned upside down, and a fusion of passion, mystery, animal instincts and human fragility emerges. It is a story about love as a misunderstanding and misunderstandings created by passion.

Memories Look at Me

Song Fang : 2012
Ji yi wang zhe wo

Fang travels from Beijing to spend some time with her ageing parents at their home in Nanjing. Perfectly capturing the rhythm of a brief sojourn home, her remarkable debut feature reflects, through encounters with relatives, neighbours and friends, on what it means to grow old; how an adult child's relationship with her parents changes as they grow older; and how to negotiate one's place as a single woman in a world of married couples. Reunions, both joyful and heart-wrenching, reminiscences, and moments of feeling painfully out of place. Around her, as time goes by, memories often come back in the conversations unexpectedly, some she knows, some not. The present is mixed up with the past, and the steps towards the future may walk along the path of eternal loss. Those left behind cope with the loss of someone with whom they've spent much of their lives. A quiet meditation on mortality, the healing powers and limitations of family intimacy, and the inexorable passage of time. Winner of the award for Best First Feature at Locarno Film Festival 2012.

When I Saw You

Annemarie Jacir : 2012
Lamma Shoftak

Jordan, 1967. The world is alive with change: brimming with reawakened energy, new styles, music and an infectious sense of hope. In Jordan, a different kind of change is under way as tens of thousands of refugees pour across the border from Palestine. Having been separated from his father in the chaos of war, Tarek, 11, and his mother Ghaydaa, are amongst this latest wave of refugees. Placed in "temporary" refugee camps made up of tents and prefab houses until they would be able to return, they wait, like the generation before them who arrived in 1948. With difficulties adjusting to life in Harir camp and a longing to be reunited with his father, Tarek searches a way out, and discovers a new hope emerging with the times. Eventually his free spirit and curious nature lead him to a group of people on a journey that will change their lives.

Die Lebenden

Barbara Albert : 2012
The Dead and the Living

The personal journey of 25-year-old Austrian woman Sita, back into the past of the Second World War and into the abyss of contemporary European society to clear the doubts she has about a family secret. The journey leads Sita from Berlin to Vienna, to Warsaw and to Romania. A film about losing your homeland, about self-discovery and identity, and about responsibility and hope. Award-winning director Barbara Albert's fourth feature is an examination of how the personal and political can intersect, as viewed through the prism of one family's experiences. The film premiered in competition at San Sebastián Film Festival 2012.

Wilaya

Pedro Pérez Rosado : 2012
Tears of Sand

Fatimetu was born to a Sahrawi family in a Saharan refugee camp in Algeria but at the age of ten was sent to live with foster parents in Spain. Following the death of her mother she returns to the camp after sixteen years. Her brother, Jatri, now expects her to stay and look after her sister Hayat, who teaches mentally disabled children, and who herself has a physical disability. Though Fatimetu had different plans, namely a boyfriend back home, the relationship seems to not really be working out. Unlike the other women, Fatimetu can drive and finds work transporting animals, meat and bread from one administrative district to another with Hayat in tow. In time, the Sahrawi people become accustomed to the woman who tears about the desert without a hijab in her beaten up jeep. But Fatimetu is torn between life in the desert and her memories of her family and friends in Spain.

The Unspeakable Act

Dan Sallitt : 2012

Jackie Kimball is a likable, normal 17-year-old girl in every way but one: she has been in love all her life with her brother Matthew, one year older than her. The two siblings have been symbiotically close all their lives, but Matthew doesn't share his sister's incestuous inclinations, and Jackie has no choice but to deal with the intrusion of adult life upon their childhood intimacy. Though Jackie makes little effort to hide her love for Matthew, the family prefers to interpret the attraction as a long-standing childhood phase. Jackie has school friends, but no interest in other boys, and Matthew's unexpected breakup with his new girlfriend Yolanda gives Jackie a temporary reprieve from her grief. Always monitoring Matthew for any sign that he might become receptive to her overtures, Jackie is filled with melancholy as summer wanes and Matthew's departure for college approaches. As Jackie struggles to deal with her deep-rooted heartbreak, leading her to examine just why she's so besotted with and emotionally dependent on her brother, she asks herself what, if anything is actually wrong with this contentious attraction.

With You, Without You

Prasanna Vithanage : 2012
Oba nathuwa oba ekka

Selvi is a beautiful and enigmatic Tamil refugee who catches the eye of Sarathsiri, a middle-aged Buddhist pawnbroker when she comes to cash in her last jewellery. Immediately captivated, Sarathsiri follows her back to her temporary home. Discovering she is about to be wed for money to a very old man, he throws caution to the wind and offers to marry her instead. Selvi soon moves into his house and slowly falls in love with her saviour, but neither of them ever talk about their past. A chance visit from an old army friend of the pawnbroker then opens up old wounds and a terrible secret emerges. Will love help them cross the bridge? Or will the past continue to colour the present? Set in the months after the Sri Lankan thirty-year civil war, the film explores the emotional fall-out of such trauma on the lives of ordinary people.

About Elly

Asghar Farhadi : 2009
Darbareye Elly

After having spent many years in Germany, Ahmad returns to his native Iran for a holiday. His friends from his student days organise a three-day break on the Caspian Sea. One of the party, a fun-loving woman named Sepideh, also invites a young woman named Elly, a nursery school teacher at her daughter's kindergarten. Ahmad has just emerged from an unhappy marriage and is now divorced from his German wife. He would very much like to begin a new life with an Iranian woman. His friends are aware of his desire and it gradually dawns on them that this is why Sepideh has asked Elly to accompany them on their trip. They all begin to lavish their attentions on Elly, singing her praises unequivocally. But then, on the second day of their holiday, something happens and Elly disappears. The friends begin to agonise about Elly's disappearance, bringing to an abrupt end the sense of harmony that once pervaded their get-together. Eventually, they blame Sepideh for having invited Elly in the first place and ruining their holiday. During the course of just two days, their opinion of Elly has turned about face. Until, on the last day of their holiday, the truth about Elly emerges.

I'm Going to Change My Name

Maria Saakyan : 2012
Alaverdi

Fourteen-year-old Evridika lives with her mother, Sona, in the small Armenian town of Alaverdi. Sona is the conductor of a world-famous choir consisting of fifteen men. She is always away from home, so Evridika feels neglected and lonely in her own small virtual world. Each day she goes deeper inside herself, looking for answers to the questions posed by her blossoming sexuality. What is love and lust? Life and death? Who is her father? All these questions had never been answered and Evridika sees no reasons to live until she meets Petr, an ex-lover of her mother Sona, who had a romantic relationship with her years ago. This meeting becomes the key point in a transformation of Evridika's perception of the world, giving rise to unforeseen consequences and parallels. Reflecting the different dimensions of love, Maria Saakyan's second feature explores a dream world of images and poetry, in which the stunning Armenian landscape also plays its role.

Silence

Pat Collins : 2012

Eoghan is a sound recordist who is returning to Ireland for the first time in 15 years. The reason for his return is a job offer: to record landscapes free from man-made sound. His quest takes him to remote terrain, away from towns and villages. Throughout his journey, he is drawn into a series of encounters and conversations which gradually divert his attention towards a more intangible silence, one that is bound up with the sounds of the life he had left behind. It is a journey that ultimately leads Eoghan inwards, as he finds himself drawn to his childhood home. Influenced by elements of folklore and archive, the film unfolds with a quiet intensity, where poetic images reveal an absorbing meditation on themes relating to sound and silence, history, memory and exile.

Purge

Antti Jokinen : 2012
Puhdistus

A story following two generations of women in Estonia, from before the Stalinist deportations in 1949 until after the country's independence in 1991, intertwining the lives of Aliide, a villager, and Zara, a victim of human trafficking, linked by separate tales of deceit, desperation and fear. Aliide has experienced the horrors of the Stalin era and the deportation of Estonians to Siberia, but she herself has to cope with the guilt of opportunism and even manslaughter. One night in 1992 she finds a young woman in the courtyard of her house; Zara has just escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia who held her as a sex slave. Aliide later discovers that the girl is related to her. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in a complex arithmetic of suspicion and revelation to distil each other's motives. Gradually, their stories emerge, the culmination of a tragic family drama of rivalry, lust, and loss that unfolded during the worst years of Estonia's Soviet occupation.

Después de Lucía

Michel Franco : 2012
After Lucia

Following the death of her mother in a car accident, teenager Alejandra and her father Roberto move to Mexico City, hoping to rebuild their lives. Her father is in a deep depression and oscillates between complete disengagement with the world and impatient anger, though never directed at his daughter. Alejandra appears to have settled into her new high school with remarkable ease. Initially, she is popular and is invited to parties as part of the group. However, one innocent mistake after too many drinks quickly tarnishes her reputation, making her an outcast. Labelled a slut, all her friends either vanish or turn against her and she is subjected to the most horrifying bullying, whereby everyone is entitled to take part. As Alejandra withdraws into herself, the humiliations and violations, from which there is seemingly no escape, escalate, leading her to take a final drastic action. Michel Franco's disturbing second feature was winner of the Un Certain Regard Award at Festival de Cannes 2012.

Archeo

Jan Cvitkovič : 2011

A woman falls from the sky and then sleeps. A man also falls from the sky and looks around, puzzled. The first picture of the boy tells us that he has been here before, and now peacefully looks at a bug and kills it. A story about three people: the encounters of a woman, a man and a boy in a timeless landscape, in the embrace of nature, water, earth, forest and sky. They have landed in an unfamiliar world and are trying to survive. When the three characters meet, they display the basic human emotions: fear, hunger, sexual urge, curiosity. They have the natural need to group together and communicate. It is a journey of three people, a journey of one towards another, a journey into the core of things. Jan Cvitkovič's award-winning feature is a film of genuine relationships, of form and photography, without commentaries, words, social, psychological or historical contexts.

Les nuits avec Théodore

Sébastien Betbeder : 2012
Nights with Theodore

At a party in a Parisian flat, Théodore meets the young Anna. Later in the night, whilst walking her home through Paris, he suggests they go to the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, which is closed for the night. They climb the fence, explore, and share their first night together under a huge tree. The next evening, they meet again and repeat their visit, scaling the locked gates to explore the grotto and an abandoned pavilion full of elegant, dusty furniture. Wrapping themselves in the anonymity of the night, the seclusion and mysteries of the park allow the two lovers to escape from the world outside. Disappearing into its leafy embrace, they forget, while their love blossoms. By day, Théodore and Anna separate and both have small secrets they keep from each other as a result. But then, the pair discover that they are not alone in what they have considered to be "their" park after the sun goes down. They will return the following nights until this strange attraction begins to separate them. The park is becoming addictive, felt and put to the test by Théodore, who will drive their story towards a tragic ending.

L'intervallo

Leonardo di Costanzo : 2012
The Interval

A boy and a girl are locked in an enormous abandoned building in a rundown area. She is a prisoner and the local clan leader has forced him to be her warder. Despite their youth, both of them have grown up too fast. Veronica acts like a mature and open-minded woman whilst Salvatore is like a man who wants to hold on to his job and lead a quiet life. Thus, when faced with the violence of this incarceration, the two young people have different reactions: Veronica is restless and rebellious; Salvatore is more remissive and accommodating, either out of fear or realism. They are both victims but it is almost as though each blames the other for their reclusion. However, as the hours go by, their mutual hostility is transformed into an inevitable intimacy, consisting of reciprocal discoveries and confessions. Between the walls of that isolated and frightening place, Veronica and Salvatore find a way to rekindle those adolescent dreams and ideas put aside too soon. Briefly extricating themselves from their prematurely adult lives, the two are tempted to transform their imaginary escape into a real one before the Camorra presents Veronica with its verdict.

Por el camino

Charly Braun : 2010
Beyond the Road

Santiago, a twenty-something Argentinean, takes a boat to Montevideo to claim land willed to him by his parents. On his way out of the capital, he notices Juliette, a young Belgian woman who was also on the boat. After discovering they're heading in the same direction, the two travellers hit the road together. Both are looking to make a change in their lives. Santiago used to be an investment banker in Manhattan, but his parents' death has inspired him to try something different. Juliette is hoping to ignite a relationship with an Uruguayan commune leader she had met in Costa Rica. The two strike up a friendship as their trip brings them in contact with peculiar locals, Santiago's wealthy, well-connected family, and the hippie commune's earthy residents. With dramatic Uruguayan landscapes, this road movie captures the airy restlessness of youth in a tale of two characters who start out digging into their past, only to find they've unearthed their present. Charly Braun's first feature received the Première Brazil award for best director at Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival 2010.