Cold Bloom

Atsushi Funahashi : 2012
Sakura namiki no mankai no shita ni

Exploring the consequences of the tsunami of March 2011, the story follows Shiori and Kenji, a young couple working at a small metal factory on Japan's eastern coast that produces parts for other companies. Recovering from the tragedy, they are looking forward to having a baby. Ever since the tsunami struck, which also hit the industrial town of Hitachi, the workers are unmotivated, they harrass their Chinese colleagues. It's only thanks to the creativity of Kenji that the company has landed another contract. But when Kenji dies in an accident at the clients' site, his death results in a serious business slump, leaving other employees feeling hopeless. His colleague Takumi who is to blame, becomes the object of hatred for the whole workforce, as all take sides with Kenji's widow Shiori. Takumi keeps asking for her forgiveness and gradually Shiori develops sympathy for him, her hatred turning over time into love. Marked by an altered atmosphere in Japan, throughout the film we witness the scale of misfortune, defeat and desperation that strikes ordinary people who believed that they would be rewarded for their hard work. When the cherry blossoms come into bloom after a long winter, the life of Shiori, haunted by Kenji, finally comes into full bloom when she finds forgiveness within herself towards Takumi. The film premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2012 and its European premiere screened in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Born This Way

Shaun Kadlec & Deb Tullmann : 2013

Like everywhere else in the world, gays and lesbians in Cameroon seek refuge in the city. The two young gay men in this film are crazy about Rihanna and Lady Gaga, who has been a gay icon since her hit song 'Born this way'. But the tolerance Lady Gaga sings about is just a dream for them. In their country, homosexual relations are subject to punishment of up to five years in prison, and it is almost impossible to come out to your own family. This film describes both the impossible and the possible. The filmmakers' unobtrusive proximity to their protagonists has yielded conversations in which their interlocutors discuss their longing for a love life they are forbidden to have. Alice Nkom is a lawyer and human rights activist fighting to protect the rights of gays and lesbians. Thanks to her, there is quiet hope and small niches can be discerned where there is something akin to a life not based upon self-denial. The film premiered in the Panorama Dokumente section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Die Wiedergänger

Andreas Bolm : 2013
The Revenants

The time after. After a catastrophe? A loss? A shock? In any case, after an event which reverberates in the present like an echo from the past. A group of people somewhere in Germany: an ageing hippie couple, Ada and Volker, have settled in a hermitage on the edge of a forest with lots of lovingly tended plants and tools. A mellow vitality. Not far away: a boy, Fabian, who has stepped out of a corn field, wandered the forest in a daze and built himself a shelter. At some point in the story he enters Ada and Volker's life and takes the position of their lost son, Tom. Later in the film, radio news: the sale of field-grown salad, spinach and chard has been prohibited. Somewhere else in the forest: two musicians, a guitarist and a drummer. A voice-over talks about Ada, Volker and Fabian being on their way to the sea, where helicopters, the military and men in white radiation suits will appear. By then, Ada will have revealed she knows Tom is dead and Fabian is his killer. The musicians are still playing. A film about longing, loss and eternal recurrence. The film premiered in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Chiralia

Santiago Gil : 2013

Summertime. A lake in the forest. Father and son go for a swim. Suddenly, the boy dives under the water and disappears. Has he drowned? The missing child unleashes a shockwave which reverberates from one person to the next. The story departs from its beginning, reawakening memories which may be deceptive. Expanding over time and space, the narrative starts to transform and lose its shared reality with the actual event. In the end nobody knows what really happened – or even if there ever was a child who disappeared. What remains is a feeling of uncertainty that grows out of the unreliable interplay between reality, perception and memory. Santiago Gil's short fiction received a Special Mention in the FGYO-Award Dialogue en perspective at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Dolgaya schastlivaya zhizn

Boris Khlebnikov : 2013
A Long and Happy Life

Sascha lives in a village on the Kola Peninsula in northern Russia and dedicatedly manages what is left of an old collective farm. He gets on well with his farm workers who respect him and also tolerate his more or less clandestine love affair with Anya, a secretary at the local government office. But then Sascha is suddenly faced with a dilemma: the district's self-seeking administrators, none of whom could be termed squeamish, offer him a lucrative deal for the farm. In legal terms, Sascha doesn't have much of a leg to stand on since his lease on the farm was only agreed with a handshake. The pressure mounts, and even more so when his employees convince him to stand firm. Against the backdrop of a landscape exposed to the elements, this unflinching man's destiny takes its course. The tragedy of a decent man who risks everything that is dear to him by refusing to surrender to a quagmire of greed and corruption. Boris Khlebnikov's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Zwei Mütter

Anne Zohra Berrached : 2013
Two Mothers

Katja, 43 and Isabella, 37, decide to have a child. However, like many lesbian couples in Germany, they soon discover that this is much more difficult than they first imagined. Citing legal reasons, most of the sperm banks and fertility clinics refuse to treat them. Fortunately, they are able to find one doctor willing to help, for a large sum, but after several months fertilisation is unsuccessful. Katja decides she wants to call a halt to their project on account of Isa's psychological and emotional stress and the toll it is taking on their relationship, not to mention their beleaguered bank balance. But Isa cannot give up. She finds a dealer who sells them a kit enabling them to perform the insemination comfortably at home. There are plenty of men on his website willing to sell their sperm for various sums, sometimes with one or two additional conditions. And so they begin the lengthy task of casting for a potential donor. A sensitively told story that is part experiment and part salutary tale charting the vibrant terrain between fiction and reality. Anne Zohra Berrached's first feature won the FGYO-Award Dialogue en perspective when it premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

I kóri

Thanos Anastopoulos : 2012
The Daughter

A girl in her teens, an eight-year-old boy, and a father suddenly no longer there. When fourteen-year-old Myrto learns her father has fled to avoid paying his debts, she kidnaps the son of his business partner whom she blames for bankrupting her father's joiner's workshop. Memories resurface as she wanders through the aisles of the workshop, where she hides her victim between stacks of spruce, oak and ebony. Were things really better in the old days? Myrto waits desperately for some sign that her father is alive, entertaining perfidious, sadistic fantasies about her young prisoner. Portraying a society whose key players flee their responsibilities and where the crisis sends its children out into a moral no-man's land, yet the suspicion remains that the relationship between the generations was already out of sync beforehand. The film's international premiere screened in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Bambi

Sébastien Lifshitz : 2013

Bambi was born Jean-Pierre Pruvot in a tiny Algerian village in 1935. Even as a child, she refused to meet the expectations of her extended family, choosing instead to find a way to become the woman she always knew herself to be. A Cabaret Carrousel de Paris performance in Algiers in the 1950s proved to be all the encouragement she needed to emigrate to the French capital, assume the stage name of 'Bambi' and lead the life she longed for on the music-hall stages. Jean-Pierre, known since then as Marie-Pierre, is now 77 years old. Her extraordinary life of perpetual reinvention included twenty-five years as a French teacher at a variety of public secondary schools in France. Hers is a story of deep-seated confusion, painful rejection and impassioned courage. An impressive collage of photographs and chansons, archive footage, excerpts from feature films, Super-8 diary clips and visits to the places of her childhood provides a sensitive chronicle of her liberating transformation into a radiant transsexual woman. The film was the winner of the Teddy Award for Best Documentary when it premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Kashi-ggot

Lee Don-ku : 2012
Fatal

A group of youths imprison a young girl in a room and drug her so they can rape her. Awkward Sung-gong is more than reluctant, but the others threaten to beat him up if he chickens out and so he is forced into the room with the unconscious girl. Ten years later, Sung-gong is leading a humble existence working at a small sewing shop in Seoul. On his usual way to work he encounters a group of people handing out brightly coloured flyers advertising a Christian community. One day, curiosity, loneliness and a bad conscience prompt him to slip into a pew at their church. This is also where Jang-mi seeks refuge. This young woman was the rape victim all those years before. A tender relationship evolves between these two which may enable Sung-gong to bring about reconciliation, but the young woman has no idea with whom she has taken up. Sung-gong is a young man desperate to unburden himself from his guilt but the extreme choices he makes, in a bid to atone for his actions, will bring about a tragic and violent conclusion. Lee Don-ku's debut feature premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2012. The film's European premiere screened in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Bellas mariposas

Salvatore Mereu : 2012
Pretty Butterflies

Eleven-year-old Caterina lives in a sombre, poverty-stricken neighbourhood of Cagliari, capital of Sardinia. She has a tyrannical father and a horde of brothers and sisters, most of whom are up to no good. And yet the girl is in a good mood. She talks openly about her love for Gigi, the boy next door, and her bond with her best friend Luna. She spreads her optimistic view of the world on the large-scale wrongs she sees around her. The story follows a day in Caterina's life: the day on which she fears for Gigi because her brother Tonio has just threatened to kill him, and she discovers that Gigi is in love with the local slut. It is also the day when Caterina and Luna go to the beach, eats lots of ice cream, giggle and swim. A day filled with youthful recklessness and unruffled optimism. But her beloved Gigi is in danger. And when everything seems lost, during the night a beautiful woman appears out of nowhere, the mysterious Aleni, a witch who apparently can see into people's futures. The film premiered in the Orizzonti section at La Biennale di Venezia 2012.

Halbschatten

Nicolas Wackerbarth : 2013
Everyday Objects

On an overcast summer's day, Merle arrives at her lover Romuald's villa, jacket and luggage in hand, to find the doors are locked. He had invited her to visit him in the south of France but seems to have headed off somewhere. She thus has to come to some arrangement with his uncooperative children, help celebrate Emma's 13th birthday and put up with Felix's impudence, the 16-year-old son who sees her presence as a provocation. It doesn't take long for the host's absence to become barely noticeable. Merle attempts to fit in, to take on this unexpected role as naturally as possible. But soon she loses the battle of wills. When Romuald finally calls, she decides to side with his children rather than her distant lover, and quietly enjoys her breakthrough. A subtle portrait of a person ill at ease with being the centre of attention, in the glaring sunlight. The film premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Belleville Baby

Mia Engberg : 2013

A long distance call from a long lost lover makes Mia reminisce about their common past. She remembers the spring when they met in Paris, the riots, the vespa and the cat named Baby. As a film student, Mia Engberg lived in the Parisian district of Belleville. Today, this wild episode of her life is far behind her. She is now a mother with a young daughter and lives in Sweden. One day, a voice from the past bursts into her life. It is Vincent, the love of her life, who suddenly abandoned her years ago. Calling from Paris, he asks her to recount memories of their time together. After eight years in prison he is seeking to reconstruct his earlier life and the memories that now escape him. But Mia is reluctant to dig up the past. In long telephone conversations and films shot using his mobile phone, Vincent takes stock of his life and tells the story of the poor boy from the banlieue who slid inexorably into crime. Meanwhile, Mia goes through her filmed diaries and recalls a love affair which at the time defied convention. A film about love, time and things that got lost along the way. A personal exploration of how one's self at each moment is affected by hidden memories and elusive inner layers. The film premiered at Göteborg International Film Festival 2013 where it received the Jury's Special Mention, and screened in the Panorama Dokumente section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

White Night

LeeSong Hee-il : 2012
Baek Ya

Won-gyu is a flight attendant and is constantly in transit. Anonymous hotel rooms are all the home he knows. Tae-jun is a motorbike courier who spends almost all his time on the streets. Two men with two jobs that keep them on the move. Two lives that are just a series of fleeting moments. Having clicked on the internet they arrange to meet in Seoul. But they only have a few hours. Won-gyu never wanted to return to the city because Seoul reminds him of an event that has left him sad and angry. His past casts a long shadow over their date, and their night together is pitch-black in spite of the big city lights. Since they must soon part again, both are afraid to get too close and a strange power game begins. Tae-jun joins his new friend as he sets out in search of something. They go to a place that was once the site of a brutal attack on gays. An urban odyssey through a city, pervaded by anger and longing, in which not everyone can live their life and experience love. But for one brief but beautiful moment these two are allowed simply to be together. The film premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Jîn

Reha Erdem : 2013

A bitter conflict has raged between guerrillas and the army in Turkey's Kurdish regions for over 30 years. Large expanses have now become war zones. Countless young people have lost their lives to the conflict. This dangerous but incredibly beautiful mountainous country is home to 17-year-old Jîn. But she is no longer safe since she secretly stole away from a group of rebels with whom she was fighting. Now she wanders alone, caught between two fronts. All of a sudden, the sound of gunfire and explosions rend the air. Attack is threatened from all sides. Desperate to find peace, Jîn decides to escape to another part of the country – an impossible plan, since the military is omnipresent and there are road blocks everywhere. As a Kurd without identity papers she risks arrest at every turn. In addition, as a woman with no family to shield her, many men will see her as fair game. But her courage is unbroken and the mountains are her greatest protectors. The film premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Princesas Rojas

Laura Astorga Carrera : 2013
Red Princesses

The Nicaraguan border in the 1980s. Eleven-year-old Claudia and her younger sister experience the street fighting at first hand outside their car window. Their parents are Sandinista activists, now escaping to neighbouring Costa Rica to create a clandestine front to support the revolution, and the girls are packed off to their relatives. Claudia hordes her treasured collection of revolutionary badges and fantasises about forming a secret pioneer movement in conservative Costa Rica. Passports are forged, there are nocturnal meetings and car number plates are switched. One day, her mother disappears. They say she's gone to Miami. The children piece together fragments that give them an insight into their parents' dilemma of trying to balance their political struggle with family life. The story focuses on the point of view of the two sisters, who are very close, as they learn more than they are able to cope with, but too little really to understand. A political thriller about a revolutionary struggle, seen through the eyes of children. The film premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

W imię...

Małgorzata Szumowska : 2013
In the Name of

Adam is a Catholic priest who discovered his calling at the relatively late age of twenty-one. He now lives in a village in rural Poland where he works with teenagers with behavioural problems. His energy appreciated, the locals accept him as one of their own. Everybody wants to be close to him, feeding off of his vitality and power. Nobody but Adam knows that he harbours a secret, the desire for men, and that his embrace of the priesthood has been a flight from his own sexuality. When he meets Łukasz, the strange and taciturn son of a simple rural family, Adam's self-imposed abstinence becomes a heavy burden, forcing him to confront a long forgotten passion. Małgorzata Szumowska's controversial and visually powerful film is about confused emotions, repression and loneliness, broaching the still taboo topic of homosexuality in the priesthood. It is a plea for love to be taken into account by the Catholic Church. The film won a Teddy Award when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Grzeli nateli dgeebi

Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon Groß : 2013
In Bloom

Tbilisi, Georgia, 1992. The Soviet era is over and Georgia must fend for itself. Civil war is raging in the province of Abkhazia. For Natia and Eka, barely fourteen-year-olds, childhood is coming to an end. Eka is growing up without her father, rebelling against her concerned mother and her older sister. And Natia's father, a choleric alcoholic, terrorises the entire family. The two friends cannot find peace outside of the family either – not in school, not on the street, and not in the bread lines. Chaos, insecurity and fear of what the future might bring hold sway in everyday life. An admirer gives Natia a pistol with one single bullet. A little later, she's abducted by another admirer. Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß's debut feature weaves together melancholy and missing love, eruptions of violence and a sense of the idyllic, precocious cold-bloodedness and childlike naïveté. The film won the CICAE Award when it premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Soğuk

Uğur Yücel : 2013
Cold

Balabey and his family live in the traditional way in a small town in Turkey close to the Georgian border. Here, marriages are arranged, and happiness is elsewhere. Balabey lives in his own world and enjoys exercising what little power he has as a sergeant – chiefly being able to make the trains stop and start at will. In the middle of winter, when the landscape and the houses are covered in a thick blanket of snow, he falls in love with the beautiful Russian Irina who works in a brothel with her sisters. For the menfolk, the bordello is a warm place in a cold town, while their wives despair at their husbands' adulterous behaviour. Balabey's fragile happiness is soon threatened by his irascible brother, who was forced to marry the sister of Balabey's heavily pregnant wife. Balabey is determined to do everything in his power to prevent his beloved Irina from sticking to her plan of returning to Moscow. The film premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Salma

Kim Longinotto : 2013

In villages inhabited by India's Muslim minority in Tamil southern India, as soon as a girl reaches puberty she is locked away until her wedding. When Salma was 13 years old, her family locked her up, forbidding her to study. Hungry for an education, she avoided an arranged marriage for nine long years by keeping herself confined in a bare room. When she finally agrees to wed local politician Malik, she finds herself imprisoned once again – this time in her husband's home where the only things she has to read are the newspapers wrapping the vegetables. She begins covertly composing poems on scraps of paper and, through an intricate system, is able to send them out of the house, eventually getting them into the hands of a publisher. Against the odds, Salma becomes the most famous Tamil poet – the first step to discovering her own freedom and challenging the traditions and code of conduct in her village. She begins to apply for government positions and inspires her sisters and other women also to fight for their freedom and independence. For, she argues, it is the mutual oppression of women by other women that perpetuates the status quo. Kim Longinotto's documentary premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2013. Her film's European premiere screened at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.

Mes séances de lutte

Jacques Doillon : 2013
Love Battles

A bucolic summer landscape. A nameless couple meet. The woman has returned to her village following the death of her father, who never loved her. Here she meets a man, a sort of Pan, who spends his days farming and writing. Every encounter culminates in the need for them to confront each other physically. The woman's arguments with her siblings about the distribution of their father's estate unearth deep-seated conflicts and old wounds which begin to take on absurd dimensions. The man and woman embark on a playful exploration, each making use of their own weapons, which becomes increasingly sophisticated as it develops. Improvised at first, it soon develops into a codified ritual, a high-stakes game of increasing physical and psychological surrender and self-revelation. He perhaps puts his finger on something that has stopped them from living correctly, while she perhaps finds something for her amusement. An astonishing pas de deux of erotically charged, dynamic encounters and repulsions. The film premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2013.