Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse

Arnaud Desplechin : 2015
My Golden Days

Paul Dédalus is about to leave Tadzhikistan. He remembers... His childhood in Roubaix... His mother's insane outbursts... The bond between himself and his younger brother, Ivan, a pious and violent child... He remembers... When he was sixteen... His father, an inconsolable widower... This journey to the USSR on a clandestine mission, which led him to offer his own identity to a young Russian man... He remembers when he was nineteen, his sister Delphine, his cousin Bob, the wild nights with Pénélope, Mehdi, and Kovalki, the friend who had to betray him... His studies in Paris, his encounter with Dr Béhanzin, his blossoming vocation for anthropology... And above all, Paul remembers Esther. She was the love of his life, she was "a fanatical sweetheart". Arnaud Desplechin's feature was winner of the SACD Prize when it premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2015.

How to Disappear Completely

Przemysław Wojcieszek : 2014
Jak całkowicie zniknąć

Gerda meets Little Robber Girl in the Berlin subway. There's only ten, twelve hours until they'll part ways. The attraction between them blossoms into a love affair. But still there's a sea of the city to float by night. The camera follows the girls around all night long, placing particular emphasis on the city and its nightlife. It's about colours, flickering lights, rush, the sounds and smell of a summer night. There's poetry and music coming from the streets and we read the verses aloud keeping ourselves in a constant motion. Everything passes and dies every minute, as life is a never-ending sequence of things we hold on to for a moment and they go forever. As dawn breaks, the girls' infatuation seems to fade away, like a fleeting dream. Przemysław Wojcieszek's psychological drama premiered in competition at New Horizons International Film Festival, Wrocław 2014.

L'ombre des femmes

Philippe Garrel : 2015
In the Shadow of Women

Pierre and Manon are poor. They make low-budget documentaries and live off odd jobs. When Pierre meets a young trainee, Elisabeth, she becomes his mistress. But Pierre doesn't want to leave Manon for Elisabeth – he wants to keep both. Elisabeth discovers that Manon has a lover, and tells Pierre. Pierre returns to Manon, the woman he truly loves. Feeling betrayed, he begs her, neglecting Elisabeth. A story on the theme of romantic passion, the birth and death of relationships and the strange paths of desire. A film of love, about love, about betrayals, the small and the great of them; about the cruelty of men, the intelligence of women, and the everyday heroism of lovers. Philippe Garrel's feature premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2015.

Dawn

Romed Wyder : 2015

A psychological drama behind closed doors, in which four comrades-in-arms pressure the young Elisha to overcome his moral qualms and fully commit to the armed struggle. The story is set in Palestine in 1947, during the British mandate period. The Zionists are fighting for the establishment of a Jewish state. A member of the armed Jewish underground has been sentenced to death by the British authorities. In return, the resistance has kidnapped a British officer, trying to redeem their friend. The insurgents spend the night together, waiting for the outcome of the negotiation. If the British hang their friend at dawn, one of them will shoot the British officer held as a hostage. Confined in a small space, the five protagonists start to reveal, against their will, the deceptively small grey areas that fill their existence. Based on the novel by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. Romed Wyder's feature had its international premiere at Palm Beach International Film Festival 2015.

À 14 ans

Hélène Zimmer : 2015
Being 14

The new school year has begun. Sarah, Jade and Louise are back together for their final year in high school. Between euphoria, rivalties, rebellion and seductions, they deal with the torments of adolesence in order to find their place. A true-to-life drama capturing all the secrets, trials, and anguish of adolescence, as experienced by three best friends. Sarah is an unapologetic provocateur who traipses her way through school and life with abandon and encourages her friends to do the same. Louise finds her own footing after rebelling against her mother and leaving home. And Jade is dejected and lost after a falling out with Sarah and Louise in the winter term. Even as they move forward in their own ways, their relationship remains a constant in their lives, through the parties, boys, and their strained home life. Hélène Zimmer's directorial debut premiered at Angers European First Film Festival 2015, and was winner of the Nora Ephron Prize, Special Jury Award at its international premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2015.

Amara

Claudia Mollese : 2015

A trip on the trail of a legendary figure of the South of Italy, the discovery of an invisible city suspended between devotion and transgression. Mara is a transsexual whose life created a scandal in the city of Lecce, from the 50s until the day of her will. Her portrait is drawn through the words of those who crossed their lives with hers. Lola's husky voice, the cultured and sensual voice of the Princess, Anna's excited voice and Vanda's lucid voice, they all intertwine fragments of their lives with memories of Mara. A new town suspended between memory and desire, public and private, takes shape against a background of religious parades, foreigners awaiting eviction from their homes and intricate alleys. Claudia Mollese's documentary premiered at Festival del Cinema Europeo Lecce 2015, and screened at Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2015.

Anemistiras

Dimitris Bitos : 2015
Fan

In the outskirts of Athens, Alkis and Machi struggle to get by with their 11-year-old daughter, Lemonia. Lemonia is a very bright but weird kid. She often witnesses her parents fighting. Machi and Alkis are clearly unhappy with each other and have many unresolved issues. During one of their very violent fights, Lemonia appears holding a grenade in her hands. From that moment on, Lemonia starts directing their relationship under the threat of the grenade, forcing her parents to take a hard look at themselves, dictating what they should say and do. She directs them as if she was a theatre director and they were her actors. Both of them soon realise that this is a really hard game. Soon, they all end up in the family car, on the way to the place where they used to spend their summer holidays together. It is raining, the sea is rough and this family embarks on their strangest vacation yet. Dimitris Bitos's feature debut, a psychological thriller, was presented in a special screening at Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2014, and had its international premiere in competition at Festival del Cinema Europeo Lecce 2015.

Io voglio le ali bianche

Chiara Zilli : 2014
I Wish White Wings

Suddenly Chiara decided to leave the city where she lived and worked as a journalist and go back to Lecce. In Milan she was neither sad nor happy, she just had the feeling that she was living a life she had never chosen. When she was young, Chiara could dance even before learning to speak, and ever since she began to write, she used writing as a means to draw her fantasies about the world. She met Alessandra for the first time on the streets of Lecce, next to a church. Her singing echoing through the alleys brought Chiara to her. Her voice reached Chiara like the sound of someone's crying, as that crying had begun in the gut and then raised upwards. However it sounded like tears of happiness, the kind of happiness that belongs to those who know themselves and can express their inner selves. In what the director describes as "relationship cinema", the story oscillates between a faded VHS, renewing connections between the remote past and the present, and a Steadicam that quivers, with uncertainty, in front of new impulses; also a melancholy and bright Super-8 that lets itself be impregnated with the same matter of dreams. Chiara Zilli's documentary premiered at Salina Doc Fest 2014, and screened at Festival del Cinema Europeo Lecce 2015.

Red Knot

Scott Cohen : 2014

Peter and Chloe, a young married couple, jump at the chance to satisfy their wanderlust by taking a belated honeymoon aboard a research vessel bound for Antarctica. Once on board, Peter, a writer, occupies his time documenting the work of whale biologist Roger Payne, leaving little time for Chloe. Feeling increasingly neglected by her husband, Chloe begins to drift closer to the enigmatic Captain Emerson. As Peter dives deeper into his work and Chloe's sense of abandonment increases, an act of betrayal ultimately divides the young lovers, driving Chloe to separate herself from Peter, both physically and emotionally. Isolated on the ship and separated from humanity by the vast, rugged expanse of Antarctica, Peter and Chloe must plumb the depths of their love to discover what each so desperately needs to move forward. A fascinating examination of proximity, seclusion, and the ambivalence of love, the film explores the dual themes of isolation and intimacy via the fragile relationship of a pair of newlyweds. Scott Cohen's directorial debut was winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Award when it premiered at Seattle International Film Festival 2014. His film had its European premiere at Titanic International Film Festival Budapest 2015.

Deniz seviyesi

Esra Saydam & Nisan Dağ : 2014
Things I Cannot Tell

Damla, a Turkish immigrant estranged from her homeland, lives in New York City with her husband Kevin, expecting their first child. But she continues to be haunted by a secret that has prevented her from enjoying her seemingly perfect life in America. Overwhelmed to discover that her cousin is selling their childhood home, Damla returns to her homeland, where she is reintroduced to her family and her first love, Burak. Once there, she will have to confront everything she fled from eight years before. Abandoned all those years ago, the former boyfriend is aloof today, but Damla feels she still cares for him. Regardless, Damla has to find a way to confront him with a secret that she kept for years before she can move on. A highly personal, character-driven drama about a woman who is stuck between her past and present and can't let go of her first love halfway across the world. Esra Saydam and Nisan Dağ's feature debut premiered at İstanbul Film Festival 2014, and screened in competition at Titanic International Film Festival Budapest 2015.

Stále spolu

Eva Tomanová : 2014
Always Together

Peace and tranquillity reign on the slopes of the Šumava. But it is always noisy and busy around the Mlčoch family's house. Petr comes from urban Pilsen, Czech Republic where he lived in a concrete tower block. Later, Petr studied Cybernetics at the Charles University in Prague. His wife Simona grew up in a rich neighbourhood in Prague and was studying Czech and History at the same university when she met Petr. Today, they have been together for 25 years, have nine children, no running water, no standard bathroom or toilet. Together, they all live in a caravan in the meadow, reducing their notion of an alternative lifestyle ad absurdum. The rules of the clan are set by Petr who decided that he and his family would give up modern civilisation to live freely and in harmony with nature. What's life like with a man who has used his own family for his lifestyle experiments? What is the cost of this freedom? What does his family gain from its nonconformity? Eva Tomanová's first feature-length documentary premiered at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2014, and screened in competition at Crossing Europe Filmfestival Linz 2015.

Cartas a María

Maite García Ribot : 2015
Letters to María

As a result of her father's Alzheimer's disease, Maite decides to recover the unknown and silenced story of her grandfather Pedro. In 1939, the Republican Pedro had to go into exile in France, leaving behind his wife María and their two sons. In order to survive the harsh living conditions in the refugee camps in the South of France he had to work for the French government and even for the Nazi army. Pedro died in an allied bombing in Bordeaux. Through forty-six letters that Pedro wrote to María from exile, Maite will discover and imagine this unique and epic family story. Maite García Ribot's documentary screened in competition at Crossing Europe Filmfestival Linz 2015.

Eva

Melanie Jilg : 2015

A young woman travels through the German countryside, accompanied by her dog Piz and her ox Lothar. She is putting one foot in front of the other, while foxes scream and trains pass by. She carries vastness on her muscular, sunburnt shoulders. When the old moon flashes by slowly, sleep brings fears with snow-white milk and dark walls. But Eva's trust in life banishes these nightmares. Rain blurs the border between beginning and ending and time grows in knotted circles around the origin. Melanie Jilg's experimental documentary premiered in the Regard Neuf section at Visions du Réel 2015.

Misafir

Mehmet Eryılmaz : 2015
The Visitor

Ten years after being thrown out of her parental home, Nur hears that her mother is at death's door. Taking her young daughter with her, Nur hurries back to her father's world to see, and reconcile with her mother before it is too late. While the universal theme of mother-daughter relationships lies at the centre of the film, this is underpinned by an allusive subtext of incest, one of most common but least addressed social problems in Turkey. The individual stories of the family members combine with a sense of hope fuelled by tragedy to paint a portrait of the socially disconnected. Mehmet Eryılmaz's second feature was selected to premiere in competition at İstanbul Film Festival 2015. The film was withdrawn by the filmmakers as part of a boycott following the censorship of the festival's national programme by Turkey's Ministry of Culture.

Fell

Kasimir Burgess : 2014

Whilst on a camping trip in the Victorian Alps, Thomas's only daughter, Lara, is killed by a logging truck in a hit-and-run accident for which the driver, Luke, serves a prison sentence. Stricken with grief, Thomas sheds his urban life and his identity, and moves to the remote town where Lara was killed. There he takes on a new name, Chris, and finds work as a logger. When Luke is released from prison and returns to work, Chris connives to work as his partner in dangerously high tree-logging work. Every time Luke climbs, Chris holds his life in his hands. As the tension rises, the two men, both damaged, grow closer through their affinity for nature, with the forest seemingly exerting a strange power over them. An entrancing and enigmatic drama – a dreamlike, visually resplendent tale of nature, revenge and redemption. Kasimir Burgess's feature debut premiered in competition at Sydney Film Festival 2014, and had its international premiere at Glasgow Film Festival 2015.

The Disappearing Illusionist

Bobbie Peers : 2015
Dirk Ohm – Illusjonisten som forsvant

In mid-winter the German illusionist Dirk Ohm arrives in the small town of Grong, a place ridden by the disappearance of a young local woman, Maria. Dirk soon finds himself searching for Maria side by side with the villagers; and slowly he falls in love with the missing woman. In the loneliness of his hotel room he gives in to the illusion of their love relationship, she is to him more real than anything else. Maria's father views Dirk with increasing suspicion. Maria's mother, on the other hand, turns to Dirk in the hope that he has real clairvoyant abilities, and begs him to find her daughter. As the search moves towards a conclusion, Dirk finds himself under increasing pressure and expectation. And soon he will have to make the choice between reality and illusion. Inspired by a true event, the story is told in a magical and poetic landscape, challenging our perception of what's real and what's not, who we are when we are present and who are we when we are gone.

La noche del ratón

David R Losada : 2015
The Night of the Mouse

A cat-and-mouse game is one of sight: both seeing and being seen. To keep their affair a secret, Sandra and her co-worker Jorge often leave for business trips extremely early, to allow for a few hours of romance before the workday begins. In the dark hours of the early morning at the onset of their latest business trip, the couple must make a stop at a remote service station. Unbeknown to Sandra and Jorge, someone is keeping an eye on their pre-dawn rendezvous. The cat and mouse meet at this petrol station in the Spanish countryside and a thrilling new story unfolds. A dark and suspenseful story of things that often don't go as planned. David R Losada's feature debut premiered at Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2015, and had its European premiere at Festival du Cinéma Espagnol de Nantes 2015.

Nian nian

Sylvia Chang : 2015
Murmur of the Hearts

Siblings Yu-mei and Yu-nan were born on Lyudao, a small volcanic island off the east coast of Taiwan. As children they grew up listening to fairy tales about mermaids told by their mother. Yu-nan became a tour guide, whilst his sister Yu-mei left the island for Taipei to become a painter and the two drifted apart. Yu-mei falls for an under-achieving boxer and begins years of soul searching in the city, where the siblings reunite under unexpected circumstances. What was remembered and forgotten are lessons that have profound consequences. An emotional drama about growing up, personal regrets and invoking the buried love that eventually helps them make peace with the past and move on. Sylvia Chang's feature premiered at Hong Kong International Film Festival 2015.

Gece

Erden Kıral : 2014
Night

The story of a family forced to move to the western city of İzmir upon the evacuation of their home village. Unable to adapt to their new circumstances, the father abandons the family while the elder brother Zahit ceases to care, and the family of five disintegrates. The elder sister Süsen is the most affected of all. Marrying her childhood love Yusuf, Süsen also loses her hopes of building a stable family when the burden of life gets heavier and Yusuf's personality falters. As their love subsides and they grow hopeless, they still stand together, unable to break up. Taking the western coastal city of İzmir as background, this poignant romance is a psychological drama painting a portrait of embittered people anchored to their past, struggling to stay innocently beautiful. Erden Kıral's feature screened at İstanbul Film Festival 2015.

Muna

Serdar Gözelekli : 2015

Muna is the 6-year-old daughter of a Palestinian family, living in Gaza. In autumn 2009, their house gets raided by Israeli soldiers. When she comes out of hiding, Muna realises that she's all alone. Not knowing what to do, she wanders the streets of Gaza in search of her family. During her search Muna comes across the surgeon Ela who has travelled to Gaza with Doctors Worldwide in order to aid victims of war. With the help of her colleague Ali and his Gazan friend Süleyman, Ela tries to find Muna's family. In their quest, the doctors confront the harsh realities of war. Serdar Gözelekli's feature premiered in the New Turkish Cinema section at İstanbul Film Festival 2015.