Jupiter's Moon

Kornél Mundruczó : 2017
Jupiter holdja

A young immigrant is shot down while illegally crossing the border. Terrified and in shock, wounded Aryan can now mysteriously levitate at will. Thrown into a refugee camp, he is smuggled out by Dr Gabor Stern, an errant doctor who has been suspended from his job at the hospital following a fatal accident during a surgical operation. After discovering Aryan's prodigious gift and putting his initial astonishment to one side, this man, who is totally devoid of any faith, decides to use this miracle for lucrative purposes. Pursued by enraged camp director László, the fugitives remain on the move in search of safety and money. Inspired by Aryan's amazing powers, Gabor takes a leap of faith in a world where miracles are trafficked for small change. As the levitations and miracles continue, there is a gradual change in Gabor, who becomes aware of the "Christlike" nature of this "young prince" by his side – who all the while is searching for his father after he disappeared during the border crossing. Kornél Mundruczó's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Hikari

Naomi Kawase : 2017
Radiance

Misako Ozaki is employed by the company White Light to write audio descriptions for blind cinema goers. Among the consultants who evaluate her work and offer guidance is Masaya Nakamori, a renowned photographer struggling to come to terms with the fact that he is losing his sight. Masaya tries to make the most of his last remaining glimmers of vision to continue working with his Rolleiflex. Meanwhile, Misako is bearing her own burden of grief after losing her father a few years ago, and she is anxious about the advancing illness of her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's and lives under supervision in the countryside despite exhortations that she should be placed in a care home. Misako then discovers Nakamori's photographs, who will strangely bring her back to her past. Together, they will learn to see the radiant world that was invisible to her eyes. Naomi Kawase's feature was winner of the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury when it premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Happy End

Michael Haneke : 2017

Gradually succumbing to dementia, Georges Laurent, the octogenarian patriarch of the Laurents, an affluent bourgeois family, is uncomfortably sharing his palatial manor in Calais, the heart of the infamous migrant jungle, with his twice-married son, Thomas, and Anne, his workaholic daughter who has taken over the family construction business. Divorced and frigid, Anne has to handle the impact of a disastrous workplace accident caused by her disappointing son Pierre's negligence, while at the same time, the urgent hospitalisation of Thomas's ex-wife from a mysterious poisoning, leads his sulky 13-year-old daughter, Eve, to live with her father and his new wife, Anaïs. Undoubtedly, in this family, everyone has a skeleton in the closet, and as the fates of the Laurents enmesh with insistent and ignoble desires, a peculiar and disturbing alliance will form. But in the end, some secrets are bigger than others. Michael Haneke's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Frost

Šarūnas Bartas : 2017

The story of a young man who has never experienced war but has grown up in its shadow. He enters a journey of discovery and sacrifice, crossing borders between countries, between people. Rokas and Inga, a couple of young Lithuanians, volunteer to drive a cargo van of humanitarian aid from Vilnius to Ukraine. When plans change and they find themselves left to their own devices, they cross the vast snowy lands of the Donbass region in search of allies and shelter, drifting into the lives of those affected by the war. They approach the frontline in spite of the danger, all the while growing closer to each other as they begin to understand life during wartime. Šarūnas Bartas's feature premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Ava

Léa Mysius : 2017

13-year-old Ava is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns that she will lose her sight earlier than predicted. Her mother decides to behave as though nothing has changed so that they can spend the loveliest summer of their lives. Ava confronts the problem in her own way. She steals a large black dog belonging to a young man on the run. "Your field of vision is going to get smaller, you'll lose your night vision, and soon you'll lose your sight." The analysis of the ophthalmologist is final and cruel for Ava who is on holiday for 15 days by the sea with her mother Maud and sister, baby Inès. Caught in this spider's web, this black circle relentlessly closing in on her, the teenager's feelings and deepest desires, secret and violent, come racing to the surface in a diary she writes ("there are children playing in the garden. I want them to drown and for them to never be spoken of again") along with an attraction to a mysterious and laconic gypsy who lives in a cave under a blockhaus further along the beach where Ava goes sand yachting. Stealing the boy's black dog to get used to life as a blind person, the teenager pushes the boundaries of a life that up until then had been very sensible. Léa Mysius's feature debut was winner of the SACD Award when it premiered in competition at the Semaine de la Critique at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Hostages

Rezo Gigineishvili : 2017

The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1983. Border guards are keeping an eye on a group of young Georgians who are enjoying a boisterous dip in the Black Sea. They are smoking cigarettes from the West and listening to the Beatles. They all long to lead independent, professional lives, free from the police state and their parental homes. The group includes doctors, actors, an aspirant for the orthodox priesthood, as well as Anna and Nika, who are about to marry. But their thoughts are all preoccupied by something else altogether: after the wedding they plan to board a scheduled flight in Tbilisi, hijack the aircraft at gunpoint and force the pilot to land in Turkey. Their fierce desire for freedom and an unfortunate chain of unexpected events lead to a national tragedy. A tense, atmospheric re-telling of the Tbilisi hijacking of 1983 depicting young Soviet citizens who see themselves crushed between the promise of Western culture and repressive Communist rule. The crisis ended with a storming of the airliner by Soviet special forces that resulted in eight dead. The surviving hijackers were subsequently tried and executed. Rezo Gigineishvili's feature premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Honeygiver Among the Dogs

Dechen Roder : 2016

They say she's incredibly beautiful and a real female demon. The things that Kinley, a cop, hears about the mysterious Choden who is the subject of his investigations are making him very curious. His boss has sent him to the Bhutanese district of Bumthang to look into the disappearance of a religious leader. In the eyes of the narrow-minded locals, newcomer Choden has long been a prime suspect. Armed with his mobile phone and his stoic disbelief in all the spiritual claptrap going on around him, Kinley meets her on a bus. But it's not this deliberately sober undercover cop who approaches her, but she who speaks to him – and promptly throws him completely off balance with all her metaphors about goddesses and animals. Dechen Roder's feature debut premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2016.

God's Own Country

Francis Lee : 2017

Young Johnny Saxby is running his ailing father's farm in Yorkshire. The communication between father and son reflects their adverse living and working conditions, the father's utterances mostly being restricted to terse criticism of his son. Johnny's grandmother plays her part stoically. A frustrated Johnny endures his strenuous daily routine. In a bid to escape the harsh daily grind, he has no-strings sex with men, or gets drunk at the local pub. In the spring, a farm hand is taken on for the lambing season. Romanian Gheorghe is the same age as Johnny, who at first eyes him with suspicion. The initial tension between the two men soon gives way to an intense relationship. This opens up completely new prospects but also presents new challenges for Johnny. Francis Lee's feature debut premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2017, and was winner of the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film at Edinburgh International Film Festival 2017.

Inflame

Ceylan Özgün Özçelik : 2017
Kaygı

Hasret works for a Turkish television news channel which prides itself on the ambitious maxim: 'What you see is the truth. What you hear is the truth.' But then, suddenly, things begin to change. Editors are told not to comment on politicians' speeches; the news is manipulated and the use of social networks on internal computers is prohibited. Bullied by her overbearing boss, Hasret soon finds herself without her job as an independent film editor. She withdraws into her flat where she begins to experience hallucinations: she hears voices, the walls move and she sees the curtains on fire. Moreover, she begins to realise that her parents were not killed in a traffic accident twenty years ago but must have died in some other, horrific way. What is being kept from her? Ceylan Özgün Özçelik's psychological thriller, her feature debut, premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Ghost in the Mountains

Yang Heng : 2017
Kong shan yi ke

A godforsaken region in highland China. The body of a man who has been beaten to death is found on the mountainside. The police station and a hospital would appear to be the only places still functioning in this impassable wilderness strewn with ruined buildings and forlorn-looking streets. This is the home to which Lao Liu is now returning after an absence of many years. He pays a visit to the grave of a friend who died in an accident, shares with his friend's sister memories of happier times before he left her, and re-encounters A Jie, who is mixed up in criminal activities and dreams of being able to see the sea once in his life. Barely anyone stays here. The younger generation has moved to the big cities in search of a better life either through marriage or by securing a factory job. A Jie has other plans and is in need of Lao Liu's help. But following an encounter with a monk Lao Liu finds himself withdrawing into the spiritual world he once sought to escape. Yang Heng's feature premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Maudie

Aisling Walsh : 2016

Since her childhood Maud has suffered from a severe form of arthritis which has deformed her bones and makes almost every movement agony. When her brother sells their parents' home, the young woman has to move in with her mother in Nova Scotia. Maud is lonely but filled with a desire for life, driven by her great passion for painting. Desperate for more independence, she responds to an advert for a live-in housekeeper placed by fishmonger and social misfit, Everett. From this moment on, the two share everyday life in his little cottage. Gradually, they get to know each other and finally marry. Maud begins to decorate their home with her paintings and soon becomes something of a local celebrity. The colourful motifs on her postcards and small canvasses gain a reputation as far away as in New York and Washington. At some point, they even fill the taciturn Everett with pride. The sensitively told story of folk artist Maud Lewis who rebels against her own physical deterioration and finds happiness in her art. At the same time the film tells the tale of an unusual, understated love that blossoms in the austere landscape of Canada's Atlantic coastline. Aisling Walsh's feature premiered at Telluride Film Festival 2016.

Le jeune Karl Marx

Raoul Peck : 2017
The Young Karl Marx

1844. Karl Marx is 26 years old and living with his wife Jenny in exile in Paris. He is habitually in debt and plagued by existential anxieties. When he first meets the slightly younger factory owner's son Friedrich Engels he dismisses him as a dandy. But Engels, who has just published a study on the miserable impoverishment of the English proletariat, has long since begun to distance himself from his own class. The two like-minded men become friends and soon inspire each other to write texts in which they seek to provide a theoretical foundation for the revolution they believe must come. Their goal is no longer to merely interpret the world, but to change it. Fundamentally. Resistance on the part of conservative forces and internal power struggles within the political Left only serve to spur them on. Raoul Peck's feature premiered in the Berlinale Special Gala at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Una mujer fantástica

Sebastián Lelio : 2017
A Fantastic Woman

Marina and Orlando are in love and plan to spend their lives together. She is working as a waitress and adores singing. Her lover, twenty years her senior, has left his family for her. One night, when they return home after having exuberantly celebrated Marina's birthday at a restaurant, Orlando suddenly turns deathly pale and stops responding. At the hospital, all the doctors can do is confirm his death. Events follow thick and fast: Marina finds herself facing a female police inspector's unpleasant questions, and Orlando's family shows her nothing but anger and mistrust. Orlando's wife excludes Marina from the funeral; she also orders her to leave the apartment – which on paper at least belonged to Orlando – as soon as possible. Marina is a transgender woman. The deceased's family feels threatened by her sexual identity. With the same energy she once used to fight for her right to live as a woman Marina, with head held high, now insists on her right to grieve. Sebastián Lelio's feature was winner of the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay and the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

69 Minutes of 86 Days

Egil Håskjold Larsen : 2017

Slowly we glide over the remains of life-jackets, torn travel bags and discarded shoes at an unnamed shoreline, establishing the tense political framework of this story. From here we pass on to observe groups of fellow travellers, still continuously moving forward. In the midst of the crowd a three-year-old girl, Lean, catches our attention. She is sitting on the shoulders of her father, with a Frozen backpack on her own back. The father is wearing a hoodie, an Adidas backpack and Nike shoes. This is a family like our own; these people are just like our neighbours. The only, but huge, difference is that they have lost their home and are on their way to a new one – one with their relatives who live in Sweden. There are no interviews or voice-overs; the filmmaker follows the family, which also includes Lean's mother and sister as well as her uncles, as they wait at the Macedonian border, then get into a car driven by a Serbian, walk through Hungarian fields, get on a train in Austria, and then board a bus in Germany. But these locations are not identified with narrative titles – the viewer can determine their geographical position only by means of road signs, railway station instructions or the language spoken in some of the scenes. Carefully we are getting into Lean's journey, and we get to know her outstanding character as she slowly makes her way through Europe with her family. She is strong, never cries and seems to grasp the seriousness of these circumstances. This film tells the story about childhood, family relations, hope and a world that is difficult to understand. Egil Håskjold Larsen's documentary, his first feature, premiered at Copenhagen International Documentary Festival 2017.

69 Minutes of 86 Days – trailer (vimeo)

Helle Nächte

Thomas Arslan : 2017
Bright Nights

Austrian civil engineer Michael lives with his girlfriend in Berlin. For years, he has barely had any contact with his 14-year-old son Luis. When Michael's father dies the two nonetheless travel together to the funeral which is held in the remote north of Norway. At the deceased's secluded home Michael begins to pack up his late father's personal items – watched in silence by his son. Two people who barely know each other are suddenly caught in an intimate situation. After the funeral, Michael surprises Luis by suggesting that they spend a few days together exploring the region. A road movie begins that is also a journey into their non-existent shared past. Being together turns out to be more difficult than expected. Never having spent any time with each other on a daily basis, they have trouble handling their relationship. Whilst Michael glosses over this situation, Luis can't hide how hurt he is. His father's long years of absence stand between them like a wall. When they are in the car together it feels like the calm before a storm. During the long days of the summer solstice, days when the sun never sets, Michael tries to break the repetitive cycle and find a joint way forward. Thomas Arslan's feature was winner of the Silver Bear for Best Actor when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Final Portrait

Stanley Tucci : 2017

Paris in 1964. Alberto Giacometti is the one who decides when it is time for work, drink, doubt, destruction, flirtation or laughter in his studio. An established artist whose works fetch record prices, he hides his earnings in his studio. This is just one of the causes of many an argument with his wife Annette, another being the fact that his mistress Caroline receives all his attention. His brother Diego, also an artist, is all too familiar with his idiosyncrasies. One day, Giacometti asks American art critic and biographer James Lord to pose for him. But their sittings, scheduled to take a week, are frequently interrupted by visits to the bistro or long car rides, with no end in sight. Lord postpones his return flight several times. The films peers into the workshop and personality of this famous Swiss painter and sculptor, two years before his death. It shows the artist with all his strengths and weaknesses and relates the chaos of his artistic output, doubts, and courageous ability to destroy and begin afresh. Stanley Tucci's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Colo

Teresa Villaverde : 2017

In Portugal, a father, a mother and a daughter's daily lives are being subsumed by the effects of the economic crisis. This is a process which begins to influence their life together by degrees while their nicely furnished high-rise flat continues to tell a tale of different, bygone times. The unemployed father spends his days on the roof gazing at the horizon which no longer offers him a future. The mother returns home exhausted from working double shifts. Their adolescent daughter keeps her secrets to herself and wonders if there is enough money to pay her bus fare to school. The family members begin to shed their previous roles, their relationship to each other changes and unexpected possibilities start to reveal themselves. It may not be apparent to either father, mother or daughter but each of them has long since begun to take their lives in their own hands and to reshape them. Teresa Villaverde's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

On the Beach at Night Alone

Hong Sang-soo : 2017
Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja

After an affair with a married man, celebrated actress Young-hee decides to take some time out. She travels to the far-off, foreign city of Hamburg. In a conversation with a friend she asks herself if her lover will follow her and whether he misses her as much as she misses him. During her long walks through wintry parks and along riverbanks she attempts to become clear about her feelings and desires. Back in Korea, Young-hee meets some old friends in the coastal town of Gangneung. They eat and drink together and under the influence of alcohol Young-hee provokes, insults and angers the others. Their conversations get more and more out of hand, giving vent to minor and major realisations and truths. Afterwards, Young-hee withdraws to a deserted beach. It seems as if she can only truly find herself in nature. Hong Sang-soo's feature won the Silver Bear for Best Actress when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Ana, mon amour

Călin Peter Netzer : 2017

Toma and Ana meet at university. A love affair begins that is full of hopes and dreams and suffused by the feeling that each needs the other in equal measure. Ana has a complicated family background and suffers from severe panic attacks. Middle-class Toma is as shocked as he is fascinated by the deep well of despair he encounters in his beloved. Toma gives Ana his complete support and takes her to see a string of doctors. At the same time the two begin to isolate themselves from their families and friends. Ana's weakness appears to make Toma stronger. When she falls pregnant, Ana embarks on a therapy based on analytical psychoanalysis from which she emerges a stronger person. But then Toma's world begins to topple. The film blends romantic drama with a study of mental illness and how it is overcome. Călin Peter Netzer's feature was winner of the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Close-Knit

Naoko Ogigami : 2017
Karera ga Honki de Amu toki wa

Eleven-year-old Tomo is pretty much left to her own devices. Unwashed dishes are piling up in the sink and supermarket onigiri are all there is to eat again. Tomo's single mother usually comes home late, and drunk. When she leaves her daughter for good one day the girl has to rely on help from her uncle, Makio, who takes in Tomo to live with him and his girlfriend Rinko. At their first meeting Tomo is flabbergasted to discover that Rinko is a transsexual. She works as a caregiver in a nursing home where Makio's mother Sayuri who suffers from dementia is living. Rinko immediately sets about taking care of Tomo; not only does she lovingly prepare meals but she also succeeds in creating a new home for the girl. A story about finding a way out of one's loneliness; in the case of Tomo and her new family the solution is a mixture of human warmth, good food and the symbolic act of knitting. In quietly concentrated images the film portrays non-normative sexuality as a natural way of life and describes the value of families that are defined not by convention but by a loving, caring environment. Naoko Ogigami's feature was winner of the Teddy Jury Award when it premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.