Las plantas

Roberto Doveris : 2015
Plants

"Do you think plants could have souls? That we might even be able to talk to them?" For a whole summer, 17-year-old Florencia has to look after her older brother Sebastián, who is trapped in a persistent vegetative state. She feeds him, washes him, changes his diapers, and cuddles up to him in bed. From time to time she reads to him from a comic called Las Plantas, which is about plant souls that take control of human bodies at full moon. In these days of loneliness, she will wonder about her brother. Is he awake despite his condition or is he just a body without a soul? The plants become a metaphor for how Florencia feels at times about her own but perhaps even more so about Sebastián's body, as if it were possessed by another entity, while her brother's consciousness lies dormant. At night, Florencia makes contact with men on the internet. Images of her monotonous daily routine and dreamlike sequences of a vibrant fantasy world merge to create a fascinating tale of a young woman as she self-determines her own sexual awakening. Roberto Doveris' feature premiered at Valdivia International Film Festival 2015, and was awarded the Grand Prix of the Generation 14plus International Jury at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

Mellow Mud

Renārs Vimba : 2016
Es esmu šeit

Loneliness, disillusionment and the experience of first love reveal the character of Raya, a 17-year-old living in rural Latvia with her grandmother and her little brother Robis. A staggering turn of events shakes up their lives, and the young girl must come to decisions that even a grown woman would find difficult to make. No one shall know that their grandmother has died. To avoid being taken into the care of the authorities, Raya and her brother bury the old woman they grew up with in the garden by the apple orchard. With no one else to depend on, Raya has to organise daily survival for herself and her brother. She's pinning all her hopes on their mother, who has emigrated to England. The film describes the difficult situation of those left behind in a country that many people have already abandoned. It is a portrait of a resourceful and determined young woman who refuses to give up her dreams despite the hardships life has thrown at her. In her constant struggle to evade the authorities, she tries to find her own happiness whilst taking care of her brother. Renārs Vimba's feature debut was winner of the Crystal Bear for Best Film when it premiered in the Generation section at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

Kings of the Road

Wim Wenders : 1976
Im Lauf der Zeit

Bruno Winter is a travelling projection-equipment mechanic working in West Germany along the East German border, visiting worn-out theatres. He meets the depressed Robert Lander, who has just been through a break-up with his wife, after he drives his car into a river in a half-hearted suicide attempt. Bruno allows Robert to ride with him while his clothes dry. While out on the road, Bruno and Robert encounter several people in various states of despair, including a man whose wife has committed suicide by driving her car into a tree. Robert also drops in on his elderly father to berate him for disrespecting Robert's mother. After Bruno and Robert have a minor brawl after a conversation about Robert and his wife, Robert finally leaves Bruno, though Bruno later spots him riding on a train. Bruno continues his visits to theatres, including one that no longer screens films because the owner regards modern films as exploitative. Wim Wenders' third part of his Road Movie trilogy had its international premiere in competition at Festival de Cannes 1976.

Wrong Move

Wim Wenders : 1975
Falsche Bewegung

Aiming to be a writer, Wilhelm leaves mother and girlfriend in his home town of Glückstadt in the far north of Germany and sets out for Bonn. Changing trains at Hamburg, he is struck by a beautiful actress, Therese, and obtains her phone number. In his compartment are an older man Laertes, who mostly communicates by blowing a mouth organ, and a teenage female acrobat called Mignon, who is mute. The pair have no money, so Wilhelm pays their fare and puts them up in his cheap hotel, where Therese joins them. Bernhard, an awkward Austrian who wants to be a poet, befriends the four. He says he has a rich uncle with a castle on a peak overlooking the Rhine, but when the five turn up it is the wrong place. The owner welcomes them however, because their arrival stopped him shooting himself, and says they can stay as long as they like. But tensions grow, for Wilhelm is not giving Therese the affection she wants, while Mignon signals her availability to him. Laertes, feeling guilt but not repentant, disgusts Wilhelm by revealing some of his role in the Holocaust. Then the owner of the castle hangs himself, upon which the five leave hastily. Bernhard goes off while Therese takes the other three to her small flat in Frankfurt, where the tensions grow worse. Leaving on his own, Wilhelm completes his symbolic journey by reaching one of the most southerly, highest and emptiest points in Germany, the summit of the Zugspitze.

Alice in the Cities

Wim Wenders : 1974
Alice in den Städten

German writer Philip Winter has missed his publisher's deadline for writing an article about the United States. Attempting to book a flight from New York City, he discovers that there is an airline strike in Germany. He meets a German woman, Lisa, and her young daughter, Alice, who are also trying to return home. After Lisa leaves Alice temporarily in Philip's care, she disappears to deal with a relationship she has recently terminated. Philip and Alice take a flight to Amsterdam on the expectation that they will meet Lisa there, only to find she never arrived at the airport. When Alice is unwilling to stay in the Amsterdam airport alone while Philip leaves, the two decide to return to West Germany where Philip can deliver Alice to her grandmother's home. Unfortunately, Alice can't remember her grandmother's name or address, except that she may live in Wuppertal, the only clue being a photograph of her grandmother's front door with no house number and no one in the shot. After searching through Wuppertal, Alice admits her grandmother doesn't live there and that she only wanted them both to stay in Amsterdam. Enraged, Philip turns Alice over to the police, but Alice walks out of the police station and returns to him remembering that her grandmother lives in Ruhr. The two begin to bond as they travel to Ruhr, and the search comes to an end when the police spot them and inform Philip that Lisa has been found. Philip cannot afford to buy a train ticket so as he is saying goodbye to Alice at the railway station she gives him the money so that he can go with her on the train. He accepts Alice's offer and the film ends with the two of them riding a train back to Munich.

Mal de pierres

Nicole Garcia : 2016
From the Land of the Moon

Gabrielle comes from a small village in the South of France, at a time when her dream of true love is considered scandalous, and even a sign of insanity. Her parents marry her to José, an honest and loving Spanish farm worker who they think will make a respectable woman of her. Despite José's devotion to her, Gabrielle vows that she will never love José and lives like a prisoner bound by the constraints of conventional post-World War II society until the day she is sent away to a cure in the Alps to heal her kidney stones. There she meets André Sauvage, a dashing injured veteran of the Indochinese War, who rekindles the passion buried inside her. She promises they will run away together, and André seems to share her desire. Will anyone dare rob her of her right to follow her dreams? Nicole Garcia's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2016.

Tramontane

Vatche Boulghourjian : 2016

Rabih, a young blind man, lives in a small village in Lebanon. His life unravels when he applies for a passport and discovers that his identification card is a forgery. Travelling across rural Lebanon in search of a record of his own birth, he meets people on the far fringes of society who tell their own stories, open further questions and give him minor clues about his identity. He encounters a nation incapable of telling his, or its own, history. Vatche Boulghourjian's feature debut premiered in competition at the Semaine de la Critique at Festival de Cannes 2016.

Bacalaureat

Cristian Mungiu : 2016
Graduation

Romeo Aldea, 49, a physician living in a small mountain town in Transylvania, has raised his daughter Eliza with the idea that once she turns 18, she will leave to study and live abroad. His plan is close to succeeding – Eliza has won a scholarship to study psychology in the UK. She just has to pass her final exams – a formality for such a good student. On the day before her first written exam, Eliza is assaulted in an attack that could jeopardise her entire future. Now Romeo has to make a decision. There are ways of solving the situation, but none of them using the principles he, as a father, has taught his daughter. The film premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2016, where it won the award for Best Director.

Aquarius

Kleber Mendonça Filho : 2016

Clara, a 65 year old widow and retired music critic, was born into a wealthy and traditional family in Recife, Brazil. She is the last resident of the Aquarius, an original two-storey building, built in the 1940s, in the upper-class, seaside Avenida Boa Viagem, Recife. All the neighbouring apartments have already been acquired by a company which has other plans for that plot. Clara has pledged to only leave her place upon her death, and will engage in a cold war of sorts with the company, a confrontation which is both mysterious, frightening and nerve wracking. This tension both disturbs Clara and gives her that edge on her daily routine. It also gets her thinking about her loved ones, her past and her future. The film premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2016.

Mimosas

Oliver Laxe : 2016

A caravan escorts an elderly and dying Sheikh through the Moroccan Atlas. His last wish is to be buried with his close ones. But death does not wait. The caravaneers, fearful of the mountain, refuse to continue transporting the corpse. Saïd and Ahmed, two rogues travelling with the caravan, say they know the way and promise to take the corpse to its destiny. In another world, Shakib is chosen to travel to the mountains with a mission: to help the improvised caravaneers. Oliver Laxe's second feature was winner of the Grand Prix when it premiered in competition at the Semaine de la Critique at Festival de Cannes 2016.

Paterson

Jim Jarmusch : 2016

Paterson is a bus driver in the city of Paterson, New Jersey – they share the name. Every day, Paterson adheres to a simple routine: he drives his daily route, observing the city as it drifts across his windshield and overhearing fragments of conversation swirling around him; he writes poetry into a notebook; he walks his dog; he stops in a bar and drinks exactly one beer; he goes home to his wife, Laura. By contrast, Laura's world is ever changing. New dreams come to her almost daily. Paterson loves Laura and she loves him. He supports her newfound ambitions; she champions his gift for poetry. The film quietly observes the triumphs and defeats of daily life, along with the poetry evident in its smallest details. Jim Jarmusch's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2016.

Elle

Paul Verhoeven : 2016

The wealthy entrepreneur Michèle Leblanc is the owner of a successful video-game company that she runs with her best friend Anna. Michèle seems indestructible, she brings the same ruthless attitude to her love life as to business. One day Michèle is attacked and brutally raped in her home by an unknown assailant which changes her life forever. However, when she resolutely tracks the man down, they are both drawn into a curious and thrilling game, one that may, at any moment, spiral out of control. The film premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2016.

Personal Shopper

Olivier Assayas : 2016

Maureen Cartwright is a young American living in Paris and working as a personal shopper to a high-fashion celebrity. It has been three months since the sudden death of her 27-year-old twin brother Lewis from a congenital heart malformation, and Maureen, a capable spiritual medium, still hasn't made contact with him. Spending her time between high profile fashion establishments and Lewis's abandoned house in Paris, Maureen is silently battling with grief and sorrow, whilst at the same time, looking for a sign from her deceased brother after an oath taken between the twins. Lewis's partner, Lara, wants to sell the Paris house to a couple of friends of theirs, who need some indication before they buy that Lewis is happy with them moving in. Spending a night in the house to make contact for this purpose, Maureen hopes that Lewis may send her that sign. As Maureen continues with her life, she begins to experience things that she is uncertain are real, which could mean that someone sinister is toying with her, or could be coded signs from Lewis, or a combination of both. The film premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2016, where it won the award for Best Director.

La fille inconnue

Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne : 2016
The Unknown Girl

Jenny Davin is a young doctor who receives a late night call at the door of her practice after hours and decides to ignore it. The next morning she learns that the caller was a girl who has been found dead and that the police have no way to identify her. Shocked and guilt-stricken by the news, Jenny resolves to discover the name of the young girl so that she will not be buried anonymously. Playing intelligently with the traits of traditional detective dramas, an engaging social commentary and morally astute and compelling investigation of personal responsibility, justice and guilt. The Dardenne's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2016.

A Serious Game

Pernilla August : 2016
Den allvarsamma leken

Stockholm at the beginning of the twentieth century. Lydia, the daughter of a landscape painter, and Arvid, a young journalist at the beginning of his career, fall in love at first sight. But the time is not ripe for their happiness: after the sudden death of her father, Lydia finds herself without an inheritance. Believing that he has nothing to offer her, penniless Arvid, who comes from a poor background, shies away from the idea of marriage. They part. When they meet again ten years later – both are now married and have children – they embark upon a passionate affair with unforeseeable consequences. A romance about two people who transcend the morals of their time and discover their own, unexpected ways of fulfilling their emotions. Pernilla August's adaptation of Hjalmar Söderberg's classic 1912 novel premiered in the Berlinale Special section at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery

Lav Diaz : 2016
Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis

Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro is considered to be one of the most influential proponents in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines during the late nineteenth century. Today, he is still celebrated as the father of the Philippine Revolution. Bonifacio's widow is searching for her husband's missing dead body; as she and her followers stumble deeper into the jungle, they become entangled in the dense thicket of their own guilt and responsibility. The Spanish governor tries to play off the various rebel factions and their utopian visions against each other. At the same time, a badly wounded companion of Bonifacio reflects upon the victims a revolution inevitably creates. The film was winner of the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

Alone in Berlin

Vincent Perez : 2016
Jeder stirbt für sich allein

Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime's victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel's son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the 'Führer' and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat. A quietly persuasive eulogy to human courage and dignity in an atmosphere of surveillance and intimidation. Vincent Perez's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

Fire at Sea

Gianfranco Rosi : 2016
Fuocoammare

Samuele is twelve and lives on an island in the Mediterranean, far away from the mainland. Like all boys of his age he does not always enjoy going to school. He would much rather climb the rocks by the shore, play with his slingshot or mooch about the port. But his home is not like other islands. For years, it has been the destination of men, women and children trying to make the crossing from Africa in boats that are far too small and decrepit. The island is Lampedusa which has become a metaphor for the flight of refugees to Europe, the hopes, hardship and fate of hundreds of thousands of emigrants. These people long for peace, freedom and happiness and yet so often only their dead bodies are pulled out of the water. Thus, every day the inhabitants of Lampedusa are bearing witness to the greatest humanitarian tragedy of our times. Gianfranco Rosi's feature was winner of the Golden Bear when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

The Night Manager

Susanne Bier : 2016

In Cairo at the height of the Arab Spring, hotel night manager Jonathan Pine receives a plea for help from the beautiful Sophie Alekan. As the mistress of the powerful but dangerous hotel owner, Sophie has evidence of an arms deal that could help crush the popular uprising. Compelled to do what he thinks is right, Pine makes contact with his friend at the British Embassy. But his actions unwittingly draw him into the terrifying world of ruthless arms dealer, Richard Roper. When Sophie's information makes its way to Angela Burr, a government anti-corruption agent intent on bringing down Roper's empire, a leak in her network triggers a chain of events that could end in tragedy. A TV mini-series adapted from the novel by John le Carré.

24 Wochen

Anne Zohra Berrached : 2016
24 Weeks

Astrid is a comedian who makes people laugh for a living; her husband Markus is her manager and the two of them work well together. They have a nine-year-old daughter and are expecting their second child. When they learn that their child will not be born healthy, they are at first optimistic that they will be able to meet this challenge – although they have no idea what awaits them. But the closer it gets to the due date, the more Astrid begins to worry about the future of her unborn child as well as that of her family and her career. After many discussions and arguments Astrid realises that the decision that will affect all their lives must be made by her alone. What complicates matters further is the fact that, as a successful entertainer, she is in the eye of the public and the media. Anne Zohra Berrached's second feature explores the way in which women choose to live their lives, delivering a powerful portrait of a woman who finds herself caught up in a major moral dilemma for which there are no easy solutions. Her film premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.