Iran 2017, Toronto Discovery FIPRESCI Award
First Feature Film by Sadaf Foroughi
Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Iranian Ava challenges the strict rules of her traditional upbringing and learns that her mother broke the rules as a young woman as well.
Current slate
Balekempa (The Bangle Seller)
India 2018, Rotterdam Bright Future Competition- FIPRESCI Award
First feature film by Ere Gowda
Synopsis
A village bangle seller and his wife cannot conceive a child. The villagers gossip. In this close-knit patriarchal community in South India, hidden desires and relationships find a way to exist. Will the husband’s secret ever come out?
L’Amour Debout
France 2018, Cannes ACID selection
First Feature Film by Michaël Dacheux
Synopsis
Martin, in a last ditch hope, comes to meet Léa in Paris. They are both twenty-five and shared their first love story together. They are both now striving to mature.
My Brother, My Love
Switzerland 2018, Locarno competition
Thomas Imbach
Synopsis
Lena loves her brother Noah. In the desperate attempt to conquer her feelings, she retreats into a world of her own.
Our Madness
Mozambique 2018, Berlin Forum
Joao Viana
Synopsis
Ernania is hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital in Mozambique. She dreams about her little son, Hanic, and her husband, Pak, who is a soldier of the war. In the meantime, a quirky musical intrument plays: her own bed. Ernania’s musical virtuosity, attracts the attention of the hospital nurses. One day, her song is played in a radio program and Rosa, an envangelical priest of “Rádio Moçambique”, goes to the hospital to listen to Ernania’s song. Ernania takes the priest’s visit as an opportunity to run away from the hospital.
Pillar of Salt (The)
Turkey 2018, Berlin Forum
First Feature Film by Burak Cevik
Synopsis
A reclusive woman in her thirties leads a life frozen in time in a cave-like room. In her rare trips to the city, she chats with an oarswoman haunted by the devils. She searches for her twin sister in unfrequented corners of the city. In this journey in which time and space are out of joint, a same dream is recounted time after time.
Room for a Man
Lebanon, 2017 Montreal RIDM – Grand Prize
First feature documentary by Anthony Chidiac
Synopsis
A young Lebanese filmmaker who shares a Beirut apartment with his mother and pet dog sets about reconstructing his identity by renovating his bedroom. But as the male construction workers come and go in the freshly embattled household, new questions, old arguments and unexpected passions get stirred…
Still Recording
Venice Critic’s Week 2018- FIPRESCI & Audience Awards. Valdivia 2018, best film
First Feature Film by Saeed Al Batal & Ghiath Ayoub
Synopsis
Saeed is a young cinema passionate trying to teach other young people in Eastern Ghouta in Syria the rules of filming, but the reality they face is much more harsh to respect any rule.
His friend Milad is on the other side of the fence, in Damascus, under the control of the regime finishing his studies in Fine Arts.
Theatre of War
Argentina 2018, Berlin Forum- Ecumenical Prize & CICAE Art Cinema Award
First Feature Documentary by Lola Arias
Synopsis
This is an essay on how to represent war, performed by former enemies. British and Argentinian veterans of the Falklands/Malvinas war come together to discuss, rehearse and re-enact their memories 35 years after the conflict.
Walden
Switzerland 2018, Karlovy Vary Documentary competition- Special Jury Prize
First Feature Documentary by Daniel Zimmermann
Synopsis
In the forest of the Catholic Monastery of Admont in Austria a fir tree is felled and processed into planks of wood. By train, truck, boat and finally by hand, the stack is transported to a mysterious destination right in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest.
Widow of Silence
India 2018, Busan A Window on Asian Cinema
Praveen Morchhale
Synopsis
In conflict-ridden Kashmir, a Muslim widow, responsible for her 11-year-old daughter and ill mother-in-law, finds herself in dire straits. Unable to obtain her missing husband’s death certificate from the government, she must find the strength to overcome this absurd plight.
You Have the Night
Montenegro, Serbia, 2018- Venice Critic’s Week
First Feature Film by Ivan Salatic
Synopsis
After leaving the ship on which she works, Sanja finds herself stranded, with nowhere to go but home. The shipyard has filed for bankruptcy, leaving many workers out of work. Boats covered with tarpaulin are scattered around the landscape, set aside for better days. A storm comes. One life is lost. Luka is waiting for the night in the woods. The night when everything could change.
Yours Truly
India 2018, Busan A Window on Asian Cinema
Sanjoy Nag
Synopsis
Amidst the daily din of the local trains in Calcutta, a lonely working woman in her late fifties finds herself falling in love with the voice of the railway announcer. Yours Truly is a story about seeking connection and discovering how love can strike at any age- and in the most unexpected places.