Social & External
The people behind it
Giuseppe Fiorello
Daniele Baroni
Antónia Lišková
Alberto Molinari
Andrea Tidona
Constance is a bored, movie-loving schoolteacher in post-WW2 New Zealand who begins to fantasize that she's a Hollywood star - with tragic consequences.
Mia, an ex-prostitute, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the abusive Quan (Sunny Pang, who also stars in Headshot in this year’s Festival lineup), a butcher who runs a roast meat shop. When she meets sensitive funeral director Wu, their passion for one another escalates into an affair. But the path to true love is fraught with jealousy, forcing someone to make a deadly move.
Just outside her apartment, Ana finds Dina, a naked, mysterious and confused young woman. Ana invites Dina in and calls a couple of persons so that they can meet her. Pamela and Raymundo, human traffickers, show up to negotiate the buying of Dina, who claims that she comes from the future and that she is actually on a mission to investigate how far human evil has grown in Mexico by the year 2015. The young woman provokes an unsolvable dispute between the traffickers, who end up dead.
A man, who is planning to emigrate from the country, has reached agreement with his wife to be separated from her. The woman is a war refugee and decides to return to her home town in the south of Khuzistan province. On the day of separation the woman realizes she is pregnant, and now the man has to modify his plans to face the new situation.
Flavia is a thirtysomething married teacher. She has suppressed the memory of her adolescent lesbian fling with Jin and is stuck in a stifling marriage. A chance encounter in a supermarket with the playful and seductive singer Yip reawakens dormant feelings and she begins to think back on her teenage affair with Jin.
Set in the mid-80s, when a reporter is sent to cover the Challenger Space Shuttle launch only to become mixed up in the lives of some local students.
July 21, 1958. Madrid wakes up to the news that a pawnbroker has been murdered in his shop. Soon, police finds that the victim's associate, his pregnant wife and their maid have been murdered as well in their own home across the street.
The plot follows three friends in New York City whose lives are upended by the 9/11 attacks leading to suspicion, FBI involvement, and a story about friendship, identity, and the aftermath of terrorism.
15 years ago, Luiza decided to make a fresh start in Spain. She left her 3-year-old daughter Cristina in the care of her relatives and took off. When she returns to Romania, the woman learns some shocking truths that were kept hidden from her: Cristina ran away from home, is a drug addict and has a 2-year-old girl who lives in an orphanage. Overwhelmed by guilt, Luiza attempts to save her daughter
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.
When Elvis Valderez is honourably discharged from the Navy, he heads to the small Texas town of Corpus Christi, where he introduces himself to Pastor David Sandow, his long-lost father, soon becoming a stalwart member of the church.
Hasan Everywhere is an animation which broaches the subtlety of a relationship between a man and a woman who bear the passports of enemies, to sympathetically deal with the subjects of death, grief, lost opportunity; but mostly it seeks to demonstrate the possibility of friendship triumphing over the deepest of rifts between two people. In that regard it is most unusual among the standard fare of animated shorts.
On an island populated by a race of women who want to be left alone - No Men, which does not bode well for re-population - a man shows up and is soon romancing one of the fair ladies. To get the girl, the boy enlists the aid of a friend but another group of men show up, one of which also wants the girl.
Born lucky, Karim Moussa takes to exploiting it instead of focusing on studies. Now a wealthy gambler, he decides to recruit about a dozen lucky people to participate in a deadly game of survival.
Daisy Kenyon is a Manhattan commercial artist having an affair with an arrogant and overbearing but successful lawyer and family man named Dan O'Mara. Daisy meets a single man, a war veteran named Peter Lapham, and after a brief and hesitant courtship decides to marry him, although she is still in love with Dan.
Ye Xiang Lun, a talented piano player is a new student at the prestigious Tamkang School. On his first day, he meets Lu Xiao Yu, a pretty girl playing a mysterious piece of music.
Living in rural Texas is a dysfunctional family: an abusive dad, a Vietnam vet with a war wound that's left him impotent; a compliant wife and a son of about 20, two small sons who look a lot like their brother. The dad harbors a secret, and he goes to murderous lengths to keep it hidden. The young man, Jimmy, who has suspicions, but little comes out until a Yankee woman comes to town.
Radha is a resolute mother, who strives hard against poverty and a lecherous money lender to feed her two sons who grew up with contrasting temperament.
The romance between a lion tamer and a liberated girl.
It isn't easy to find a dream to chase when you're young, but Mugiko has one: she can't wait to become an anime voice actress. Saving up for classes while she works part time in a manga store, she lives with her older, gambler brother after her father's death. When the mother she never knew turns up out of nowhere and moves in, it only causes irritation for the aspiring otaku. But when her mother just as quickly disappears, it leaves Mugiko (or "Sweet Pea") searching for answers, bringing her back to her mother's hometown to discover what happened to her mother's own dream.
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Up-and-coming sports reporter rescues a homeless man ("Champ") only to discover that he is, in fact, a boxing legend believed to have passed away. What begins as an opportunity to resurrect Champ's story and escape the shadow of his father's success becomes a personal journey as the ambitious reporter reexamines his own life and his relationship with his family.
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
A man involved in a horrific car crash is pronounced dead, only to come back to life an hour and a half later, claiming to have seen Heaven.
The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.
Stanley manages his boxer brother Lion but when a devastating loss in the ring leaves the pair in debt, an opportunity to recoup the cash leads to a series of misadventures that threaten to break the bond between them.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
A hard-living salesman becomes a quadriplegic after an accident.
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Matteo is a young successful businessman, audacious, charming and energetic. Ettore instead, is a calm, righteous, second grade teacher always living in the shadows, still in the small town from where both come from. They’re brothers but with two very different personalities. A dramatic event will force them to live together in Rome for a few months, bringing up the opportunity to face their differences with sympathy and tenderness, in a climax of fear and euphoria.
A sociopathic kidnapper methodically pushes a desperate pair of parents to their absolute breaking point.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.