A refugee's dinner routine is transformed when she begins to hear the voices of those she has lost. Based on a short story by Syrian writer Jehan Sayed Issa.
Social & External
The people behind it
Reem Atassi
The Woman
On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.
Shin-ae moves to her recently late husband’s hometown. Despite her efforts to settle in this unfamiliar and too-normal place, she finds that she can’t fit in. After a sudden tragedy, Shin-ae turns to Christianity to relieve her pain, but when even this is not permitted, she wages a war against God.
The story of Alex, who, with the help of his charismatic grandfather, embarks on a journey in search of his real self.
Samir, a young student from Hamburg, lives with his best friend in a shared apartment and is in a happy relationship. Everything seems normal—until one day he receives a notice to leave the country voluntarily. The news hits Samir like a hard blow, and overnight his dreams seem to vanish. When he finally tells his friends, however, it becomes clear that they will not let him go so easily.
Sebastián is from Venezuela and arrives at a shelter for migrant minors in Mexico City. There he meets Aurora, a girl from Guatemala, with whom he falls in love. Both are waiting for a response to their asylum application. Time is running out and the farewell is inevitable.
An orphaned dinosaur raised by lemurs joins an arduous trek to a sancturary after a meteorite shower destroys his family home.
An impressionistic look at Irish emigrants in London, representing the emigrant's journey, a confusion of anticipation, memories and experience.
When Pak Tin Estate is going to be demolished, the residents will move to a new place, but how about the dead residents? Where could they go? Ho Ying-kuen who majors in Myth and Poetry, and Playwriting, leads us to a time and space of a demolishing public estate. We will come across the residents of the estate, a mother with her two sons selling incenses, and two monkeys having conversation about their mother. A mixture of fiction, experimental and documentary images, Lost Cemeteries studies about filial piety and death with a strange and interesting approach.
The protagonists of this docudrama are old farmers who migrated to Banat after the First World War, in 1922. The film is focused on a couple of important events in their impressive lives, which are woven into lively scenes and stories full of wise instances. Their statements become spontaneous recounts of the lives of people in this region.
ADRIFT- People of a Lesser God is the story of an incredible odyssey made by several-times Pulitzer Prize-nominated undercover reporter Dominique C. Mollard. In this gripping story, Mollard sails with 38 African migrants, among them a five-month-old baby, out of West Africa on a quest to reach the golden shores of Europe. All aboard are packed together like sardines in a leaky fishing canoe as they set off under full moon on their harrowing journey. ADRIFT-People of a Lesser God captures the struggle of these desperate migrants as they brave their way across the cold Atlantic, risking their lives in search for a better future. —Ziad H. Hamzeh
Sira, a former refugee, works as a translator for OFPRA (the French Office for the Protection of Stateless Persons and Migrants). She unscrupulously fleeces her clients, selling them fictions she creates to convince the authorities.
For years, the immigration officer Dr. Ludwig Sarheimer and the chairman of the Turkish community Cengiz Demirkan in Cologne have been fighting a small war. While the one, as a hodja, upholds the traditions of his homeland and brings Anatolian brides to Germany for Turks who are willing to marry, the other wants to prevent exactly that. Cengiz's daughter Lale Demirkan is at the center of these ongoing disputes. At home, the young woman plays the well-behaved Turkish daughter, but as soon as the German studies student leaves the house, she takes off her headscarf and sense of tradition and has fully arrived in German life. In her free time, she practises martial arts fighting techniques. So far, she has successfully fended off potential grooms.
The story of a family who moved from a village to Istanbul with two children in order to live a better life, but ended up living in an abandoned bus due to poverty and lack of accommodation.
A little boy walks alone through a toy store, past people who speak a strange and, for him, incomprehensible language. A young mother finds a way to communicate with him without language. But she is not prepared for what he then tells her.
The film tells the story of Imri, who at 19 goes to live in Tel Aviv, but dreams of moving to Japan. Through his relationships and encounters and in diverse cinematic tools, we are introduced to the young person’s life. An exploration of living in the exotic city of Tel Aviv is presented through a hero who are themselves in the midst of exploring his own choice of an exotic place. A unique correlation is formed between the hero’s misconception of Japan and ours of them. The movie was constructed by both improvised and pre-scripted scenes, as required by the nature of each scene. (Source: Filmmaker Website)
Maysa unfolds over a single afternoon as a young woman and her stoic middle eastern mother navigate the quiet tension of a long-held silence. As memories of migration and girlhood surface in fractured flashbacks, their unspoken history begins to unravel. A tender, restrained portrait of love, resilience, and the things women carry - even when they no longer have to.
Tahir Agha sells all his assets when his business in Maraş deteriorates. He immigrates to Istanbul with his wife Hatice, sons Selim, Murat, Kemal and daughter Fatoş, where he sets his mind to open a repair shop. But in the metropolis, things don't go as planned.
Three Venezuelan women cross the border into Colombia to buy a packet of pasta.
Liubov, a Russian lady who lives in Mexico City. During the routine of her day, Liubov will recall the experiences she had with death, from childhood to adulthood.
This anthology film, whose Chinese title begins with a romantic name for human excrement, premiered internationally at Rotterdam and won Best Screenplay from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. A variety of Hong Kong people wrestle with nostalgia when facing an uncertain future. Their stories give way to a documentary featuring a young barista turned political candidate.
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
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.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
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.
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.
A retired boxer intends to return to the ring for one last shot at the title, but first he must make the weight. Holed up in a room in Las Vegas with an unscrupulous trainer, he embarks on an intensive and illegal weight-cutting program.
In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
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.
In this story inspired by real characters, three girls from America, Nigeria and India are trafficked through an elaborate global network and enslaved in a Texas brothel, and must together attempt a daring escape to reclaim their freedom.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.