Love Stories from Fukuoka 17

Like Father and Son

Guoren travels the villages, selling goods of all kinds while he hunts for the man who stole the money for his son's care. Madou, one of the many abandoned children in the villages, hides in Guoren's truck so he can look for his father. A powerful but cathartic trip through rural China with a neorealist touch and non-professional actors who add authenticity to the story, prompting spontaneous laughter despite the challenging issues involved.

The Playground Once Again

Rapine

Two humble indigenous woodcutters discover the wreckage of a plane that has crashed at the top of the mountains and decide to steal the belongings of all the occupants killed in the accident.

The Pinkie

Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR

Drizzle

Returning from a business trip, a man meets some peasants who arouse fears in him.

Motel

The discovery of the mutilated body of a wealthy woman leads a detective to an isolated motel.

End of the Party

A motorcycle gang goes to a mansion where a party is being held and joy turns into tragedy.

Divine Words

Mari Gaila (Silvia Pinal), is an adulteress who lives between ragged, thieves, prostitutes, dwarfs and other misshapen beings, in a rare box at a country and a vague time. Her husband, is a poor sacristan who agrees with other relatives to do business with the display of his orphaned nephew, a mentally retarded dwarf. Caught in committing adultery with her lover, Mari Gaila is caged naked and punished by the people.

Alors... Heureux ?

Three friends navigate the ups and downs of love, relationships, and adulthood, each facing their own romantic challenges. One struggles with commitment, another finds himself caught in a web of misunderstandings, and the third embarks on a series of flirtations that lead to comedic complications. As their lives intersect, their friendships are tested through humorous and often absurd situations. Through a mix of heartwarming and chaotic moments, they each attempt to find happiness while dealing with the unpredictability of love and life.

Kids

Russia. Our, days, general lawlessness, corruption and inaction of the authorities. But suddenly, in a small town start getting killed. The victims - drug traffickers, corrupt officials bribed the judge ... Someone has clearly decided to purge the city from evil. Who are these people's avengers?

Boy's Choir

A young teen's father dies, and he is sent to an orphanage. He's teased because he stutters almost runs away, until a beautiful, androgynous boy, Yasuo, convinces him to join the choir.

The Last Courier

When Vera Rohleder wants to meet her husband Bernhard at the airport where he should arrive from Moscow, she is not successful. Later she is told that Bernhard died in a tragic traffic accident. She flies over to Moscow to identify the corpse, but the dead man shown to her doesn't seem to be her husband. When she tries to find out what really happened she gets to meet Andrej Bubka, a Moscow militia officer, who also looks for her husband. Vera cannot believe what Bubka tells her about the reasons why her husband has disappeared.

Uncorked

Johnny is a high-powered executive who is definitely not looking to fall in love but a business conference takes her to wine country she meets a handsome widower Andrew who invites Johnny to meet his family after she loses her job. In helping his parents' winery she begins to fall in love with him and his family but when she gets offered another job she has to chose between her career or Andrew

Slavek the Shit

Slavek is an elderly caretaker of a public lavatory and is proud of his job. He becomes anxious to see more and more automatic toilets installed in town. Then something changes. He falls in love with a woman toilet caretaker who is working on the other side of the street.

Crocus

Trapped in limbo by the vivid memories of his recently departed mother, the family home becomes an allegory for a son's loss.

Ishk Actually

Gia is at a crossroads in her life, with the arrows pointing towards Neil in one direction and Kabir in the opposite direction. She grapples with making a decision as she's torn between the two worlds that she's been living in. Love is the unanswered emotion that leads to a series of life altering situations . Amazed at life's sense of timing, she treads along a path that she believes will lead to her true love.

Saddam

The story of two Italian men who are posted to Iraq on a mysterious mission to guard the cell of a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison. What's strange is that neither man knows who is inside; they must simply follow orders not to let anyone enter or leave the cell. As time passes their nerves are tested and they begin to wonder whether their charge could be Saddam Hussein...

Legend of Pawiak Prison

About the courage and resilience of two Tajik pilots who were captured by the fascists at the beginning of the war and ended up in the Pawiak political prison in Warsaw. At the first opportunity, the heroes make their escape.

Blackmail

Trapped in escalating blackmail, Mani faces mounting danger as crime, passion, and greed intertwine, exposing hidden truths and changing allegiances throughout his ordeal.

The Scarlet and the Black

Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.

Outlaws - For Greater Glory

A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.

Shepherd: The Story of a Jewish Dog

Follow the perilous journey to freedom when a young boy and his dog attempt to escape a concentration camp during World War II. Based on true events.

The Boy in the Woods

The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.

The Monuments Men

Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?

Munich – The Edge of War

At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.

Operation Mincemeat

In 1943, two British intelligence officers concoct Operation Mincemeat, wherein their plan to drop a corpse with false papers off the coast of Spain would fool Nazi spies into believing the Allied forces were planning to attack by way of Greece rather than Sicily.

Battleground

Members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division are fighting for their country amidst the rugged terrain of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Holley and his American compatriots have already seen one of their own, Roderigues, perish under enemy fire. The men try to rebuff another series of Nazi attacks, but what they really need is a change in the weather. Without clear skies, they'll never get the air support they need.

Eleanor the Great

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.

God of War

During the 16th century, pirates rule the Chinese coastline, pillaging the small villages and terrorizing the citizens. When maverick leader Commander Yu enlists the help of a sharp young general, they devise a plan to defeat the pirates. A violent clash of wit and weapons will decide who will rule the land.

The War Below

During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.

Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants

Under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian army pushes west to destroy the Jin Dynasty, setting its sights on the Song Dynasty next. Amid internal conflicts among martial arts schools, Guo Jing unites the Central Plains' warriors to defend Xiangyang, embodying courage and loyalty in the fight for the nation.

The Codes of War

War stories about family, ethics and honor include the true story of two U.S. Marines who in a span of six seconds, must stand their ground to stop a suicide truck bomb, a Navy Corpsman who attempts to hold on to his humanity, and a WW2 soldier who gets separated from his squad and is forced to re-evaluate his code.

One Second

A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.

God on Trial

In the Jewish tradition of arguing with God, Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz decide to put God on Trial.

Operation Pacific

During WWII, Duke E. Gifford is second in command of the USS Thunderfish, a submarine which is firing off torpedoes that either explode too early or never explode at all. It's a dilemma that he'll eventually take up personally. Even more personal is his quest to win back his ex-wife, a nurse; but he'll have to win her back from a navy flier who also happens to be his commander's little brother.

My Dinner with Hervé

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.

Taking Sides

One of the most spectacular and renowned conductors of the 1930s, Wilhelm Furtwangler's reputation rivaled that of Toscanini's. After the war, he was investigated as part of the Allies' de-Nazification programme. In the bombed-out Berlin of the immediate post-war period, the Allies slowly bring law and order to bear on an occupied Germany. An American major is given the Furtwangler file, and is told to find everything he can and to prosecute the man ruthlessly. Tough and hard-nosed, Major Steve Arnold sets out to investigate a world of which he knows nothing.

The Young Lions

The lives of three young men, a German and two Americans, during WWII.

A Call to Spy

The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.