"First dates are always nervewracking."
A date gone awry, two people are not who they claim when secrets are revealed.
Social & External
The people behind it
Jim Bannister
Noah
Poppy Fitzgerald
Evie
Raju faces many hurdles and disappointments in matters of the heart throughout his life. But as a clown in a circus, he tries to make his audience laugh at the cost of his own sorrows. Along the way, Raju loves and loses, but must always keep a smile on his face because, in the words of his circus manager, "The show must go on."
The 43rd edition screens Neighbors, with five segments about the theme “neighbors”: not only about physical proximity, but also about relationships. In Brazil, Olga is a 90-year-old black woman who lost her husband one year ago; her neighbors, who come from different parts of the world, interrupt her grief. In Russia, an employee tries so hard to please his boss that he becomes inconvenient. An Indian woman, with the help of her male friend, decides to learn how to drive, an uncommon practice for women in the country. In China, an elderly, owner of an old and decadent barbershop, argues with his son, who wants to change the business. In South Africa, a group of homeless fights for the right to housing.
50-year-old Jim (Gerald Chew, "Apprentice", Cannes Film Festival 2016 Un Certain Regard) loses his high-flying job in status-conscious Singapore, but his ego and pride compel him to hide this from his wife (Amy J Cheng, "Crazy Rich Asians") and daughter. His only confidante is his best friend (Sivakumar Palakrishnan, "A Yellow Bird", Cannes Film Festival 2016 Critics' Week). Desperately clinging onto the material symbols of his past success, he unlocks a hibernating malevolent force, with sinister roots in long-buried secrets. As his dream life crumbles around him, worlds collide, the lines between then and now become increasingly blurred, and Jim descends into a waking nightmare. REPOSSESSION is a bold, genre-bending film, with an ever-evolving, haunting soundscape from Golden Horse Award-winning composer Teo Wei Yong ("A Land Imagined").
A docu-drama shot in 1970, but not completed until 1973, the film sought to encapsulate in an experimental form issues that were under discussion within the Women’s Liberation Movement at this time and to thus contribute to action for change. In its numerous community screenings, active debate was encouraged as part of the viewing experience.
A wife is sick and tired of her husband's infidelities, so she leaves home and goes back to grad-school. There she meets many self-confident women who help her find her own voice.
Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.
In response to political pressure from Senator Lillian DeHaven, the U.S. Navy begins a program that would allow for the eventual integration of women into its combat services. The program begins with a single trial candidate, Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil, who is chosen specifically for her femininity. O'Neil enters the grueling Navy SEAL training program under the command of Master Chief John James Urgayle, who unfairly pushes O'Neil until her determination wins his respect.
In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.
Revisit the events of 1984, when six female vigilantes kidnapped an Auckland University lecturer and assaulted him in a violent political action, triggering debates about gender politics that divided New Zealand and led to social change.
A prom queen-to-be must break free from her small town’s ominous legacy of prom queens who die after their crowning.
At times of changing gender roles, a tinder date encourages young Leonid to live his own definition of "masculinity". A current reflection on love, sexuality and role models.
In Ger(wo)many, when an army of radical females is preparing for a final revolution and a utopian world without men, a young male soldier arrives seeking refuge at the convent.
Denis Mukwege, a Congolese doctor, pastor and future Nobel Peace Prize laureate, meets Guy Cadière, a Belgian surgeon and atheist. Despite their differences, they unite for a common purpose: to restore the bodies and dignity of thousands of women who have been used as weapons of war in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Directed by Solveig Hoogesteijn, Macu, the Policeman's Woman (1987) is a Venezuelan crime drama based on a true story. The film follows Macu, a young woman living in a Venezuelan shantytown, who becomes romantically involved with a local policeman named Ismael. As their relationship develops, Ismael's jealousy intensifies, leading to tragic consequences. The narrative delves into themes of power, control, and the dynamics of abusive relationships within marginalized communities. The film is notable for its exploration of gender roles and societal issues in Latin America.
Three teenage girls living in the village of masculism, where life is absolutely crap, what are they gonna do?
A lone drifter stumbles upon a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal aliens are systematically gaining control of the Earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission.
An epic meditation on psychoanalysis, the Baader-Meinhof, feminism, and pre-revolutionary Russia.
After an anonymous hacker begins leaking the private data of thousands living in a small American town, the townspeople spiral into madness, with four high school seniors at the center of the maelstrom.
A reunion to rekindle an old flame turns into an unexpected night of confrontation, nostalgia, and revenge.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
A group of friends' fishing boat capsizes off the coast of Mexico and they're left alone stranded at sea and struggling for survival.
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.
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.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
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 mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.
Based on true events about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.
When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond.
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
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.
An urban love story set on the hard streets of the Bronx. A struggling female pimp, named Wednesday, grows up learning the game from her dad. Once he's gone she's left to look out for her prostitute mother and girlfriend Nikki.
When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.
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.
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.