Mifti, age 16, lives in Berlin with a cast of characters including her half-siblings; their rich, self-involved father; and her junkie friend Ophelia. As she mourns her recently deceased mother, she begins to develop an obsession with Alice, an enigmatic, and much older, white-collar criminal.
(Country: Germany; Year: 2017; Director: Helene Hegemann; Writer: Helene Hegemann; Stars: Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Arly Jover, Laura Tonke, Mavie Hörbiger, Nikolai Kinski, Hans Löw, Julius Feldmeier, Sabine Vitua, Lorna Ishema)
The sex element, while erotically shot, is almost exclusively reserved for the moment in which Clare was enjoying the experience, thus stripping away the usual voyeuristic downside that often accompanies this genre.
A passionate holiday romance leads to an obsessive relationship, when an tourist wakes one morning in a Berlin apartment and is unable to leave.
(Country: Australia; Year: 2017; Director: Cate Shortland; Writer: Shaun Grant, Melanie Joosten; Stars: Teresa Palmer, Max Riemelt, Matthias Habich, Lucie Aron, Emma Bading, Cem Tuncay, Kristina Kostiv, Claude Heinrich, Malin Steffen, Lara Marie Müller, Thuso Lekwape, Charly Thorn, Elias Esser, Mariella Josephine Aumann, Morgane Ferru)
In this fable about love and memories, Joca is a 13-year-old Brazilian boy in love with an indigenous Paraguayan girl. To conquer her love, he must face the violent region's war-torn past and the secrets of his elder brother, Fernando, a motorcycle cowboy.
(Country: Brazil, Netherlands, France, Paraguay; Year: 2017; Director: Felipe Bragança; Writer: Felipe Bragança; Stars: Cauã Reymond, Eduardo Macedo, Adeli Gonzales, Zahy Guajajara, Claudia Assunção, Ney Matogrosso)
World premiere
Family Life
While house-sitting for a distant cousin, a lonely man fabricates the existence of a vindictive ex-wife withholding his daughter, in order to gain the sympathy of the single mother he has just met.
When a travelling soap salesman arrives in a desolate Chinese town, a crime occurs, and sets the strange residents against each other with tragicomic results.
(Country: China; Year: 2016; Director: Jun Geng; Writer: Jun Geng, Yuhua Feng, Bing Liu ; Stars: Gang Xu, Zhiyong Zhang, Baohe Xue, Benshan Gu, Xun Zhang)
Debut feature director Francis Lee grew up on a Yorkshire farm and it shows in every inch of this film.
Young sheep farmer Johnny numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker offers the promise of something else.
(Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Francis Lee; Writer: Francis Lee; Stars: Josh O'Connor, Alec Secareanu, Gemma Jones, Ian Hart)
I Dream In Another Language
(Sueño en otro idioma)
The last two speakers of a millennia-old language haven’t spoken in 50 years, when a young linguist tries to bring them together. Yet hidden in the past, in the heart of the jungle, lies a secret concerning the fate of the Zikril language.
(Country: Netherlands, Mexico; Year: 2017; Director: Ernesto Contreras; Writer: Carlos Contreras; Stars: Fernando Álvarez Rebeil, José Manuel Poncelis, Eligio Meléndez, Fátima Molina, Juan Pablo de Santiago, Hoze Meléndez, Norma Angélica, Monica Miguel, Nicolasa Ortíz Monasterio, Héctor Jiménez, José Concepción Macías, Gabriela Cartol, Juan Antonio Llanes, Mardonio Carballo)
World premiere
My Happy Family
Tbilisi, Georgia, 2016: In a patriarchal society, an ordinary Georgian family lives with three generations under one roof. All are shocked when 52-year-old Manana decides to move out from her parents' home and live alone. Without her family and her husband, a journey into the unknown begins.
In Cairo, weeks before the 2011 revolution, Police Detective Noredin is working in the infamous Kasr el-Nil Police Station when he is handed the case of a murdered singer. He soon realises that the investigation concerns the power elite, close to the President’s inner circle.
(Country: Germany, Denmark, Sweden; Year: 2016; Director: Tarik Saleh; Writer: Tarik Saleh; Stars: Fares Fares, Ger Duany, Slimane Dazi, Mohamed Yousry, Hichem Yacoubi, Hania Amar, Yasser Ali Maher, Mari Malek, Ahmed Abdelhamid Hefny, Nael Ali, Ahmed Selim, Tareq Abdalla)
Like all good road trips, the destination may be a the top of the protagonist's mind but the film says a lot more about his past and present than his future.
A disenchanted architect goes on a road trip with an elephant.
Julián finds love and a reason for living in the last place imaginable: the Dominican Republic’s Najayo Prison. His romance with fellow prisoner Yanelly must develop through sign language and without the knowledge of dozens of guards.
(Country: Dominican Republic; Year: 2017; Director: José María Cabral; Writer: José María Cabral; Stars: Ramón Emilio Candelario, Jean Jean, Mario Nunez, Judith Rodriguez Perez)
Trengove strikes a good balance between showing the cultural importance, even though on the wane, of old-fashioned masculinity and personal drama between Xolani and Kwanda, slowly ratcheting up the tension to breaking point.
Sexual repression and coming of age prove a dangerous mix for a small community.
(Country: South Africa; Year: 2017; Director: John Trengove; Writer: John Trengove, Thando Mgqolozana, Malusi Bengu; Stars: Nakhane Touré, Bongile Mantsai, Niza Jay Ncoyini)
