Ms. Katarína Kolníková, the long-term icon of Radošina
Naive Theatre and one of the most outstanding actresses of
not only Radošina but also Slovak professional drama scene,
was born ninety years ago (April 20, 1921 in Radošina; died
on May 28, 2006, in Radošina)....
10 ½ captures the story of Tommy, a ten and a half
years-old wild child. Tommy is found severely beaten and
unconscious in a vacant lot. Already well-known by social
services despite his young age, he is sent to ‘Le
Tremplin’, a new youth...
17 teenage girls from the Breton seaside town of Lorient
take together an unexpected decision that will change their
peaceful lives and leave them misunderstood by the boys and
adults around them: they decide to get pregnant all at the
same time. Camille is...
1986: a time of increasing confusion and instability.
Through the perception of the nineteen-year-old Karl Koch,
the world is a muddle. He is fascinated and inspired by the
imaginary rebel, Hagbard Celin, from the cultish
“Illuminatus!”. A sensitive young man, Karl engages in
the search...
Two cousins, 21-year-old Yusuf and 19-year-old Ambar, take
the family car to attend a traditional family wedding out of
town. But what is supposed to be a one-day trip in fact
takes three. Along the way they get high and lost, encounter
interesting and...
Helped by her friend Otilia, a student, Gabita, wants to end
an unwanted pregnancy. It is 1987 and abortions are banned
in Romania. They have to find someone to do it illegally
and, if possible, cheaply. Everything is ready, but nothing
goes according to...
A film about two poor friends – carters, who find
themselves in harsh competition over a task they both
receive. An exceptionally well-made variation on the
traditional crime thriller. The story takes place in
Asunción, the city with a famous marketplace. 17-year-old
carter Victor watches...
Galia survives an attack in Jerusalem during which her
fiancé dies. The attack appears just like a simple traffic
accident and it is its consequences what matter: how can
you survive when your loved one dies, how not to feel guilty
for having survived, how...
The film follows the fates of several youngsters who decided
at an early age – some as young as 11, 12 or 13 – to
leave home, only to end up living on the streets temporarily
or permanently. As they say, “the street...
Having two penises at once in your anus does not necessarily
have to be so terrible if you are paid 3,000 dollars for
that, drive the biggest jeep ever and if at yearly awards
event the full hall applauds you for your last...
Three young delinquents driving a van pick up a woman they
find at the side of the road and take her to the beach for a
day of amoral pursuits. Seemingly bored after this day, they
decide to put her on trial together...
A lab assistant kills time during his boring job by reading
men’s magazines. In various order, his boss and the lab
rabbits get him in trouble and make his dreams come true.
Tristan is convinced he is no longer a man. He is unable to
communicate with his father, even his girlfriend does not
look at him anymore and the fish he tries to catch treat him
with total disregard. He gets caught up in...
Herzl is an overweight, underemployed chef living at home
with his mother in the Israeli city of Ramla. Unable to find
a cooking job, he becomes a dishwasher at a Japanese
restaurant. One day he notices his co-workers watching sumo
wrestling on television. To...
A Place of One's Own jumps from story to story, and in each
we notice ripples of the absurd. Master Lin makes giant,
elaborate origami houses which get burned down during
funerals. His son Xiao Gang passes out real estate flyers in
the streets...
The setting of Jacques Audiard’s fifth film is a prison.
The film won Grand Prize in Cannes and proved the screenplay
cooperation of the duo Audiard and Thomas Bidegain to be one
of a million. A young Arab called Malik, nineteen, is
sentenced to...
An early, and relatively lesser known, masterpiece from
Kitano Takeshi. Doing his regular round of garbage pickup,
deaf-mute Shigeru one day finds an abandoned surf board. He
brings it home and fixes it, then goes to the beach and
starts practicing. Against all odds,...
Nader and Simin argue about living abroad. Simin prefers to
leave Iran to provide better opportunities for their only
daughter, Termeh. Nader refuses to go because he thinks he
must stay in Iran and take care of his father who suffers
from Alzheimer’s. Simin...
Road movie about a goat shepherd Jacinto (Gabino Rodriguez)
from the area of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, who embarks on a
journey to North America. His only compass is the picture of
a snow-covered mountain saddle on a key chain pendant he has
found...
A dark but romantic comedy on natural things with a
supernatural twist. A fresh high school graduate Kitka seems
unable to escape from the shadow of death and the smell of
funerals. Her father is a sculptor who earns a living by
carving out...
A painter is approached by a mourning woman to do a portrait
of her two children – her twenty-two year old daughter and
nineteen year old son who has recently died in a car
accident. Before the stunning portrait is born, a strong
interaction...
Aayesh is a lonely man. He works as a morgue security guard.
One day his daily routine is altered for 10 minutes, but
brings about a significant change.
A film poem about a continent at night, a culture on which
the sun’s going down though it stays hyper alert at the
same time. Often somewhat self-obsessively,
“Abendland” sees itself as the crown of human
civilization while its service economy is undergoing rapid
growth...
The Brain is a professional hit man who kills his victims by
trapping them in “accidents” that are in fact perfectly
staged acts of crime. Plagued with guilt, he is also
suspicious and morbid by nature. After one mission
accidentally goes wrong, causing the...
This film explores the peripety of Machisu who, as a child,
discovered an unusual love for painting which has stayed
with him ever since. In fact, he has been fully dedicated to
painting for a long time and is now obsessed with the...
In the 1960s, Jude, a dockyard worker, travels to the US to
find his estranged father. There he falls in love with Lucy,
a teenager. When her brother Max is forced to fight in the
Vietnam War, they both get involved in peace...
A film that explores ties; the ties that bind us to each
another, that help us to stay in touch with family, advanced
technologies and the modern world.
Sabine, a high school French teacher, gives translation
classes. The translation she is currently dealing with...
A very basic human feature all over the world is the craving
for freedom. Yet it may vary in its forms and characters.
Afghan women strive to obtain a driving license as the first
step to reach their personal freedom. Although the society
they...
A short film divided into two parallel stories. In Afternoon
River, Grace, a waitress in a Malaysian/Chinese restaurant
tries to go through her mundane everyday work while ignoring
the incessant ringing of her cell phone. In Evening Sky, the
tomboyish Lai Fun seeks justice...
Agrarian Utopia focuses on several peasant families who work
persistently but their income hardly covers debts which they
have run to. Despite their profound relationship with their
ground the peasants are inevitably forced to leave and
extent the queue of exiles heading for Bangkok...
Alice, somewhere between his short, exclusively animated
films and later ones with more acting, and considered by
some critics to be his best movies, is an excellent
introduction to Švankmajer’s work.
„I would like to transpose the world of Alice when she is
awake (without...
Czech film Šakalí léta (Big Beat) à la Polish art, the
film takes us to a provincial town near Gdańsk in 1981.
Following protests triggered by Solidarity, government
imposes a curfew on the town and expects the people to shut
up and obey. But...
Two trips, four fates. Mr. Nakata drives from Tokyo to
Toyota City to hand in his notice. Along the way he stops to
a mysterious hitchhiker Ellen. They know practically nothing
about each other. They travel together southward to the
Umikongo coast. The contrast...
Coralie lives with her father in a small village in rural
Quebec. Worn, fragile, vulnerable and serious, the young
woman wanders the countryside where time stands still. Her
mother recently and abruptly left them. Rather than
indulging in conversations, she seeks solitude and
contemplation. Her...
The story begins to unfold in the fall of 1989 at the Biely
Potok train station in the Jeseníky mountains where Alois
Nebel works as a train dispatcher. He is a loner of few
words who is possessed by strange fog every now...
The title of this documentary feature comes from a
traditional tattoo worn by Russian convicts. It says that
the particular prisoner has spent some time behind bars. In
this case though, “bars” do not indicate a real jail but
a reform school for juvenile...
Two ministrants standing on sides of the Virgin Mary statue
are staring at us; then they put on masks of the Sun and the
Moon. The camera is turning around its axe and capturing
a small gathering in a church in the Andes. Presenting
celebrations of...
J.B. Tito, the leader of the Yugoslavian partisans, in order
to paralyse rebel activities on the territory of Yugoslavia.
The film is inspired by the line “I always will be and
I always have been” taken from Arthur Schopenhauer‘s On
Death, a book that was...
A love grows from a chance encounter between Chris and
Aurore. They are twenty years old and their passion is
exclusive. It‘s a beautiful love story like you see in the
movies... But then Aurore discovers that Chris is a killer.
Will she continue...
Abdel is driving his son, Amin, through the Parisian
suburbs. The radio broadcasts the news of the day, while
Amin is playing with the world floating by the window.
Suddenly, they are stopped by the police… .
Daniel Schwartz is a comedian. Quite trash. He is on tour
all over France. It is a big success. But Daniel is tired
and lonely. Is there a woman ready to share his loneliness?
A woman or two?
To provide a future for his son Fadi, Muna, a Palestinian
single mother from West Bank decides to go to the promising
lands of the US after obtaining a green card grant. She
wants to make a new life in ‘Amreeka’ because she...
Vile, a countryside girl, arrives in a city with great
expectations. She wants to gain better education and
experience. She rents a flat in a typical socialist-era
housing estate – Zirmunai. Here, she meets her landlord, a
boyish-looking girl Sandra,
who is wearing a T-shirt...
When successful theatre director Michal is diagnosed with
cancer, he resigns to everything in life, and moves to a
solitary chalet to write his memoirs there. He is
accompanied only by his lifelong partner and a nurse. They
try to make his last moments...
People of the big city of Vienna. Lonely people, whose dogs,
rats, rabbits and other pets serve as their only
conversation partners, lifelong companions, cuddling
partners and bedfellows.
It won the Best Documentary Award at the Potsdam Film
Festival in 1996.
Director's Statement:...
Her credits include portraits of Mick Jagger, Hillary
Clinton, Patti Smith, Demi Moore, Keith Richards and Arnold
Schwarzenegger. Camera in hand, Leibovitz has also boldly
captured the apocalypse of war in Sarajevo and Rwanda. Over
the past thirty years, she has contributed to the...
Two shots fired in the middle of the night disrupt Mary’s
life. The faceless killers just shot her husband and son
dead, leaving her alone and desperate. A police officer in
the Toronto district, Mary chooses the path of revenge and
chases down the...
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Family and friendship. Love
and warmth. Joy and sadness. Hope and despair.
Companionship. Loneliness. A birth. A death. Time passes…
In London a happily married, middle-aged couple is visited
by a number of unhappy and lonely friends who use them...
Wang Quan'an's Apart Together was the curtain raiser of this
year Berlinale, and it went on to also win a Silver Bear for
best screenplay. An award the film secured itself with
merit, as the ever-challenging theme of the division between
China and Taiwan...
With Apartment #5C, Raphaël Nadjari continues in the vein
of his previous movie, I Am Josh Polonski's Brother. He
returns to his favourite themes (Judaism, family, repressed
desire), to his particular taste for improvisation, as well
as to his pet actor, Richard Edson, a...
A compelling story of a woman tested by life, full of
passion, cruelty of fate and unrestrained love. Set
somewhere in southern Slovakia, a secluded place stowed away
amidst apricot orchards, the film will suck the viewers into
the whirl of three men’s passion...
After a several-year hiatus, renowned South Korean filmmaker
Ki-duk Kim returns to the screen with his frank, even
heartrending confession Arirang. Named after a Korean song
sung by those who feel sad, the director’s lament follows
his own path of a self-taught filmmaker who...
“With Armadillo, I was curious to explore how the micro
level of war – where human interaction takes place –
affects one of the greatest conflicts of our time. In the
early research for the project, I was surprised that the
majority of those...
trip from a backcountry Bosnian village to Croatia’s
capital becomes a journey beyond everyday life for
14-year-old Armin, and even more so for his father. A German
film crew arrives in Zagreb to shoot a film about the recent
civil war. An audition for...
Remo is a specific author. So far he has shot only films
depicting the country or region of his origin. And that is
his great advantage. He knows this environment very well and
is able to transform it into an audiovisual form with
tenderness....
A mystic form of a dialogue through the live medium presents
an ethical conflict here and raises the question of the
stability of the ethical dimension of marginal values.
The feature debut of Nikita Mikhalkov arguably represents
the most successful marriage of the traditional Soviet genre
of Red Western with its equally traditional American
prototype. Mikhalkov took the most basic conventions of the
Western and Red Western; he then combined and contrasted
them. In...
A video depicting a Chinese idiom “zhu-tuo-jen-wu” which
translates into "to fall into the smoke and fog” and its
use in context is similar to “at one’s wits’ end.”
England, 1935, the hottest day of the year. Against the
background of WW II, Briony with her family live a life of
wealth and privilege in a huge Victorian-Gothic mansion.
They gather for the weekend and, as a result of the
unbearable heat, dangerous and dark...
Autopsy is a TV drama set in present-day Slovak countryside
revealing the complex relationships between a grandfather,
his daughter-in-law and his grandson. While an ambulance is
rushing to the village to save a heart-attack victim, the
author examines the dismal emotional and financial state of
people...
A transition between the word of children and adults.
A pure and playful attempt to return to the world of
children, this time though in a real family car that is an
indicator of maturity.
"Avanim" is the Hebrew word for "stones", which are an
important part of Jewish culture and religion. For example,
the Ten Commandments were inscribed on two stone tablets.
Stones are thrown at someone when they have been sentenced
to death. Yet another example: The...
The Azyl Awards have been staged annually at International
Film Festival Bratislava since 2005. During the six years of
its existence, the Azyl festival has showcased to the public
more than 300 films within two competition sections. This
year’s edition features 40 short films...
Four countries and four babies, from birth to their very
first steps. Their names are Ponijao, Bayarjargal, Mari and
Hattie, and they live in Namibia, Mongolia, Japan and the
United States. Babies invites us simultaneously into four
very different cultures, capturing the funniest, most
carefree...
Anna Hallgrimsdóttir lives with her two sons in Reykjavik.
Growing sick of Icelandic winters, she decides to shut down
her business and move to the countryside. She has earned her
living as a drug dealer and is now looking to sell her
prosperous activities...
Matilde is a nun and she is convinced that faith can work
miracles. Elena is an anorectic mother who is ashamed of her
daughter’s obesity. Her husband, Gustavo, a professor of
architecture, can no longer stand his wife’s sharp bones
that he feels in intimate closeness...
Lali, a bearded Hungarian Roma, and his bald friend, Lori,
decide to deliver a German shepherd to a wealthy sheik and
set off across Europe intending to go all the way from their
native Transylvania through Vienna down to Egypt, a place
where dogs...
“It was the first time that agricultural workers from the
developing world gave testimony against a US-based
multinational in a US court” say the filmmakers of
Bananas!* about their film in a letter to the international
documentary community. In Los Angeles, Swedish director
Fredrik Gertten...
If politics were to come back, It could only be from its
savage and disreputable fringe. Then, a muffled rumor shall
arise when that road is heard: “We are scum, we are
barbarians!” Alain Brossant, The Infinitive Resistance
Constantinople, 1910. Too many stray dogs in the streets.
The newly installed government calls in European specialists
to get rid of the dogs, before deciding, finally, to deport
30 000 of them on a desert island, off the coast of the
city. Through both...
Bassidji opens on a desert, men, children and women in
chadors wandering in a vast open air "museum" dedicated to
the Iran-Iraq war. A ceremony is organized in the memory of
the martyrs of war by supporters of the regime. For almost
three years, Mehran...
6-year-old ‘little warrior’ Hushpuppy lives alone with
her troubled father at the end of the world in a hut, with a
dog, a pig and some hens. She feels at home and content
there, maybe because she never saw anything else. The girl
is...
A beautifully ordinary story of love and coming out takes
place in a lower class social setting. Teenagers Jamie and
Ste are friends and neighbors in a housing estate in
London’s East End. The boys, their relatives and people
around them, all have to...
A huge service station found in the middle of a scorched
earth in the northeast of Brazil. Cocada and Nero are 14 and
13 years old. Cocada dreams to become a truck driver. Nego
lives in a favela, surrounded by many siblings. While...
