After 20 years apart, Samir a former militiaman who was presumed dead, reappears in the life of Omar, his little brother who has become a bodyguard in Beirut. Between drama and comedy, Samir has to come to terms with a country he no longer recognizes.
Industrial development and the migration of population have seen the gradual desolation of the village with few people left and houses collapsed. Some people die, and some ghosts return. Xiuying’s spirit who has wandered for over a decade returns to the village by borrowing her son’s body.
Oscuro animal tells the story of three women forced to flee their homes in a war-torn region of Colombia. Each woman’s journey, marked by terror, takes her on a trek from the depths of the jungle to the outskirts of Bogotá, where each must gather the strength needed to start a new life.
Silva has trodden many paths over the course of his life, paths that criss-cross the north of Portugal. Now his steps echo in the narrow streets of a remote village, where he has moved into an empty house.
Nesrin and Hatun are two Kurdish cleaning women living in Istanbul. While Nesrin tries to survive with her little daughter in the big city, trying to understand why her husband left her, Hatun dreams of buying a house in the districts where she goes to clean.
Czech Rep, Berlin Panorama Opening Film 2016
First feature film by Tomas Weinreb & Petr Kazda
Synopsis
Olga Hepnarova was a young, lonely lesbian outsider from a coldhearted family who couldn’t play the part society desired of her. Her paranoid self-examination and inability to connect with other people eventually drove her over the edge of humanity when she was only twenty-two years old.
Belgium, Toronto Discovery 2015
First feature film by Robin Pront
Synopsis
Brothers Dave and Kenneth are reunited on Kenneth’s release after four years in prison following a failed home invasion. While Kenneth is anxious to dive headfirst into the drug-centered existence that ensnared him in the first place, both Dave and Kenneth’s erstwhile girlfriend Sylvie, have adopted clean lifestyles. Drugs, crime and the bonds of brotherhood create this dark crime thriller journey in The Ardennes.
Japan. Locarno official selection 2015
Documentary by Kazuhiro Soda
Synopsis
In the Japanese town of Ushimado, the shortage of labor is a serious problem due to its population’s rapid decline. Traditionally, oyster shucking has been a job for local men and women, but for a few years now, some of the factories have had to use foreigners in order to keep functioning. Hirano oyster factory has never employed any outsiders but finally decides to bring in two workers from China. Will all the employees get along?
To a slaughterhouse in the centre of Algiers, men live and work behind closed doors to the throbbing rhythms of their tasks and their dreams.Hope, bitterness, love, paradise and hell, the football stories as of the Chaabi and Rai melodies that set their lives and their world.
Romania, Karlovy Vary 2015- in competition- special mention of the jury
Animation Feature Film by Anca Damian
Synopsis
In the form of an animated docu-drama,
the biography of Adam Jacek Winker wonders through nearly half a century of history.
A Polish refugee in Paris, Adam lived a boundless life, wanting to change the world.