Circle of Friends (2006)

The Salvation

In 1870s America, a peaceful American settler kills his family's murderer which unleashes the fury of a notorious gang leader. His cowardly fellow townspeople then betray him, forcing him to hunt down the outlaws alone.

The Polar Bear

Four characters become involved in one dramatic story: Nico has a mission to drive a car containing a live bomb to a specified destination, park the car and escape as quickly as she can. Leo has become his client's target, having carried out a "contract" that unfortunately had already been cancelled. Fabian and Reza want to enjoy themselves without any money, bringing themselves into contact sooner or later with the police. Sooner or later all four will meet up in dramatic circumstances....

2 Days in the Valley

In a sleepy bedroom community of LA's San Fernando Valley, the murder of a professional athlete by two hit men sets into motion a chain of events that puts the mundane lives of a dozen residents on a collision course. This clever tale tells the story of two hit men, a mistress, a nurse, a vindictive ex-wife, a wealthy art dealer and his lovelorn assistant, a suicidal writer and his dog, and a bitter cop and his partner.

Red Corner

An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.

Fallen

Homicide detective John Hobbes witnesses the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese. Soon after the execution the killings start again, and they are very similar to Reese's style.

Picture Perfect

A young advertising executive's life becomes increasingly complicated when, in order to impress her boss, she pretends to be engaged to a man she has just met.

Conspiracy Theory

A man obsessed with conspiracy theories becomes a target after one of his theories turns out to be true. Unfortunately, in order to save himself, he has to figure out which theory it is.

Runaway

In the near future, a police officer specializes in malfunctioning robots. When a robot turns out to have been programmed to kill, he begins to uncover a homicidal plot to create killer robots... and his son becomes a target.

Bully

A pack of naïve teenagers conspire to murder a mutual friend, whose aggressive demeanour has proven too much.

Samrat & Co.

A young, beautiful and rich girl, Dimpy Singh, approaches Samrat Tilakdhari, a private investigator, with a strange case. Their garden got ruined for reasons that appear natural but are not known; leading horticulturists have examined the fading plants but they have not been able to identify the probable reason. Further, her father's favorite horse died; once again the reason for the pre-mature death remains a mystery. That's not the end; Dimpy's father Mahendra Pratap Singh, otherwise a very strong and balanced man, has been experiencing deteriorating health. All these aspects when combined makes the case sound weird and that grabs the attention of Samrat. Samrat along with his assistant friend, Chakradhar Pandey, visits the huge estate of Mahendra Pratap Singh. As he starts investigating, he discovers lots of mysterious facts.

A Fire in the Cold Season

A whisper among the sprawling forests and mill towns of central Newfoundland. A body found on the side of a river brings together a reclusive fur trapper and a heartsick mother-to-be. Scott is lonely and desperate to give himself meaning. Mona is strong-willed, but frustrated by her fragility. As a reluctant dependence blossoms the pair find themselves wading into violence, answering for the debts of a dead man. Stalked by outlaws, they plan an exit.

Gothika

After a car crash, criminal psychologist Dr. Miranda Grey regains consciousness only to find that she's a patient in the same mental institution that currently employs her. She's been accused of murdering her husband Dr. Douglas Grey — but she has no memory of committing the crime. As she tries to regain her memory and convince her co-worker, Dr. Pete Graham, of her innocence, a vengeful spirit uses her as an earthly pawn, which further convinces everyone of her guilt.

Hustle

The body of teenager Gloria Hollinger is found dead on a Los Angeles beach, and Lt. Phil Gaines is in charge of the investigation. Gaines learns that the girl, a stripper and prostitute, committed suicide, but he ignores the connection between her and a powerful mob lawyer, Leo Sellers. Hollinger's father, however, is not satisfied with Gaines's results, and attempts to investigate the case on his own.

5 Card Stud

The players in an ongoing poker game are being mysteriously killed off, one by one.

Wonderland

On the afternoon of July 1, 1981, Los Angeles police responded to a distress call on Wonderland Avenue and discovered a grisly quadruple homicide. The police investigation that followed uncovered two versions of the events leading up to the brutal murders - both involving legendary porn actor John Holmes.

Quarries

To escape her abusive boyfriend, Kat joins a wilderness expedition with a group of women, all of whom are struggling with the uncertainty of life. What was supposed to be an opportunity for personal discovery quickly becomes a fight for survival, forcing each one to discover the strength within themselves that they didn't even know they possessed. While being brazenly chased by a pack of predators, the strong quickly set themselves apart from the weak. In a battle of will, stamina, and heart, these very virtues present themselves at the most crucial moment. With death looming, each is left with what is truly important - the strength within oneself.

Kai Rabe gegen die Vatikankiller

Director Rufus Lindner is shooting his first film: " Die Vatikankiller". With audience favorite Kai Rabe in the leading role, success is guaranteed. But suddenly chaos descends on the film team: A starlet is murdered, the bitchy leading man goes increasingly crazy, a drunken policeman causes a lot of trouble, and the sex-obsessed producer Egon Lütter doesn't make things any easier.

Disturbing Behavior

Steve Clark is a newcomer in the town of Cradle Bay, and he quickly realizes that there's something odd about his high school classmates. The clique known as the "Blue Ribbons" are the eerie embodiment of academic excellence and clean living. But, like the rest of the town, they're a little too perfect. When Steve's rebellious friend Gavin mysteriously joins their ranks, Steve searches for the truth with fellow misfit Rachel.

The Nameless

The mutilated body of a six year old girl is found in a water hole. The girl is identified as the missing daughter of Claudia. However, only two peices of evidence could be used to identify her; a bracelet with her name on it near the crime scene, and the fact that her right leg was three inches longer than her left. All other methods of identification were removed from her body. Five years later Claudia, now addicted to tranquilizers, receives a phone call from someone claiming to be her daughter, asking for her mother to come find her before 'they' kill her. Other mysterious clues show up, further indicating that Claudia's daughter is indeed still alive, and very much in danger. Claudia, a run-down ex-cop, and a parapsychology reporter put together the clues to discover Angela's whereabouts

Mission: Impossible III

Retired from active duty, and training recruits for the Impossible Mission Force, agent Ethan Hunt faces the toughest foe of his career: Owen Davian, an international broker of arms and information, who's as cunning as he is ruthless. Davian emerges to threaten Hunt and all that he holds dear – including the woman Hunt loves.

The Maltese Falcon

A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a beautiful liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.

Black '47

In 1847, when Ireland is in the grip of the Great Famine that has ravaged the country for two long years, Feeney, a hardened Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, returns home to reunite with his estranged family, only to discover the cruelest reality, a black land where death reigns.

Birds of Passage

During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture.

Double Indemnity

A seductive housewife draws an insurance salesman into a plot of adultery and crime to collect on her husband's life insurance.

Heavenly Creatures

Precocious teenager Juliet moves to New Zealand with her family and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. This friendship gradually develops into an intense and obsessive bond.

Blow-Up

A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.

Arlington Road

Threats from sinister foreign nationals aren't the only thing to fear. Bedraggled college professor Michael Faraday has been vexed (and increasingly paranoid) since his wife's accidental death in a botched FBI operation. But all that takes a backseat when a seemingly all-American couple set up house next door.

Lonely Hearts

In the late 1940s, a murderous couple known as the 'The Lonely Hearts Killers' kills close to a dozen people. Two detectives try to nab the duo who find their targets via the personals in the paper.

Dead in 3 days

When Nina and her high school friends receive eerie text messages declaring that they will all die within three days, they dismiss it as a hokey prank - until one by one, the pals start turning up dead in the alpine countryside. With the cops stymied, Nina and her remaining friends must scour their past for clues to identify the madman before he kills them all.

Street Kings

Tom Ludlow is a disillusioned L.A. Police Officer, rarely playing by the rules and haunted by the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.

Sweet Sixteen

Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.

Taken 3

Ex-government operative Bryan Mills finds his life is shattered when he's falsely accused of a murder that hits close to home. As he's pursued by a savvy police inspector, Mills employs his particular set of skills to track the real killer and exact his unique brand of justice.

The Passed Scene

At the end of October, Sueko Yamane, a widow living alone, is strangled to death in her home in the Togura district on the outskirts of Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture. Money had been stolen, and it appeared to be a robbery and murder. Kaharu Ginsaku (Tomokazu Miura), head of the First Investigative Division at the Ehime Prefectural Police Headquarters, who was in charge of the investigation, did not anticipate that this case would turn out to be an unexpectedly difficult case. At the end of that year, in a forest overlooking the Genkai Sea in Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture, Kyushu, Kazuo Shimosaka (Shiro Sano) puts his hands around the neck of his girlfriend, Nobuko Mano (Saki Takaoka), and strangles her to death.

The Privileged

Richard Hunter, a promising young lawyer at a prestigious firm, has the perfect future mapped out. However, a costly mistake with a powerful client has put it all at risk. In a desperate attempt to save his job, Richard and his wife Tara spend the weekend at the cottage of senior partner Preston Westwood.

The Naked Man

A man takes matters into his own hands when a pharmaceutical kingpin moves into his town to cause some real trouble.

Rocco and His Brothers

When a impoverished widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.

The Rage: Carrie 2

Following the suicide of her only friend, outcast teen Rachel Lang's life begins a downward spiral that will not only affect her but take everyone around her down in horrifying fashion.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.

The Harder They Come

Ivanhoe Martin arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, looking for work and, after some initial struggles, lands a recording contract as a reggae singer. He records his first song, "The Harder They Come," but after a bitter dispute with a manipulative producer named Hilton, soon finds himself resorting to petty crime in order to pay the bills. He deals marijuana, kills some abusive cops and earns local folk hero status. Meanwhile, his record is topping the charts.

The Match Factory Girl

Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.

Get Shorty

Chili Palmer is a Miami mobster who gets sent to L.A. to collect a bad debt from Harry Zimm, a Hollywood producer who specializes in cheesy horror films. When Chili meets Harry's leading lady, the romantic sparks fly. After pitching his own life story as a movie idea, Chili learns that being a mobster and being a Hollywood producer really aren't all that different.

Untraceable

Special Agent Jennifer Marsh works in an elite division of the FBI dedicated to fighting cybercrime. She thinks she has seen it all, until a particularly sadistic criminal arises on the Internet. This tech-savvy killer posts live feeds of his crimes on his website; the more hits the site gets, the faster the victim dies. Marsh and her team must find the elusive killer before time runs out.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

While vacationing in St. Moritz, a British couple receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet.

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

A henpecked housewife ekes out a meager existence, surrounded by a host of colorful characters: her ungrateful husband, her delinquent sons, her headstrong mother-in-law, and her sex worker neighbor, among others.

The Man of the Year

Maiquél has lost a bet and dyed his hair blond. This seemingly innocuous event triggers a head-on collision with destiny in which he goes from nobody to hero to outlaw — all in 24 hours.

The 6th Day

A world of the very near future in which cattle, fish, and even the family pet can be cloned. But cloning humans is illegal - that is until family man Adam Gibson comes home from work one day to find a clone has replaced him. Taken from his family and plunged into a sinister world he doesn't understand, Gibson must not only save himself from the assassins who must destroy him to protect their secret, but uncover who and what is behind the horrible things happening to him.

Funny Games

When Ann, husband George, and son Georgie arrive at their holiday home they are visited by a pair of polite and seemingly pleasant young men. Armed with deceptively sweet smiles and some golf clubs, they proceed to terrorize and torture the tight-knit clan, giving them until the next day to survive.

Devil in a Blue Dress

In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet, who he suspects is hiding out in one of the city's black jazz clubs. Strapped for money and facing house payments, Easy takes the job, but soon finds himself in over his head.

The Lion King

Young lion prince Simba, eager to one day become king of the Pride Lands, grows up under the watchful eye of his father Mufasa; all the while his villainous uncle Scar conspires to take the throne for himself. Amid betrayal and tragedy, Simba must confront his past and find his rightful place in the Circle of Life.

Cannibal Apocalypse

Released from captivity in Vietnam, two American Army officers return to civilian life and discover they have acquired an insatiable taste for human flesh. A city is terrorised... as they stalk the inhabitants to satisfy their primitive appetites.

Siew Lup

Mia, an ex-prostitute, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the abusive Quan (Sunny Pang, who also stars in Headshot in this year’s Festival lineup), a butcher who runs a roast meat shop. When she meets sensitive funeral director Wu, their passion for one another escalates into an affair. But the path to true love is fraught with jealousy, forcing someone to make a deadly move.

Death on the Nile

As Hercule Poirot enjoys a luxurious cruise down the Nile, a newlywed heiress is found murdered on board and every elegant passenger becomes a prime suspect.

Evil Under the Sun

An opulent beach resort provides a scenic background to this amusing whodunit as Poirot attempts to uncover the nefarious evildoer behind the strangling of a notorious stage star.

The Most Gentle Confessions

Following a robbery in a circus, a young mobster, Jean, is arrested by Inspector Borelli. The thug denies involvement. To compel him to sign a full confession, Inspector Muller encourages the suspect to get married for - he says - to move the jury. This being done, he lets Jean believe that he can spend a moment alone with his wife; but then, Inspector Borelli blackmails him: "If you sign your confession, you can spend a moment with her." After being beaten, Jean signs a confession. It is then that a new blackmail intervenes: "the name of the accomplice?", asks the inspector. But the thug refuses to denounce the latter and ends up refusing the bargain dupes. While the guards drive him back to prison, his wife cuts his veins, breaking the career of the bad policeman.

The Final Terror

A group of friends head out for what is expected to be a vacation of hiking, camping and a good time, but when a backwoods mama finds them on her turf, it becomes anything but a vacation.

The Sleeping Car Murder

Six people travel by train overnight from Marseilles to Paris. When the train arrives at its destination, one of the passengers, a girl, is found dead in a sleeping berth. The police led by Inspector Grazzi investigate the other five passengers, suspecting that one of them was responsible. However, as the investigation is stepped up, the other passengers start turning up dead. It is then up to the last remaining two to solve the case, before they become the next victims.

Force of Nature

A gang of thieves plan a heist during a hurricane and encounter trouble when a disgraced cop tries to force everyone in the building to evacuate.

A Second Chance

Imprisoned as an accessory to murder, Catherine gives birth to a son she conceived in prison. Eighteen years later, her sentence served, she is reunited with the boy, Simon, who has remained in an orphanage the entire time. She is accompanied by toothsome prison buddy Sarah, and gradually these people whose lives have been frozen in time "thaw" and get on with the business of living.