Umkhwenyana (2024)

Dancer in the Dark

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

Léon: The Professional

Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.

God Willing

After a couple of chance encounters the nightly meetings with Juli become the most important thing in Juan's life. God willing, fantasy can become reality.

Sulaimani

One evening, Alia and Neena, two young Indian women, dine at Sulaimani, an Indian restaurant in Paris. The meal stirs up buried emotions and "unleashes" certain memories that slowly reveal why they left their country.

The Swissmakers

This romantic drama follows two policemen whose job is to investigate the lives of foreigners who have applied for Swiss citizenship. Among the applicants they must screen are a French psychiatrist and his wife, and a ballet dancer. The married couple are quickly accepted, but the dancer's life offers some objections. However, since the younger policeman has fallen in love with her, there is a chance that she, too, will win Swiss citizenship.

The Glass Wall

Peter Kuban, a Hungarian refugee, is about to be deported after jumping ship in New York harbor. He needs to find an ex-G.I. named Tom whom he helped during the war, as Tom can prove Peter's right to legal entry into the United States. If he can't find Tom within 24 hours and prove his case, he will be branded a fugitive and will be permanently disqualified for U.S. citizenship.

We Are Young. We Are Strong.

On 24th August 1992 in the eastern German city of Rostock, a rampaging mob, to the applause and cheering of more than 3,000 bystanders, besieged and set fire to a residential building containing, among others, more than 120 Vietnamese men, women, and children on what has since become known as "The Night of the Fire." The riots became a symbol of xenophobia in the just-reunited Germany. This film recounts the incident from the perspectives of three very different characters.

A Walk Down to Water

Following the death of a guest at a rural hotel, an immigrant employee struggles to navigate his way through a world where indifference is abundant and human connection is scarce.

Last Resort

Tanya leaves Moscow with her street-wise 10-year-old son Artiom to meet her English fiancée in London. But after he fails to turn up at the airport, Tanya, intent on staying in England, is forced to apply for political asylum and transferred to Stonehaven, a grimy former seaside resort where refugees are housed. Tanya gradually develops a relationship with an amusement arcade manager, who helps them escape. She must then decide whether to stay with him or return to Russia.

Yellow Heat

In a field surrounded and squeezed by increasing industrialization, an immigrant family, deep in financial debt, struggles to survive through traditional farming. Their son, Ibrahim, dreams of a different future for himself.

Mr. Kaplan

Jacob Kaplan lives an ordinary life in Uruguay. Like many of his other Jewish friends, Jacob fled Europe for South America because of World War II. But now turning 76, he is grumpy and in need of adventure. An unexpected opportunity to achieve greatness comes in the form of a quiet, elderly German, who Mr Kaplan believes to be a runaway Nazi. Determined to capture this Nazi, as Eichmann was captured before him, Mr Kaplan surprises everyone when he takes up this challenge.

Big Night

Primo and Secondo, two immigrant brothers, pin their hopes on a banquet honoring Louis Prima to save their struggling restaurant.

Shelter

Hannah and Tahir fall in love while homeless on the streets of New York. Shelter explores how they got there, and as we learn about their pasts we realize they need each other to build a future.

Place publique

Revolves around Castro, who was once a very famous TV host, but as he grows old, his popularity is dwindling.

Crossing Over

Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create -- in 21st century L.A.

The Class

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

Lorna's Silence

Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.

Romper Stomper

Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity. Finally the Vietnamese have had enough and confront the skinheads in an all-out confrontation, sending the skinheads running. A woman who is prone to epileptic seizures joins the skins' merry band, and helps them on their run from justice, but is her affliction also a sign of impurity?

My Grandfather Is a Nihonjin

Noboru is a 10-year-old boy in search of his cultural identity. He turns to his grandfather Hideo, to find out more about his family. Despite always avoiding his past, his grandfather agrees to tell his story. As Noboru delves into his family history, he discovers he has an uncle he’s never heard about.

Man Push Cart

Every night while the city sleeps, Ahmad, a former Pakistani rock star turned immigrant, drags his heavy cart along the streets of New York. And every morning, he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own. One day, however, the pattern of this harsh existence is broken by a glimmer of hope for a better life.

El Norte

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

Unlucky Plaza

The lives of an arrogant young motivational speaker in debt to the Chinese mafia, his lookin’-to-get-out girlfriend, and a single father in dire straits fatefully intertwine in this nail-biting thriller from Singapore that is based, almost unbelievably, on a true story.

Amaraica

An undocumented immigrant, Roberto, seeks a way to become lawful, but all efforts are put on hold when he becomes a new father at the onset of the US government's 'Zero Tolerance' child separation policy at the US / Mexico border.

Past Lives

After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

House of Sand and Fog

Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.

Saffron Kingdom

After her husband is abducted in Kashmir, a traumatised woman flees to the United States with her young son to rebuild their lives.

Somers Town

Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link.

The Best Man's Wedding

Roro, a foreign worker in Swedish parks, loves his girlfriend but is about to marry another girl to prevent her from being sent back to Lebanon. Meanwhile, Roro's best friend, Måns, has serious problems getting an erection.

Here

In Brussels, a construction worker crosses paths with a bryologist.

Spanglish

Mexican immigrant and single mother Flor Moreno finds housekeeping work with Deborah and John Clasky, a well-off couple with two children of their own. When Flor admits she can't handle the schedule because of her daughter, Cristina, Deborah decides they should move into the Clasky home. Cultures clash and tensions run high as Flor and the Claskys struggle to share space while raising their children on their own, and very different, terms.

Jagame Thandhiram

When a clever, carefree gangster is recruited to help an overseas crime lord take down a rival, he is caught off guard by the moral dilemmas that follow.

West Side Story

In Manhattan’s Upper West Side, rival gangs of Polish-Americans and newly arrived Puerto Ricans clash for control of the neighborhood, even as two young members from opposite sides fall dangerously in love.

Avalon

A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.

Amira & Sam

Sam, a soldier who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq, meets Amira when he visits her uncle, Bassam, who had served as Sam's Iraqi translator. Bassam and Sam have a special bond due to their time together in the war. Initially Amira does not trust him because he was an American soldier and her brother was killed by a bomb from American troops in the war. Sam's cousin, Charlie, asks Sam to help him with illegal hedge funds unbeknownst to Sam at the time. Amira is staying with her uncle Bassam since her father died. She sells bootlegged films on the street corner but is forced to stay with Sam after getting busted; immigration officials begin pursuing her. As the film progresses, Sam and Amira fall in love.

I Carry You with Me

An epic love story spanning decades is sparked by a chance encounter between two men in provincial Mexico. Based on a true story, ambition and societal pressure propel an aspiring chef to leave his soulmate and make the treacherous journey to New York, where life will never be the same.

Gangs of New York

In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting's inner circle. Vallon's journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people.

No Time For Goodbye

The lives of two asylum seekers fleeing post-social unrest in their home city intertwine in Britain, starting a romance that tests their resilience and adversity.

Stranger Than Paradise

New York layabout Willie forms an unexpected bond with his young Hungarian cousin Eva when she pays him a surprise visit. Later, Eva moves in with their aunt in Cleveland, and Willie takes his best friend Eddie to see her—a visit that culminates in a strange, eventful trip to Florida.

Ghetto-Kids

Two trouble-causing brothers, who in the second generation after World War II Germany live, are in the center of this German made for TV movie. The movie makes a subject out of their everyday lives and the helpless attempt for them to build a normal life.

The Passion of Ayn Rand

Author Ayn Rand becomes involved with a much younger and married man, to the dismay of those close to her.

Human Zoo

In Marseille, the young Serbian-Albanian Adria Shala is an illegal immigrant traumatized by her past. Every now and then Adria recalls her life in Kosovo, when she was saved from rape by a deserter called Srdjan Vasiljevic in 1999. They move to Belgrade where Srdjan becomes a gangster, dealing weapons and becoming an assassin. Adria learns how to shoot and helps Srdjan with his work at first, becoming his mistress later.

Double Happiness

Jade Li is a feisty, 20-something Chinese Canadian, trying to achieve that happy medium between giving in to her parent's wishes and fulfilling her own needs and desires - double happiness. Naturally, something's got to give and when love beckons in the shape of Mark, a white university student, the facade of the perfect Chinese daughter begins to slip.

Sacco & Vanzetti

Boston, 1920. Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are charged and unfairly tried for murder on the basis of their anarchist political beliefs.

The Long Gray Line

The life story of a salt-of-the-earth Irish immigrant, who becomes an Army Noncommissioned Officer and spends his 50 year career at the United States Military Academy at West Point. This includes his job-related experiences as well as his family life and the relationships he develops with young cadets with whom he befriends. Based on the life of a real person.

A Better Life

A gardener in East L.A. struggles to keep his son away from gangs and immigration agents while traveling across town to perform landscaping work for the city's wealthy landowners.

Meek's Cutoff

A group of settlers traveling through the Oregon High Desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.

Gabriel

Gabriel, a recent immigrant, grapples with whether to show his nationality on his resume. As he sets out to find a job the next day, he confronts the daunting task amid his language barriers. An unpleasant encounter prompts him to reflect on his family and the values they instilled in him.