The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands (2023)

Black Belts

KJ, an offbeat middle schooler and martial arts movie nerd from Compton, challenges the top dojos in South LA, wearing his uncle’s old black belt. But when his former fighter dad gets too involved, both learn there’s more to life than keeping your guard up.

Project CC

A brilliant child scientist must join forces with her sister when a cloning experiment goes awry.

Gabriela

It's the summer after high school graduation and Gabriela, a young undocumented Guatemalan woman, pursues her dream of swimming for an illustrious Country Club swim team. Despite her single-minded determination, Gabriela is continually confronted with her overprotective mother’s ears, limitations on her economic and legal status, and self-judgment. As she questions her self-worth against the structures of contemporary American Southern life, Gabriela embarks on a quest towards personal freedom and self-acceptance.

Breaking the Silence

Francesca, tormented by her past, breaks the silence to talk about surviving the horrors of the comfort stations of Imperial Japan.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction tells about a certain night in 1982, reconstructed in 2020 by the people who lived it through together. The film combines dance, drama and documentary, but most of all is a story of a friendship of a boy and a girl, and how jolly situations can turn sour and how, even though close, friends do not share same experiences – and that can have an effect on their friendship.

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death

During WWII several murders occur at a convalescent home where Dr. Watson has volunteered his services. He summons Holmes for help and the master detective proceeds to solve the crime from a long list of suspects including the owners of the home, the staff and the patients recovering there.

Mumu

Deaf Xiao Ma and his daughter Mumu rely on each other for companionship. The little "big sister" Mumu serves as the family's pillar—bridging communication between her father and the outside world, helping him secure work and earn a living. However, as Mumu grows older, she must integrate into the hearing world, and their inseparable life is about to be disrupted. Just then, a criminal syndicate that specifically preys on the deaf sets its sights on Xiao Ma. Desperate to protect his daughter, he is gradually lured step by step into the abyss of crime...

The Telephone Box

A man gets trapped inside a telephone box and nobody is able to free him.

Dog Food

When Declan loses his dog and best friend, Ralphie, his life starts to unravel.

Just Like Zorro

Zorro and his family live in a messy, run down apartment. Zorro's father is dead and his mother is an alcoholic but, despite their situation, they share a strong bond. Zorro's best friend, Kevin, lives with his family in one of the more expensive family homes in the area. Although they are financially well off, the father is a violent man who takes his frustrations out on Kevin, his mother and younger sister. Through Kevin's and Zorro's courage and strong friendship they are able to overcome almost anything.

Sugar Glass Bottle

Near-future Tokyo. Kou, through the help of his high school best friend, finds a surprising way to express his mounting frustration at the insidious forces of commercialism that are forcing out the neighbors he cares most about. Initially inspired by a prank that the writer-director Neo Sora (The Chicken, 2020) had pulled on him in his childhood, a sense of warm nostalgia and cold, material reality intermingle to tell a tale set in the not-so-distant future about disappearing spaces and the forces of policing and gentrification that drills this process forward.

His Regeneration

A rough criminal gets a second chance at life thanks to a kindly (and wealthy) lady saloon patron. But he hasn't gone straight yet, as he and a partner attempt to rob the home of a rich homeowner-- whose wife is asleep in the next room.

Lalibela

On the eve of Easter, an icon depicting the Ethiopian Mother of God enters a Ukrainian village. After the icon is noticed by regular parishioners, a conflict begins between the young priest and his flock. Peasants do not agree to have a dark-skinned Mother of God in the church. One night someone makes his way to the church and cuts the icon. After the night events, the icon begins to pour myrrh.

La caza de brujas

When, in a very strict Catholic school, a teacher enters a bathroom and surprises two students engaged in forbidden sexual practices, some of their classmates do not know whether to remain silent or rat out their own friends when questioned by school authorities.

The Dead

After a convivial holiday dinner party, things begin to unravel when a husband and wife address some prickly issues concerning their marriage.

Amsterdam to Anatolia

Elissa's life takes a turn when she meets a mysterious man in her English class and she has to quickly decide between her family and him- and going from family-life to a life on the run is a wild choice to everyone but her.

Something Old, New, Borrowed and Blue

A traditional wedding procession walks along a narrow street towards the home of the bride. Guests and family members are waiting inside the home on this big day, as they listen to prayers from the loudspeakers. The bride, Putri, is getting ready inside her bedroom while her mother is helping with the final touches of her hair and makeup. Tender and frank conversations about marriage are shared between mother and daughter in that intimate space, before Putri leaves to begin a new life with her husband.

La Strada

When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.

La Haine

After a chaotic night of rioting in a marginal suburb of Paris, three young friends, Vinz, Hubert and Saïd, wander around unoccupied waiting for news about the state of health of a mutual friend who has been seriously injured when confronting the police.

8½

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

Schindler's List

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

La Dolce Vita

Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

Pi

A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.

Cléo from 5 to 7

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

Ed Wood

The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.

The Good German

An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.

The Boy

An intimate portrait of a 9 year old sociopath as he discovers his taste for killing.

Clay Farmers

Mike, a young hired hand in California is working a small farm with a close friend, Dan. Mike is content on the farm and obviously attracted to the handsome Dan. Dan seems to be attracted to Mike as well but is a drifter and not happy as a farmer. He longs to finish out the contract and move on to a big city, perhaps with Mike. Gary, a boy from the next farm over, befriends them during their daily chores. When an innocent session of skinny-dipping is misconstrued, the young hired hands soon find themselves unjustly suspected of wrongdoing in a suddenly hostile small town.

The Acid House

A surreal triptych adapted by "Trainspotting" author Irvine Welsh from his acclaimed collection of short stories. Combining a vicious sense of humor with hard-talking drama, the film reaches into the hearts and minds of the chemical generation, casting a dark and unholy light into the hidden corners of the human psyche.

Hanele

Based on an autobiographical novella by Ivan Olbracht, the film tells the story of Hanele Safarová, who grows up just after the First World War in a little Ruthenian schtetl which, in true Hassidic fashion, awaits the arrival of the Messiah. But Hanele decides to follow the Zionists instead. She moves to the city to prepare for her departure to the Promised Land, where she meets a successful businessman named Ivo Karadzic, who has renounced Judaism to become a free-thinker. Their love for each other doesn’t only drive Hanele’s parents to distraction, it also threatens to destroy the entire community in the schetl.

The Younger

Chen Hao-Zhi lives alone with his Grandmother who has Alzheimers and has suffered from a stroke. In order to pay the bills and his grandmother's medical expenses, he goes to work in a gay massage parlor. At first, it was just work...but Hao-Zhi soon finds that he is attracted to some of his clientele, and gets pulled into a world where he loses control of things he thought he could handle.

I Vitelloni

Five young men dream of success as they drift lazily through life in a small Italian village. Fausto, the group's leader, is a womanizer; Riccardo craves fame; Alberto is a hopeless dreamer; Moraldo fantasizes about life in the city; and Leopoldo is an aspiring playwright. As Fausto chases a string of women, to the horror of his pregnant wife, the other four blunder their way from one uneventful experience to the next.

Echo

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?

Bad Boy Buck

After a one-night stand with another man, a married farmer attempts to hide the affair from his family as the truth drives him to breaking point.

Wonderkid

Wonderkid follows the inner turmoil of an unnamed football prodigy as he comes to terms with his own identity, struggling to reconcile his sexuality with his issues with alcohol and OCD.

Amen

Begoña, Pelayo and María are saying a last goodbye to their mother. Confusion arises when they discover she wanted to be buried in a very special outfit.

Courtship at the Office

An employee is surprised at the flattering attention he's getting from his boss. Will this ruin the relationship?

Shabbat Dinner

Shabbat Dinner is boring as usual for William Shore. His mother has invited two crazy hippies and their son and is doing her best to show off, his father is drunk and berating their oddball guests, and he doesn't have much in common with their son Virgo. That is, until Virgo tells him that he has just come out as gay.

Adult

Having enabled a loss that now torments her, a woman enters an adult store in search of redemption. Adapted from a short story by Christos Tsiolkas.

The Man Who Wasn't There

A tale of murder, crime and punishment set in the summer of 1949. Ed Crane, a barber in a small California town, is dissatisfied with his life, but his wife Doris' infidelity and a mysterious opportunity presents him with a chance to change it.

Cabaret

Inside the Kit Kat Club of 1931 Berlin, starry-eyed singer Sally Bowles and an impish emcee sound the clarion call to decadent fun, while outside a certain political party grows into a brutal force.

The Gold Bug

Shortly after the Civil War, while exploring the long deserted and reputedly haunted Sullivan's Island off Charleston S.C., a boy encounters two obsessed eccentrics living there. These men chase him away and warn him never to return or to tell anyone about them. Soon, however, they locate him and summon him back, because he has unknowingly given them a clue vital to their quest and they need his help to unravel the rest of the mystery. If he can do so, they will find buried pirate treasure and all become rich. But in joining the search, he falls under the same obsession and curse -- an ominous fate suggested by the unearthly electronic music which contributes to the film's atmosphere.

If Then Else

Edu is dancing in a bar when Alex comes looking for him. He has some news that will have a profound effect on Edu.

High Score

As his personal life unravels, a burgeoning white supremacist descends into an abyss of online radicalization and extremist conspiracy theories.

Two Lovers

A depressed man moves back in with his parents following a recent heartbreak and finds himself with two women.

Anime

Two hardy orphans survive upon the remains of a humanity that has left them behind.

Aerolin

Sandy is a drama school graduate and has asthma. Tonight she will be performing at the theatre. Before that, she has to teach a yoga class, work as a clown and go to an audition. In this equation, she somehow has to try and fit in Spiros, her boyfriend.

Morte Nera

Florence, 1631. The black plague rages, the streets are deserted, healthy citizens are confined. Alvise, a plague doctor, discreetly paces the city in search of infected bodies to conduct his experiments, in the hope of finding a cure. One day, during an autopsy, a strange creature springs from one of the corpses...

Code_Switch

After tragedy strikes, a meek Ruby Oliver enters a broken VR game for a last chance to see the dead. Little does she know that this game treats all girls as a virus as she fights to save herself.

Roberto the Canary

The death of Roberto, the canary, forces a family to come to terms with their own grief.

Desperation

When a sheriff arrests a writer, a family, a couple, and a hitchiker and throws them in a jail cell in the deserted town of Desperation, they must fight for their lives.

Paycheck

Michael Jennings is a genius who's hired – and paid handsomely – by high-tech firms to work on highly sensitive projects, after which his short-term memory is erased so he's incapable of breaching security. But at the end of a three-year job, he's told he isn't getting a paycheck and instead receives a mysterious envelope. In it are clues he must piece together to find out why he wasn't paid – and why he's now in hot water.

The Physics of Sorrow

Tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.

I Am in the World as Free and Slender as a Deer on a Plain

A young woman explores her sexual autonomy through a series of discomfiting encounters.

It's Nothing

A recent graduate is urged by an impossibly perfect woman to start digging a hole in a nearby park, setting in motion a chain of events that threaten her emotional balance and carefully maintained routines.

Volcano

Hannah and Jess meet up at a tiki bar, seeing each other for the first time since Hannah's romantic Mexico trip. Hannah has a lot to say about it, except what really happened.

Vinland

Like many others, Daniil has decided to leave his native Georgia and move to Prague in search of better pay. Originally a teacher, he finds a job with Ukrainian laborers controlled by a Russian boss called Sergei and thus becomes a cog in the machinery that takes advantage of the work of illegal immigrants… Vinland looks at the lives of people who exist all around us but about whom we know so little because their identities disappear the moment they relinquish their passports to the mafia who are interested only in profit.

Give Up the Ghost

Salam's dream of becoming a mother shatters when she finds out that she is unable to have children with her husband.