Uncertain Relationships Society (2014)

MURDER and murder

Mildred and Doris are two middle-aged white women, from very different backgrounds, who become lovers and set up house together. Film explores the pleasures and uncertainties of later-life emotional attachment and lesbian identity in a culture that glorifies youth and heterosexual romance.

Love is the Word

Love is the Word is a moving, romantic and funny coming-of-age drama about the magic of first love and the misery of first lost, set in 1978: the year 'Grease' hit the big screen.

Rosa de Areia

Marking a stylistically and philosophically turn away from the earlier features, The Sand Rose is Reis and Cordeiro’s most abstract, conceptual and literary work. The film’s collage structure gathers texts from multiple sources – including Kafka and Montaigne – and crafts a world of theatrical artifice far from the documentary inspired naturalism of Ana and Trás-os-Montes. Reis and Cordeiro’s least known film has lingered in obscurity and never recovered from the unfairly negative reviews that resulted in its severely limited release. Reis died less than two years later, just as he and Cordeiro were about to begin an ambitious adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Parámo. - Harvard Film Archive

Jam Today

Robert is stuck on a boating holiday with his parents in the English countryside. Impatient to grow and become a man, an unexpected sight cracks his world open.

The Journey Is the Destination

The inspiring life story of the late photojournalist, artist and activist Dan Eldon, who abandoned a comfortable life in London to document the struggle, heartbreak and hope of a war-torn and famine-ridden region of Africa.

Foreign Body

In the turbulent aftermath of the Tunisian revolution, young Samia flees her homeland. She braves hostile seas in the crossing to France, but once there she finds that her struggles have only just begun. With no friends, no family, and — most crucially — no immigration papers, Samia has to figure out how to make a life and a living in a foreign land. She meets a young man, Imed, and soon finds work in the employ of the elegant Leila. But her presence in Leila's middle-class household triggers a shift in its dynamics, and soon Samia is enmeshed in a web of sexual tension.

By the Time It Gets Dark

A film director and her muse who was a student activist in the 1970s, a waitress who keeps changing jobs, an actor and an actress, all live loosely connected to each other by almost invisible threads. The narrative sheds its skin several times to reveal layer upon layer of the complexities that make up the characters' lives.

Godless

A nurse traffics the ID cards of demented patients on the black market of identity theft. Driven by easy cash, and an addiction to morphine, she struggles to keep tabs on her emotional void, and a growing fear of punishment.

Glory

When Tsanko Petrov, a railroad worker, finds millions of lev on the train tracks, he decides to turn the entire amount over to the police. Grateful, the state rewards him with a new wristwatch… which soon stops working. Meanwhile, Julia Staikova, the head of PR for the Ministry of Transport, loses his old watch. Here starts Petrov’s desperate struggle to get back not only his old watch, but his dignity.

Heaven Will Wait

Mélanie, 16 years old, lives with her mother. She likes going to school, her friends, playing the cello, and she wants to change the world. But when she meets a boy on the Internet and falls in love with him, her world changes as she is gradually recruited by Daesh. Sonia is 17 years old, and she almost did something irrevocable to “guarantee” her family a place in paradise. These teenage girls might be called Anaïs, Manon or Leila, and one day they all might go some way down the recruitment process. But can they ever come back from it?

People That Are Not Me

Joy can't let go of her ex, but doesn't seem to be able to fall for the new guy. In the meantime she keeps having casual sex with strangers.

Take Me Somewhere Nice

A teen raised in the Netherlands by her single mother travels to their native Bosnia to visit the father who left them, as he’s been admitted to a rural hospital. Joined by her cousin and his best friend, they hit the road.

Children of a Lesser God

Starting his new job as an instructor at a New England school for the deaf, James Leeds meets Sarah Norman, a young deaf woman who works at the school as a member of the custodial staff. In spite of Sarah's withdrawn emotional state, a romance slowly develops between the pair.

FC Venus

Plot unavailable

Or (My Treasure)

Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.

Away from Her

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.

11’09”01—September 11

Filmmakers from all over the world provide short films – each of which is eleven minutes, nine seconds, and one frame of film in length – that offer differing perspectives on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Me and My Sister

Louise, who has just written a novel, comes to Paris to meet with a potential publisher. While in the city, she stays with her older sister, Martine, who in many ways is the exact opposite of Louise: she lives in a fashionable neighborhood, is cold to others, and has snobby friends, while Louise lives in a small town and is thoroughly unpretentious. Louise's apparent happiness -- and similarities to their mother -- gradually gets on Martine's nerves.

The Holiday

Two women, one from the United States and one from the United Kingdom, swap homes at Christmas time after bad breakups with their boyfriends. Each woman finds romance with a local man but realizes that the imminent return home may end the relationship.

Copying Beethoven

A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.

Nowhere in Africa

A Jewish woman named Jettel Redlich flees Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances, bringing with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown. While Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor.

When Saturday Comes

Jimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas - he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?

A Real Young Girl

Bored and restless, Alice spends much of her time lusting after Jim, a local sawmill worker. When not lusting after him, Alice fills the hours with such pursuits as writing her name on a mirror with vaginal secretions and wandering the fields with her underwear around her ankles. And, in true teenaged tradition, she spends a lot of time writing in her diary.

Forces of Nature

Ben Holmes, a professional book-jacket blurbologist, is trying to get to Savannah for his wedding. He just barely catches the last plane, but a seagull flies into the engine as the plane is taking off. All later flights are cancelled because of an approaching hurricane, so he is forced to hitch a ride in a Geo Metro with an attractive but eccentric woman named Sara.

Swept from the Sea

The film tells the story of Russian emigree and the only survivor from ship crash Yanko Goorall and servant Amy Foster in the end of 19th century. When Yanko enters a farm sick and hungry after the shipwreck, everyone is afraid of him, except for Amy, who is very kind and helps him. Soon he becomes like a son for Dr. James Kennedy and romance between Yanko and Amy follows.

Paranoid Park

A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".

The Last Mistress

Secrets, rumors and betrayals surround the upcoming marriage between a young dissolute man and virtuous woman of the French aristocracy.

Anatomy of Hell

A woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".

The Mourning Forest

A young woman working at a retirement home takes an elderly man living there on an excursion into the countryside, but the two wind up stranded in the titular forest.

Persepolis

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Vijay Superum Pournamiyum

Vijay and Pournami are two very different sort of people who first meet because of a misunderstanding. Vijay is a lazy engineering graduate unwilling to follow his passions and Pournami is an unlucky bold girl who doesn't give up on her dreams. They don't seem to find a lot of things in common at first; but as time passes more avenues open up for them to collaborate and learn from each other.

Angel of Fire

The young trapeze artist Alma is part of the show of a miserable traveling circus. In an act of desperation, Alma commits incest with her father, a sick clown obsessed with the woman who abandoned them. Determined to have his child, Alma leaves the circus and joins a group of preachers led by Refugio, a woman who performs puppet shows with biblical passages in poor neighborhoods.

Helen

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

Naked

Nackt is the story of three couples, one of which just broke up, one that seems to be about to and one perfectly okay. They are all friends and from time to time they gather to talk about everything.One time they gather for dinner at the second couple's "mansion" - the husband became rich with his business. We see each couple as they prepare themselves for the party and learn a lot about their relationships.At the dinner they get to talking about recognizing each other's peer with closed eyes and decide to try it (thus the title "Nackt"=naked in German).

Cristina

An intimate journey of a 37-year-old Cristina, as fate brings to her life both a new love and an unbeatable challenge. Determined to pass on a message of hope and a 'live in the now' mentality, Cristina's second cancer takes a toll on her diminishing body, however her love for Bruce only grows. Bruce stands by her side while juggling work and financial strains. The film follows Cristina's journey into her deep AMOUR, one that supports and lifts her up. If she had to choose between finding this deep and pure love and having cancer, or being cancer free but never experiencing true love... what would she choose? Her shocking answers are captured by veteran filmmaker Michèle Ohayon on camera.

Kings

A foster family in South Central a few weeks before the city erupts in violence following the verdict of the Rodney King trial in 1992.

Family Business

Chantal Akerman was commissioned by Visions to make this short film for £20,000. It was first shown on 21 November 1984, on Channel 4. Akerman herself plays the role of a director visiting Hollywood to find financing from an uncle she hardly knows. Very little goes to plan… Also stars Aurore Clement and Colleen Camp.

The Lives We Lead

Two sisters and their male counterparts struggle with the negative influences of their youths over a 50-year period.

Whale Rider

On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.

The Story of the Weeping Camel

When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.

Anhelos

Two lovers runs a bus.

The Return of the Prodigal Son

In Italy, immediately subsequent to the war, a group of people who lost all they possessed during the conflict, settle in a village in ruins. They intend to restore the city from the rubble and re-start life, in imitation of the women of Messina who rebuilt their city, destroyed as it was by an earthquake. Oscillating between respect and suspicion, co-existence between group members is tense. Things become complicated when an envoy from the government arrives to say that nothing there belongs to them. The film is a free adaptation of fragments of the novella ‘The Women of Messina’, by Sicilian writer Elio Vittorini.

She's No Angel

A drama and thriller story of a young woman who has suffered great abuse as a girl and who finds happiness when in a car accident, by mistake, she finds refuge in a false personality. She allows a pair of grieving parents to believe she is their late son's wife. But happiness is not so easy, since the past always comes out and Catherine will have to act to protect the family who has given so much affection.

I Am Watching You

Writer, Nora Nichols finds inspiration by watching her neighbor Lucas' escapades from her bedroom window. But things take an interesting turn when she realizes he's been watching too.

The Nightingale

In 1825, Clare, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

Heartland

A young Oklahoma artist, struggling with a recent death, finds escape in a reckless affair with her brother's girlfriend.

Monangambeee

Filmmaker-griot coming from the theater, it was with a camera, while the war in Vietnam occupied everyone's minds, that Sarah Maldoror gave visibility to the African wars of decolonization: Angola, Guinea Bissau, French Guinea, Cape Verde... Her short film Monangambée addresses the torture by the Portuguese army of a sympathizer of the Angolan resistance. At the end of editing, Sarah Maldoror approached the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago during a Parisian concert and offered to add sound to her film. The next day they watched the film, were convinced and recorded their first soundtrack for free as evidence of African-American solidarity. Shot in Algiers, Monangambée is a film about torture and, more broadly, about the incomprehension between the colonized and the colonizers. It is based on a novel by the Angolan writer Luandino Vieira, then imprisoned by the Portuguese colonial power.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

When a bestselling celebrity biographer is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception.

In Still Waters

Ana is running away from her hometown while Mar, an old acquaintance of hers, is coming back after a long absence. They find each other in the middle of the road and through the night, they make a journey amongst their fears to find out that still waters run deep.

Belaseshe

A story of relationships that explores the intricacies of the married life, of life-long companionship, of promises and expectations and love.

Kajarya

Set in the present times against two backdrops, New Delhi with its shining buildings and apparent cosmopolitan veneer thinly veils an underbelly of crimes against women and corruption at all levels. And a small village just 80 kilometers from New Delhi that is stuck in a time warp. Kajarya a woman in her early thirties has a strange but important place in the village social structure; she murders unwanted girl infants in the garb of religion. Meera is a rookie reporter.

Jugni

Jugni (Firefly) is the beat of the soul, the free-flying spirit. Jugni is Vibhavari (Vibs). Vibs is a music director, working on her first big break in the Hindi film industry. When work and home affairs, with her live-in boyfriend Sid hit a high tide, Vibs hits the road with a glint of hope; to find music. The journey takes her to a village in Punjab in the search of a Bibi Saroop, whose voice holds the promise that Vibs is searching for. But as the twist of fate would have it, Mastana, Bibi's son and a proficient singer himself, is the voice and man who winds his way into Vibs' heart. From here on, Jugni is about striking balances, making tough decisions while trying to soften the blows and dealing with the studied dramatic turns and unpredictabilities of life and finding the place which one can call home; home of the heart, where the firefly is at her brightest.

All the Beauty

Sarah (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen) and David (Magnus Crepper) meet for the first time in ten years when she arrives at his summer residence. David needs help finishing a play, which turns out to be a dramatization of their long, troublesome relationship. The film presents three love stories about seemingly different couples; all named Sarah and David, but played by different actors in respectively their 20s, 30s and 40s.

Baroud

In Morocco, a French sergeant falls in love with the sister of an Arab colleague, a dangerous situation that could result in death for both of them.....

The Beguiled

During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.

The Polar Boy

Mattias has a dream to become a photography student of the Berlin Arts Academy. On the journey of following his calling, his dream is constantly put to a test after Mattias falls in love with a beautiful free spirit Hanna. Trying to win her heart, Mattias feels the need to prove Hanna, that he can be just as adventurous and unpredictable as she is. Breaking the law together with Hanna, Mattias risks everything dear to him, not knowing yet, that Hanna's bold acts are only the symptoms of bipolar disorder. In the moment of jelousy Mattias accidentally commits a crime that could put him behind bars for years. The only escape he sees is to get himself declared irresponsible. In order to achieve that Mattias decides to start faking the illness her gilfriend really has - bipolarity.