Was im Leben zählt (2016)

My Life Without Me

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.

Open Hearts

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

Italian for Beginners

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

The Secret Life of Words

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Antonia's Line

After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.

Tomorrow Ever After

Shaina lives 600 years in the future. War, greed, prejudice, poverty, pollution, violence, loneliness, depression – these are things that she’s read about in history books. When an accident in a physics experiment sends her on a time-travel journey to our times, she assumes that everyone around her is honest, generous and caring, as she recruits the help that she needs to get back home.

The Boy Downstairs

A young woman is forced to reflect on her first relationship when she inadvertently moves into her ex boyfriend's apartment building.

Hunting Season

La Patagonia, southern Argentina. After his mother's death, Nahuel, a violent teenager, meets his biological father, Ernesto, a skillful hunting guide; but their reunion is harsh, since their souls are only ruled by pride and resentment.

Fat Girl

Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile, nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.

Bridget Jones's Diary

Bridget Jones is an average woman struggling against her age, her weight, her job, her lack of a man, and her various imperfections. As a New Year's resolution, Bridget decides to take control of her life, starting by keeping a diary in which she will always tell the complete truth. The fireworks begin when her charming though disreputable boss takes an interest in the quirky Miss Jones. Thrown into the mix are Bridget's band of slightly eccentric friends and a rather disagreeable acquaintance into whom Bridget cannot seem to stop running or help finding quietly attractive.

Sleepless in Seattle

After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Talking about his father’s loneliness soon leads to a meeting with a young female journalist, who has flown to Seattle to write a story about the boy and his father.

Still the Water

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.

The Limb Salesman

Gabriel Goode is the Limb Salesman, a disgraced doctor who regenerates limbs on the black market. When Goode travels to the water mining regions of the north to heal the cherished daughter of a wealthy water miner, dark family secrets are revealed, and Goode is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice. A story of forbidden love in a dystopian future.

Strange Days

Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.

Desert Hearts

While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed literature professor finds herself unexpectedly attracted by a carefree, spirited young woman named Cay.

Beyond Silence

Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams

A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.

Bollywood/Hollywood

Rahul Seth is a dashing young millionaire who believes he is "western" enough to rebel against his mother and grandmother. They are not too keen about his Caucasian girlfriend Kimberly who, to make matters worse, is a pop star. Before you can say "karmic intervention," Kimberly dies in a freak accident and Rahul is devastated. Instead of allowing him to mourn in peace, Rahul's mother sees the opportunity she's been waiting for. She threatens to call off his sister's wedding unless he finds himself a "nice Indian girl." Rahul enlists the services of Sue, a fiercely independent escort whom he believes to be Hispanic, and therefore not "married" to the conventions taught to young Indian women. With a wink in her eye, Sue accepts the deal to pose as his Indian bride-to-be. She needs the money and having never been a fan of the typical Indian male, she feels her heart is safe. The charade begins....

Longing

An average, everyday metalworker and volunteer firefighter content in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart finds his emotions unexpectedly stirred when he falls for a pretty waitress from a nearby town.

Lost and Found

Six young filmmakers from Central and East Europe developed shorts about the theme of 'generation'.

Sticky Notes

The story of an emotionally detached backup dancer named Athena, who must return home to Florida to help care for her estranged father, Jack, after he gets diagnosed with cancer. There she must contend with Jack’s irresponsible lifestyle while looking after six year old Honey Bunny who is only beginning to grasp the err in Jack’s ways.

Swept Away

A spoiled rich woman and a brutish Communist deckhand become stranded alone on a desert island after venturing away from their cruise.

An American Rhapsody

A Hungarian family forced to flee the Communist country for the United States must leave a young daughter behind. Six years later, the family arranges to bring the absent daughter to the United States where she has trouble adjusting. The daughter then decides to travel to Budapest to discover her identity.

Prisoner's Daughter

Released from prison with terminal cancer, Max tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter and the grandson he’s never known. When his daughter’s abusive, drug-addicted ex-husband reappears, Max’s violent past comes back to haunt them all.

Idle Wives

Characters in the film attend a movie titled 'Life’s Mirror', where they see parallel, cautionary versions of their own lives. Only the first two of the original seven reels survive.

The Finish Line

A Down syndrome boy befriends a reluctant bereaved man in a wheelchair as they relate through their disabilities. Jameson First Shot short film starring Dominic West.

Marguerite

An aging woman and her nurse develop a friendship that inspires her to unearth unacknowledged longing and thus help her make peace with her past.

The Kitchen

The mobster husbands of three 1978 Hell's Kitchen housewives are sent to prison by the FBI. Left with little but a sharp ax to grind, the ladies take the Irish mafia's matters into their own hands — proving unexpectedly adept at everything from running the rackets to taking out the competition… literally.

The Secret Life of Geisha

Documentary about the world of the Japanese geisha. Unattainable by all but the wealthy and powerful, geisha are the ultimate massagers of the male ego. Behind the delicate fan and enigmatic smile can also be found a darker side to the geisha story, including treachery and suicide.

Balzac: A Life of Passion

This is the sprawling saga of Honoré de Balzac, a man who created a great literary oeuvre from the dramas and adventures of his own life - a life that he shaped into one spectacular and unforgettable blaze of passion. At the heart of the story are the women in Balzac's life. Although gruff, unsophisticated, and far from handsome, Balzac exerts an irresistible fascination on women.

Genius Party

The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.

Lake Forest Park

A coming-of-age film about a group of outsider teenagers in Seattle dealing with the consequences of accidental gun violence in their hometown.

Road

Two exes take a dual-purpose road trip: allow Margaret (Catherine Kellner), a freelance photographer, to complete her assignment to check up on toxic waste sites along the U.S.-Canadian border, and deliver Jay (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) home to his mother's house in Detroit. The trip takes a turn for the weird as they begin to suspect they are trapped.

Amiko

Amiko, a high school girl, adores Aomi to the point of nearly worshipping him. But one day, he runs away from home. Amiko's sometimes cynical, sometimes self-deprecating inner monologue goes off like vibrant stand-up comedy.

The Rainbow Experiment

Things spiral out of control in a high school in Manhattan when a terrible accident involving a science experiment injures a kid for life.

Brief Crossing

A young French man and an older English woman spend one night together on a ship.

Little Crumb

The film is based on the popular Dutch childrens book by Chris van Abkoude. In a Dutch port in 1921 lives a 10-year-old orphan boy known to everyone simply as Little Crumb. His poverty-stricken mother Lize van Dien filled with shame was forced to turn him over to Mrs. Koster soon after he was born. Foster mother Mrs. Koster, who has cared for him since he was a baby, is very poor too, unable to support him by herself and proves to be a cruel taskmaster who insists Crumb bring her money before shell feed him. Somehow he must earn his keep out on the streets and can only go home after he has earned enough money. Crumb becomes an urchin stealing from the streets barrows and the shops to stay alive, sleeping in churches or huddled in doorways. Sometimes he has to run off from the police and he has earned the enmity of the most grownups around him.

Oscar and Lucinda

After a childhood of abuse by his evangelistic father, misfit Oscar Hopkins becomes an Anglican minister and develops a divine obsession with gambling. Lucinda Leplastrier is a rich Australian heiress shopping in London for materials for her newly acquired glass factory back home. Deciding to travel to Australia as a missionary, Oscar meets Lucinda aboard ship, and a mutual obsession blossoms. They make a wager that will alter each of their destinies.

The Kids Are All Right

Two women, Nic and Jules, brought a son and daughter into the world through artificial insemination. When one of their children reaches age, both kids go behind their mothers' backs to meet with the donor. Life becomes so much more interesting when the father, two mothers and children start to become attached to each other.

Couleur locale

Marianne Riblon runs a small construction business in the south of France. Widowed and estranged from a daughter she hasn't seen in 15 years, she spends her time and working and has a life devoid of affection. An active member of the town council, she has strong conservative and racist convictions. One day, her daughter Charlotte calls her to tell her she's a grandmother. Her grandson, Nicolas, is 12 and is on his way to come see her. Charlotte wants her to take care of the child while she's being treated for leukemia. A the station, Marianne discovers the boy is half-black. The two learn to know each other...

The Falling

England, 1969. The fascinating Abbie and the troubled Lydia are great friends. After an unexpected tragedy occurs in the strict girls' school they attend, a mysterious epidemic of fainting breaks out that threatens the mental sanity and beliefs of the tormented people involved, both teachers and students.

High Art

When Syd, a young editor at an influential art magazine, becomes involved with her neighbor, a drug-addicted lesbian photographer, both seek to exploit each other for their respective careers while slowly falling in love with each other.

Wake

When things get tough for offbeat Carys Reitman, she does what any emotionally isolated, modern girl would do - she goes to strangers' funerals...

Hannah med H

Hannah is a young woman who lives on her own. She starts to get this feeling that she is being watched. The phone starts ringing at night and when she answers, no one is there. Is she imagining everything or is it for real?

Take Out

An illegal Chinese immigrant falls behind on payments on an enormous smuggling debt. Ming Ding has only until the end of the day to come up with the money.

Ballet Shoes

An unusual explorer named Gum and his kindly niece adopt three orphans -- Pauline, Petrova and Posy -- and raise them as sisters in 1930s London. But the girls must fend for themselves when Gum doesn't return from one of his adventures. Together, they nurture their passions for acting, aviation and ballet in this charming TV adaptation of Noel Streatfield's novel.

The Life

An anthropology student exploring the nature of prostitution is drawn deeper into that profession than she ever expected.

Sita Sings the Blues

Utilizing the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, the epic Indian tale of exiled prince Ramayana and his bride Sita is mirrored by a spurned woman's contemporary personal life, and light-hearted but knowledgeable discussion of historical background by a trio of Indian shadow puppets.

It's Easier for a Camel...

As a little girl, Federica fantasized about having beautiful long hair that would grow back as soon as she cut it, about never-ending cones of cotton candy and about countless adventures that took her to the far side of the world. Now a charming thirty-something-single woman, Federica's fantasies have evolved, adding lovers, stardom, and motherhood to her waking dreams, where Federica continues to press for her everyday life to be as real as the fantasies that invade her. Unfortunately, Federica's daydreams can only provide a meager distraction from the reality she faces. Her career as a successful playwright is heading south, her boyfriend is pressuring her to start a family, a former lover wishes to rekindle an old affair, her sister is barely talking to her, her brother is self-centered and her loving father is terminally ill. And as if to make matters worse, Federica is rich, too rich, and the guilt that consumes her because of it is pushing her over the edge.

Nettle Bath

Kim has had enough: of school, of her girlfriend, and even more so of her mother. Because of her, Kim's father is now gone. Just gone. So Kim decides to leave. She can't go back, only forward. Until she finally arrives at the one place where she can still be.

Live

In the near future. Many things are like today, one thing isn't: The number of terror attacks has increased so rapidly that any gathering in public is prohibited. Any form of culture and most of human interaction is mediated by an electronic device. The psychologist Claire decides to break the isolation and plans a secret concert with her brother Aurel, a famous trumpet player who has performed concerts in front of virtual audiences only for years. Supported by the hackers Ada and Maximus, their plan seems to succeed. Things go well. Until something else starts to go deeply wrong.

Der Zauber des Regenbogens

A very skilful young architect from Berlin, Lea Winter, who has a promising career, is pregnant with Klaus Arnheim, her head of department, a long-time lover but married and father of a family. At the announcement of this unexpected pregnancy, of course, he only envisages abortion for Lea. However, the young woman hesitates. On the advice of her gynecologist, she decides to leave Ireland for a few days to think and make a decision without any pressure. She finds there a simple, authentic life and is confronted with another rhythm of life, with other values and with herself.

August Rush

Lyla and Louis, a singer and a musician, fall in love, but are soon compelled to separate. Lyla is forced to give up her newborn but unknown to her, he grows up to become a musical genius.

Marquise

Marquise is a drama about the rise and fall of a beauteous actress. As cheerfully portrayed by Sophie Marceau, the eponymous heroine is an engagingly ribald, but perhaps rather too modern, character. She rises from an impoverished background to become a favourite of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and the mistress of the celebrated Racine, who wrote roles especially for her; but her fate, in the end, is a tragic one.

Saint-Jacques… La Mecque

Three siblings who detest each other and hiking must complete together a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in order to be eligible to inherit their mother's wealth.

The Fisherman and His Wife

A shared love of fish leads to a variety of romantic predicaments in this offbeat comedy from writer and director Doris Dörrie. Otto (Christian Ulmen) and Leo (Simon Verhoeven) are two men from Germany who have launched a successful business in which they import koi, the beautiful Japanese fish, for collectors in their native land. While on a business trip to Japan, Otto and Leo meet Ida (Alexandra Maria Lara), a German tourist who is studying fashion design. Ida begins traveling with the two men, and surprisingly develops an infatuation with the rumpled Otto instead of the handsome Leo. When Ida discovers she's pregnant with Otto's child, the two marry, and upon their return to Germany, Ida attempts to join in the business by creating a line of scarves decorated with koi patterns. However, the honeymoon proves short-lived, and Ida's presence creates a rift between Otto and Leo, as the latter sets up his own concern, raising koi with his new bride, Yoko (Young-Shin Kim).

Room 10

Room 10 focuses on the life of a nurse who finds deeper meaning in her life after looking after a patient who is dying.

Ardor

In revenge for her husband's infidelity, a young beautiful housewife, Mi-heun, starts an affair with an attractive young doctor, In-gyu. Despite her husband's efforts to regain her love and the disapproval by the conservative little town, Mi-huen gradually finds happiness and satisfaction in the affair and decides to turn her back on her quiet life.

The Wishing Tree

'The Wishing Tree' is a magical, inspirational and an extremely entertaining story of five children in a hill-station somewhere in India, who come together to save their 'wishing tree' from being cut by vested interests. The film is extremely lively, endearing and engrossing so that the underlying message to protect trees and environment is seamlessly driven home.

Marie Antoinette

The retelling of France’s iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette - from her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI at fifteen to her reign as queen at nineteen and ultimately the fall of Versailles.

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.

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.