Mistress, Mercy (2018)

The American Friend

Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.

Freeway

Following the arrest of her mother, Ramona, young Vanessa Lutz decides to go in search of her estranged grandmother. On the way, she is given a ride by school counselor Bob Wolverton. During the journey, Lutz begins to realize that Bob is the notorious I-5 Killer and manages to escape by shooting him several times. Wounded but still very much alive, Bob pursues Lutz across the state in this modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

Tess

A strong-willed peasant girl is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumor that their families are from the same line, but is left traumatised from her experiences.

Intact

An enigmatic tale of four people whose lives are intertwined by destiny are subject to the laws of fate. They discover that luck is something they cannot afford to be without as they gamble with the highest stakes possible in a deadly game from which only one of them will emerge intact.

May

A socially awkward veterinary assistant with a lazy eye and obsession with perfection descends into depravity after developing a crush on a boy with perfect hands.

Dangerous Heart

A cop begins to turn to booze and cocaine during a tough undercover assignment. When a big drug-buy goes sour and the cop ends up with a million in cash, he decides to take off with the money. The drug dealer catches up with him, but he dies before revealing where he stashed the cash. Months later, the drug dealer finds the cop's wife and seduces her, in an effort to find his missing million. In the process, he falls in love with her and alienates his former partners in crime.

A Short Film About Killing

Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.

Network

When veteran anchorman Howard Beale is forced to retire his 25-year post because of his age, he announces to viewers that he will kill himself during his farewell broadcast. Network executives rethink their decision when his fanatical tirade results in a spike in ratings.

Savage Grace

This examination of a famous scandal from the 1970s explores the relationship between Barbara Baekeland and her only son, Antony. Barbara, a lonely social climber unhappily married to the wealthy but remote plastics heir Brooks Baekeland, dotes on Antony, who is homosexual. As Barbara tries to "cure" Antony of his sexuality -- sometimes by seducing him herself -- the groundwork is laid for a murderous tragedy.

After Hours

Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett ventures downtown for a hookup with a mystery woman.

Out of the Blue

Ordinary people find extraordinary courage in the face of madness. On 13–14 November 1990 that madness came to Aramoana, a small New Zealand seaside town, in the form of a lone gunman with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. As he stalked his victims the terrified and confused residents were trapped for 24 hours while a handful of under-resourced and under-armed local policemen risked their lives trying to find him and save the survivors. Based on true events.

The Murder of Stephen Lawrence

Stephen Lawrence was a black London teenager murdered by white racists in 1993. His parents fought to have the crime properly investigated, culminating in a judicial enquiry into the event itself and also the inadequacies of the ensuing investigation by the London Metropolitan Police.

Mulholland Falls

In 1950s Los Angeles, a special crime squad of the LAPD investigates the murder of a young woman.

Narc

When the trail goes cold on a murder investigation of a policeman, an undercover narcotics officer is lured back to the force to help solve the case.

The Postman Always Rings Twice

The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.

The Big Easy

Remy McSwain is a New Orleans police lieutenant who investigates the murder of a local mobster. His investigation leads him to suspect that fellow members of the police force may be involved.

Dressed to Kill

After witnessing a mysterious woman brutally slay a homemaker, prostitute Liz Blake finds herself trapped in a dangerous situation. While the police thinks she is the murderer, the real killer is intent on silencing her only witness.

The Knock Out Cop

Inspector “Flatfoot” Rizzo investigates crime and corruption in Naples.

The Fear

In this disturbing family drama, a prosperous middle-aged farmer takes up gambling and whoring at the expense of his devoted second wife. Meanwhile, his son the pervert becomes fascinated with the family's maid, a deaf-mute.

Face of Evil

Using her girl-next-door looks to her advantage, Darcy Palmer is a calculating thief and murderer. After killing a young college student and taking her identity, Darcy enrolls in the victim's New England school in her place. At the university, Darcy gets to know her new roommate, Jeanelle, and her handsome father, Russell Polk, who soon play into her next scheme. When Darcy has to alter her plans, both Russell and Jeanelle become quite expendable.

In My Father's Den

War journalist Paul Prior returns to his New Zealand hometown after his father’s death, rekindling strained relationships with his brother and memories of a troubled past. He befriends Celia, a curious and aspiring writer, who shares a fascination with his world. When Celia mysteriously disappears, Paul becomes the prime suspect, forcing him to confront buried secrets and uncover the dark truths of his family and community.

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.

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.

Shortbus

In post-9/11 New York City, an eclectic group of citizens find their lives entangled, personally, romantically, and sexually, at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hart to Hart: Till Death Do Us Hart

On a mission of mercy, Jennifer Hart is in Germany to donate bone marrow to Maximilian, a young leukemia patient. Following the operation, she plans to spend a romantic anniversary in Munich with her husband Jonathan. The bone marrow clinic's director, Peter Donner, is surprised by Jennifer's uncanny resemblance to his French fiancée, Simone Grohe. When she goes missing, Jennifer steps in to play the role of Simone to save Peter the embarrassment of an explanation to his cousin and benefactor Karl von Ostenberg at the lavish engagement party. But, of course, it is Karl who kidnapped Simone - in order to control the fate of Peter's inheritance - and now Jennifer is in as much danger as Simone! Once again the Harts tackle danger and mystery with their usual devil-may-care charm and romance

Crime and Punishment

John Simm stars in this adaptation of Dostoyevsky's tragic masterpiece - a profound drama of redemption and a thrilling detective story of the soul.

The Girl He Met Online

A man's relationship with a bipolar woman becomes dangerous.

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.

Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.

Tough Enough

From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.

Romeo + Juliet

In director Baz Luhrmann's contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.

The Hole

Four teenagers at a British private school secretly uncover and explore the depths of a sealed underground hole created decades ago as a possible bomb shelter.

Monster

An emotionally scarred highway drifter shoots a sadistic trick who rapes her, and ultimately becomes America's first female serial killer.

Killing Zoe

Zed is an American vault-cracker who travels to Paris to meet up with his old friend Eric. Eric and his gang have planned to raid the only bank in the city which is open on Bastille day. After offering his services, Zed soon finds himself trapped in a situation beyond his control when heroin abuse, poor planning and a call-girl named Zoe all conspire to turn the robbery into a very bloody siege.

Casino

In early-1970s Las Vegas, Sam "Ace" Rothstein gets tapped by his bosses to head the Tangiers Casino. At first, he's a great success in the job, but over the years, problems with his loose-cannon enforcer Nicky Santoro, his ex-hustler wife Ginger, her con-artist ex Lester Diamond and a handful of corrupt politicians put Sam in ever-increasing danger.

Once Were Warriors

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

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, escaping life's troubles – even if just for a moment – by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

Black Crown

A woman suffers from amnesia after killing her husband, who was just about to demand a divorce for having found her engaging in an affair with a lover, who is only interested in her to find where some precious jewels are hidden.

Seven Years of Night

Set against the haunting backdrop of a small lake town, this chilling thriller unravels a meticulous revenge set over a period of 7 years, all beginning with the accidental death of an innocent girl.

Smuggler's Gold

A deep-sea diver becomes romantically involved with the daughter of a gold smuggler.

The Ice Harvest

A shady lawyer attempts a Christmas Eve crime, hoping to swindle the local mob out of some money. But his partner, a strip club owner, might have different plans for the cash.

One Deadly Summer

In spring 1976, a 19-year-old beauty, her German-born mother, and her crippled father move to the town of a firefighter nicknamed Pin-Pon. Everyone notices the provocative Eliane. She singles out Pin-Pon and soon is crying on his shoulder (she's myopic and hates her reputation as a dunce and as easy); she moves in with him, knits baby clothes, and plans their wedding. Is this love or some kind of plot? She asks Pin-Pon's mother and aunt about the piano in the barn: who delivered it on a November night in 1955? Why does she want to know, and what does it have to do with her mother's sorrows, her father's injury, this quick marriage, and the last name on her birth certificate?

Tristan & Isolde

An affair between the second in line to Britain's throne and the princess of the feuding Irish spells doom for the young lovers.

The Element of Crime

Fisher, an ex-detective, decides to take one final case when a mysterious serial killer claims the lives of several young girls. Fisher, unable to find the culprit, turns to Osbourne, a writer who was once respected for his contributions to the field of criminology. Fisher begins to use Osbourne's technique, which involves empathizing with serial killers; however, as the detective becomes increasingly engrossed in this method, things take a disturbing turn.

The Four Feathers

A young British officer resigns his post when he learns of his regiment's plan to ship out to the Sudan for the conflict with the Mahdi. His friends and fiancée send him four white feathers as symbols of what they view as his cowardice. To redeem his honor, he disguises himself as an Arab and secretly saves their lives.

Buffalo Soldiers

A criminal subculture operates among U.S. soldiers stationed in West Germany just before the fall of the Berlin wall.

Brick

A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.

The Good Son

A young boy stays with his aunt and uncle, and befriends his cousin who's the same age. But his cousin begins showing increasing signs of psychotic behavior.

Death to Smoochy

Tells the story of Rainbow Randolph, the corrupt, costumed star of a popular children's TV show, who is fired over a bribery scandal and replaced by squeaky-clean Smoochy, a puffy fuchsia rhinoceros. As Smoochy catapults to fame - scoring hit ratings and the affections of a network executive - Randolph makes the unsuspecting rhino the target of his numerous outrageous attempts to exact revenge and reclaim his status as America's sweetheart.

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.

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.

A Killing Affair

Peter Weller stars as Baton Morris, a drifter suspected of murder, in this crime drama. A widow (Kathy Baker) living in West Virginia takes in the man (Weller) whom she believes murdered her husband. As she spends more time with him, she begins to fall for him, but continues to question whether or not she can trust him. Directed by David Saperstein and based on a novel by Robert Houston, A Killing Affair features twists and turns up until the end.

Mord am Meer

Hans Wolgast is executed with a shot in the head in the idyllic town of Husum to Mozart's Magic Flute. His half-brother, Inspector Anton Glauberg, immediately suspects that the shadows of the family past have caught up with him because Hans was a member of the RAF. Without initially disclosing that he not only knew the dead man but was even related to him, Glauberg begins to investigate, supported by the young, attractive but inexperienced BKA officer Paula Reinhardt. The traces lead to Berlin to the scattered remnants of the RAF and its still functioning cable groups. Wolgast lived there in a shared apartment before he, like so many former terrorists, fled to the GDR in the 1980s. A former roommate of Hans Veith Seewald points out the parallel to Glauberg to a murder case from 1978.

Rising Sun

When a prostitute is found dead in a Los Angeles skyscraper occupied by a large Japanese corporation, detectives John Connor and Web Smith are called in to investigate. Although Connor has previous experience working in Japan, cultural differences make their progress difficult until a security disc showing the murder turns up. Close scrutiny proves the disc has been doctored, and the detectives realize they're dealing with a cover-up as well.

One Night Stand Murder

Alyssa wakes up in a home that's not hers and discovers a dead body. With no memory of how she got there, and no idea of who he is, Alyssa tries to piece together what exactly happened the night before.

La malquerida

Emilio Fernandez directs Dolores Del Rio and Pedro Armendariz in a classic tale of family and obsession. Raimunda's daughter Acacia hates her stepfather Esteban, and in order to escape her suffocating home life she's accepted a marriage proposal from a man she doesn't even love. But Esteban has become obsessed with Acacia, and in order to ensure that she doesn't leave he's plotting to murder the girl's unsuspecting fiancée. As Esteban's true nature emerges, mother and daughter must band together to support one another and make sure that their family bond remains strong even in the darkest of times.

The Broken

The life of a successful radiologist spirals out of control when she sees the spitting image of herself driving down a London street. While attempting to uncover who the imposter could be, she stumbles into a terrifying mystery that her family and closest friends are somehow involved in, leaving her with no one to trust.

Rosemary

West Germany in '50s is becoming an economic superpower. In such climate, Rosemarie is just one of many enterpreneurs who wants her piece of new fortune. She uses her charms to bring members of West German industrial elite to her bed. There she finds business secrets and later sells them to French competition. However, when scandal errupts, Rosemarie would find that she can't beat the system.

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.

Papa

A 15-year-old boy murders his mother and sister. The father, Nin Yuen, returns to his cafe, haunted by memories of a once-happy family: his wife preparing breakfast, his son playing video games, and his daughter caring for their calico cat. Yuen finds himself unable to hate the living or forget the dead. As they confront life’s cruelty, will Yuen and his son’s strained relationship ever find redemption?