Rifkin’s Festival (2020)

Heart Is Not a Service

Connections of people who have stopped believing in love, though in the depths of their hearts, are just waiting for such true love.

Deeper!

A rather unlucky young theater director finds himself without work and means of subsistence. To somehow make ends meet, on the advice of a friend, he decides to become a director of pornographic films, using creativity and psychological aspects in his work.

Playlist

Sophie, 28, just found out she landed that job at a famous Parisian publisher. Her dream? Not exactly: she would rather see her own graphic work printed… When she tells her boyfriend Jean she is pregnant, everything explodes. They break up and she must return to waiting tables like her friend Julia, an aspiring actress. How can one survive in the city under such conditions?

The Queen of the Lizards

A spaceship is about to come to pick up Javi, so him and Berta have to put an end to their summer love.

Picking Up the Pieces

A small New Mexican village discovers a severed hand that is considered a miracle of God, when it actually belongs to a murdered spouse with a husband in search of it.

Music Hole

Francis, a little accountant officiating in a shady cabaret has marital concerns with his wife. After a violent argument, he wakes up to discover a surprise. It's the macabre and zany starting point of a burlesque thriller.

Wondrous Boccaccio

It's 1348. The plague has brutally hit Florence. A group of then young people, seven women and three men, rebel against the feeling of death that is about to swallow them. They flee the city and find refuge in an abandoned villa in the Tuscan hills. Here, between moral doubts and the tasks needed to survive, they kill time by telling each other stories until they will decide to return. The stories are varied - tragic, bizarre, funny or erotic - but common and central to all of them is the female presence.

Le vie del Signore sono finite

Set in Italy during the 1920s, a barber is in a wheelchair because of a psychosomatic illness after he lost the woman he loves.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her

As the city of Paris and the French people grow in consumer culture, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment with her husband and two children takes to prostitution to help pay the bills.

Hidden Away

The film tackles the life journey of Toni Ligabue, visionary naïf painter who used to draw tigers, lions and jaguars while living among the poplar trees of the boundless Po valley. A harsh life that is a fairy tale too, as a lonely and marginalized kid finds redemption in his art, and a way to express himself and be admired by the world.

My Thoughts Are Silent

Twenty-five-year-old Vadym earns a living recording and selling all kinds of different sounds; nevertheless, he’d rather exchange his life in Kyiv for a better future in far-flung Canada. Thus, when he gets a generous job offer which might help him realise his dream, he jumps at the chance; he soon sets off to record the sounds of animals indigenous to Ukraine and also a rare bird native to the Carpathians. The situation proves somewhat more complicated when Vadym’s companion on the trip turns out to be his mother… To the sounds of a synthesized music score, debuting Ukrainian director Antonio Lukich unfolds a visually creative road movie, in which he demonstrates a highly unusual talent for constructing tragicomic situations.

Mikado

Mikado and Laetitia lead an alternative lifestyle aboard a van with their homeschooled children Nuage and Zephir. One day, their van breaks down, forcing them to lead a somewhat 'normal' life over summer.

Crime Wave

Leyre lives a quiet and comfortable life which ends abruptly when an act of rage of her teenage son leads her to protect him by any means necessary.

My Brother, My Sister

When their father's will forces them to live together, siblings Nik and Tesla — and Tesla's kids — try to overcome their differences to become a family.

Prizzi's Honor

Charley Partanna is a hitman who works for the Prizzis, one of the richest crime families in the US. When he sees Irene Walker, it's love at first sight. But he soon finds that she, too, is a killer for hire. Charley can overlook his suspicions, but he can't turn off his heart. And the couple must remember that even if they love each other, the Prizzis love only money.

The Bad Poet

1936. Giovanni Comini, the youngest Federal in Fascist Italy, is summoned to Rome for a delicate mission: to surveil aging national poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose increasingly restless behavior Mussolini fears could damage his alliance with Nazi Germany. However, after spending time with D'Annunzio, Comini finds himself torn between loyalty to the Party and his fascination with the poet, who will put his burgeoning career at risk.

I Am Cuba

Four vignettes on the lives of the Cuban people in the pre-revolutionary era. In Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista's army.

Three Men and a Cradle

Three young men - Jacques, Pierre, and Michel - share an apartment in Paris, and have many girlfriends and parties. Once, during a party, a friend of Jacques' tells him he has a quite compromising package to deliver, and asks him if he can leave it discreetly at their place. Jacques agrees and, as he works as a steward, flies away for a one-month trip in Japan, telling Pierre and Michel about the package. Then, one of Jacques' former girlfriends drops a baby before their door, making Pierre and Michel believing it is the package they are waiting for. Their lives are then completely changed.

The White Sheik

In Italy, small-town newlyweds Wanda and Ivan Cavalli embark on their honeymoon in the big city of Rome. Ivan dutifully wants to keep appointments with family and church, but Wanda is only interested in meeting her favorite photo-strip star known as "The White Sheik". While Wanda impetuously sneaks away to locate the object of her affections, disconsolate Ivan tries his hardest to keep up appearances with the couple's relatives.

Take My Eyes

One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. With her, she takes only a few belongings and her son, Juan. Antonio soon sets out to look for her. He says Pilar is his sunshine, and what's more, "She gave him her eyes"...

Roma

A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.

Our Father

Two young boys, Valerio and Christian, form a powerful friendship over the summer.

Deconstructing Harry

Writer Harry Block draws inspiration from people he knows, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to become alienated from him as a result.

Mr. Devil

In 1950s Italy, a government official arrives in a rural town to investigate a grisly child murder. The culprit is a young boy who claims he acted in order to kill the Devil itself.

Travis Scott: Look Mom I Can Fly

While crafting his Grammy-nominated album "Astroworld," Travis Scott juggles controversy, fatherhood and career highs in this intimate documentary.

Cat People

After years of separation, Irena Gallier and her minister brother, Paul, reunite in New Orleans. When zoologists capture a wild panther, Irena is drawn to the cat – and zoo curator Oliver to her. Soon, Paul will have to reveal the family secret: that when sexually aroused, they revert into predatory jungle cats.

Diaz - Don't Clean Up This Blood

On July 19–21, 2001, over 200,000 people took to the streets of Genoa to protest against the ongoing G8 summit. Anti-globalization activists clashed with the police, with 23-year-old protester Carlo Giuliani shot dead after confronting a police vehicle. In the aftermath, the police organized a night raid on the Diaz high school, where around a hundred people between unarmed protesters—mostly students—and independent reporters who documented the police brutality during the protests had took shelter. What happened next was called by Amnesty International "the most serious breach of civil liberties in a democratic Western country since World War II."

Northanger Abbey

A young woman's penchant for sensational Gothic novels leads to misunderstandings in the matters of the heart.

Still Life

A council case worker looks for the relatives of those found dead and alone.

Angry Annie

Annie becomes pregnant. Since she doesn't want to keep the child, she meets a movement that performs illegal abortions. But, in the seventies, Annie will encounter allies and opponents along the way.

Scenes from a Marriage

Johan and Marianne are married and seem to have it all. Their happiness, however, is a façade for a troubled relationship, which becomes even rockier when Johan admits that he's having an affair. Before long, the spouses separate and move towards finalizing their divorce, but they make attempts at reconciling. Even as they pursue other relationships, Johan and Marianne realize that they have a significant bond, but also many issues that hinder that connection.

Mighty Aphrodite

When Lenny and his wife, Amanda, adopt a baby, Lenny realizes that his son is a genius and becomes obsessed with finding the boy's biological mother in hopes that she will be brilliant too. But when he learns that Max's mother is Linda Ash, a kindhearted prostitute and porn star, Lenny is determined to reform her immoral lifestyle. A Greek chorus chimes in to relate the plot to Greek mythology in this quirky comedy.

Baggio: The Divine Ponytail

A chronicle biopic of the 22-year career of soccer star Roberto Baggio, including depictions of his difficult debut as a player, his deep rifts with some of his coaches, his triumph over injuries and personal discovery of Buddism.

Small Time Crooks

A loser of a crook and his wife strike it rich when a botched bank job's cover business becomes a spectacular success.

The Place

The fates of an apparently random group of strangers who each come into contact with a mysterious figure who they believe possesses the power to grant any wish, in return for which they must carry out a task he assigns them.

Band of Outsiders

Cinephile slackers Franz and Arthur spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, be it through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory -- which could be just what they want.

Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned

Days after her friends disappear during a trip to a mysterious cave, a girl is approached by a grown man claiming to be one of her missing pals.

Ultras

An aging soccer fanatic faces down the reality of his past while struggling to give himself and a young follower very different futures.

Muriel's Wedding

Socially awkward Muriel Heslop wants nothing more than to get married. Unfortunately, due to her oppressive politician father, Muriel has never even been on a date. Ostracized by her more socially adept friends, Muriel runs into fellow outcast Rhonda Epinstalk, and the two move from their small Australian town to the big city of Sydney, where Muriel changes her name and begins the arduous task of redesigning her life to match her fantasies.

High Fidelity

After his long-time girlfriend dumps him, a thirty-year-old record store owner seeks to understand why he is unlucky in love while recounting his "top five breakups of all time".

The War of the Roses

Barbara and Oliver Rose live happily as a married couple. When Barbara starts to wonder what life would be like without Oliver and likes what she sees, the two begin a campaign to force each other to leave their house, with their divorce lawyer D'Amato caught in the middle.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.

Brazil

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Billy Elliot

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

In My Dreams

Natalie and Nick are frustrated with their luck in romance. After tossing coins into a fountain, the two then begin dreaming about each other. But, according to fountain mythology, they only have a week to turn those dreams into reality.

Wings of Desire

Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.

Wild at Heart

Young lovers Sailor and Lula hit the road to start a new life together away from the wrath of Lula’s deranged, disapproving mother, who has hired a team of hitmen to cut the lovers’ surreal honeymoon short.

Notting Hill

London bookstore owner William Thacker's quiet life turns upside down when a chance encounter with famous actress Anna Scott sparks an unlikely romance challenged by their vastly different worlds.

A Close Shave

Wallace's whirlwind romance with the proprietor of the local wool shop puts his head in a spin, and Gromit is framed for sheep-rustling in a fiendish criminal plot.

Real Love

It follows Kendra as she sets off on her own for the first time to college. When she meet's her film class partner Ben, she tries her hardest to keep things professional.

The Apartment

Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.

The Science of Sleep

A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.

Vanilla Sky

David Aames has it all: wealth, good looks and gorgeous women on his arm. But just as he begins falling for the warmhearted Sofia, his face is horribly disfigured in a car accident. That's just the beginning of his troubles as the lines between illusion and reality, between life and death, are blurred.

Gone with the Wind

The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Bridget Jones is working as a TV host and still dating her new love, barrister Mark Darcy, for a perfect six weeks. But Bridget is jealous of the time Mark spends with a gorgeous co-worker Rebecca and, despite a vacation meant to smooth things over, ends their relationship. On assignment in Thailand with her disreputable ex, Daniel Cleaver - claiming to be a reformed man - they have a short dalliance, and she is arrested at the airport and temporarily jailed on the false accusation of drug smuggling before Mark, seemingly indifferent, comes to the rescue.

Divine Intervention

To get the promotion of their dreams, a mischievous earth-bound angel must get two ex-best friends to finally admit their love to each other.

Ladri di cinema

No-budget satire on the bleak state of Italian film industry & distribution circa late-'80s-to-early-'90s. Mercurio, a down-to-earth, perennially underseen independent filmmaker, tries to get a distribution company to release his latest movie.

Ariel

A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.

My Daughter, the Socialist

Liza falls in love with one of her father's employees. Her socialistic ideas about employment drive her to collide with her father and the sociopolitical status of the time.

Samrat & Co.

A young, beautiful and rich girl, Dimpy Singh, approaches Samrat Tilakdhari, a private investigator, with a strange case. Their garden got ruined for reasons that appear natural but are not known; leading horticulturists have examined the fading plants but they have not been able to identify the probable reason. Further, her father's favorite horse died; once again the reason for the pre-mature death remains a mystery. That's not the end; Dimpy's father Mahendra Pratap Singh, otherwise a very strong and balanced man, has been experiencing deteriorating health. All these aspects when combined makes the case sound weird and that grabs the attention of Samrat. Samrat along with his assistant friend, Chakradhar Pandey, visits the huge estate of Mahendra Pratap Singh. As he starts investigating, he discovers lots of mysterious facts.

Palm Springs

A gambler in need of cash plots a romance between his daughter and a wealthy Englishman. The daughter, however, has plans of her own.

Absurdistan

An allegorical comedy centered on two childhood sweethearts who seem destined for one another until the women of their isolated village, angered by male indifference toward the water shortage, go on a sex strike that threatens the young couple's first night of love.

Angels and Insects

In Victorian England, wealthy patriarch Sir Harald Alabaster invites an impoverished biologist, William Adamson, into his home. There, William tries to continue his work, but is distracted by Alabaster's seductive daughter, Eugenia. William and Eugenia begin a torrid romance, but as the couple become closer, the young scientist begins to realize that dark, disturbing things are happening behind the closed doors of the Alabaster manor.

Dream

In the aftermath of a car crash, a man discovers his dreams are tied to a stranger's sleepwalking.

Eagle vs Shark

Love blossoms for Lily over double Meaty Boy burgers at mid-day when uber-computer nerd Jarrod comes in and leaves with free extra large fries. After gatecrashing Jarrod's party and proving her skills on the game console, Lily goes down to Jarrod's home town with him so he can settle an old score with a past school bully.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Kostas (Dinos Iliopoulos), a small-time lawyer is tasked with accompanying Smaro (Smaroula Giouli), a young rich heiress, from the country to Athens where she wants to sell her estate. Kostas though starts a day late and Smaro goes to Athens by herself. In the end after much wandering and misunderstandings Kostas will meet Smaro who will fall in love with him.

Nostalgia

A Russian poet, Andrei and his interpreter, Eugenia travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.

Immortality

A vampire in London is searching for the ideal woman to 'redeem' him.

Games of Love and Chance

A group of teenagers living in a housing project in the outskirts of Paris rehearse a scene from Marivaux's play of the same name. Krimo is determined not to take part, but after developing feelings for Lydia, he quickly assumes the main role and love interest in the play.

Scarlet River

Unable to find open range near Hollywood, western actor Tom Baxter and his troop head to Judy Blake's ranch to shoot their film.

Mind Memory

Microlove is a sci-fi romance movie about an outgoing wealthy young Thai man, Pat, who works at a Korean software company. He privately develops a software and catches the interest of the president’s daughter, Min Ji and they create a beautiful love story.

Girl Upstairs Who Likes Big Things

A female college student upstairs who likes big things! Instead of her boyfriend, she became more addicted to sex with the owner downstairs.

The Enchanted Cottage

The Enchanted Cottage is a romantic retelling of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's classic play. When socialite Oliver Bradshaw is disfigured by war wounds, he hides from his father, Golden Globe Nominee Richard Hatch, to convalesce in seclusion at a Cottage he rented for his originally planned honeymoon. Laura Pennington, a shy plain nurse is hired on to care for Oliver. The two begin developing feelings for each other and ultimately fall in love. After they marry, they discover the enchantment of the cottage has the power to transform.

The Reader

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

Summer Things

Two couple of friends, one very rich, the other almost homeless, decide to go on Holiday. Julie, a single mother, joins them too. Once at seaside, it starts a complicate love cross among them that will involve also a transsexual, a jealous brother, a Latin Lover and another nervous stressed couple. Not to mention about the daughter of one of them that is secretly in Chicago with one of her father's employees... At the end of the summer, all of them will join the same party...

A Cock and Bull Story

Steve Coogan, an arrogant actor with low self-esteem and a complicated love life, is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's.

Calm Yourself

A recently-fired advertising executive starts his own company, Confidential Services, to help clients solve their unusual and problematic situations.

Last Action Hero

After his father's death, a young boy finds solace in action movies featuring an indestructible cop. Given a magic ticket by a theater manager, he is transported into the film and teams up with the cop to stop a villain who escapes into the real world.

Elizabethtown

Drew Baylor is fired after causing his shoe company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. To make matters worse, he's also dumped by his girlfriend. On the verge of ending it all, Drew gets a new lease on life when he returns to his family's small Kentucky hometown after his father dies. Along the way, he meets a flight attendant with whom he falls in love.