A Compendium of Brief Encounters with People I Might Be, Vol. 1 (2020)

Magaluf Ghost Town

At the height of the summer tourist season, the Spanish beach town Magaluf turns into a hellscape of the low-cost travel industry. For eight weeks every year, over one million mostly British vacationers ride an alcohol-soaked tide of public urination, fisticuffs and ambulance sirens for recreation. Instead of assembling a clip-reel of "balconing," when drunk idiots jump into hotel pools from their balconies, filmmaker Miguel Ángel Blanca crafts a far deeper and atmospheric look at a place where visitors and locals alike are driven by pleasure. Long-time resident Maria has little time left, so she takes in a seasonal lodger who listens to her relive her glory days. An enterprising real estate agent peddles an extravagant development, while a young gay man drifts without any plans beyond robbing a tourist for kicks. Part ghost story, part foreboding parable, this is a stylish and vivid impression of people and a place dreaming of escape. Myrocia Watamaniuk (Hot Docs)

The Other Side of Sadness

In a hybrid film, both documentary and fiction, five young women describe the feeling of grief when losing a parent at a young age. Anna returns to her father's home, a year after his death. In one weekend, she lives through a storm of emotions as these may come and go in the process of grief.

Liam

Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.

The Land of the Enlightened

A group of Kuchi children are living in a minefield around Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. They dig out anti-personal mines in order to sell the explosives to child workers mining in a Lappis Lazulli mine. The trajectory of the blue precious stones goes towards Tajikistan and China, through an area controlled by child soldiers. When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...

Among Us

Based on the jaw-dropping contact accounts of individuals from around the world, AMONG US explores the suspicious phenomenon of non-human presence on Earth, from angels to ETs, and unveils the many ways they may be interacting, communicating and transferring subliminal information into our consciousness and potentially our DNA. The film ultimately shows that the interconnectedness of all species may be beneficial and most likely inevitable for the evolution of an intelligent universe. This film has been released in some territories under the title: "ET Contact: They are here".

ROTA

Plot unavailable

Someday the night will come

In a small, unassuming town in the heart of the Yucatán Peninsula, Virginio carries an invisible burden. The whispers of Xtabay, a Mayan mythical figure who seduces and portends doom, echo through his days, intertwined with the legacy of his father and his ancestors lost to alcoholism and despair. Surrounded by death, Virginio searches for a way to live with dignity and peace, before Xtabay's voice claims him as well.

Fishing Dreams

Someone tells of a dream he had, which was to go fishing and get lots of fish, this kind of dream is often associated with a symbol of good luck. But he was afraid that the dream would happen again and again, from generation to generation.

And there was evening and there was morning. The first day

With the lack of personal video archive, Youhanna (the filmmaker) creates false memories using lost home videotapes shot between the 1990s and 2000s in Europe, Africa, and Asia, with the help of an Artificial intelligence programme, until a real, personal video archive surfaces, transporting him into the past to relive one more memory with his late mother.

Binibining Detainee

A slice of the eccentric lives of Roca and Sammy, two members of the Gay Inmates Organization detained at the Pampanga Provincial Jail, intertwined with animated sequences of an inmate's incarceration story.

Fragments on the flow

Fragments from Brussels, about the flow of the city, A cinema, A body, A film, and a wind that blows through the town. The film is a Schizomentry experience that blends real stories and fiction. After all, where is the border?

Ghostbusters

After losing their academic posts at a prestigious university, a team of parapsychologists goes into business as proton-pack-toting "ghostbusters" who exterminate ghouls, hobgoblins and supernatural pests of all stripes. An ad campaign pays off when a knockout cellist hires the squad to purge her swanky digs of demons that appear to be living in her refrigerator.

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

After a horrifying PredAlien crash-lands near a small Colorado town, killing everyone it encounters and producing countless Alien offspring, a lone Predator arrives to "clean up" the infestation.

Underworld

Vampires and werewolves have waged a nocturnal war against each other for centuries. But all bets are off when a female vampire warrior named Selene, who's famous for her strength and werewolf-hunting prowess, becomes smitten with a peace-loving male werewolf, Michael, who wants to end the war.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

A shipwrecked sailor stumbles upon a mysterious island and is shocked to discover that a brilliant scientist and his lab assistant have found a way to combine human and animal DNA—with horrific results.

The Fly

Industrialist François Delambre is called late at night by his sister-in-law, Helene Delambre, who tells him that she has just killed her husband, André. Reluctant at first, she eventually explains to the police that André invented a matter transportation apparatus and, while experimenting on himself, a fly entered the chamber during the matter transference.

Species II

Having just returned from a mission to Mars, Commander Ross isn't exactly himself. He's slowly becoming a terrifying alien entity with one goal -- to procreate with human women! When countless women suffer gruesome deaths after bearing half-alien offspring, scientist Laura Baker and hired assassin Press Lennox use Eve, a more tempered alien clone, to find Ross and his brood. Before long Eve escapes to mate with Ross.

Dead 7

A ragtag group of gunslingers try to make their way in a post-apocalyptic world. The twist to this world is that it’s just not barren and dangerous, it’s also filled with flesh-eating zombies. The gunslingers will find themselves stranded in a town and forced to make a choice on either to save the citizens of the town or save themselves.

Metamorphosis

A crazy scientist creates a dinosaur hybrid using different genetical material. After the giant monster escapes, it spreads chaos across the laboratory...

The Island of Dr. Moreau

A ship-wrecked man floats ashore on an island in the Pacific Ocean. The island is inhabited by a scientist, Dr. Moreau, who in an experiment has turned beasts into human beings.

A Spot for Frog

Locked out of the school art room, a creative non-binary teen named Frog grapples with anxiety as they seek a new place to eat lunch. Imagination blurs with reality in this hybrid work of live action and animation about finding a place to belong.

BloodRayne

In 18th-century Romania, after spending much of her life in a traveling circus, human-vampire hybrid Rayne escapes and plots to take down her father, Kagan, the evil vampire king. When she's discovered by three vampire hunters, she manages to convince them to spare her life and join her cause. But slaying a vampire as powerful as Kagan will be no easy task.

Return of the Fly

Fifteen years after his father's experiments with matter transmission fail, Philippe Delambre and his uncle François attempt to create a matter transmission device on their own. However, their experiments have disastrous results, turning Philippe into a horrible half-man, half-fly creature.

Annihilation

A biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don't apply.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

Bella Swan and Edward Cullen's honeymoon phase is abruptly disrupted by betrayals and unforeseen tragedies that endanger their world.

Underworld: Awakening

Having escaped years of imprisonment, vampire warrioress Selene finds herself in a changed world where humans have discovered the existence of both Vampire and Lycan clans and are conducting an all-out war to eradicate both immortal species. Now Selene must battle the humans and a frightening new breed of super Lycans to ensure the death dealers' survival.

The death of the minotavr

The death of the minotavr talks about the concept of the heroine's journey. Suffering, horror and exhaustion lead the protagonist to a process of transformation, abyss and expiation, because only murdering to minotaur and everything he represents is possible to return to life. From the female gaze, it shows the depth of the emotional wounds caused by domestic violence; the same one that the surrealist Dora Maar lived and that ask why, as a society, instead of killing the minotaur, we blindly continue to send him women only to be devoured and ask them why they simply did not fight, why they did not try get out of the labyrinth.

15'

In an increasingly virtual world, what are three rappers and a fan doing barricaded in a clothing store? If Andy Warhol were alive, he would say they are looking for their 15 minutes of fame, but what will we say?

Hybrids

When marine wildlife has to adapt to the pollution surrounding it, the rules of survival change.

Blue Moon Once

John the Baptist finds himself in a Holešovice silo, a wanderer roams across Prague´s brownfields and several women face their fathers.

The Colour

The old farmer Ammi tries to understand the traumatic loss of his friend, who died in a mysterious way. We follow him as he gets confronted by the demons of his past and he tries to overcome his fear.

Were-Flutter: Darkest Desire

After picking up a strange but hypnotizing gem on the street during her walk back home, Hope, an everyday woman begins her striking transformation into a fearless creature. Intimidating at first, Hope ends up letting herself bask in the glory of her darkest desire.

The Story of The Escort Cosworth

Everything Ford had hoped for - and more, much, much more. Not many cars become legends the moment they roll out of the factory but Ford's Escort RS Cosworth is one of them. Hand-built to take on the emerging Japanese dominance in World Rally, the "Cossie" proved a success on the forecourt as much as on the World's rally stages. But what is the true story behind this memorable car? Was the prototype really a hacked-about Sierra? Was it really driven incognito up and down the A12 This fascinating 1990s film, finally available on DVD, holds all the answers as the men behind the project explain its development… and the men behind the wheel show us what it was made of!

Brian May: The Badgers, the Farmers and Me

Following Sir Brian May over a decade-long journey to understand the crisis caused by bovine tuberculosis and his opposition to the controversial badger cull, implemented to curb the spread of the disease in cattle. It’s a story surrounded by controversy, but one little known to many - a tale of tragedy for both humans and animals.

The New Abolitionists

Filmmaker Christina Zorich follows abolitionists throughout Southeast Asia that have dedicated their lives to rescuing, rehabilitating, preventing and prosecuting those involved in human sex trafficking.

Soviet Union: The Rise and Fall - Part 1

Historic Russian battles to repel invaders serve as prelude to the story of events that redrew the map of Eastern Europe and parts of Asia in the 20th century. Following the turmoil of the Bolshevik Revolution, Communist Russia faces the venom of Nazi aggression. 1940's film footage reveals the harsh reality of total war, as the Red Army and Soviet civilians alike confront a brutal and tenacious enemy. The following decades are darkened by tensions between the USSR and foreign powers, and violent measures taken to silence voices of dissent. Finally, the Soviet people's yearning for a freer society leads to accelerating reforms and the ultimate dissolution of the USSR.

Nothing Like Before – The Music of Clube da Esquina

Nothing Like Before delves into the creation of the Clube da Esquina Album (Brazil, 1972). Considered by many music critics one of the best albums of all time, it presented to the world musicians like Milton Nascimento, Lô Borges, Toninho Horta, Beto Guedes and Wagner Tiso.

KIX

Handheld skate video meets hardcore social realism in a sensational film with the energy of a three-chord punk song and an unruly group of street kids in front of the camera, shot over 10 wild years of their young lives.