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An Honest Liar tells the incredible story of the world-famous magician, escape artist, and world-renowned enemy of deception, James ‘The Amazing’ Randi. The film brings to life Randi’s intricate investigations that publicly exposed psychics, faith healers, and con-artists with quasi-religious fervor. A master deceiver who came out of the closet at the age of 81, Randi created fictional characters, fake psychics, and even turned his partner of 25 years, Jose Alvarez, into a sham guru names Carlos. But Jose was recently discovered to be living under a false identity himself, and it’s not clear whether Randi is still the deceiver – or the deceived.Read More »

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Winner of the Student Critics Jury Award at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival, German director Dietrich Brüggemann’s Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg, 2014) takes on as its burden the wry dissection of hardline Catholicism in fourteen supremely crafted long takes. Dividing each of his film’s chapters according to the traditionally depicted stages of Christ’s condemnation to death, his Crucifixion and his subsequent burial in anticipation of the Resurrection, Brüggemann offers up a darkly comic, contemporary reworking of Catholic doctrine that never shirks away from illuminating both the ridiculous and the sublime (although the former outnumbers the latter).Read More »

Goalie has just been released from prison after spending a year inside for keeping his mouth shut for his best buddy Ueli. He heads for his hometown of Schummertal, a small town where everyone knows you. He’s going to start over, without drugs. Meanwhile, Ueli has gotten ever deeper into drugs, can’t understand why Goalie suddenly wants to be a square. Although they’ve been friends since childhood, everything is different now. Goalie wants a new life but finds his past.Read More »

Egyptian government employee Ahmed Fateh El-Bab goes to the Education Administration Department at the Tahrir Complex in Cairo to transfer his children to another school. He’s treated with insolence and negligence by the clerks. He rebels and loses his temper with one of the clerks. The clerk calls security, Ahmed clashes with them and a bullet is fired by mistake. The security guard runs away and Ahmed takes possession of the rifle. A rumor spreads that terrorists have taken over the complex. Ahmed is then joined by four others including Hind, a woman arrested for soliciting. The “terrorists” are asked for their demands, Ahmed demands a large quantity of barbecued kebabs, and the plot unfolds…Read More »

Synopsis
Inspired by atrocious true events, Nothing Bad Can Happen follows Tore, a young lost soul involved with an underground Christian punk movement who falls in with a dysfunctional family curious to test his seemingly unwavering faith. After a chance encounter helping Benno, a stranded driver and managing to help start his car again in what appears to be a miracle, Tore is invited back to his home and becomes friendly with him, his wife and two kids. Before long, Tore moves in and gradually becomes part of his family. However, Benno can’t resist playing a cruel game, designed to challenge Tore’s beliefs. As his trials become more and more extreme, Tore finds his capacity for love and resilience pushed to its limits, and beyond.Read More »

DURAS AND CINEMA
Assembling archives, documents, getting ghosts to talk, is always dangerous: there is a risk of losing the living. But Dominique Auvray, who was known to the great lady in more than one way (besides being her script girl and editor, she also directed a beautiful film portrait of M.D.), knows what to do when it comes to arranging and adding today’s actors’ voices, and inviting them all (past, present, lasting insistences) to twirl, along with us, in the dance.Read More »

Synopsis:
What do you do when you’re an underachiever at home? You go to Berlin to become an underachiever there. At least that’s true for thousands of “creatives” who flock to the German capital every year. They are mostly young Italians looking for success in times of crisis and, together with those who came as guest workers in the 1970s, they form the third-largest migrant community. One of them is Alessandro Cassigoli, who joins Tania Masi from Florence and cinematographer William Chicarelli from Brazil on an Italian journey through Berlin to cope with his homesickness. That at least should be done with at the end. For what could you possibly long for here, when original Italian mozzarella cheese is actually produced in Berlin and the Italian owner of the pizzeria around the corner comes from Bosnia.Read More »

Sean (Colm O’Leary), an Irish immigrant to America, finds his heart and mind in disarray. Having returned from military service in Afghanistan, he befriends Ike (Will Oldham, A.K.A. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy), a strong willed evangelical, who endeavors to ensure his salvation. Inundated by a relentless fragility. Sean is confronted by a choice between the temptation of certainty and the chaos of the world around him. A meditation on friendship, human need and frailty, NEW JERUSALEM explores the allure and limitations of modern utopian belief.Read More »

Underground explosions cause the snow to flutter down from the trees and the houses to shake. The ground beneath Kiruna is so brittle that soon all the inhabitants of Sweden’s northernmost town will have to move to another place. It seems the mining company has decided everyone’s future – for good or for bad. In her first feature film, which only has sparse dialogue and is more a series of atmospheric images than a linear story, the director describes the feelings of the young people who live here. Markus has no interest in anything except cars and resists all of his parents’ well-intentioned attempts to give him advice. Daniel has big problems with his father who is addicted to alcohol. Both lads are continuously on edge. The sound of heavy machinery, the squealing of conveyor belts and the metallic hammering of drills pervades the air. In winter it’s bitterly cold; in summer it’s sunny and green. The breathtaking beauty of the landscape is ruptured by the huge industrial sites and slag heaps.Read More »