2010s

Toilets Not Temples, a film by David Leonard and Will Benedict, mixes different styles of narrative storytelling such as live journal (rehearsing the breaking news over and over again), news anchor (reporting on catastrophes as if the reporter was reading lottery numbers), and rap video (does anyone ever listen to the lyrics?), only to mention the most important ones. These are wrapped in a (post)apocalyptic film narrative. A narrative that, despite the dominant trend in feature films that must have an end-of-times scenario, finishes with a five-minute scene of a jubilant crowd somewhere in India—celebrating the end of food shortage and the volunteers’ (who fall from the sky) success in containing a spread of giant rats.Read More »

Gulyabani is an entity, a ghoul, an outsider. She’s the restless spirit of a desolate and lonely place. Fethiye Sessiz, a notorious clairvoyant from Izmir in 1970s and 1980s, remembers fractions of her survival from abuse, kidnappings and violence. Recounting the events of her childhood through her diary and letters to her estranged son, Gulyabani recollects the emotional landscape in the most violent period of post-Republic Turkey, where the memory of the future and fragments of the past come together at once. (IMDb)Read More »

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The Dry Valley (Суходол) is the first full feature film by Alexandra Strelyanaya. The film is based on the famous novel written by Nobel Prize laureate Ivan Bunin.
This story unites the destinies of the landowners and their servants, and is considered to be one of the most complete portraits of the Russian life in the late XIX century. It takes place in Dry Valley, a village owned by the noble family of Khrushevs. The story tells about Natalia, a young and naive girl who serves in their country house. We see and experience her love, dedication to her masters, mysticism, exile, betrayal and faith, while the Dry Valley is falling to pieces, slowly but inevitably, as well as the lives of its inhabitants.Read More »

A family finds itself in a dead-end situation. They are only safe behind the walls of their own house and yard. As time vanishes from their home, the shelter slowly turns into a prison. However, nothing can keep the children from dreaming and yearning to be free and the urge to make a decision seems inevitable.

A chamber piece drama that vivisects family values, almost like in ancient tragedies determined by doom.Read More »

Synopsis
As the most southern island off the coast of Italy, Lampedusa is relatively close to Africa. This is where Zakaria got stranded – a Somali journalist who fled his country because of the war. He escaped that, but on Lampedusa he wrestles with fears and existential questions. Here he meets Giulia, an ageing woman facing a personal crisis on the same island. Together and separately, they try to get a grip on life.Read More »

Margherita, a director in the middle of an existential crisis, has to deal with the inevitable and still unacceptable loss of her mother. Read More »

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In eastern Ukraine, society begins to degrade as the effects of propaganda and manipulation begin to surface in this post-truth era.Read More »

Cenk has just arrived back to Istanbul from the United States. Suppressed love slowly begins to resurface after he encounters Ece, a woman whom he had a romantic relationship with in the past. Suddenly, there is a robbery attempt in a quiet and gloomy house, which results in a crime being committed. Ece flees the scene of the crime and in comes Faruk, Cenk’s best friend and Ece’s fiancé. The two best friends struggle to keep their secrets hidden from one another. Intertwining chain of events follow as these three urban lives are put to the ultimate test; their sufferings and disappointments being exposed to the surface for all to see.Read More »

From the website:
After 81 days of solitary detention world famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is put under house arrest. He suffers from sleeping disorder and memory loss, 18 cameras are monitoring his studio and home, police agents follow his every move, and heavy restrictions from the Kafkaesque Chinese authorities weigh him down. Journalists, the art world and his family all want a piece of him and on top of that he is met with a gigantic lawsuit from the Chinese government, soon to be named ‘The Fake Case’. Ai Weiwei is shaken, but during the year on probation he steadily finds new ways to provoke and challenge the mighty powers of the Chinese authorities in his fight for human rights. Ai Weiwei strongly believes that China is ready for change. And he will do everything to make it happen.Read More »