Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.
(segment "Irtebak")
Boy (segment "Anna")
Supporting
Self (segment "À 8 944 km de Cannes")
Self (segment "À 8 944 km de Cannes")
Ticket Man (segment "La Fonderie")
Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.
The film has three stories. First is about local village idiot Paletta, who can not afford the services of a whore and so steals a locket from a holy shrine belonging to local mafia don. Second shows the story of betrayal of Pitrinu (who's dead now) by his lover Fefe. Final episode is about lowlife Lazarus. He is killed by mob boss Toto, but raised from the dead by a local messiah, who is also known as Toto (and is played by same actor).
Machisu is a painter. He never had the success he thinks he is entitled to. Regardless of this, he always remains trying to be successful. His wife Sachiko keeps supporting him, despite all setbacks.
A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.
Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. Through a series of obstacles and relationships, he is brought unexpectedly closer to both an understanding of himself and of his son.
Two scientists are selected to travel across the universe to the source of a distant transmission and potential life.
German director Wim Wenders tries to explore the Tokyo that was depicted in the films of Yasujiro Ozu and finds a very different city.
Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Reports of the Pioneers: Excursion to the country, to the zoo etc.
Caught in the stranglehold of debt and structural adjustment, Africa is fighting for its survival. In the face of disaster, representatives of African society bring an action against international financial institutions. The trial takes place in Bamako, in the yard of a house, among its inhabitants.
A collection of deleted scenes from David Lynch's 2006 surrealist horror Inland Empire.
An orphan bear cub hooks up with an adult male as they try to dodge human hunters.
Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien who has come to Earth in search of water to save his home planet. Aided by lawyer Oliver Farnsworth, Thomas uses his knowledge of advanced technology to create profitable inventions. While developing a method to transport water, Thomas meets Mary-Lou, a quiet hotel clerk, and begins to fall in love with her. Just as he is ready to leave Earth, Thomas is intercepted by the U.S. government, and his entire plan is threatened.
When a childless couple--an ex-con and an ex-cop--decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated.
In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.
Now fully revealed as the ultimate threat to existence, the Anti-Monitor wages an unrelenting attack on the surviving Earths that struggle for survival in a pocket universe. One by one, these worlds and all their inhabitants are vaporized! On the planets that remain, even time itself is shattered, and heroes from the past join the Justice League and their rag-tag allies against the epitome of evil. But as they make their last stand, will the sacrifice of the superheroes be enough to save us all?
During their travel from Chicago to New York, Harry and Sally debate whether or not sex ruins a friendship between a man and a woman. Eleven years later, and they're still no closer to finding the answer.
Several ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.
European mercenaries searching for black powder become embroiled in the defense of the Great Wall of China against a horde of monstrous creatures.
An absurdist farce centering around a school in post-Soviet Latvia. After a rather disgusting prank (someone defecates in the school attic), the tyrannical headmistress deems that no one can leave until the culprit is caught. When the photographer's pet python escapes, havok breaks loose.
A Cuban emigre, living in Miami and involved in an affair with the American seaman who rescued her and her daughter years earlier, must face her husband after he is unexpectedly released from a Cuban prison.
With her life crashing down around her, Linda attempts to navigate her child's mysterious illness, her absent husband, a missing person, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist.
Barcelona, 1980s: in a tough urban neighbourhood inhabited by survivors and ruled by ex-legionnaires Gandhi, Fontán and Andrade - who are fighting a war for control of the streets - Nen and his friends Palito, Topo and Tostao dream of making it big in the world of rumba. But Nen discovers why his father, El Guacho - of whom all Nen has left is the memory of his brilliance as a rumba singer - disappeared many years earlier. He learns how the relationship between his mother, Chata, and Ghandi, leader of the neighbourhood, was connected to his father's disappearance, and so Nen is forced to balance his own desire for vengeance with his longing to triumph.
The late 1950s. Every night, Soviet tractors comb the coast of Latvia looking for signs of anyone who could have infiltrated the Soviet border from the sea. One morning, three Soviet patrolmen discover a woman’s shoe in the sand and footsteps leading to the quaint little village of Liepaja.
Four women, whose kids attend the same preschool class, get together for a "fun mom dinner". When the night takes an unexpected turn, these unlikely new friends realize they have more in common than just marriage and motherhood.
Sick of life in the city after his fiancée deserts him, Merrill Day goes to the country for a rest with his sister and niece. There he meets Joan, who has lived in the hills for her whole life, and they quickly begin a romance. Grekko, however, a hunchback who has loved Joan for years, convinces her that Merrill's sister is really Merrill's wife.
After the death of her husband, Pat learns that he gambled away all of their savings and that she's now destitute. She may even have to leave their apartment. Much to the embarrassment of her daughter Tina, who wants to marry a rich snob, she helps the homeless Dollie, who lives in a cardboard box near her building, and they become friends
After a series of catastrophically failed marriages, Apple is single again. Blame on Apple's attachment is in her opinion, her mother Ingrid. Because this Apple has punished not only with her hippie name, but was in every way a raven mother. When Ingrid spends an All Inclusive vacation in Spain, her mother and daughter are confronted with a dramatic event from their past.
Two women, one American and one British, swap homes at Christmastime following bad breakups. Each woman finds romance with a local man but realizes that the imminent return home may end the relationship.
A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.
A Jewish woman named Jettel Redlich flees Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances, bringing with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown. While Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor.
Jimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas - he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?
Bored and restless, Alice spends much of her time lusting after Jim, a local sawmill worker. When not lusting after him, Alice fills the hours with such pursuits as writing her name on a mirror with vaginal secretions and wandering the fields with her underwear around her ankles. And, in true teenaged tradition, she spends a lot of time writing in her diary.
Ben Holmes, a professional book-jacket blurbologist, is trying to get to Savannah for his wedding. He just barely catches the last plane, but a seagull flies into the engine as the plane is taking off. All later flights are cancelled because of an approaching hurricane, so he is forced to hitch a ride in a Geo Metro with an attractive but eccentric woman named Sara.
Twelve-year-old Sprotte has a 'gang' with her three friends Frieda, Melanie, and Trude. Together, the girls care for Sprotte's grandmother's chickens. The new girl in school, Wilma, wishes to join the group, which Melanie is very unhappy about, and on top of all of that they have an ongoing revalisasion with a group of boys.
Meduzot (the Hebrew word for Jellyfish) tells the story of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a young child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a young bride who breaks her leg in trying to escape from a locked toilet stall, which ruins her chance at a romantic honeymoon in the Caribbean. One of the guests is Joy, a Philippine chore woman attending the event with her employer, and who doesn't speak any Hebrew (she communicates mainly in English), and who is guilt-ridden after having left her young son behind in the Philippines.
For a lifetime, Hedi Ohlsen subordinated her needs to the family. She raised a child, took care of the house and learned the unloved profession of dental assistant for the sake of her husband Johannes. And although John has left her for a younger one, Hedi still cares for her elderly mother-in-law Agnes. As this now blesses the time and Hedi finally wants to start her own life, suddenly her pregnant daughter Leonie is attacking at the door. She has quit, no money and no father for the child Hedi is to raise for her. Is the dream of late freedom back?