Wanted for killing his boss, Manuel flees with his wife Rosa to the sertão, the barren landscape of Northern Brazil. Thrust into a primordial violent region, Manuel and Rosa come under the influence and control of a series of frightening figures.
A new incarnation of Cangaceiro bandits, led by Coirana, has risen in the badlands. A blind landowner hires Antônio to wipe out his old nemesis. Yet after besting Coirana and accompanying the dying man to his mountain hideout, Antônio is moved by the plight of the Cangaceiro’s followers. The troubled hitman turns revolutionary, his gun and machete aimed towards his former masters.
Following a newspaper ad, ordinary women tell part of their life stories to director Eduardo Coutinho, which are then re-enacted by actresses, blurring the barriers between truth, fiction and interpretation.
Eldorado, a fictitious country in America, is sparkling with the internal struggle for political power. In the eye of this social convulsion, the jaded journalist Paulo Martins opposes two equally corrupt political candidates: a pseudopopulist and a conservative. In this context, Paulo is torn between the madness of the elite and the blind submission of the masses. But, in this complex tropical reality, nothing really is what it seems to be.
After her boyfriend commits suicide, a young woman attempts to use the unpublished manuscript of a novel and a sum of money he left behind to reinvent her life.
Brazilian badlands, April 1910. Tonho is ordered by his father to avenge the death of his older brother. The young man knows that if he commits this crime, his life will be divided in two: the twenty years he has already lived and the few days he has left to live, before the other family avenges their son's death. He is torn between fulfilling his ancestral duty and rebelling against it, urged by his younger brother Pacu. That's when a tiny travelling circus passes through the vast badlands where Tonho's family lives.
In a little Sicilian village at the edge of a forest, Giuseppe, a boy of 13, vanishes. Luna, his classmate who loves him, refuses to accept his mysterious disappearance. She rebels against the silence and complicity that surround her, and to find him she descends into the dark world which has swallowed him up and which has a lake as its mysterious entrance.
In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.
In Bahia, an educated black man returns to his home fishing village to try and free people from mysticism, in particular the Candomblé religion, which he considers a factor of political and social oppression, with tragic outcome.
Buffalo Bill plans to put on his own Wild West sideshow, and Chief Sitting Bull has agreed to appear in it. However, Sitting Bull has his own hidden agenda, involving the President and General Custer.
During an interrogation between a judge and a defendant, we are beset by a fascinating game of power and seduction that is both offensive and confusing.
A story of love, sex and destiny. Youthful Kieri and Ryo share a deep and passionate love for each other. Kieri sets off in search of his soul mate after Ryo is kidnapped. A female spirit is with Kieri as he searches for Ryo. Ryo escapes and the pair will have to work hard to prove their love for each other as obstacles are placed in their path along the way.
After visiting a fortune teller, Zulmira is informed that a blonde woman will threaten her peace. After talking to her husband Toninho, she suspects that her cousin Glorinha may be that blonde.
Eleven disparate adolescents, gathered for a skiing camp at an isolated winter resort, find themselves preyed upon and set against one another by their three mysterious instructors.
A Japanese melodrama about three sisters, rival fashion companies, and attempted murder by overheated bathroom.
Assumpta Serna stars as the brilliant and beautiful poet Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz in this magnificent portrayal of 17th Century Mexico. In order to pursue her love of writing, Juana enters the convent and gains international renown. When the Inquisition comes, the local Vicereine becomes Juana's protectress and erotic muse, and soon begins a thrilling romance of startling passion and intensity.
Two aging crooks are given two weeks to repay a debt to a woman named The American. They recruit their recently deceased partner's son to help them break into a laboratory and steal the vaccine against STBO, a sexually transmitted disease that is sweeping the country. It's spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment.
While traveling with his father, young Alec becomes fascinated by a mysterious Arabian stallion that is brought on board and stabled in the ship he is sailing on. When it tragically sinks both he and the horse survive only to be stranded on a deserted island. He befriends it, so when finally rescued both return to his home where they soon meet Henry Dailey, a once successful trainer. Together they begin training the horse to race against the fastest ones in the world.
Clara, a vibrant former music critic and widow with flowing tresses is the only remaining apartment owner in a beautiful older building targeted for demolition by ruthless luxury high-rise developers. Clara proves to be a force to be reckoned with as she thwarts the builders plans to kick her out of the apartment.
After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.
As a Hollywood actress begins to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world becomes nightmarish and surreal.
The decade of the hippies is at an end and the 80's are approaching fast. Carl and Robert are two doped out guys who lives in harmony with the world around them and let life pass by in an eternal hash high. They have been peddling hashish for a decade, hitting an all time high with this last batch: 45 Kilos of pure, high grade Nepalese Hashish. Following the delivery, the police are on their tail.
Reckless playboy Bob Merrick crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town’s only resuscitator while a local hero, Dr. Phillips, dies waiting for the life-saving device. Merrick then tries to right his wrongs with the doctor’s widow, Helen, falling in love with her in the process.
Murali (Balakrishna) is pursued by the brothers of Peddaraju (Sayaji Shinde), who is cooling his heels in jail. We are not told why they are look after him. Murali is the loving brother of a handicapped woman, whom he carries to the college everyday. Of course, Murali has fun escapades with a girl in his neighborhood (Sada). And slowly but surely we are let into the past of Murali and as to what happened between him and the arch villain. It had something to do with Peddaraju's sister (Tanushree Dutta).
Widowed Avanti Singh lives in an Indian village along with her two sons Dharam and Govinda, and a married daughter. Dharam marries Pavitra, who has a twin sister, Geeta, who meets and falls in love with fellow collegian Govinda. Pavitra has an admirer in Dhaneshwar, a local wealthy land owner and aspiring politician, but Pavitra shuns him. Govinda and Pavitra share a special relationship and Dharam suspects them of having an affair, arguments ensue and Govinda leaves. He returns home to find that Avanti had prevented Dhaneshwar from molesting Pavitra, and Dharam, who went to avenge this humiliation, was killed. Enraged, Govinda rushes to kill Dhaneshwar, but ends up killing someone else instead, and is arrested and put in jail. With Dharam dead and Govinda behind bars, Dhaneshwar seizes the opportunity and this time does molest Pavitra. Who will avenge Pavitra and Dharam now?
"End of the Spear" is the story of Mincayani, a Waodani tribesman from the jungles of Ecuador. When five young missionaries, among them Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, are speared to death by the Waodani in 1956, a series of events unfold to change the lives of not only the slain missionaries' families, but also Mincayani and his people.
Anna lives with her father Karl someplace in the outskirts of northern Norway. Karl killed his ex-wife and threw her newborn coloured child into the sea when he discovered that she obviously had been unfaithful. Now Karl is being haunted by her ghost and is developing a serious drinking problem. Anna is looking for the love of her life, but there aren't many bachelors around - until they discovers another small family on the other side of the mountain. They meet a semi-alcoholized widow on Karl's age, her son Peder, and her black adopted son, Ante, that arrived from the sea on a piece of wood.
A boy is left alone in a Jewish neighborhood in the year of 1970, where both world cup and dictatorship happen in Brazil.
Just outside her apartment, Ana finds Dina, a naked, mysterious and confused young woman. Ana invites Dina in and calls a couple of persons so that they can meet her. Pamela and Raymundo, human traffickers, show up to negotiate the buying of Dina, who claims that she comes from the future and that she is actually on a mission to investigate how far human evil has grown in Mexico by the year 2015. The young woman provokes an unsolvable dispute between the traffickers, who end up dead.
Mia, an ex-prostitute, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the abusive Quan (Sunny Pang, who also stars in Headshot in this year’s Festival lineup), a butcher who runs a roast meat shop. When she meets sensitive funeral director Wu, their passion for one another escalates into an affair. But the path to true love is fraught with jealousy, forcing someone to make a deadly move.
Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, the present. When a young Guarani-Kaiowá woman commits suicide, Nádio leads his community to form a protest camp on the borders of a local farm that sits on their ancestral burial ground.
Kii, a young woman who isn't good at studying or sports, finds her passion in life through amateur photography. While trying to take a good shot one afternoon, she meets fledgling singer Yuu by chance and together they move towards the light of accomplishing their dreams.
An idealistic law school graduate comes to work in the New York D.A.'s office. Her first case leads her straight to her father, a veteran New York cop who may be involved in corruption.
In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.
Based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he and best friend Alberto Granado had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s.
To avoid seeing Marjorie Dare, Jim Allen visits Stewart Leighton at the latter's country home. (Five years earlier Jim's engagement to Marjorie Dare was broken when her mother was killed and his father disappeared.) Through certain circumstance Marjorie also becomes Leighton's guest, and Jim moves out into the woods. There he meets Smiles, a little girl in the care of strange old Ben Tangleface. Leighton wishes to wed Marjorie for her money and is trying forcefully to persuade her to accept him when Jim comes to the rescue. But Ben, his memory stirred by the sight of Leighton, kills him. Explanations reveal Smiles to be Dorothy's sister and Ben, Jim's father. He was wounded while defending Marjorie's mother, whom Leighton killed.
Miguel, a debutant director, and his young team live a series of tribulations during the shootings of their first film, which unrolls between Lisbon, Venice, Paris and Madrid.
Claudio, a womanizer, contracts AIDS due to his promiscuous lifestyle, and, in the hospital, he meets Mauricio, a homosexual Evangelist who is also infected and will discover Jesus to Claudio.
During a lunar eclipse, seven friends gather for dinner and decide to play a game in which they must share with each other the content of every message, email or phone call they receive throughout the evening.