
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.

7.4With his signature pitch-black sense of humor, Ricky Gervais takes the stage at the London Palladium in this provocative stand-up comedy special.
7.4In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.
7.6This unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.
6.3Five stories, five maestros, five styles and one common denominator: maximum creativity. Studio 4°C, the coolest label on the planet, invites us for the second time to an exclusive reunion of a talents with a group film, full of freedom and ingenuity, that goes from Mahiro Maeda's classic anime, to Kazuto Nakazawa's intricate urban sketches, Shinya Ohira's bedlam of color and Tatsuyuki Tanaka's animated cyberpunk. And as if that wasn't enough, Koji Morimoto, the studio big boss, is charge of putting the icing on the cake with fantafabulous piece of abstract poetry that would make a VJ die of ecstasy. The party of the year.
7.8In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.
5.7Chinese animated fantasy comedy based on classic stories.
5.9A Little man goes to jail, and is everyones punching bag, until with the help of a bug he takes down the biggest meanest guy in prison.
7.2A woman in her sixties embarks on a journey through the western United States after losing everything in the Great Recession, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.
7.6In turn of the century London, a magical nanny employs music and adventure to help two neglected children become closer to their father.
8.3Rising pop star Mima quits singing to pursue a career as an actress. After she takes up a role on a popular detective show, her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered. Harboring feelings of guilt and haunted by visions of her former self, Mima's reality and fantasy meld into a frenzied paranoia.
7.8NYPD cop John McClane's plan to reconcile with his estranged wife is thrown for a serious loop when, minutes after he arrives at her office's Christmas Party, the entire building is overtaken by a group of terrorists. With little help from the LAPD, wisecracking McClane sets out to single-handedly rescue the hostages and bring the bad guys down.
7.2When a litter of dalmatian puppies are abducted by the minions of Cruella De Vil, the parents must find them before she uses them for a diabolical fashion statement.
7.1A beautiful girl, Snow White, takes refuge in the forest in the house of seven dwarfs to hide from her stepmother, the wicked Queen. The Queen is jealous because she wants to be known as "the fairest in the land," and Snow White's beauty surpasses her own.
7.9101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
7.6Emperor Kuzco is turned into a llama by his ex-administrator Yzma, and must now regain his throne and his human form with the help of Pacha, a gentle llama herder.
7.1When the gentle woodcarver Geppetto builds a marionette to be his substitute son, a benevolent fairy brings the toy to life. The puppet, named Pinocchio, is not yet a human boy. He must earn the right to be real by proving that he is brave, truthful, and unselfish.
7.2Cady Heron is a hit with The Plastics, the A-list girl clique at her new school, until she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George.
7.9When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.
6.0The second Timeless Medley film mainly recaps Eternal Summer and a little bit of the first season. It focuses on Rin and Samezuka. It also includes new scenes and characters from High Speed.
6.8This film consists of all-new stories that are direct continuations of the previous two films and are told in four episodic parts. The four short stories take place in March as Haruka Nanase is about to graduate from Iwatobi High School.
7.7Yuuta and Rikka are in their third year of high school. One day in Spring, Touka declares that she will take Rikka to Italy with her, as her job has stabilized there and thinks they should migrate together as a family. Touka is also worried about Rikka not being competent enough to advance to universities in Japan. The gangs from the club suggested Yuuta, who doesn't want to be separated, to elope with Rikka!! A runaway drama throughout Japan begins.
7.0Autumn is in the air as the Kitauji High School concert band prepares for the National Competition. The band hears troubling news that Asuka Tanaka, vice president of the club and one of the key euphonium players in the band, may quit! Asuka is beautiful and charismatic and everyone relies on her, but she also has a cool side and never reveals her true self. Kumiko doesn’t get along with Asuka initially, but her feelings change when she learns that Asuka may actually drop out. Asuka has feelings about the euphonium that she cannot tell anyone else…
7.0Taisho's father plans to construct an apartment building on a vacant land he owns behind his own house. The spot is a playing field for the kids in the neighborhood who will fight to keep it as it is. Akko, being a friend to those in need, uses the powers of her magical compact to investigate and sway the decision to keep the kids happy.
6.0Akko and her friends are on summer vacation, and what could be more of a summer event than a beach trip? A festival is occurring around the beach, and while everyone is enjoying the festivities, Taisho and his gang head to a supposedly cursed island. Does Akko have anything to do with it?
6.8A year after her boyfriend dies from gun violence, a young woman prepares to graduate high school as she navigates an uncertain future alongside a community that is searching for ways to heal.
7.1Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.
7.4A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.
6.7After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Across the country, an engaged woman becomes convinced that they belong together, despite their never having met. Will their paths collide despite the odds?
6.6One day, Mana Aida receives a wedding dress from her mother and grandmother that they had worn in the past. While thinking about who she would wear this beside someday, a mysterious man named Marsh appears, and Mana is thrown back into the past. She was happy to see her grandmother she loved and her old dog Maro, but she then realizes that Alice and Rikka aren't there because memories have been altered. In order to save precious memories, the future, dreams and hope, Mana transforms into Cure Heart.
0.0Collective screening of the Academy Award nominated short films from the Animation category for 2011. (1) Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage (Travel Journal), Sacrebleu Prod., France, 11 min. (2) Let's Pollute, no company listed, USA, 6 min. (3) The Gruffalo, Magic Light Pic., UK/Germany, 27 min. (4) The Lost Thing, Passion Pic., Australia/UK, 15 min. (5) Day & Night, Pixar, USA, 6 min. (6) Urs, Filmakademie Baden-Württemburg, Germany, 10 min. (7) The Cow That Wanted To Be a Hamburger, Bill Plympton Studios, USA, 6 min.
1.0Following the Heath Oslo incident, the existence of the US-Japanese anti-terror organization CIRS has become a matter of public knowledge. CIRS has been rebuilt from the ground up, and its most covert functions spun off to a new agency: SORD (Social Ops, Research & Development). The goal of SORD is to train a new generation of operatives to defend the country against future threats. To that end, the organization has established a series of schools up and down the country. Mihama Academy, more-or-less left to rot after its abrupt closure, has been given new purpose as one such 'specialist training school'. It now entrusts the misfit girls who attend it with guns and live ammunition. No matter how much life grinds them down, what future awaits these girls, who've themselves chosen the path of the gun?
6.5Sara deals with her grief by trying to complete her late husband’s bucket list. Injuring herself on one of the tasks leads her to meet Dr. Ryan. A widower himself, Ryan begins to help Sara complete the bucket list. The two get close and Sara doesn’t want to betray her husband’s memory, so she stops seeing Ryan. However, Ryan doesn’t give up and helps Sara realize that everyone deserves a second chance at love
6.6Following her sister's disappearance, Jax and her niece Roki must stick together. Desperate to keep what's left of their family intact, Jax and Roki defy the law and hit the road on a journey to the Grand Nation Powwow in Oklahoma City.
4.0A young Marshallese boy, Labro, wakes up one morning anxious for his grandmother to fulfill her promise of buying him ice cream. She agrees, but demands that he do some work first, commanding him -- with a sweep of her arm -- to "clean up all the garbage everywhere." As Labro goes out the door of his rustic shack, he realizes that one of his zoris is missing. His grandmother, angry because he has yet again lost one of his flip flops, gives him an ultimatum: "Do not come back to the house until you have zoris on both of your feet." So Labro begins his quest under the hot island sun to clean up 'everywhere' and to find his other zori...
4.7When Mandie Shaw is thrust into Miss Heathwood’s School for Girls, she struggles to grasp the school’s new rules and the finer points of high society. As Mandie tries to stay out of hot water with Miss Heathwood and discover what the headmistress seems to have against Christmas, she stumbles upon a mystery in the school’s forbidden attic. Will Mandie ignore the warning to flee or try to get to the bottom of the strange noises beyond the boarded-up doors? Uncovering the truth may lead to telling a lie, but it might also unlock the memories of a long-forgotten Christmas.
6.0The Wild Chicks are slowly growing out of their youthful gang years and have to face the worries of growing up on the sidelines of a big class trip before graduation.
