Investigating Paradise(2018)

Keep Your Chin Up!(hu)

On the Spring of 1945 the Jackson circus is heading towards the border with the clown Peti and Aida, the elephant. They have to play for the Hungarian Fascists, while Peti is hiding the Jew Annuska and Sanyika.

Dogs: The Rise and Fall of an All-Girl Bookie Joint(en)

Four twenty-something women, crammed into a small Manhattan apartment, have dead end jobs (or no job) and overdue rent. They discover cash and self esteem when they set up an illegal bookie joint in their kitchen. Suddenly they can pay their bills; they imagine joining the middle class; they even make corporate donations to charity. The film also explores their relationships with men, most of whom are unfit for anything lasting, and with their mothers, who appear in surreal, imagined conversations with their daughters.

Main Street(en)

Eric Buford (Eric Streit) was willing to do just about anything to break out of his small Southern town. When Andrea Patterson (Andrea Griffin) arrives to oversee the opening of a huge corporate mega store, Eric thinks that he finally has a ticket out of "Small town USA". Eric's plans change when he discovers Food Demon's plot to destroy all of the Mom & Pop businesses on Main Street, including his grandparents' grocery store. Before Eric knows it, he is thrust in the middle of angry mobs, shady land deals and greedy businessmen that consider murder to be all in a days work. After his grandpa is slain before his eyes, Eric joins forces with his fellow Main Street merchants in a quest to save their town. Their mission: Run corporate America out of town on a rail..and live to tell about it.

Gwiazda Piołun(pl)

Looking Like My Mother(en)

LOOKING LIKE MY MOTHER is a film about family relationships and personal destiny, about realizing one's own potential and one's limitations. It traces the individual experience, showing the emptiness one can feel as well as the discovery of a sense of meaning in life. It is a very personal and courageous film that doesn’t search for scientific explanations but instead uses documentary and fictional material to weave an intimate biography. This combination of perception and memory suggests a deep reconciliation and allows tender feelings of a mother’s love to emerge.

Let It Bleed(en)

An ordinary man takes revenge only to find it's made him the target of a major crime lord and his army of psychopaths and professional killers.

At an Uncertain Time(pt)

It’s 1942, and Portugal languishes under dictatorship and WWII rages just beyond its borders. Secrets, half-truths, and mistrust prevail in the state security office of chief inspector Varga, who makes professional privilege a cover for his unprofessional interest in a boldly carnal refugee and her alleged brother. Director/writer Saboga (screenwriter for Raúl Ruiz’s MYSTERIES OF LISBON) saturates the dark world of this predatory tale with steamy eroticism and paranoia, starting with the incestuous desires of his bi-curious adolescent daughter and including the family maid.

The Art of Political Murder(en)

An investigation into the truth behind the murder of Guatemalan Bishop, Juan Gerardi, who was killed in 1998 just days after trying to hold the country's military accountable for the atrocities committed during its civil war.

Sanwri - Love Beyond Gender(hi)

Bhanwar, a simpleton young man in the rural Rajasthan wants a bride for him but gets duped. Instead of a woman, he is married off to a transgender person – Sanwri. Having no resort Bhanwar and his uncle decide to keep Sanwri for their household work but fearing the social ostracization they also try to keep her actual identity a secret. Bhanwar and Sanwri eventually fall in love and fight to survive as a couple in a conservative, oppressive society where marriages are meant to take place only between a man and a woman, and traditional norms are more important than humanity.

Inferno(sl)

Tragedy doesn’t come any more Dickensian in tone or Shakespearian in scope than this dark social drama of the disintegration of a little family of four. A series of small debts triggers the swift domino effect that unleashes chaos on a well-meaning working class dad who has the bad judgment to speak truth to power.

Hide(en)

HIDE is a contained psychological thriller about one resilient wife’s (Nadine Malouf) fight to escape her husband’s (Ben Samuels) escalating gaslighting and abuse during lockdown. The female-centric genre film is lensed in the wife’s evolving perspective as she slowly comes to see what is happening to her and finds the support to fight back. Visually mesmerizing and emotionally arresting, the film’s pace and pathos pull us into a story that will feel uncomfortably familiar to too many of us.

Chicken Phoenix(ja)

Childhood friends Sota, and Rakuto are on a journey to find the Phoenix, which shouldn't exist. As adults, there remains a dark shadow over each of them as their lives have progressed, thus they seek a bit of escapism in their travels. Parallel to their own story, is the mysterious bride. Not to mention a deserted youkai snack bar in the underworld, a gang from an SM Castle, an agricultural rapper, a young man on a bike trip, a monk peaching about enlightenment, the owner and operator of an empty movie theater, and more that the duo meet on their aimless journey. The hints of the true colors of life are within the journey, so what kind of Phoenix are they looking for?

Elixir of Love(en)

The incomparable Luciano Pavarotti at his most eloquent brings Donizetti’s Nemorino to live as only he can, combining vocal fireworks, personal charisma, and charm. The enchanting production by Nathaniel Merrill, with designs by Robert O’Hearn, is the perfect setting for Nemorino’s quest to win the heart of beautiful Adina, sung by the sparkling Judith Blegen. Brent Ellis as Belcore and Sesto Bruscantini as Dr. Dulcamara round out the all-star cast. Nicola Rescigno conducts.

Subferatu(en)

In this satire, a group of modern-day Americans are captured by a WW2-era Uboat, with a sinister cargo, bound for NYC.

Hypothesis for Love and Truth(pt)

The film is an adaptation of the play of the same name staged by the theater group Os Satyros. More than 200 characters from the central region of São Paulo, including residents, prostitutes, drug dealers, businessmen, transsexuals, prostitutes, actors and musicians were interviewed. These testimonials were the starting point to build the trajectory of eleven characters that intersect during a night on the town.

The Climate Baby Dilemma(en)

Deciding whether to have a child is an emotionally fraught and deeply personal process. Deciding amid increasingly dire warnings about the climate makes it even more paralyzing. The Climate Baby Dilemma is a documentary charting the growing number of young people either refusing to bring a child into an increasingly unstable world or struggling with the ethics of whether they should or not. As the conversation about intimacy and climate change heats up, we meet activists, journalists, parents and prospective parents, ethicists and scientists to unpack this growing trend.

The Night Fisherman(en)

written and directed by JOSEPH CAHILL

Driving Volkswagen(de)

Jürgen likes Lisie. And Lisie also has a crush on Jürgen. Anton, Lisie's little boy, frankly doesn't like Jürgen. But Lisie just puts the boy in Jürgen's Passat. When he begins to tell a moralizing anecdote, the world outside the car changes unexpectedly...