Clemency(2019)

Control(en)

Lee Ray Oliver, a death row inmate, is given a second chance at life if he agrees to undergo a new chemical treatment used to modify behavior.

I Want to Live!(en)

Brazen perpetual offender Barbara Graham tries to go straight but she finds herself implicated in a murder and sent to death row.

The Mustang(en)

While participating in a rehabilitation program training wild mustangs, a convict at first struggles to connect with the horses and his fellow inmates, but he learns to confront his violent past as he soothes an especially feisty horse.

The Concrete Jungle(en)

An unfortunate and naive girl is set up by her boyfriend and convicted of drug smuggling. She is sent to a women's correctional facility where she must constantly struggle to survive.

The Life of David Gale(en)

A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.

The Trials of Cate McCall(en)

In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

There Was a Crooked Man...(en)

A charming but ruthless criminal is sent to a remote Arizona prison, where he enlists the help of his cellmates in an escape attempt with the promise of sharing his hidden loot.

Scum(en)

Powerful, uncompromising drama about two boys' struggle for survival in the nightmare world of Britain's notorious Borstal Reformatory.

Dead Man Walking(en)

A death row inmate turns for spiritual guidance to a local nun in the days leading up to his scheduled execution for the murders of a young couple.

Peppermint(en)

A grieving mother transforms herself into a vigilante following the murders of her husband and daughter, eluding the authorities to deliver her own personal brand of justice.

Lock Up(en)

Frank Leone is nearing the end of his prison term for a relatively minor crime. Just before he is paroled, however, Warden Drumgoole takes charge. Drumgoole was assigned to a hell-hole prison after his administration was publicly humiliated by Leone, and has now arrived on the scene to ensure that Leone never sees the light of day.

All Day and a Night(en)

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.

Brubaker(en)

The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.

Cool Hand Luke(en)

When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

Cadence(en)

As punishment for drunken, rebellious behavior, a young white soldier is thrown into a stockade populated entirely by black inmates. But instead of falling victim to racial hatred, the soldier joins forces with his fellow prisoners and rises up against the insanely tyrannical and bigoted prison warden.

Animal Factory(en)

Suburbanite Ron is spoiled, young and not overly worried about the marijuana charges leveled against him. But, after being made out to be a drug dealer, he faces a five-year jail sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Physically frail and unaccustomed to his rough surroundings, Ron is primed to fall victim to sexual predators and bullying guards – that is, until he's befriended by Earl, a veteran inmate who finds meaning in protecting the vulnerable new kid.

In Hell(en)

A man must survive a prison where hardened criminals battle to the death for the warden's entertainment.

Jolt(en)

A bouncer with an anger management problem goes on a furious and resentful rampage after the murder of a friend.

Iron Jawed Angels(en)

Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.

Murder in the First(en)

A young, inexperienced public defender is assigned to defend an inmate accused of committing murder while behind bars.

Ariel(fi)

A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.

Fat Girl(fr)

Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile, nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.

The Experiment(de)

20 volunteers agree to take part in a seemingly well-paid experiment advertised by the university. It is supposed to be about aggressive behavior in an artificial prison situation. A journalist senses a story behind the ad and smuggles himself in among the test subjects. They are randomly divided into prisoners and guards. What seems like a game at the beginning soon turns into bloody seriousness.

Once Upon a Zipper(en)

Rachel can't stop herself from falling in love with Paulie, the woman who helps her try on wedding gowns.

Dream Girl(en)

Humans use technology to improve their lives, to forge connections, to create time that doesn’t exist, to replace real interactions. When we devise a second version of ourselves on social media, do we lose a piece of our true selves in the process? Do our digital connections threaten our real life relationships? What happens if the filtered characters we’ve imagined take on a life of their own?

Moral(tl)

The episodically connected lives of four college friends unfold throughout the incipient martial law years, as they struggle to define their sexual and professional desires and how best to attain them.

The Man with the Golden Arm(en)

When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old drum set, Frankie tries to get honest work as a drummer. But when his former employer and his old drug dealer re-enter his life, Frankie finds it hard to stay clean and eventually finds himself succumbing to his old habits.

Little Miss Sunshine(en)

A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

Pickpocket(fr)

Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.

Bridget Jones's Diary(en)

Bridget Jones is an average woman struggling against expectations. As a New Year's resolution, Bridget decides to take control of her life, starting by keeping a diary in which she will always tell the complete truth. Her charming boss takes an interest in her, and she cannot stop running into a rather disagreeable acquaintance whom Bridget cannot help finding quietly attractive.

Lost Highway(en)

A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgängers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.

Pussy Have the Power(en)

Pussy Have the Power is the song improvised by four girls in a recording studio. When an established music producer walks in, they face the choice of selling out their work to something that could lead to success, while they risk losing their own message

The Pinkie(ja)

Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR

Die Augen von Jade(de)

GoodFellas(en)

The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.

Dead Man Walking(en)

A death row inmate turns for spiritual guidance to a local nun in the days leading up to his scheduled execution for the murders of a young couple.

Home Again(en)

Life for a single mom in Los Angeles takes an unexpected turn when she allows three young guys to move in with her.

Supernova(nl)

Meis is fifteen, lives in the back of beyond and aspires to a grand and stirring life, but all that happens is the passing of the time, waiting for the next car to run into the front of the house.

The Piano(en)

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

THX 1138(en)

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.