The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner(2008)

Irina Palm(en)

Maggie, a quiet retiring grandmother, finds herself helpless as her grandson’s health deteriorates. When one last chance appears, but money is desperately short, Maggie acts to raise the cash in a fashion that surprises everyone but her.

Before the Rain(mk)

The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during the war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.

The One(ru)

During WWII a Soviet artillery unit is fighting Nazis while trying to do everything to save lives of a group of deaf children near their position.

Hen, His Wife(ru)

Extraordinarily detailed and beautifully drawn animation of a bizarre and surreal world; the domestic life of a fat man, his wife, a sort of oversized obese chicken, and their child/pet, a slug-like creature with a human head. This expressionistic and interior vision of Soviet animator Kovalyov is like an animated Eraserhead. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, Academy War Film Collection, in 2007.

25 October, the First Day(ru)

A short film made by Yuri Norstein for the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, The 25th - the First Day recounts that day using art from the revolutionary period.

Everything is Love(bg)

Rado, an orphan from a poor Sofia neighborhood, has been in and out of school for troubled youth for years. Although he is approaching adulthood, he is yet to finish 8th grade. He cannot reconcile his pride and sense of justice with the kind of education provided by people who are deprived of sensibility and human warmth. Rado asserts his right to freedom by frequently running away. During one of his escapes he meets the love of his life, Albena. She is a good student, and comes from a well-educated, sophisticated family. This new and unexpected connection intensifies Rado's desire for freedom and independence, and leads them both into uncharted territory.

Throne of Blood(ja)

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic(en)

Dante journeys through the nine circles of Hell -- limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery -- in search of his true love, Beatrice. An animated version of the video game of the same name.

Side Effects(en)

A woman turns to prescription medication as a way of handling her anxiety concerning her husband's upcoming release from prison.

47 Ronin(en)

Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island(en)

Sean Anderson partners with his mom's boyfriend on a mission to find his grandfather, who is thought to be missing on a mythical island.

[REC](es)

A television reporter and cameraman follow emergency workers into a dark apartment building and are quickly locked inside with something terrifying.

The Wolf of Wall Street(en)

A New York stockbroker refuses to cooperate in a large securities fraud case involving corruption on Wall Street, corporate banking world and mob infiltration. Based on Jordan Belfort's autobiography.

The Prestige(en)

A mysterious story of two magicians whose intense rivalry leads them on a life-long battle for supremacy -- full of obsession, deceit and jealousy with dangerous and deadly consequences.

Marriage Story(en)

A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.

The Aviator(en)

A biopic depicting the life of filmmaker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes from 1927 to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate, while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The Shawshank Redemption(en)

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Pulp Fiction(en)

A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.

Shutter Island(en)

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

Parasite(ko)

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

Sugar Island(es)

An unwanted pregnancy triggers the journey into adulthood for Makenya, a Dominican-Haitian teenager who lives in the Batey, a community surrounded by sugarcane fields.

Secret Sunshine(ko)

Shin-ae moves to her recently late husband’s hometown. Despite her efforts to settle in this unfamiliar and too-normal place, she finds that she can’t fit in. After a sudden tragedy, Shin-ae turns to Christianity to relieve her pain, but when even this is not permitted, she wages a war against God.

Vengo Volviendo(es)

Vengo Volviendo tells the story of Ismael, who was raised by his grandmother and seeks to leave Ecuador in order to migrate to the United States. Along the way, he encounters a host of interesting people and learns of some interesting tales.

Serenity(el)

Originally edited in two versions. Version I, 70 minutes; version II, 90 minutes. (The only known existing version is not Markopoulos’s edit and contains additional titles, music and voice-over added later than 1961. 65 minutes.) Filmed in Mytilene and Annavysos, Greece, 1958. Existing copy on video, J. and M. Paris Films, Athens.

Sounds of Sand(fr)

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.

Birds of Exile(tr)

Tahir Agha sells all his assets when his business in Maraş deteriorates. He immigrates to Istanbul with his wife Hatice, sons Selim, Murat, Kemal and daughter Fatoş, where he sets his mind to open a repair shop. But in the metropolis, things don't go as planned.

El sitio en el que también se está(es)

Sebastián is from Venezuela and arrives at a shelter for migrant minors in Mexico City. There he meets Aurora, a girl from Guatemala, with whom he falls in love. Both are waiting for a response to their asylum application. Time is running out and the farewell is inevitable.

Toubab Bi(fr)

Soriba Samb is a Senegalese who has just received a much sought after internship to study filmmaking in Paris. Soriba heads to Paris, accompanied by the five-year old son of a friend who he believes to be still living in Paris. On arrival he struggles to find the boy’s father. In addition to coping with his new internship, Soriba has to also spend time tracking down the boy’s father ‘Issa’.

Tinpis Run(en)

A man encounters colorful characters while driving a taxi in Papua New Guinea.

I Carry You with Me(es)

An epic love story spanning decades is sparked by a chance encounter between two men in provincial Mexico. Based on a true story, ambition and societal pressure propel an aspiring chef to leave his soulmate and make the treacherous journey to New York, where life will never be the same.

Snakehead(en)

Sister Tse is brought to New York by a Snakehead, a human smuggler. Although she is indebted to the crime family responsible for her transport, her survival instincts help her gain favor with the matriarch, and she rises quickly in the ranks. Soon Tse must reconcile her success with her real reason for coming to America—to find the child that was taken from her. In the end, Sister Tse must draw on the strength she found in transforming her victimhood into power.

Emptiness(es)

LEI and WONG clandestinely arrive to Ecuador, on their way to the port city of Guayaquil. From here LEI plans to continue her journey to New York, but CHANG, a bipolar mobster will decide her fate. WONG unwillingly gets entangled in the web of corruption that operates the encroachment of Chinese immigrants. His only objective is to bring his twelve-year-old son from China.

Speechless(de)

Japan Japan(he)

Nineteen year old Imri, a handsome ex-soldier, suffers from “Yellow Fever”. He was born in Israel but yearns to live in Japan.

The Age of the Stateless(fr)

Sira, a former refugee, works as a translator for OFPRA (the French Office for the Protection of Stateless Persons and Migrants). She unscrupulously fleeces her clients, selling them fictions she creates to convince the authorities.

Frontiera(xx)

On a ferry travelling towards Lampedusa, we find a teenager on his first day of work as a gravedigger and a boy on his first mission as a diver. They do not know each other, but when they will set foot on the island, both their lives will change forever: one has to retrieve the bodies of drowned shipwreck victims, the other one has to bury them. A sort of dance between life and death, innocence and its loss.

Dark Horse(en)

Abe is a man who is in his thirties and who lives with his parents. He works regretfully for his father while pursuing his hobby of collecting toys. Aware that his family doesn't think highly of him, he tries to spark a relationship with Miranda, who recently moved back home after a failed literary/academic career. Miranda agrees to marry Abe out of desperation, but things go awry.

400 Bags(es)

Magdalena makes a journey to find her missing son, who disappeared on his way to the border with the United States. Accompanied only by her will and her memories, Magdalena enters a violent and desolated territory, the migration route in Mexico.

Notes to Dad(es)

Inés discovers that she has a half-sister, but, faced with the situation, decides to accept silence as a family truce.

The Man That Was Turned Into Juice(pt)

Deraldo, a popular poet from Northeast Brazil, arrives in the capital of São Paulo, making a living only from his poetry and pamphlets. All is well until he is mistaken for a multinational worker who killed the boss at a party where he received the title of symbolic worker.