A Small Town Called Descent

Big Night(en)

Primo and Secondo, two immigrant brothers, pin their hopes on a banquet honoring Louis Prima to save their struggling restaurant.

Samba(fr)

Samba migrated to France 10 years ago from Senegal, and has since been plugging away at various lowly jobs. Alice is a senior executive who has recently undergone a burnout. Both struggle to get out of their dead-end lives. Samba's willing to do whatever it takes to get working papers, while Alice tries to get her life back on track until fate draws them together.

Moving Room(en)

Karma, an international high school student from Sikkim struggles to fit in and hold onto his cultural identity when he is stuck at home with his host sibling, Alex.

El Norte(es)

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

Most Beautiful Island(en)

Chronicling one harrowing day in the life of Luciana, a young woman struggling to make ends meet while striving to escape her past. As Luciana’s day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome, unforeseeable extremes.

Gurbet - Fremde Heimat(de)

Crossing Over(en)

Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create -- in 21st century L.A.

The Secret of the Grain(fr)

In southern France, a Franco-Arabic shipyard worker along with his partner's daughter pursues his dream of opening a restaurant.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding(en)

A young Greek woman falls in love with a non-Greek and struggles to get her family to accept him while she comes to terms with her heritage and cultural identity.

Asphalt Tango(ro)

A desperate husband chases a bus full of beautiful women headed for Paris, France.

Katzelmacher(de)

A group of young slackers spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos.

Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger(de)

This drama is based on the childhood memories of Hans Jürgen Massaquoi, who was one of the few black native Germans in Nazi Germany. In 1935 at the age of nine, he lives with his German mother in a small flat in Hamburg's working class district Barmbek, while his father and grandfather had left the country. Although the boy is not persecuted by the Nazis and dreams of joining the Hitler Youth, his skin color makes him a target for racist abuse...

Dark Blue(en)

Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.

The Class(fr)

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

Lorna's Silence(fr)

Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.

Backroads(en)

Two strangers – one white, one black – steal a car in western NSW and head for the coast. Jack is abrasive, cunning and disparaging about Aborigines. Gary doesn’t really care – he just wants to escape. En route, they pick up Gary’s Uncle Joe, a French hitchhiker and a young woman who’s running away. Their petty crimes escalate as they go, heading towards disaster.

Somers Town(en)

Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link.

The True American(en)

A Bangladeshi Air Force officer looking to make his way in the United States is shot by an American terrorist out to kill Muslims in the aftermath of September 11th.

Jazz Mad(en)

A composer and his daughter emigrate to America in the hope that he can sell his symphony. But he meets with little success and begins to give up hope. His daughter and her friends, however, never give up hope.

Café 404(en)

A rundown establishment, a retro diner, lies in the middle of nowhere on the MOTORWAY. It's our hero's, Jimmy's, only legacy and connection to his deceased parents. It's where he lived his whole life. Even when the new MOTORWAY blocked access to the diner, Jimmy preferred to stay, holding on to the memories of his family and providing a job to three incompetent but deep-down good-hearted employees: Mara, the rebellious till girl; Nicko, the grumpy handyman who struggles to complete his pension plan; and Abi, a Nigerian immigrant who works there as the cook.