Once Upon a Time in Shanghai

My Life Without Me(en)

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.

Open Hearts(da)

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

The Secret Life of Words(en)

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Italian for Beginners(da)

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

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?

Lemon(en)

Isaac has seen better days. His acting career is tanking, his blind girlfriend of 10 years plans to leave him, and his own family singles him out as a constant disappointment. Even as he takes a chance on new romance, he struggles to define his place in a world that has seemingly turned against him.

Not Farewell, Sweet Flesh(en)

Lovers from opposite worlds are forbidden to be together.

Deidra & Laney Rob a Train(en)

After their mother ends up in jail, two sisters turn to train robbery in order to support their family.

Close-Knit(ja)

After being neglected by her mother, a little girl is taken in by her uncle and his transgender girlfriend, who create a loving home for her.

The White Mazurka(pl)

A film about the life and activities of the Polish revolutionary Ludwik Waryński. In his memoirs, Ludwik returns to his student years in St. Petersburg, to Warsaw, to Krakow, where he was arrested and put on trial. After the end of the process in Krakow, Waryński leaves for Geneva, where he meets with Russian revolutionaries. In 1881, he returned to his homeland and created the first party of workers in Poland...

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.

Opportunus(sv)

Annaluise & Anton(de)

Luise, 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.

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

Drink(en)

A Twilight Zone-inspired cautionary tale about a young mother forced to come face-to-face with her deepest desire.

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.

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.

The Women(en)

The story centers on a group of gossipy, high-society women who spend their days at the beauty salon and haunting fashion shows. The sweet, happily-wedded Mary Haines finds her marriage in trouble when shop girl Crystal Allen gets her hooks into Mary's man.

Day Night Day Night(en)

A 19-year-old girl prepares to become a suicide bomber in Times Square. She speaks with a nondescript American accent, and it’s impossible to pinpoint her ethnicity. We never learn why she made her decision—she has made it already.

I Like Movies(en)

Socially inept 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence Kweller gets a job at a video store, where he forms a complicated friendship with his older female manager.

Hounddog(en)

A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.

The Safety of Objects(en)

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

Radium Girls(en)

Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.

A City of Sadness(zh)

The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.

Munich – The Edge of War(en)

At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.

Confucius(zh)

In 500 B.C., during Chinas famed 'Spring and Autumn Period', Kong Ze (Confucius), a commoner reverred for his outstanding wisdom, is made Minister of Law in the ancient Kingdom of Lu. Under his inspired leadership, Lu ascends to new heights but becomes a target of conquest for the warlike nation of Qi. Threatened with annihilation by their powerful neighbour, a desperate people turn to their greatest teacher to lead their most powerful army. When Confucius delivers a stunning victory against all odds, a jealous aristocracy sets out to destroy him, but they should never under-estimate a remarkable man whose wisdom is more powerful than the sword.

Buddha Mountain(zh)

In Chengdu, China, a retired female opera singer named Master Chang takes in a trio of young tenants into her boarding home. The tenants include a rock singer and a college student who has run away from home.

Lucky Them(en)

More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.

My People, My Country(zh)

Anthology of short films directed by several different directors.

Call Me Crazy: A Five Film(en)

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

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.

Adventures of a Mathematician(en)

The warmhearted story of Polish immigrant and mathematician Stan Ulam, who moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. Stan deals with the difficult losses of family and friends all while helping to create the hydrogen bomb and the first computer.

Panther(en)

In this sprawling, fictionalized history of the Black Panthers, 1960s Oakland becomes a war zone as the Panthers battle for the right to exist.

Sky(en)

A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.

Oranges and Sunshine(en)

The story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovers one of the most significant social scandals in recent times – the forced migration of children from the United Kingdom to Australia and other Commonwealth countries. Almost singlehandedly, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan(en)

A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.

Leap(zh)

After 12 years, the Chinese women's volleyball team again reached the Olympic final. The ups and downs of the Chinese women's volleyball team for more than three decades have slowly spread away.

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.

Origin(en)

While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.

Starving in Suburbia(en)

When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?