Twice Upon a Time

Monsieur Taurins(en)

An unemployed Latvian gets a job as an agent finding a house in France.

Fox & Penguin(de)

How do German couples communicate in private? What are they arguing about? Is the way to a man’s heart really through his stomach? This docu-fictional hybrid production discusses such questions with the help of authentic interview snippets that were edited under the staged plot. We get an insight into the life of an animal couple, who experience typical everyday situations on behalf of us humans. At first, our fox is emotionally contained, while the penguin lady may get wild as hell. With a wink, the filmmakers hold up a mirror to the audience in the cinema.

Away with Words(en)

A Japanese man and a gay bar-owner in Hong Kong drink beer as they talk about their childhood and experiences.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues(en)

With the 70s behind him, San Diego's top rated newsman, Ron Burgundy, returns to take New York's first 24-hour news channel by storm.

Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom(ga)

Yu Ming is bored of his life in China and decides to go to Ireland. He studies the language, but is dismayed to find that no one understands him when he gets there.

Bonjour Switzerland(de)

A crazy referendum throws Switzerland into a state of emergency. By the acceptance of the initiative “No Bilangue” there should be from now on only one national language: French. Many German-speaking Swiss are therefore having a crisis.

R-Rated(en)

A teacher attempts to teach his students to properly enunciate the letter 'R'.

What Happens In Your Brain If You See a German Word Like...?(de)

A surreal trip into the world of an extremely long german word.

The Hyperglot(en)

Despite an unrivaled talent for communicating, Jake has trouble talking to women. When an impossible situation presents itself, Jake ignores the signs and goes on a wild goose-chase to pursue his quest for love. When his plan is foiled, a new best friend helps him finally express himself successfully to a woman – without uttering a single word.

Language Lessons(en)

For his 45th birthday, wealthy Californian Adam receives a surprise gift from his choreographer partner: 100 weekly Spanish lessons with Cariño, a vivacious expat who teaches virtually from her home in Costa Rica. Adam's unconvinced at first; a self-described “creature-of-habit”, he’s unsure about where or how this new element will fit into his carefully-structured routine.

Taurins Senior(lv)

Gunars Taurins has become a dad-sitter in Latvia. He wants to return to France as soon as possible once he has found a caregiver for his father. But it's not that easy and Gunars has to stay in Riga whether he likes it or not.

The Notorious Guys(fr)

Steven, a pupil in a special-needs class, learns that his school has won a trip to Alcabideche, Portugal. He is overjoyed to get the chance to finally see his homeland. Once there, he decides to conduct his own holidays...

It Ain't Necessarily So(en)

It Ain't Necessarily So captures a budding Japanese jazz singer and her biracial vocal instructor who struggle to agree on the proper way to sing Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy.” Humor is no stranger to jazz singers Eiko Katayama and Kazue Hiraoka who star alongside Masa Fox, their English teacher. "Master at capturing hyper-awkward moments... brilliantly explore how representations of culture and identity ain’t necessarily how they appear." --Wilda Wong, San Diego Asian Film Festival

In Between(ku)

Osman can understand his mother tongue, Kurdish, but cannot speak it, and he speaks Turkish, which happens to be his second language, but cannot understand it. As a result of this condition of his, Osman starts to fail at handling two concurrent tasks. Just like he cannot respond to his patrons while he is working, he cannot engage in a conversation with his friends whilst they are having coffee together. Even though he wants to get married, he fails at sustaining a long-term relationship with women whom he meets. Osman’s life starts to change after a customer tells him that she could help him with his obsession.

La grande soirée Passez le mot(fr)

The Language Master(en)

Michel Thomas is one of the most brilliant language teachers in the world. His usual clients are movie stars and business leaders. This programme takes him to a Sixth Form College in London to work with school pupils, to test his claim that he can teach anyone a language in a week - with no reading, writing or homework. The film also explores his personal history - as a hero of the French Resistance during WW II. Nigel’s documentary with the 85 year old Michel Thomas was the first time that Thomas allowed his techniques to be made public. The subsequent success of the film transformed Thomas into a global celebrity and his method into one of the most highly regarded in the world of education.

Gyani Maiya(en)

“We left our language and started speaking others’. The girls have got married and have left for the villages. Boys are getting married in villages. It should be taught to children”. — Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda The Gi Mihaq (also known as Kusunda) was a semi-nomadic hunter and gatherer community that settled in villages around the mid-western Nepalese district of Dang. They have long lost their native language Mihaq (Kusunda), to acculturation and other barriers to active use. The community also lost their 83-year-old elder Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda in 2020, the most and the only known fluent Kusunda speaker then. Filmed in Kulmor in the Dang District in 2018, this openly-licensed documentary is a memoir of Sen-Kusunda in her own words and a biography of her people who were forced to leave their language and cultural identity. Kusunda is being revived by Kamala Sen Khatri, Sen-Kusunda’s younger sister, and Uday Raj Aaley, a local researcher who is the key interviewer for this film.

The Brave Class(es)

Three college students start a social experiment to prove that reality changes according to the words we use to describe it. Through research, activist actions, and artistic interventions, they analyze the importance of language in the way we understand the world. The documentary includes analysis from more than 20 international experts and leaders in the fields of political communication and information.

The Nightingale Sings(uk)

The movie explores the origin of the Ukrainian language and persecution of those who defended its authenticity. Using examples of other countries, creators of the film prove that a nation cannot exist without a language.

Goodbye Solo(en)

A man planning to commit suicide hires a taxi driver to take him to his jumping-off point.