Whispering Sands(2001)

Tuesday(en)

A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.

Bastard Out of Carolina(en)

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

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.

What They Had(en)

A woman must fly back to her hometown when her Alzheimer's-stricken mother wanders into a blizzard. The return home forces her to confront her past.

Magnolia(en)

On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.

The Lost Daughter(en)

A woman's seaside vacation takes a dark turn when her obsession with a young mother forces her to confront secrets from her past.

Mine(en)

After a failed assassination attempt, a soldier finds himself stranded in the desert. Exposed to the elements, he must survive the dangers of the desert and battle the psychological and physical toll of the treacherous conditions.

The Poker House(en)

Agnes and her two sisters struggle through a day in a home overrun by gamblers, thieves, and johns.

Strange Weather(en)

Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.

The Fallout(en)

In the wake of a school tragedy, Vada, Mia and Quinton form a unique and dynamic bond as they navigate the never linear, often confusing journey to heal in a world that feels forever changed.

Die My Love(en)

After inheriting a remote Montana house, Jackson moves there from New York with his partner Grace, and the couple soon welcome a child. As Jackson becomes increasingly absent and rural isolation sets in, Grace struggles with loneliness, creative frustration, and unresolved emotional wounds. What begins as an attempt at renewal gradually turns into an intense psychological descent, placing strain on their relationship and exposing the fragile balance between love, identity, and motherhood.

Sherrybaby(en)

After serving time in prison, former drug addict Sherry Swanson returns home to reclaim her young daughter from family members who have been raising the child. Sherry's family, especially her sister-in-law, doubt Sherry's ability to be a good mother, and Sherry finds her resolve to stay clean slowly weakening.

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.

Speak(en)

Freshman high-school student Melinda has refused to speak ever since she called the cops on a popular summer party. With her old friends snubbing her for being a rat, and her parents too busy to notice her troubles, she folds into herself, trying to hide her secret: that star senior Andy raped her at the party. But Melinda does manage to find solace in her art class headed by Mr. Freeman.

A Dry White Season(en)

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

The Beaver(en)

Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.

20th Century Women(en)

In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.

The Nightingale(en)

In 1825, Clare, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

The Joy Luck Club(en)

Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.

Redux Redux(en)

In an attempt to avenge her daughter’s death, Irene Kelly travels through parallel universes, killing her daughter’s murderer again and again. As she becomes consumed by vengeance, her humanity begins to slip away—until the cycle is disrupted when she rescues Mia, a sharp-witted teenager already marked by the killer.

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.

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself(da)

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

Boys Don't Cry(en)

A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

At My Mother's Age(es)

Lost in Translation(en)

Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.

Donkey Days(de)

Sisters Anna and Charlotte have always fought for their mother’s attention. As old wounds reopen and suck them back to their family home, they unravel mesmerizing mysteries, including anonymous ashes and their mother’s love for a donkey. Will they come to terms with each other?

Opfer(de)

Sina and her best friend Aleks are young teenagers of immigrant origin in Germany in 1993, but a film project on a school trip puts their symbiotic friendship to the test.

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.

The Secret Life of Words(en)

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

Not on My Watch(fr)

A single mother gets entangled in a web of lies to protect her sons.

Drink(en)

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

Volver(es)

Three generations of women deal with family secrets while surviving the east wind, fire, insanity, superstition, lies and even death.

The Party(fr)

A thirteen-year-old French girl deals with moving to a new city and school in Paris, while at the same time her parents are getting a divorce.

The Party 2(fr)

A young French teenage girl after moving to a new city falls in love with a boy and is thinking of having sex with him because her girlfriends have already done it.

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 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

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.

Pocketful of Miracles(en)

A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.

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.

Sunny Boy(en)

Danny has a rare skin condition that prevents him from being in the sun and a desire to be a regular teenager.