Festival films

When Norwegian scientist Marie attends a seminar in Paris on the actual weight of a kilo, it is her own measurement of disappointment, grief and, not least, love, that ends up on the scale. Finally Marie is forced to come to terms with how much a human life truly weighs and which measurements she intends to live by.

“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is his best teacher.”
Dalai Lama

Petros, a 45-year-old office archaeologist, has just come out of a long-term relationship, disillusioned by the romantic notion of self-less love. During a visit to the ancient theater of Argos, he will meet Husam, a young Arab immigrant. What originally seems like a fleeting encounter between the two men gradually develops into a fully fledged relationship, with Husam proclaiming love to a wary but acquiescent Petros. Petros is, at the same time, involved in a matrix of relationships: Laertes and Migen, second generation Albanian immigrants, together with Alexandra form a classical music trio that Petros helps; Daniel is a gay banker, who believes only in profit; Michael is a patrol policeman, who lives somewhere between reality and imagination. The end is open and ambivalent. The last gesture will be a temporary solution, a compromise so as to bring about existential balance. What will the next move be?

Hailed as the first "humanist thriller," 99 Homes tells the story of construction worker Dennis Nash who is evicted from his home alongside his mother and 9 year old son. He then strikes a deal with the devil and in order to win his home back begins working for Rick Carver, the corrupt real estate broker who evicted him.

Maria is running away along the highway, alone in her roaring SUV. Behind her, fire and a case full of money. In front of her, the hopeless vastness of the motorway. Only a day before, she was a caring mother, a loving wife, a responsible daughter. Today she has gone rogue. A Blast premiered in competition at the Locarno IFF 2014.

Is there a better way to spend one’s time than playing? Alfie and Hamdi have many favourite toys. When they’re not playing football with the rest of the neighbourhood kids, they like to practice their “fighting” abilities. But Hamdi's daddy, who’s been in a real war, reminds them that war is anything but a game. Through an allegory, the two boys are taught to co-exist peacefully and two go after what they want in life.

Lucas, a penniless young Argentine male escort, is doing whatever he can to survive in Buenos Aires. One day, on the internet, he meets Henry, a lonely Belgian baker who dreams of saving him from a life of prostitution. Lucas crosses the Atlantic to become Henry’s apprentice, but soon winds up feeling like a prisoner of his benefactor’s love. Audrey, a salesgirl at the bakery, seems to have everything to please him –but she rejects him...

A woman is forced to sit under her brother’s rotting corpse in the middle of a burned forest, until the authorities decide that she has been punished enough.

The triptych Fresque Biographique - Ich und Double - Am Ende is a video-collage by Hanna Schygulla. The work consists of a series of images that alternate in a tableau vivant that represents details from her life, her dreams, her experiences and her fears. Schygulla opens up before her lens and creates her self-portrait against a historical setting, using narrative, recitation and performance as her basic means. In Me and My Double, she tries to memorize a passage from the novel of the same title by the Polish author Witold Gombrowicz: “Amours des premiers jours, je suis a toi de nouveau.” The descriptions of her memories and dreams are interwoven with history in a philosophical mood, and denote her quest. The artist creates an environment through which she keeps her memory and dreams alive, and she states, flat out: “Death gives life meaning.” The journey acquires meaning and they give meaning to each other.

Under the guise of a psychological thriller (yet much more than that), Nini Bull Robsahm’s film has a most interesting question as its starting point, going on to develop a series of more substantial topics, in parallel to its suspence. With the story of a couple in crisis as its focal point, the film addresses questions on the essence of life: what is it that defines us? What are the elements that constitute our personality? How is a romantic relationship – or any other kind of relationship – built? Amnesia keeps all these questions “on camera,” as it exploits and renews the conventions of a genre film in order to deliver a stimulating, fresh cinematic amalgam.

Berlin, the Romantic Era. Young poet Heinrich wishes to conquer the inevitability of death through love, yet is unable to convince his skeptical cousin Marie to join him in a suicide pact. It is whilst coming to terms with this refusal, ineffably distressed by his cousin’s insensitivity to the depth of his feelings, that Heinrich meets Henriette, the wife of a business acquaintance. Heinrich’s subsequent offer to the beguiling young woman at first holds scant appeal, that is until Henriette discovers she is suffering from a terminal illness. A “romantic comedy” based loosely on the suicide of the poet Henrich von Kleist in 1811.

The poor Athenian neighborhood of Asyrmatos is the center of the world for the people who live there and who are trying to escape from poverty and deprivation. Rikos, a young man recently released from prison, is trying to make some money, while his girlfriend is seeing other men, and her brother is trying to contribute to the household’s finances. Rikos comes up with an idea for a job, but he will spend the money they make. One of his “partners” commits suicide. Rikos, his girlfriend and her brother, defeated and disappointed that their expectations were never realized, are forced to come to terms with reality.

A young girl – holding a hand grenade – stage directs her parents’ relationship from the very beginning. Laying claim to an “ideal” world through the harsh innocence of a child.

Year 1934. Something is rotten in the North of the USSR: shamans (native priests) of two indigenous populations, the Khanty and the Nenets, do not wish to accept new ideas. To reconcile two great cultures, the Russian Avantgarde and Ancient Paganism, six metropolitan artists leave for the primeval forests around the great Siberian river Ob. Α composer, a sculptor, a theater director, a Constructivist architect, a Primitive film director and the chief of the unit – the famous “Polina the Revolution”... The film is based on real events.

Like a modern day Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Sam and Jonathan, two traveling salesmen peddling novelty items, take us on a kaleidoscopic wandering through human destiny. It is a journey that unveils the beauty of single moments, the pettiness of others, the humor and tragedy hidden within us, life’s grandeur as well as the ultimate frailty of humanity.

Family versus Solitude: Simon and Jota are two young traveler scoundrels who hit the street every day to eke out a living. Each one wants what he lacks. Simon cannot stand being surrounded by his large family all the time. Jota wants to stop leading a lonely life and will do his best to have his own family.

Andreas, a promising young detective, has a lot on his plate. At home, he and his wife, Anne, struggle with their newborn son, who spends every waking hour crying. At work, meanwhile, Andreas struggles to rein in his newly divorced partner Simon, who spends most of his time in strip clubs, drunkenly looking for a fight. One day, Andreas and Simon are called out to a domestic disturbance. There they find Tristan, a drug dealer who has a history of violence and who has now resorted to taking his own drugs and forcing his girlfriend, Sanne, to do the same. When Andreas and Simon intervene in the couple's bickering, they witness a shocking instance of neglect that sends a livid Andreas into his family's warm embrace. Then, one night, the unthinkable happens and the little family is struck by sudden tragedy. When Andreas sees his life unraveling, he makes a choice that will lead himself and everyone he knows down a rabbit hole of moral and ethical disarray.

David and Wani, best friends and abattoir apprentices, are saving up in order to open their own butchery, but before they can realize their dream, the arrival of a new worker will challenge the bonds of their common life.

It's a Sunday afternoon. The sirocco wind blows pitilessly upon Palermo when Rosa and Clara, two women arriving to celebrate a friend's wedding, get lost among the city streets and end up in a sort of cul-de-sac: Via Castellana Bandiera. At the same moment, another car, driven by Samira, in which the Calafiore family is packed, comes from the opposite direction and enters the same street. Neither Rosa at the wheel of her Multipla, nor Samira, an elderly and stubborn woman at the wheel of her Punto, intends to give way to the other. While the Calafiore family withdraw into the illegal building where they live and, with the complicity of their neighbors, organize a gamble on which of the two women will prevail, Clara decides to leave the Multipla and continue her discovery of Palermo on the scooter of Nicola, the youngest in the Calafiore family, who willingly escorts her. Evening falls, then nighttime, but the two women, resisting hunger, sleep and thirst, seem to be obeying an irrational obstinacy, as they persist in not yielding way to the other...

Set in the competitive world of modern agriculture, the film centers on ambitious Henry Whipple, who wants his rebellious son Dean to help expand his family's farming empire. However, Dean has his sights set on becoming a professional race car driver. When a high-stakes investigation into their business unfolds, father and son are pushed into an unexpected situation that threatens the family's entire livelihood.

A Touch of Spice is the story of Fanis, a young Greek boy growing up in Istanbul, whose grandfather, a culinary philosopher and mentor, teaches him that both food and life require a little something to give them flavor: they both require a touch of spice. Fanis grows up to become an excellent cook and uses his cooking skills to spice up the lives of those around him. Thirty-five years later, he leaves Athens and travels back to his birthplace of Istanbul to reunite with his grandfather and his first love; he travels back only to realize that he forgot to put a little bit of spice in his own life...