Synopsis

Seventeen-year old dreamer Adi feels out of place in his conservative home village in the Danube Delta. When he returns home one night badly beaten, his protective parents pursue the culprits — but justice quickly fades from view when they learn that Adi was brutalized because he was seen kissing another man. Rattled by this revelation, his parents try to reconcile their love for their son with their religious beliefs, resorting to extreme measures to protect Adi from the threat they perceive to be the most dire: himself. And as whispers spread throughout the community and moral panic sets in, the seeming tranquility of the village begins to crack.

Shot in stunning widescreen that relishes in the landscape of this beautiful, yet claustrophobic river delta village, Three Kilometers captures a community where tradition and faith tearing at one young man’s individualism threatens to push them over the edge of the world.

Synopsis

Desperate to save her marriage, a woman in China hires a “mistress dispeller” — a growing profession in China’s larger cities — to break up her husband’s affair. The expert, Wang Zhenxi, or “Teacher Wang”, conspires with the woman and her adult children to insinuate herself into their family. She surreptitiously becomes a close confidante of the cheating spouse and his mistress, all part of her intricate master plan to restore the relationship between husband and wife.

With Mistress Dispeller, award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Lo (Stray) has crafted an enormously fascinating and multi-faceted psychological portrait. From its carefully observed perspective, the film captures both the love triangle’s most private and intimate moments as well as Wang’s skill in slowly drawing out the characters and subtly manipulating their feelings. Mixing extreme closeups with images of China’s urban landscapes, Mistress Dispeller is an absorbing docudrama that lifts the curtain on a rarely seen segment of Chinese bourgeois society.

Synopsis

Anchored by a pair of winning lead performances, this unexpected romance tenderly examines human connection. Mahin, 70, lives alone in Tehran after her husband dies and her daughter moves to Europe. She spends her days in solitary routine, cooking and tending to her backyard garden. Out to tea one afternoon, she catches the eye of an eligible senior bachelor. Inspired to break from her everyday drudgery, she seizes the opportunity to revitalize her love life. What follows is an unpredictable, eventful chronicle of a single unforgettable evening. Bursting with life, this unconventional, at times surreal delight weaves together social critique and light comedy as it reflects on what it means to live as a woman under restrictive social and political circumstances.

Synopsis

Born weeks after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi soon realized she was living on two different planets: the public one which was constrained by political and religious strictures, and the private one where she could fully be herself.

Discovering the power of images at an early age when she bought her first camera, Sharifi began recording her family life while also obsessively collecting decaying Super 8 reels left behind by anonymous people. In contrasting these two worlds — scenes of violent repression on the streets versus home movies showing moments of joy, dancing, and domestic freedom — Sharifi offers an intimate and timely reflection on how recorded images can be a powerful corrective to the erasure of histories and female identity. Winner of top prizes at nearly a dozen international film festivals, My Stolen Planet allows Sharifi’s own story, along with images of voiceless women from the past and present, to form a vivid and collective act of resistance.

Synopsis

On the snowy island of Hokkaido, young Takuya isn’t thrilled about being forced to play ice hockey at school. On the ice, he becomes fascinated with Sakura, a talented figure skater training for an upcoming competition. Her coach sees potential — and perhaps a bit of his younger self — in Takuya, and proposes that he train the two together as an ice dancing duo. As Takuya improves, the two children form a tentative yet harmonious bond, and their skating brings inspiration to all three of them. But as the days get longer, the reality of life outside the rink begins to slip in and melt the harmony between the skating pair and their trainer.

Bathed in soft pastel light and a gentle disposition, My Sunshine explores the questions of burgeoning youth with exquisite subtlety and dreamlike wonder.