Synopsis

A heist always comes with a certain amount of tension. But what if the spoils of the crime had to be spent quickly as well? A variation on that absurd scenario actually played out in the summer of 1990, when the East German government gave its citizens six days to exchange their old currency for new Deutschmarks as part of the reunification effort. That poses a particular challenge for an unlikely group of thieves, who are sitting on a fortune in soon-to-be-obsolete Ostmarks lifted from a government vault.

Anatomy of a Fall‘s Sandra Hüller leads an all-star cast in Natja Brunckhorst’s breezy crime comedy, with Max Riemelt (Sense 8), Ronald Zehrfeld (Phoenix), and Peter Kurth (A Heavy Heart) rounding out the core ensemble. The film is colored with a sense of nostalgia for the old GDR, which plays out in cheerfully madcap fashion as these socialist citizens suddenly find themselves in very capitalist circumstances.

Synopsis

Displaced Palestinian cousins Chatila and Reda are stuck in Athens. They live in a crowded group home with other migrants, and steal and save what they can to pay for fake passports that will take them to Germany. When Reda relapses into his addictions and spends all their savings, Chatila devises what seems like a foolproof smuggling operation to earn the money back fast. Then things go terribly awry, and the cousins must concoct an even more sinister scheme in order to save themselves and their families back home.

With an intimate and naturalistic lens on the cousins’ bond and shared dream of a better life, To a Land Unknown is a tightly drawn thriller that presents an audacious, moving testament to the dire circumstances faced by migrants in purgatory.

Synopsis

A tight-knit unit of petty thieves and outsiders comes together to shelter an abandoned child, but an unforeseen incident threatens to tear apart their newfound family.

Synopsis

In this real-life tale set in a remote village in Azerbaijan’s Talysh mountains, elderly TV repairman Samid dusts off his old Soviet film projector with dreams of bringing movies on the big screen back to his rural community. When he meets Ayaz, a tech-savvy young man who creates short animated movies on his cell phone, the two join forces to realize Samid’s vision. But first, he must get a new projector bulb all the way from Lithuania and overcome skepticism among some of the town’s more conservative citizens.

Impeccably photographed and suffused with its protagonists’ love of cinema, The Return of the Projectionist unfolds with the sublime simplicity of the Iranian New Wave and the charm of Cinema Paradiso. Against the backdrop of Azerbaijan’s conflict with Armenia and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Samid and Ayaz’s goals may seem trivial, but their everyday struggles — between tradition and modernity, past and future — resonate deeply.

Synopsis

A playful ode to silent cinema, Silent Trilogy is a collection of three charming short films written and directed by distinguished Festival alum Juho Kuosmanen (winner of the Gold Hugo in our New Directors Competition for his feature debut The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, 2016).

In Romu-Mattila and a Beautiful Woman (2012), a widower is forced to cast off his worldly possessions; The Moonshiners (2017) finds a pair of down-on-their-luck bootleg distillers and their trusted pig pursued by the police; and A Planet Far Away (2023) details a lighthouse keeper’s oddball odyssey through space and time. Featuring a cast of loveable characters and vivid, lively visuals, these three dialogue-free stories are a witty and winning tribute to early Finnish cinema.