Ernstfall in Havanna

MURDER and murder

September 1996 •English

Mildred and Doris are two middle-aged white women, from very different backgrounds, who become lovers and set up house together. Film explores the pleasures and uncertainties of later-life emotional attachment and lesbian identity in a culture that glorifies youth and heterosexual romance.

Hollow City

January 2004 •Portuguese

A group of children, fleeing the war, is taken to Luanda accompanied by a nun. When they reach the aeroplane, 12-year-old N'Dala decides to leave the group and to reconnoitre the city. The nun then starts her unceasing quest for the missing boy. N'Dala, only carrying a textile bag and a doll made of wire, walks through the busy streets filled with people and traffic. Later he finds the tranquility of the island off the coast, where he meets the old fisherman Antonio, with whom he becomes friends. Not much later, he meets the lively, whimsical Zé, who is a little older than he is. N'Dala starts to experience the city and its inhabitants as increasingly forbidding and he would most like to return to the countryside from whence he came. Then he meets Joka, a fringe figure who persuades him to help with a robbery in exchange for money. With this film, Maria Joao Ganga wanted to provide a realistic sketch of the bitter political situation in Angola. One of her most important motivations ...

Rosa de Areia

February 1989 •Portuguese

Marking a stylistically and philosophically turn away from the earlier features, The Sand Rose is Reis and Cordeiro’s most abstract, conceptual and literary work. The film’s collage structure gathers texts from multiple sources – including Kafka and Montaigne – and crafts a world of theatrical artifice far from the documentary inspired naturalism of Ana and Trás-os-Montes. Reis and Cordeiro’s least known film has lingered in obscurity and never recovered from the unfairly negative reviews that resulted in its severely limited release. Reis died less than two years later, just as he and Cordeiro were about to begin an ambitious adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Parámo. - Harvard Film Archive

Fragmentos de Uma Observação Participativa

March 2013 •Portuguese

While observing others, Paula is also, herself, observed. ' Know the difference between an old maid and a spinster? The old maid does not have a choice. '

The Journey Is the Destination

September 2016 •English

The inspiring life story of the late photojournalist, artist and activist Dan Eldon, who abandoned a comfortable life in London to document the struggle, heartbreak and hope of a war-torn and famine-ridden region of Africa.

Foreign Body

February 2016 •French

In the turbulent aftermath of the Tunisian revolution, young Samia flees her homeland. She braves hostile seas in the crossing to France, but once there she finds that her struggles have only just begun. With no friends, no family, and — most crucially — no immigration papers, Samia has to figure out how to make a life and a living in a foreign land. She meets a young man, Imed, and soon finds work in the employ of the elegant Leila. But her presence in Leila's middle-class household triggers a shift in its dynamics, and soon Samia is enmeshed in a web of sexual tension.

By the Time It Gets Dark

December 2016 •Thai

A film director and her muse who was a student activist in the 1970s, a waitress who keeps changing jobs, an actor and an actress, all live loosely connected to each other by almost invisible threads. The narrative sheds its skin several times to reveal layer upon layer of the complexities that make up the characters' lives.

Godless

August 2016 •Bulgarian

A nurse traffics the ID cards of demented patients on the black market of identity theft. Driven by easy cash, and an addiction to morphine, she struggles to keep tabs on her emotional void, and a growing fear of punishment.

The Apple of My Eye

December 2016 •French

A boy, a girl. They live in the same building. They share a passion for music. But when they meet in the elevator, Théo doesn’t see that Élise is blind. It’s hate at first sight. Love takes its time. Will that early misunderstanding bring them together or drive them apart?

Mister Universo

August 2016 •Italian

Tairo, a young lion-tamer, is unhappy. Losing his lucky charm gives him a reason to set off for a journey across Italy in search of Arthur Robin, a former Mister Universe, who gave him the charm a long time ago.

Glory

March 2017 •Bulgarian

When Tsanko Petrov, a railroad worker, finds millions of lev on the train tracks, he decides to turn the entire amount over to the police. Grateful, the state rewards him with a new wristwatch… which soon stops working. Meanwhile, Julia Staikova, the head of PR for the Ministry of Transport, loses his old watch. Here starts Petrov’s desperate struggle to get back not only his old watch, but his dignity.

On the Edge

July 1995 •French

A man. A woman. A single night in Paris. Such is the basic framework of this French romance that begins when middle-aged middle-class housewife Clara, happily drives to the airport to meet her husband who was supposed to come in on the evening flight and is devastated to learn that he has remained at his hotel and is having an affair. Clara sees a younger man eating a sandwich and asks him to have a drink. Later, she and he, an amiable baggage handler, spend the evening talking and exploring the nightlife on the outskirts of Paris. There they meet many people from other countries who come to Paris and work as laborers.

Heaven Will Wait

September 2016 •French

Mélanie, 16 years old, lives with her mother. She likes going to school, her friends, playing the cello, and she wants to change the world. But when she meets a boy on the Internet and falls in love with him, her world changes as she is gradually recruited by Daesh. Sonia is 17 years old, and she almost did something irrevocable to “guarantee” her family a place in paradise. These teenage girls might be called Anaïs, Manon or Leila, and one day they all might go some way down the recruitment process. But can they ever come back from it?

The Far Shore

July 1976 •English

A young woman marries a wealthy man she isn't in love with, but finds romance instead with the couples' painter friend.

People That Are Not Me

November 2016 •Hebrew

Joy can't let go of her ex, but doesn't seem to be able to fall for the new guy. In the meantime she keeps having casual sex with strangers.

Take Me Somewhere Nice

May 2019 •English

A teen raised in the Netherlands by her single mother travels to their native Bosnia to visit the father who left them, as he’s been admitted to a rural hospital. Joined by her cousin and his best friend, they hit the road.

Invitation

April 1986 •Polish

Premature

February 2013 •English

A young man visits his parents in Norway with his pregnant Spanish wife. Expectations run high, but in the short ride from the airport, it becomes clear that this won't be the harmonious family occasion everyone hopes for.

Mixing Nia

April 1998 •English

An ad agency copywriter, ordered to push a new brand of beer to black ghetto kids, resigns from her job and goes searching for her racial identity.

Utskor: Either/Or

October 2013 •English

In the town of Utskor in the region of Bø, northern Norway, we find memories of a political past intertwining with domestic, familial moments during the midnight sun.