On Suffocation

A dialogue-free film about an execution described in two scenes.

Submariners

Play by Tom McClenaghan, about a routine patrol in the submarine HMS Superior. Strange, near-farcical take on tensions, eccentricities and sexuality among the crew of a Polaris submarine, on a six-week tour of duty off the coast of Faslane in Scotland. Among their number, Neil Pearson is the wily, mascara-wearing, cross-dressing messhand AB Seaman ‘Cock’ Roach, using his Bilko-esque charm to scale the naval pecking order and positively thrive in this tiny, cloistered world

Rehab

TV drama - following Adam Bishop, a petty criminal, as he leaves prison for a drugs rehabilitation programme in order to turn his life around.

Heartless

A shy young woman receives a heart transplant and undergoes a personality change that may be connected to the murdered donor.

Bliss!

Tasha Robson, 16, has run away from home! While she rides the waves aboard the large ferry heading from South Shields, England to Scandinavia in search of her unknown father, "The Viking" all is less than calm in the Robson household.

Rocinante

England, mid-1980s: Bill embarks on a dream-like odyssey around rural England, breaking into country houses, taking photos of anything that interests him, until he meets a mysterious woman in a van, who seems to be on the run from the authorities.

Ikaw ang Pag-ibig

Evangeline spends most of her time working late, editing TV commercials. Her work doesn’t leave her much time to spend with her boyfriend Joey or their son. In spite of having a family, she mostly keeps to herself, enjoying her independence. But when her priest brother Johnny is diagnosed with cancer, she’s suddenly called on to be a possible bone marrow donor. As her dysfunctional family starts to gather around the ailing Johnny, Evangeline is forced to come face to face with her failings.

Suicide Kale

Jasmine and Penn, a new couple with an uncertain future, struggle through a lunch party after they stumble upon an anonymous suicide note in the home of the hosts.

Bright Star

In 1818, high-spirited young Fanny Brawne finds herself increasingly intrigued by the handsome but aloof poet John Keats, who lives next door to her family friends the Dilkes. After reading a book of his poetry, she finds herself even more drawn to the taciturn Keats. Although he agrees to teach her about poetry, Keats cannot act on his reciprocated feelings for Fanny, since as a struggling poet he has no money to support a wife.

Moral

The episodically connected lives of four college friends unfold throughout the incipient martial law years, as they struggle to define their sexual and professional desires and how best to attain them.

Plaza vacante

Truth is slippery at the prestigious firm of Martín and Associates, a place where Lucía Aldarando intends to make her mark. Although go-getter Ricardo Martín heads the company, Lucía is ready to move up the corporate ladder, calling upon her smarts and her wiles to make her dream come true. Ambition, however, has a way of changing one's character, and not for the better.

Las combatientes

In this story of love, life, and friendship, three Puerto Rican women from very distinct socioeconomic classes are united when they must fight the same battle. Their lives collide at a doctor's office when they are diagnosed with a life threatening illness. Each has her own struggles, but they come together to survive and support one another on a luxurious weekend away in a beautiful beach resort. When they return to reality...how much have they changed?

¿Y si Cristóbal despierta?

Three women discover they are married to the same man when he falls into a coma after suffering a heart attack. The story takes a surprising turn when the women plan a solution while he remains in coma, but what if Cristóbal awakes?

Import

In 1994, a young family of Bosnian refugees find themselves in a little Dutch village after receiving their residence permit. Absurd situations occur as they attempt to turn this new world into their home.

The Man Who Cried

A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.

The Beguiled

During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.

Hairpin Bender

When stand-up and improvisor Michelle Marcus is over the rat race of Los Angeles, her fellow comedian friends band together and have one last night out on the town. The ladies talk life, career struggles and chasing their dreams.

Ratcatcher

James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.

The Pinkie

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

Anna Wunder