The Encounter

Set in a small room, an adolescent woman experiences synesthesia. While she stares at half filled glasses on the table sound replaces her gaze. Harmonic tones exude and induce a trance like state over the woman. Her meditative harmonies are disrupted when an ominous character arrives with the intent to ingest the song. After consuming the beauty the dark character leaves. Left alone, the adolescent woman employs thaumaturgy to lure her song back to life again.

Magnificent Obsession

Reckless playboy Bob Merrick crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town’s only resuscitator while a local hero, Dr. Phillips, dies waiting for the life-saving device. Merrick then tries to right his wrongs with the doctor’s widow, Helen, falling in love with her in the process.

His Dog

Peter Olsen, a young social outcast who lives alone on a rundown farm and raises vegetables for a living, finds his only consolation in liquor, though Dorcas Chatham, daughter of the general store owner, begs him to forego this indulgence. Returning from town, he finds a dog by the roadside, apparently injured by a car, and takes it home. Later, on a drunken spree, Peter is attacked by robbers, but the dog comes to his rescue and frightens the assailants away. Stirred by the unselfish devotion of his dog, Peter gradually regains his self-respect, and Dorcas falls in love with him and accepts his proposal, though she fears the dog. When Peter enters the dog in a show, another exhibitor proves to be its owner, and Peter is first parted from, then reunited with, "his" dog. Dorcas overcomes her fear and is united with Peter.

All About Eve

From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.

Steel Chariots

Set in the world of NASCAR racing, a family racing team is in danger of being ripped apart by the rivalry between two brothers tempted by fame, money, and beautiful women.

The Bricklayers

When a worker is found murdered on the construction side, the investigation swiftly turns from things criminal to the political circumstances surrounding the building itself. Widespread corruption and neglect by the builder himself are seen to have brought the situation about. Much of the movie is filmed using hand-held cameras, and the majority of the dialogue is in the difficult-to-understand and very slangy Spanish dialect of Mexico City's bricklayers.

Men in Her Life

A wealthy ex-bootlegger comes to the rescue of a formerly rich society girl after her gold-digging fiancé leaves her stranded when he finds out she's broke. The bootlegger proposes a deal: he will settle her debts if she teaches him how to be "a gentleman".

Love Story

Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore. Despite their opposite backgrounds, the young couple put their hearts on the line for each other. When they marry, Oliver's wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail.

The Insider

A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a 60 Minutes exposé on Big Tobacco.

Mera Lahoo

Widowed Avanti Singh lives in an Indian village along with her two sons Dharam and Govinda, and a married daughter. Dharam marries Pavitra, who has a twin sister, Geeta, who meets and falls in love with fellow collegian Govinda. Pavitra has an admirer in Dhaneshwar, a local wealthy land owner and aspiring politician, but Pavitra shuns him. Govinda and Pavitra share a special relationship and Dharam suspects them of having an affair, arguments ensue and Govinda leaves. He returns home to find that Avanti had prevented Dhaneshwar from molesting Pavitra, and Dharam, who went to avenge this humiliation, was killed. Enraged, Govinda rushes to kill Dhaneshwar, but ends up killing someone else instead, and is arrested and put in jail. With Dharam dead and Govinda behind bars, Dhaneshwar seizes the opportunity and this time does molest Pavitra. Who will avenge Pavitra and Dharam now?

Allah Allah

A Turkish folk singer goes on a tour and falls in love with one of his young fan in İzmir. He later finds out that her sister also has a crush on him.

The Chamber

Idealistic young attorney Adam Hall takes on the death row clemency case of his racist grandfather, Sam Cayhall, a former Ku Klux Klan member he has never met.

The Bathhouse of Malatily

The film is an adaptation of the novel Samar Habib by Ismåeel Walieddin. author of Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations. The main character, Ahmad, leaves rural eastern Egypt for the city hoping to become economically self-sufficient, gets an apartment for his parents, and obtains a law degree. He and his family are refugees from a town occupied by the Israeli army, Ismaåilia. Ali, the owner of the Malatily Bathhouse, offers to let him stay there for free. Ahmad encounters several characters there, including Naåeema, a prostitute who he becomes obsessed with, and Raouf, a homosexual man.

Snipers Valley

Young Bundeswehr soldiers Tom and Charly are stationed in Kosovo with the KFOR peacekeeping force. Their mission is to secure peace. Although the brutal war between the enemy Serbs and Albanians is officially over, the hatred between people continues to smoulder. When Tom and Charly rescue the young Serbian Mirjana from the fatal shot of the young sniper Durcan, they get caught between all fronts. They lose their professional distance due to the resulting closeness to Mirjana - who has to learn that her father was a war criminal - but also to Durcan - whose entire family was wiped out. Soon they are entangled in a conflict about guilt, manipulation, love and revenge...

Siew Lup

Mia, an ex-prostitute, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the abusive Quan (Sunny Pang, who also stars in Headshot in this year’s Festival lineup), a butcher who runs a roast meat shop. When she meets sensitive funeral director Wu, their passion for one another escalates into an affair. But the path to true love is fraught with jealousy, forcing someone to make a deadly move.

Can't Say Goodbye

Carla gets a call from the small town where she grew up in the South of Spain. Her father, who she hasn't spoken with in many years, is very ill. She refuses to face it and decides, against everyone's opinion, to take him to Barcelona, where she is convinced they'll be able to save him.

Neckan

Erin Brockovich

A twice-divorced mother of three who sees an injustice, takes on the bad guy and wins -- with a little help from her push-up bra. Erin goes to work for an attorney and comes across medical records describing illnesses clustered in one nearby town. She starts investigating and soon exposes a monumental cover-up.

Deserted at the Altar

Anna Moore, a poor orphaned country girl, and her little brother, Tommy, live with hypocritical Squire Simpson, who conspires with his son to acquire the inheritance due the girl.

Calla

Seon-woo receives calla every morning and wants to find out who the secret admirer is. One day, he goes to a nearby florist's where he meets Ji-hee. He falls in love with her at first sight, thinking she is the one who is sending him flowers. Seon-woo asks Ji-hee to go on a date and she agrees. He arrives at the rendenvous only to find that Ji-hee is held hostage and, to his horror, killed before his eyes.

Aswang

This Filipino vampire film co-directed by Peque Gallaga and Lore Reyes tells the story of an aswang, the traditional shape-shifting creature of local legend. Here, the vampire makes appearances as a giant snake, a young woman (Alma Moreno), and a withered old hag (Lilia Cuntapay). The aswang has a lengthy cinematic history, having been the subject of the first sound film ever produced in the Philippines (1932's Ang Aswang) and migrating, in somewhat altered form, to films in Hong Kong, India, Japan, and, in 1994, to the United States. Aiza Seguerra co-stars with Janice de Belen, Aljon Jimenez, John Estrada, and Alma Moreno.

Charlie Chaplin Meets Harry Lauder

Filmed at the Chaplin Studios, Los Angeles on January 22, 1917 -- this footage was intended as a promotional film to help raise funds for the "British War Loan Bond Appeal Drive" (in addition, Lauder established the Harry Lauder Million Pound Fund for wounded soldiers and sailors in September 1917). The film was never completed or released at the time.

Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror

Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror is a television documentary film that premiered on the Canadian cable network Space on February 25, 2009. The hour-long documentary examines the experiences, motivations and impact of the increasing number of women engaged in horror fiction, with producers Donna Davies and Kimberlee McTaggart of Canada's Sorcery Films interviewing actresses, film directors, writers, critics and academics. The documentary was filmed in Toronto, Canada; and in Los Angeles, California and New York City, New York in the US.

Hvis lille pige er du?

The young, hard-working, and extremely attractive Eva Brun works as secretary to Director Jansen. But when her boss becomes a little too fond of Eva's "work," she quits. Tired of men and tired of lecherous male bosses, she devises a cunning plan. She wants to get married and divorced as quickly as possible so she can live off alimony. And Eva chooses shipowner's son Hans P. Larsen as her victim. But Hans has his own agenda. And soon the two begin a cunning game, the outcome of which only Cupid's arrows know.

Señor Jazz, the Film by Carlos Inzillo

Documentary about the life and work of Carlos Inzillo, a cultural reference for jazz in Argentina, creator and coordinator of a series of jazz concerts that have been held every Tuesday in the City of Buenos Aires since 1984.

Bring Me the Head of Lance Henriksen

When '80s B-movie icon Tim Thomerson wakes up one day to realize the acting roles are not coming his way any more, he sets out on a quest to find his former co-star Lance Henriksen to discover his secret of Hollywood longevity and gets more than he bargained for in the process.

Home for Christmas

"Here is the quintessential Hancox 'personal documentary,' a film in which both the production and role of traditional documentary and autobiographical filmmaking are thrown into question. Using his camera to record a visit out east by train to spend Christmas with the family, Hancox .... used his familiarization with the annual ritual as a form of a script... Although we see the journey through the subjective judgment of Hancox’s eyes, it is his intent to transfer the material from original event to camera, to editing, and finally to the audience, so that the personal content of the film... becomes universal.” Michael Wade, Ontario Film Studies, Cinema Parallel “It is the honesty of portrayal which is staggering, for instead of an idyllic image which many filmmakers present of themselves, Hancox presents (and thus, sees) himself without cinematic make-up... with ‘wild sync’ sound (reminiscent of an early film), and with the use of only available natural light.” Richard Stanford

Det Vita Snittet

Extirpator of Idolatries

The police detective Waldo, of immersed and circumspect disposition and temper, investigates several crimes associated with indigenous rituals that occur in some regions of the Peruvian Andes. There we find a boy and a girl who are about to enter puberty and begin to interact with certain mythical beings, a supernatural belief very common in many Andean villages. A sinister character, pretending to be on a mission of faith, but imbued with religious dogmatism and intolerance, interrupts this peaceful scene as he casts an ominous shadow over these ancient Peruvian beliefs. Although Waldo's boss considers him inferior and distrusts his methods (a form of discrimination), the policeman continues his efforts to capture the "Extirpator of Idolatries.¨ At the same time, Waldo will resolve his own inner conflict which has troubled him all his life.

Wawa

Featuring speakers of Chinuk Wawa, an Indigenous language from the Pacific Northwest, WAWA begins slowly, patterning various forms of documentary and ethnography. Quickly, the patterns tangle and become confused and commingled, while translating and transmuting ideas of cultural identity, language, and history.

Strong Boy

"Strong Boy" is offered a promotion for saving a child from being crushed by a trunk, but to the frustration of his girlfriend Mary, he is not ambitious enough to take a white-collar position. But when he thwarts an attempted train robbery and saves the Queen of Lisonia's jewels, he is viewed as a hero and Mary finally agrees to marry him.

The Crush Space

A short film about three siblings with secrets who come back home to stay, Everyone meets up at their mum's house for a family lunch and none of them want her to find out about what their hiding.

Asa

Asa is a film which tries to show the confrontation between the dance of a body, the gesture of filming, editing, and moreover, between the sensitive surface of the film and the texture of skin in light.

А дома лучше

Malvinas: El Legado

Spark

The year 2049 – when technology has been invented that converts human emotions into clean energy. A young man, out of touch with his feelings, experiences a moment that sparks him back into life.

Salud

After the Fountain of Youth makes immortality accessible, a vulnerable married couple must choose if it really is "til death do us part."

Barjo

The narrator, "Barjo" (nutcase, crap artist), is an obsessive simpleton, given to filling his notebook with verbatim dialog, observed trivia, and oddball speculation on human behavior and the end of the world. When his house burns, he moves in with his twin sister, Fanfan -- an impulsive, quixotic egoist -- and her husband, Charles, the Aluminum King. Charles becomes the focus of the film, as his wife and brother-in-law bewilder him.