The Return of the Lame Hero

Hiding among the gangsters is like walking on thin ice—can the fiery youth hold onto their original aspirations and prove themselves? As the wheels of time roll on, the gangsters' rampant activities and "spectacles" have faded away. Today's peace and security are our best "proof".

Ask the Dust

Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.

1984

In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Live and Become

In 1980, the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.

Benny's Video

A 14-year-old video enthusiast obsessed with violent films decides to make one of his own and show it to his parents, with tragic results.

Golden Door

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

We Own the Night

A New York nightclub manager tries to save his brother and father from Russian mafia hitmen.

Lorenzo's Oil

Augusto and Michaela Odone are dealt a cruel blow by fate when their five-year-old son Lorenzo is diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease. But the Odones' persistence and faith leads to an unorthodox cure which saves their boy and re-writes medical history.

Persepolis

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.

Secret Sunshine

Shin-ae moves to her recently late husband’s hometown. Despite her efforts to settle in this unfamiliar and too-normal place, she finds that she can’t fit in. After a sudden tragedy, Shin-ae turns to Christianity to relieve her pain, but when even this is not permitted, she wages a war against God.

Training Day

On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears.

(Ab)normal Desire

Director Yoshiyuki Kishi and screenwriter Takehito Minato—the team behind acclaimed boxing epic Wilderness—reunite to adapt Ryo Asai's prize-winning novel. A sensitive drama about the aberrant in a society without regard for diversity, the story unites characters trying to hide abnormalities: a prosecutor who is worried that his pubescent son is a shut-in, an introverted saleswoman with a peculiar habit, and a student tortured by feelings she can’t express. In a world fill with abnormalities, what if it’s actually normal to be abnormal?

El lugar donde estuvo el paraíso

In Iquitos, during the era of military dictatorships, a consul must face the arrival of a daughter he does not see in years and the stalking of a military collaborator diplomat who comes to discover his protection to a deserter pilot.

Žofka z Janovic

Man on Fire

Bitter over their divorce, a wealthy businessman prevents his ex-wife from seeing their child. She then takes him to custody court and a judge tries to determine what will be best for the child.