 | All Shall Be Well | 7.8 | Chinese | 2024 | When her partner Pat unexpectedly dies, Angie is left to worry about the flat in which the couple lived together for over 30 years. Supported by her chosen family, Angie begins a later-life journey into emancipation. |
| All the Long Nights | 8 | Japanese | 2024 | Two work colleagues: he suffers from panic attacks, she has extreme PMS. Their company distributes toy planetariums. What may not sound like Ozu Yasujirō is actually precisely that: people are attentive and do each other good, without even realising. |
| 18x2 Beyond Youthful Days | 7.3 | Japanese | 2024 | A journey begins to trace the memory of a first love, transcending the time and borders between Japan and Taiwan over a period of 18 years. |
| 52-Hertz Whales | - | Japanese | 2024 | Mishima Kiko was exploited by her own family. When she was little, her mother neglected her. After her mother remarried, Kiko was abused mentally and physically by her mother, stepfather, and younger stepbrother. She didn't belong to this family. Somehow, she disconnects from her family in Tokyo and moves to a seaside town in Oita. There, she meets a 13-year-old boy named Mushi. He has been abused by his mother and does not speak due to trauma from the abuse. Mushi reminds Kiko of herself when she was younger. |
| Abiding Nowhere | 6.6 | Chinese | 2024 | The walker with the shaved head and dressed in a red robe is barefoot. He walks slowly but determinedly through the forest, over stones and grassland. He also makes his way through the shadows of trees and houses. He sets foot in the train station, the church and the museum. The sun rises and sets again. The walker passes through Washington, D.C. Another stranger is also on the move in the city. We are unsure whether or not he is following the walker. |
| Abraham's Valley | 7.3 | Portuguese | 1993 | Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. Young marries Dr. Carlos Paiva, a father's friend, to whom she is not attracted. They move to the Valley of Abraham. Carlos loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. With time she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so she finds a lover. |
| A Dirty Story / The Photos of Alix | 7.4 | French | 1977 | A group of friends listen as one man tells them a story about a time when, in a small cafe, he discovered a peephole into the ladies' bathroom and became addicted to looking through it at female genitals. |
| Aggro Dr1ft | 5.6 | English | 2024 | In the seedy domain of Miami’s criminal underbelly, a seasoned hitman embarks on the relentless pursuit of his next target — navigating a twisted world where violence and madness reign supreme. Tensions unravel, leading to a psychedelic journey that blurs the lines between predator and prey. |
| A Journey in Spring | 5.9 | Chinese | 2023 | An old man with a limp, Khim-Hok, has depended on his wife over the years. They live in an old house on the urban fringe of Taipei. After his wife suddenly passes away, Khim-Hok puts her into an old freezer and goes on living a seemingly peaceful life. But their long-estranged son and his new partner suddenly appears, so Khim-Hok has to face his wife's death when the end finally comes. |
| All to Play For | 6.6 | French | 2023 | Sylvie lives with her two children whom she’s raising on her own. One evening, there’s an accident, and her youngest son is removed from her care. Sylvie must subsequently fight to get her son back and to keep herself afloat. |
| Anselm (3D) | 7.3 | German | 2023 | This unique cinematic experience dives deep into an artist’s work and reveals his life path, inspiration, and creative process. It explores his fascination with myth and history. Past and present are interwoven to diffuse the line between film and painting, allowing the audience to be completely immersed in the remarkable world of one of the greatest contemporary artists, Anselm Kiefer. Wim Wenders shot this unique portrait over the course of two years in stunning 3D. |
| A Prince | 6.4 | English | 2019 | When Carly, secretly a princess, plans Snowden Peak’s Snow Ball with Jesse, their attraction is undeniable. In planning the event, the two make the gala a fundraiser to help infuse much needed resources into the resort. But without a celebrity draw, investors aren’t interested, and Snowden Peak is put up for sale. Will Carly allow her royal identity to be exposed to save the resort? |
| Arcadia | 7 | Greek | 2024 | Neurologist Katerina and former doctor Yannis are heading off to a deserted seaside resort. Silence descends on the car as they travel across dunes in a windy autumn, matching the less-than-pleasant occasion: Yannis has been called to identify the victim of a tragic accident at the hospital of the small town. When the local policeman informs them that the victim’s vehicle had plunged over the parapet of a stone bridge and leads them to the morgue, Katerina sees her worst suspicions confirmed. Together with Yannis, but also on her own nightly excursions to a mysterious, rustic beach bar called Arcadia, they begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together, revealing a haunting story of love, loss, acceptance and letting go. |
| Architecton | 6.7 | English | 2024 | An extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone. Victor Kossakovsky raises a fundamental question: how do we inhabit the world of tomorrow? |
| Árni | 6.8 | Hungarian | 2024 | Sensitive and bird-like Árni works as a handyman at a small and dingy traveling circus touring in rural areas. The troupe is made up from a family that runs the circus, where Árni is the only non-family member. He lives like a monk, his days revolve around feeding the animals and doing various works for the circus. The circus gets a new python, and the creature piques Árni's curiosity. As he starts taming it, the process gradually makes an impact on him. |
| Art College 1994 | 6.2 | Chinese | 2023 | In the 1990s, a group of students on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts are pursuing their studies and preparing to face the world. China is opening up to the West and the students’ lives are a tangle of love stories and friendships, artistic research, ideals and ambitions brought about by new influences. Caught between tradition and modernity, they have to decide who they want to become. |
| A Silence | 7 | German | 2016 | The end of a summer, a sleepy fishing port on the Baltic Sea and the beginning of a great feeling that must not be: Shortly before the start of the new school year, the 18-year-old Christian falls in love with his new English teacher Stella Petersen. In a moment of unexpected lightness and freedom, in the dunes and seascape far away from the small town, Stella and Christian discover a shared longing and an attraction to each other, the intensity of which both overwhelmed. But soon after class has begun again, the secret relationship between the young teacher and her pupil threatens the scandal ... |
| A Song Sung Blue | 5.8 | Chinese | 2024 | Liu Xian will always remember the loneliest and bluest of summers when she was 15 years old. When her mother goes to Africa to provide medical aid as a doctor, she is thrown into the care of her father who has been divorced from her mother for many years. Her father’s photo studio is struggling, and he fools around with the widow who works at the front desk all day, ignoring her needs of Xian. She feels that she has become an outcast until Jin Mingmei appears like a ray of shining light and illuminates her lonely life. Mingmei’s wanton youthful vigor attracts Liu Xian and leads her into an unknown and strange world. During this restless summer, the ignorance and impulse of youth leave an unforgettable mark on Liu Xian’s life. |
| A Spoiling Rain | 7.8 | Japanese | 2023 | The story is about a film director, Kutani, who lives in the dying pink film industry, and an aspiring screenwriter, Iseki, and their loved one, Shoko, whose dream of a film she has clung to begins to crumble, and their lives intersect. |
| At Averroes & Rosa Parks | 7.7 | French | 2024 | Named after two units in the Esquirol Hospital, this documentary focuses on individual interviews and meetings between caregivers and patients to spotlight the different forms of mental health care used and give viewers a glimpse into the unique worlds of those giving and receiving treatment. |
| A Traveler's Needs | 6.6 | Korean | 2024 | A French woman, who initially played a child's recorder in a park and faced financial struggles, eventually became a French teacher for two women, finding solace in lying down on rocks and relying on makkeolli for comfort. |
| August My Heaven / Chime | 6.2 | Japanese | 2024 | Joe works as a professional stand-in, posing as friends and family for clients. An occurrence at a funeral gig blurs the line between Joe's work and personal life. |
| Avant Garde Shorts Programme | - | - | - | A selection of short films. Click on the link for more information. |
| Bad Actor | - | Spanish | 2023 | The plot is about the harassment suffered by an actress during the filming of a movie. She does not remain silent and denounces the harasser. However, soon after, a series of events begin to happen that will give us a sense of the outcome of the story. |
| Banel & Adama | 6.2 | Pular | 2023 | Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. The young married couple lives in a remote village in northern Senegal. For them, nothing else exists. Yet their perfect everlasting love is on a collision course with their community’s customs. Because in this world, there is no room for passion, let alone chaos. |
| Between the White Key and the Black Key | 5 | Japanese | 2023 | In an audacious reworking of the biopic, this ensemble drama sees jazz pianist Minami Hiroshi’s memoir cleverly reinterpreted into a surreal and playful story about chasing dreams, disillusionment and the inner lives of professional artists. Closer to playing two sides of the same coin than tackling a dual role, Ikematsu Sosuke embodies two versions of Minami – the naïve upstart and the jaded pro – who magically cross paths as they become entangled with a cast of colourful characters in the seedy alleyways and jazz clubs of Ginza over a single night. |
| Black Box Diaries | 8 | Japanese | 2024 | Journalist Shiori Itō embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems. |
| Black Snow | - | Russian | 2024 | A Siberian mother-of-three finds herself under the aggressive scrutiny of the Russian authorities when she steps up as a citizen journalist and uncovers a huge coal scandal. A revealing journalistic thriller with deep personal consequences. |
| Blaga’s Lessons | 7.2 | Bulgarian | 2024 | Blaga is a seventy-year-old recently widowed former teacher and a woman of firm morals. When telephone scammers con her out of the money that she had saved for her husband’s grave, her moral compass slowly begins to lose its bearings… |
| Borrowed Time | 7.5 | English | 2015 | A weathered Sheriff returns to the remains of an accident he has spent a lifetime trying to forget. With each step forward, the memories come flooding back. Faced with his mistake once again, he must find the strength to carry on. |
| Brief History of a Family | 7.4 | Chinese | 2024 | A middle-class family’s fate becomes intertwined with their only son’s enigmatic new friend in post one-child policy China, putting unspoken secrets, unmet expectations, and untended emotions under the microscope. |
| Carefree Days | 6.5 | Chinese | 2023 | In Northeast China, Shenyang is a city decaying. Xu Lingling is a 25 year old girl suffering from uremia and her life has collapsed. In the height of her illness, her dissolute father has returned, with her best friend Tan Na and former classmate Zhao Dongyang, to take care of her. Though her life is suffering, facing the issues of family affection, love and friendship, she feels she still deserves to live. One day, Xu Lingling decided to for a trip, with Tan Na and Zhao Dongyang, they hit the road. |
| Cinema Laika | 7.7 | French | 2023 | In the heart of the Finnish forest, the long-closed foundry of the little town of Karkkila has come back to life thanks to director Aki Kaurismäki and his creation of the town's first cinema. The peace and calm of the little town of Karkkila, nestled deep in the Finnish forest, is interrupted by unexpected sounds. In the abandoned foundry, noisy building work is taking place. Inside the building, Aki Kaurismäki is both builder and site manager of what is soon to become the Kino Laika cinema. The creation of the cinema is the talk of the town. In the factory still in activity, in a 1960s Cadillac, in a bikers' club, in the local pub, in the woods or in Aki Kaurismäki's former editing room, people start talking about cinema again. |
| Cinema Strada | - | Chinese | 2023 | Having devoted much of his career to programming and film history research, Law Kar, a.k.a. Uncle Kar, places himself before the camera for the first time. This nostalgic trip down memory lane, as he recounts his personal and cinematic experiences, from film criticism, experimental filmmaking to auditioning for Federico Fellini, cumulates in a brief history of Hong Kong cinema itself. Reflecting on the past 80 years, Law Kar's affectionate documentary sheds light on local movies and Chinese cinema, brooding over the socio-political transformation of our perplexed city, as the restless cinephile ponders the role cinema and art play in times of crisis. |
| Close Your Eyes | 7.3 | Spanish | 2023 | Years after his mysterious disappearance, Julio Arenas, a famous Spanish actor, is back in the news thanks to a television program. |
| Daaaaaalí! | 7.2 | French | 2024 | A young French journalist meets Salvador Dalí repeatedly for a documentary film project which never gets to start shooting. |
| Dahomey | 6.1 | French | 2024 | November 2021. 26 royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin. Along with thousands of others, these artefacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. But what attitude to adopt to these ancestors’ homecoming in a country that had to forge ahead in their absence? The debate rages among students at the University of Abomey-Calavi. |
| Dangerous Encounter – 1st Kind | 7.4 | Chinese | 1980 | A sociopathic beauty urges three nerdy pranksters to embark on a deranged rampage. |
| Dear Jassi | 8.3 | Punjabi | 2023 | In 1996 Punjab, India, Canadian-born Jassi falls in love with Mithu, a rickshaw driver beneath her social status. Their attraction is pure and unconditional, but is it strong enough to fight the dictates imposed by Jassi’s family and Punjabi society? |
| Deep Crimson (Director's Cut) | 7.2 | Spanish | 1996 | Driven by desire and desperate for self-love, Coral and Nicolás will abandon their past lives in a journey surrounded by murder. |
| Dislocation | 7.2 | English | 2005 | In February 2002, families living in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing development were given a 180 day notice of eviction. In six months, the community that had been their home for generations would be demolished. DISLOCATION chronicles the lives of tenants in one building as they move through the six-month relocation process. The filmmakers follow three families as they prepare for their own move and as they help others around them. Dislocation is a story of a community coping with its own impending demise. It is a tale of courage, hope, and survival. |
| Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of the World | 7.4 | Romanian | 2023 | On behalf of a multinational company, a production assistant drives around the Romanian city of Bucharest, interviewing various citizens who have been injured due to work accidents to cast one of them in a “safety at work” video. |
| Dumplings | - | English | 2004 | After two years of dating, a lesbian girl takes her girlfriend back home for the spring festival to meet her conservative Chinese immigrant parents. |
| Durian Durian | 7.1 | Chinese | 2000 | Yan and Fan are neighbors in Hong Kong's Mong Kok district. Yan is a 21-year-old prostitute who works for a pimp and spends her off-hours watching TV in her miniscule apartment or hanging out with other prostitutes at a local cafe. |
| Dying | 7.8 | English | 1976 | Last days: Sally, 46, bonds with her elderly mother as they take things day to day; Bill, in his early 30s, stoically goes on while his wife loses herself in rage; grandfatherly Reverend Bryant preaches a final sermon, then goes back South one last time. Three different cinema verité’s Ikiru’s, filmed over a two-year period. |
| El Sur | 7.8 | Spanish | 1983 | A woman recalls her childhood growing up in the North of Spain, focusing on her relationship with her father. |
| Essential Truths of the Lake | 6.1 | Tagalog | 2023 | Faced with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody murders and brazen lies, ethically conflicted police lieutenant Hermes Papauran continues his struggle to find a resolution to a 15-year-old case around a volcanic ash-laden landscape and an impenetrable lake. |
| Eureka | 5.9 | English | 1983 | An Alaskan gold prospector lives in luxury with his family on an island which gangsters want. |
| Exhuma | 7.5 | Korean | 2024 | After suffering from serial paranormal events, a wealthy family living in LA summons a young rising shaman duo Hwa-rim and Bong-gil to save the newborn of the family. Once they arrive, Hwa-rim senses a dark shadow of their ancestor has latched on the family, so-called a 'Grave's Calling'. In order to exhume the grave and relieve the ancestor, Hwa-rim seeks help from the top-notch geomancer Sang-duk and the mortician Young-geun. To their dismay, the four find the grave at a shady location in a remote village in Korea. Unaware of the consequences, the exhumation is carried out, yet this rather unleashes a malevolent force buried underneath. |
| Explanation for Everything | 7.8 | Hungarian | 2023 | It’s summer in Budapest, high school student Abel is struggling to focus on his final exams, whilst coming to the realisation that he is hopelessly in love with his best friend Janka. The studious Janka has her own unrequited love with married history teacher Jakab—who had a previous confrontation with Abel’s conservative father. The tensions of a polarised society come unexpectedly to the surface when Abel’s history graduation exam turns into a national scandal. |
| Fallen Leaves | 7.5 | Finnish | 2023 | In modern-day Helsinki, two lonely souls in search of love meet by chance in a karaoke bar. However, their path to happiness is beset by obstacles - from lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism, and a charming stray dog. |
| Fauna | 6.6 | Spanish | 2023 | In a forest on the outskirts of Barcelona (Spain), a sick old shepherd and his flock of sheep live near a high-tech laboratory dedicated to health research and animal experimentation. |
| Favoriten | 8.1 | German | 2024 | Favoriten is one of the most culturally diverse neighborhoods in Vienna and the starting point of Ruth Beckermann’s latest documentary, in which she accompanies a class of pupils from the age of seven to ten. Their ambitious teacher, Ilkay, is determined to create an inclusive, supportive and safe environment for the kids. The majority of children don’t speak German at home, some families are wounded by war experience and many face discrimination. Despite few resources from the educational system, Ilkay gently navigates her class through daily adventures, defeats and victories. The result is an astonishingly cheerful portrait of a small community mirroring the complexities of contemporary European society. The film is an ode to childhood, celebrating the work of educators and lifelong learning in and outside the classroom. |
| Fear and Desire | 5.3 | English | 1953 | After their airplane crashes behind enemy lines, four soldiers must survive and try to find a way back to their battalion. However, when they come across a local peasant girl the horrors of war quickly become apparent. |
| Following the Sound | 5.9 | Japanese | 2023 | One day, Haru (25), who works as a bookstore clerk, reunites with Takeshi (45), whom she first met a few years prior, when she stopped him from jumping in front of a train. Takeshi offers Haru a job. Another day, Haru is worried about Yukiko (40) who is sitting on a bench in front of the station, and talks to her. This leads them on a small journey together. Haru takes along a cassette tape and recorder left behind by her mother Taeko, who died of illness when Haru was in primary school. Haru again faces regrets of not being able to help Taeko, which she had held for a long time. |
| Fresh Off Markham | - | Chinese | 2024 | In Markham, a multi-ethnic cluster in Canada, a Chinese immigrant and a small-time crook’s attempt to rob a Japanese restaurant goes terribly wrong. Unsuspectingly taking up the two fleeing gangsters and a Hong Kong influencer in a carpool, a black Uber driver is entangled in a sinister predicament larger than their language barriers. Meanwhile, the influencer is ushered into the dark side of local history while searching for a luxury home. A tripartite film with interlocking stories, this black comedy takes a satirical look at the absurdity faced by Chinese immigrants. |
| GIFT | 6 | Danish | 1966 | The story concerns a hedonistic young chap who delights in stirring up trouble with his video camera, screening filmed private intimate moments to parents of their children who are prominently featured on the video. |
| Gold Boy | - | Japanese | 2023 | The film tells the story of firefighter Long Dachuan from being looked down upon to becoming a qualified firefighter. |
| Green Border | 6.4 | Polish | 2023 | In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so called “green border” between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian family intertwine. |
| Hollywoodgate | 7.1 | English | 2024 | Immediately after the US pullout from Afghanistan, Taliban forces occupied the Hollywood Gate complex, which is claimed to be a former CIA base in Kabul. |
| Hollywood Hong Kong | 6.9 | Chinese | 2002 | A prostitute named Tong Tong enters the life of a man who runs a barbecue pork restaurant and quickly begins to ruin his life, as well as the life of his two rotund sons, and a local gangster. |
| How to Have Sex | 6.5 | English | 2023 | Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday—drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives. |
| If Only I Could Hibernate | 7.4 | Mongolian | 2024 | Ulzii, a teenager from a poor neighbourhood in Ulaanbaatar, is determinated to win a sciences-physics competition to get a scholarship. His illiterate mother finds a job in the countryside, leaving him and his brother and sister in the middle of winter. Ulzii wanders around at night looking for things to burn for heat while preparing for the national competition. |
| Il Grido | 7.6 | Italian | 1957 | A sugar-refinery worker flees his Northern Italy town after a woman refuses his marriage proposal. |
| I'm Not Everything I Want to Be | 8.5 | Czech | 2024 | After the Soviet invasion of Prague, a young female photographer strives to break free from the constraints of Czechoslovak normalization and embarks on a wild journey towards freedom, capturing her experiences on thousands of subjective photographs. |
| In Bruges | 7.9 | English | 2008 | Ray and Ken, two hit men, are in Bruges, Belgium, waiting for their next mission. While they are there they have time to think and discuss their previous assignment. When the mission is revealed to Ken, it is not what he expected. |
| Inshallah a Boy | 7.1 | Arabic | 2024 | A widow pretends to be pregnant with a son in order to save her daughter and home from a relative exploiting Jordan’s patriarchal inheritance laws. This thriller from the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival is Jordan’s Official Entry for Best International Film at the Academy Awards. |
| Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell | 6.7 | Vietnamese | 2023 | After a Vietnamese woman dies in a traffic accident in Saigon, her brother-in-law and her young son transport her body back to the former’s hometown in rural Vietnam, where they plan to give her a funeral. |
| Intercepted | 7.5 | Russian | 2024 | Intercepted is a journey through Ukraine that reveals the banality of evil behind the Russian invasion with the shocking juxtaposition of two realities: the Ukrainians who have been suffering and resisting the war violence, and the Russian military, and civilians, who have been perpetrating it. |
| In the Rearview | 7.4 | French | 2023 | As two siblings - the filmmaker and her brother - look back on a road trip they took with their father 20 years ago, they discover their memories have faded, but the feelings they share remain the same. |
| Io Capitano | 7.6 | Italian | 2023 | Longing for a brighter future, two Senegalese teenagers embark on a journey from West Africa to Italy. However, between their dreams and reality lies a labyrinth of checkpoints, the Sahara Desert, and the vast waters of the Mediterranean. |
| Ivo | 7 | German | 2024 | Ivo works as a palliative home-care nurse. Every day, she visits families, couples and single people. They live in small flats and large houses. They all have different lives and deaths. They all have different ways of dealing with the time that remains. At home, Ivo’s teenage daughter has long since become independent. From morning to night, Ivo drives around in her old Skoda which she has made into her personal living space. Here, she eats her meals, works, sings, swears and dreams. One of her patients, Solveigh, has become a close friend. Ivo has also formed a relationship with Solveigh’s husband, Franz. Day after day, the two work together to care for Solveigh. And they sleep with each other. Solveigh’s strength is diminishing and she soon has to rely on support for the simplest tasks. She wants the final decision to be her own: she wants Ivo to help her die. |
| Kidnapped | 4.6 | English | 2021 | Savannah Duke-Morgan realizes her lifetime dream to bring her husband Brad and her five-year-old daughter Aria back to her birthplace on the Gold Coast of Australia until it turns into her worst nightmare when Aria goes missing from the resort’s Kidz Klub. |
| Kohlhiesel’s Daughters | 6.5 | German | 1920 | Somewhere in Southern Bavaria Xaver wants to marry Gretel, but her father Kohlhiesel wants his elder daughter Liesel to marry first. The problem is, nobody wants to marry her, because she is too brutal. Seppel suggests, that he should marry Liesel first, get rid of her and then he can marry Gretel... |
| Kubi | 6.9 | Japanese | 2023 | Lord Oda Nobunaga plans to control Japan where rival warlords battle by waging war against several clans. His vassal Araki Murashige stages a rebellion and promptly disappears. |
| L'Amour Fou | 6.7 | French | 2010 | This documentary examines the life and work of the late fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent, recounting how a frail prodigy prone to bouts of depression became an icon of the fashion world. Initially appointed head of the House of Dior in 1957 before growing into a globally recognized designer in his own right, Saint-Laurent overcomes his struggles with substance abuse, accumulating a large art collection alongside his lifelong personal and professional partner, Pierre Bergé. |
| Les Indésirables | 6.4 | French | 2023 | This charts the journey of a fierce young woman, Habi, and a budding new mayor, Pierre, crossing paths in an underprivileged suburb on the outskirts of Paris. Habi, a native of the suburb who is involved in social orgs helping locals, becomes a political figure. Pierre, meanwhile, is a former doctor who takes the city’s reins after the mayor’s death and sets off to follow his agenda. |
| Little Cheung | 7.4 | Chinese | 1999 | In 1997, Little Cheung is a street-wise nine-year-old boy living in a bustling neighbourhood of Hong Kong, just before the reunification with China. |
| Love Lies | 5.7 | English | 2024 | Reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family. |
| Lumberjack the Monster | 6.7 | Japanese | 2023 | After Akira Ninomiya miraculously survives a brutal attacked by an unknown assailant wearing a "monster mask,"he becomes fixated on finding the attacker and getting revenge. |
| Made in Hong Kong | 7.5 | Chinese | 1997 | Hong Kong 1997, where young people dream of love and death, suicide and murder. Moon is a cynical young debt collector, smitten by Ping, a young woman dying of kidney disease. A suicide note from a student they don't know ends up intertwining their fates. |
| Mademoiselle Kenopsia | 5.7 | French | 2023 | Set on carrying out her task with dedication, a woman is obsessed with watching over anonymous interiors and occupying them. Both a custodian of the premises and a ghostly presence, she becomes an echo of how we relate to time, solitude and the melancholy of forsaken spaces. |
| Mahjong | 5.1 | Portuguese | 2013 | Varziela, Vila do Conde, the biggest Chinatown in Portugal. A man wearing a hat and a missing woman. A high-heeled shoe, a blond wig and a Chinese dress. The confrontation between the East Wind and the Red Dragon; the cardinal points switched as in an ultimate Mahjong game. |
| Malu | 7.4 | Portuguese | 2024 | Malu — a mercurial, unemployed actress living with her conservative mother in a precarious house in a Rio de Janeiro slum — tries to deal with her strained relationship with her own adult daughter while surviving on memories of her glorious artistic past. |
| Masked Hearts | 6.4 | Japanese | 2023 | Since she was a child, 26-year-old Hanako Orimura has dreamed of becoming a movie director. Now, she is on the verge of making her debut as a movie director. She also has a fateful encounter with handsome Masao Date. Hanako experiences the happiest moments of her life, but she is then cheated by a nasty and irresponsible producer. Because of this, she loses almost everything and becomes despondent. Masao asks her if she is going to give up on her dream. |
| Memory | 7 | English | 2023 | Sylvia is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life: her daughter, her job, her AA meetings. This is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they open the door to the past. |
| Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros | 7.9 | French | 2023 | An overview of the day-to-day operations of a Michelin 3-star restaurant in central France. |
| Mother and Daughter, or the Night is Never Complete | - | Georgian | 2023 | Greatness paired with modesty: 93 years old and a daughter, world-famous director Lana remembers her mother Nutsa, Georgia’s first female filmmaker. A cinema legacy that revolves around being human in dark times: feminist, loving, critical of violence. |
| Motherland | 8.5 | English | 2010 | Motherland is the most powerful documentary on Africa. Fusing history, culture, politics, and contemporary issues, Motherland sweeps across Africa to tell a new story of a dynamic continent. From the glory and majesty of Africa's past through its complex history. Africa as you have never seen it. From multi-award winning director 'Alik Shahadah (500 Years Later.) |
| My City | - | German | 2024 | An essay film that describes the city as a subjective paradise in which systems of order and chaos constantly override each other. An ode to chaos, hidden signs and the city as an eternal palimpsest. |
| My Little Loves | 7.2 | French | 1974 | Daniel lives with his grandmother and, after a year of high school, goes to live with his mother in the south of France; a harsher environment which rapidly changes his perception of friends, work, and women. |
| My Stolen Planet | 8.6 | Persian | 2024 | Farah, an Iranian woman, is forced to migrate to her private planet to be free. She buys other people’s memories in form of Super 8 films and records and archives her own to create an alternative history of Iran. |
| New World! (The World Anew) | - | French | 2023 | On Ushant, where Jean Epstein retired to film “Finis Terrae” (1928), exploring the means of cinema to question reality. A century later, where do we stand? |
| Nocturnes | 6.9 | Hindi | 2024 | In the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, moths are whispering something to us. In the dark of night, two curious observers shine a light on this secret universe. |
| Oasis of Now | 6.4 | Vietnamese | 2023 | In Kuala Lumpur, a Vietnamese door-to-door apartment housekeeper makes her ends meet while secretly meeting her daughter who lives with locals, until a Malay stranger mistakes her as his family during an immigration raid. |
| Obedience | 7.9 | English | 1962 | In the film, we see subjects instructed to administer electric shocks of increasing severity to another person, and observe both obedient and defiant reactions. After the experiment, we witness subjects explain firsthand their actions. Obedience is as relevant today as it was at its publication. As we as a society witness suicide bombings, torture, and gang atrocities, we wonder just how far people will go. Fifty years later, this experiment still resonates as people ask themselves, “Would I pull that lethal switch?” This is the only authentic film footage of Milgram’s famous experiment and is essential to all foundational work in social psychology at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school level. |
| Old Fox | 7.7 | Chinese | 2023 | Set in the late 1980s, this family drama is about an 11-year-old boy who befriends his landlord, nicknamed Old Fox, and learns from him how to survive in a rapidly changing world as well as things his poor father would never be able to teach him. |
| Old Well | 7.1 | Chinese | 1986 | A married village worker teams up with an old girlfriend to try to dig a well for his water-starved village. The well collapses and they are trapped. Their enforced confinement leads to them exploring their feelings for each other and those around them. |
| Once Within a Time | 7 | English | 2023 | Once Within a Time is an anarchic comedy told without words, a sensory feast to be felt through art and music. This multidisciplinary work shows us life on Earth as humanity clashes with the five fundamental elements—earth, air, water, fire, and money— headed towards a critical moment of choice between annihilation and redemption. |
| Out of Season | 6.3 | French | 2024 | Mathieu lives in Paris. Alice lives in a small seaside town in western France. He's in his fifties and a well-known actor. She's over forty and a piano teacher. They fell in love some fifteen years ago. Then they separated. Since then, time has passed, each has gone his own way and the wounds have gradually healed. When Mathieu comes to dilute his melancholy in the whirlpool baths of a thalasso, he meets Alice again by chance. |
| Pepe | 5.4 | English | 1960 | Mario "Cantinflas" Moreno is a hired hand, Pepe, employed on a ranch. A boozing Hollywood director buys a white stallion that belongs to Pepe's boss. Pepe, determined to get the horse back (as he considers it his family), decides to take off to Hollywood. There he meets film stars including Jimmy Durante, Frank Sinatra, Zsa Zsa Gabór, Bing Crosby, Maurice Chevalier and Jack Lemmon in drag as Daphne from Some Like It Hot. He is also surprised by things that were new in America at the time, such as automatic swinging doors. When he finally reaches the man who bought the horse, he is led to believe there is no hope of getting it back. However, the last scene shows both him and the stallion back at the ranch with several foals. |
| Pictures of Ghosts | 7.8 | Portuguese | 2023 | Downtown Recife’s classic movie palaces from the 20th century are mostly gone. That city area is now an archaeological site of sorts that reveals aspects of life in society which have been lost. And that’s just part of the story. |
| Priscilla | 6.6 | English | 2023 | When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend. |
| Public Toilet | 5.5 | Chinese | 2002 | The story of Dong Dong, the God of Public Toilets - so called because he was born and abandoned by his mother in a public toilet and later rescued out of the sewage by his grandmother. |
| Redlife | 6.9 | Thai | 2023 | Som, daughter of a sex worker, believes that love will lead her towards a better life. Ter, a young criminal, robs just to buy love that doesn't exist. Redlife explores a world that is broken, ignored, and which offers no escape. |
| Return to Reason | 6.4 | French | 1923 | Experimental film, white specks and shapes gyrating over a black background, the light-striped torso of Kiki of Montparnasse (Alice Prin), a gyrating eggcrate. One of the first Dadaist films. |
| Ricardo and Painting | 7.6 | French | 2023 | Ricardo and Painting is Barbet Schroeder's portrait of his friend the painter Ricardo Cavallo, who devoted his life to painting. From Buenos Aires to Finistère, via Paris and Peru, this film is an invitation to dive into the history of painting, but also to discover the life of this exceptional man who, with simplicity and humility, always fully committed, to the point of transmitting his passion to the children of his village. |
| Robinson's Place / Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes | 6.6 | French | 1964 | Two men in their twenties spend their time in Parisian cafes trying to pick up women. They take one girl dancing, and then steal her purse when she prefers to dance with another man. |
| Samsara | 8.4 | English | 2011 | Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders. |
| Seven Psychopaths | 7.1 | English | 2012 | A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu. |
| Seven Veils | 7.7 | English | 2023 | Jeanine, an earnest theatre director, has been given the task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, she allows her repressed trauma to color the present as she re-enters the opera world after so many years away. |
| Shadow of Fire | 7.1 | Japanese | 2023 | In the black market, a war orphan is confronted with the struggles of people living in the immediate aftermath of WWII. |
| Shayda | 7.1 | English | 2023 | An Iranian woman living in Australia, Shayda finds refuge in a women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter, Mona. Having fled her husband, Hossein, and filed for divorce, Shayda struggles to maintain normalcy for Mona. Buoyed by the approach of Nowruz, she tries to forge a fresh start with new and unfettered freedoms. But when a judge grants Hossein visitation rights, he reenters their life, stoking Shayda’s fear that he’ll attempt to take Mona back to Iran. |
| Short Film Competition Programme I | - | - | - | A selection of short films. Click on the link for more information. |
| Short Film Competition Programme II | - | - | - | A selection of short films. Click on the link for more information. |
| Short Film Competition Programme III | - | - | - | A selection of short films. Click on the link for more information. |
| Six Shooter | 7.4 | English | 2004 | Overwhelmed by grief following the death of his wife, Donnelly shares a train carriage home with a troubled young man identified only as the ‘Kid’. As the Kid becomes more agitated and foul-mouthed, the journey takes on a violent and dangerous hue – for the bereaved Donnelly and for other hapless passengers on the train. |
| Slide | 6.6 | English | 2023 | The tale of a mythical cowboy who appears in a corrupt logging town (circa 1940s) and with the aid of his slide guitar and a giant Hellbug, he's able to battle the evil Mayor and his equally selfish twin brother to clean up the logging town of Sourdough Creek. |
| Snow in Midsummer | 6.8 | Chinese | 2023 | This thrilling update of a classical Chinese drama into a modern ghost story explores the legacy of trauma, the heart of injustice and the lengths to which we go for love. Sentenced to death for a murder, a young woman swears vengeance before her execution, cursing her city from beyond the grave to a catastrophic drought. Three years later, a wealthy businesswoman visits the parched, locust-plagued city to take over an ailing factory. When her young daughter is tormented by a mysterious apparition, locals are forced to face a past that no one wants to remember. |
| Snow Leopard | 6 | Chinese | 2023 | Snow Leopard Secret War is set in 1943, when the war in the pacific was still going on, causing the Japanese army to be affected and had to switch to defense mode. However, they were carrying out another battle plan, a large-scale attack began, they also tasked agents with lying in the area and illegally transporting weapons. . At this time, the leader of the Independent Troupe Tiger Tou Son Bat Lo Luu Vien found the spies and successfully prevented an impending war. |
| Socialist Realism | 8 | Spanish | 2023 | A satirical take on President Salvador Allende's Popular Unity process prior to the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. The film is made up of a series of short stories, in which different worlds cross paths. |
| Solo | 5 | Spanish | 2018 | After falling off a cliff and suffering substantial injures, for 48 long hours a young surfer must face a merciless nature and his own physical and mental agony to try to survive. |
| Some Rain Must Fall | 5.6 | Chinese | 2024 | 40-year-old housewife Cai has lost track of who she is and who she wants to be. During one of her daughter’s basketball matches, she inadvertently injures an elderly woman. This seemingly trivial event is a catalyst for a life spinning out of control, as past events resurface while she moves into an unknown future. Director Qiu Yang follows a series of multi-awarded shorts with his debut feature, a mesmerizing and intimate drama about a woman forced to confront the wreckage of her life and her longing for change? |
| Sons | 6.4 | English | 1990 | A comedy drama that played the festival circuit before vanishing without trace. Forsythe, Sweeney and Miranda are the trio of stepbrothers accompanying paralysed father Fuller on a jaunt to Normandy, where the old boy saw combat and romantic action during the war. Jennifer Beals, a regular in husband Rockwell's movies, plays a transvestite. |
| Sujo | 7.4 | Spanish | 2024 | When a cartel gunman is killed, he leaves behind Sujo, his beloved 4-year-old son. The shadow of violence surrounds Sujo during each stage of his life in the isolated Mexican countryside. As he grows into a man, Sujo finds that fulfilling his father’s destiny may be inescapable. |
| Sultana's Dream | 6.1 | English | 2023 | Inés, a Spanish artist, lives in India and stumbles upon Sultana's Dream, a science fiction story written by Rokeya Hossain in 1905. It describes Ladyland, a utopia in which women rule the country while men live in seclusion and are responsible for household chores. Fascinated by the story Inés embarks on a journey across the country to search for the one place where women can live in peace. |
| Sunday | 6.7 | English | 1997 | This film concerns two mysterious characters who meet on a Sunday in Queens. Madeleine the most unsettling creature of that name since "Vertigo" is a middle-aged, moderately successful actress. Oliver/Matthew is either a homeless man or a famous film director or both. Madeleine hails him on the street as the latter, launching a bizarre chain of events that includes a conversation in a diner, a very unromantic sexual encounter, the arrival of Madeleine's odd husband and unsuspecting daughter, and a child's birthday party. The film also compassionately tracks the daily rounds of Oliver/Matthew's fellow denizens of the homeless shelter, some of whom will be recognizable to New York audiences. |
| Tatami | 7.7 | English | 2024 | Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold. |
| Terrestrial Verses | 7.5 | Persian | 2023 | A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse. Progressing along a rough timeline from birth to death, each story is shot in a static camera angle as a single petitioner negotiates with an authority figure hovering just outside of frame, who is practiced in the language of doublespeak. |
| The Abortionist | 5.3 | Chinese | 2019 | Teenager Kiki runs away from home, angry at her mother Jane's profession as a back-street abortionist. For her daughter's sake, Jane retires and finds religion, repenting her sins. Months later, Kiki faints on the street and wakes up in hospital with Jane by her side. The last hope for Kiki is that Jane can return to her former profession... |
| The Banshees of Inisherin | 7.7 | English | 2022 | Two lifelong friends find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both of them. |
| The Beast | 6 | English | 2023 | When a new threat capable of destroying the entire planet emerges, Optimus Prime and the Autobots must team up with a powerful faction known as the Maximals. With the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, humans Noah and Elena will do whatever it takes to help the Transformers as they engage in the ultimate battle to save Earth. |
| The Cats of Gokogu Shrine | - | Japanese | 2024 | An ample community of cats has set up home around the Shinto shrine in Ushimado. Some local residents take care of them, others are disturbed by their mess. Kazuhiro Soda observes their co-existence with kindness, precision and occasional involvement. |
| The Clinic | 5.3 | English | 2010 | While traveling across country with her fiancé, Beth wakes alone in an isolated clinic to a mother's worst nightmare. Just how far will she go to save her child? |
| The Dead Don't Hurt | 6.8 | English | 2024 | In the 1860s, fiercely independent French-Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy embarks on a journey with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen, attempting to forge a life together in the dusty town of Elk Flats, Nevada. When Holger decides to go fight for the Union in the burgeoning Civil War, Vivienne must fend for herself, which isn't easy in a town controlled by a corrupt mayor. |
| The Delinquents | 5.6 | English | 1957 | A frustrated young man, separated from his younger girlfriend, gets involved in a juvenile gang. |
| The Dupes | 7.6 | Arabic | 1973 | The film follows three Palestinian refugees brought together by dispossession and hope for a better future. Hiding in the tank of a truck, the men attempt to make their way across the border into Kuwait, the "promised land." A masterful adaptation of Ghassan Kanafani's novel Men Under the Sun, The Dupes is also one of the first Arab films to address the Palestinian predicament. |
| The Midnight After | 5.5 | Chinese | 2014 | On a night just like any other, a minibus full of passengers drives through a tunnel and arrives in another dimension; the eclectic group of passengers seek refuge in a deserted cafe and make a horrific discovery. |
| The Mother and the Whore | 7.8 | French | 1973 | Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness. |
| The Mother of All Lies | 6.6 | Arabic | 2024 | On a handmade set re-creating her Casablanca neighborhood, a young Moroccan filmmaker enlists family and friends to help unearth the troubling lies built into her childhood. |
| The Old Oak | 7.1 | English | 2023 | A pub landlord in a previously thriving mining community struggles to hold onto his pub. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the town when Syrian refugees are placed in the empty houses in the community. |
| The Pianist | 8.5 | English | 2002 | The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city. |
| The Promised Land | 7.7 | Danish | 2023 | Denmark, 1755. Captain Ludvig Kahlen sets out to conquer a Danish heath reputed to be uncultivable, with an impossible goal: to establish a colony in the name of the king, in exchange for a royal title. A single-minded ambition that the ruthless lord of the region will relentlessly seek to put down. Kahlen's fate hangs in the balance: will his endevours bring him wealth and honour, or cost him his life...? |
| The Quince Tree Sun | 7.7 | Spanish | 1992 | Filmmaker Victor Erice follows Spanish artist Antonio Lopez in his painstaking attempt to paint the image of a tree. |
| The Settlers | 7.1 | Spanish | 2023 | In Chile in 1901, three horseman are paid to protect a vast estate. Accompanying a British soldier and an American mercenary is a mixed-race sniper, who realizes that his true mission is to kill the indigenous population. |
| The Spirit of the Beehive | 7.8 | Spanish | 1973 | In 1940, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl living on the Castilian plain is haunted after attending a screening of James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein and hearing from her sister that the monster is not dead, instead existing as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn. |
| The Story of Qiu Ju | 7.6 | Chinese | 1992 | When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, a peasant woman, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice. |
| The Successor | 4.7 | English | 1996 | Eight years after his family was murdered he has returned home to bury his past and discover his future. |
| The Tenants | 5.1 | English | 2006 | The story of a Jewish novelist, Harry Lesser, struggling to complete his latest work, and his antagonistic relationship with a black writer who moves in down the hall. |
| The Wayward Cloud | 6.5 | Chinese | 2005 | Hsiao-Kang, now working as an adult movie actor, meets Shiang-chyi once again. Meanwhile, the city of Taipei faces a water shortage that makes the sales of watermelons skyrocket. |
| The World Is Family | 7.1 | Hindi | 2023 | Esteemed documentarian Anand Patwardhan directs a portrait of his parents, whose families were intertwined with Gandhi and India’s independence movement. His view on history extolls unity between Hindus and Muslims, a value that needs reasserting in modern politics. |
| They Shot the Piano Player | 6.8 | English | 2023 | New York, 2010. Jeff Harris, a music journalist, sets out to uncover the truth about Francisco Tenório Júnior, a young Brazilian samba-jazz pianist who disappeared in Buenos Aires on March 18, 1976. |
| Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | 8.1 | English | 2017 | After seven months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at Bill Willoughby, the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Jason Dixon, an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated. |
| Three Husbands | 5.5 | English | 1950 | When a recently deceased playboy gets to heaven and is granted one wish--granted to all newcomers--he requests that he be able to see the reactions of three husbands, with whom he regularly played poker, to a letter he left each of them claiming to have had an affair with each's wife. |
| Vermin | 6.9 | French | 2023 | When a freak accident grievously injures her housemate, a guilt stricken pacifist must protect them both from a mysterious creature that roams their apartment after dark. |
| Who Do I Belong To | 7 | Arabic | 2024 | Aicha, a Tunisian mother gifted with prophetic dreams, lives in the isolated north of Tunisia with her husband Brahim and young son Adam. The family lives in anguish after the departure of the eldest sons Mehdi and Amine to the violent embrace of war. Months later, Mehdi unexpectedly returns home with a pregnant wife in tow. Mehdi's arrival triggers old wounds and a darkness that threatens to consume the entire village. |
| World Animation | 6.5 | Chinese | 2018 | Backed into a corner by mounting debts, a youth agrees to submit himself to a high stakes game of chance in international waters aboard a disused warship. |
| World Animation for Adults | - | - | - | A selection of animated shorts. For more details check the HKIFF website by clicking the link. |
| You Burn Me | 5.1 | Spanish | 2024 | An adaptation of “Sea Foam”, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s “Dialoghi con Leucò” published in 1947. The ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis meet beside the sea and have a conversation about love and death. Sappho is said to have thrown herself into the ocean from lovesickness. Britomartis apparently tumbled off a cliff and into the water while fleeing from a man. Together, the two discuss the stories and images that have emerged around them to try and understand, at least for a moment, the bittersweet nature of desire. |
| Youth (Spring) | 7.1 | Chinese | 2023 | This film was shot between 2014 and 2019 in the town of Zhili, a district of Huzhou City in Zhejiang province, China. Zhili is home to over 18,000 privately-run workshops producing children's clothes, mostly for the domestic market, but some also for export. The workshops employ around 300,000 migrant workers, chiefly from the rural provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan and Jiangsu. |