An Alternative to Slitting Your Wrist (USA)
Art & Copy (USA)
Between The Folds (USA)
Blind Loves (Slovakia)
Herb and Dorothy (USA)
In A Dream (USA)
Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie (USA)
One Day in Africa (Burkina Faso, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Morocco, USA)
Prodigal Sons (USA)
School Play (USA)
Trinidad (USA)
The Wrecking Crew (USA)
Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love(USA)

Central and Eastern European Film Competiton
Twenty years ago, the Cleveland International Film Festival launched a special focus on films from Central and Eastern Europe, the native lands of many Clevelanders.  When we began our series, the world was a very different place: the Berlin Wall was still standing, the U.S.S.R. was still one country, and the Cold War was chilling out.  Throughout these past two decades, the films from Central and Eastern Europe have changed dramatically due to filmmakers exerting their rights to make films without government involvement and censorship.  We now see films from a plethora of genres, including colorful comedies, slice-of-life sketches, and unusual love stories.  The results provide us with a rare and unique look inside the lives of the ordinary as well as the extraordinary.

One thing that has remained the same for the past 20 years is our commitment to bringing some of the most sought-after films from this area of the world to Cleveland. This year the CIFF is proud to present the seventh Central and Eastern European Film Competition. This competition not only gives recognition to the films coming to us from Central and Eastern Europe, but it also awards one filmmaker a $10,000 cash prize that will be announced at the Closing Night Reception.

Bahrtalo! (Good Luck!) (Hungary, Russia, Germany)
Boogie (Romania)
Captive (Russia, Bulgaria)
The Investigator (Hungary)
The Karamazovs (Czech Republic, Poland)
Loss (Lithuania, Ireland)
No One’s Son (Croatia)
Of Parents and Children (Czech Republic)
Rooster’s Breakfast (Slovenia)
The Tour (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Tricks (Poland)
Zifti (Bulgaria)



Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Film Competition
The selections included in Standing Up are "films with a conscience." Standing Up celebrates social justice and activism by presenting films with messages that cannot and should not be ignored. Thanks to the generosity of The George Gund Foundation, Standing Up will remain as a permanent piece of our festival programming. An endowment grant in memory of Greg Gund has secured not only the permanence of the Standing Up section, but also a $5,000 cash prize associated with Standing Up (the winner to be determined by audience vote). Standing Up honors those with a different view of the world we live in and the continual fight to make it a better world. Standing Up honors the memory of Greg Gund.

Sponsored by:
The George Gund Foundation
Baker Hostetler



Ask Not (USA)
At The Edge of the World (Antarctica, Australia, USA)
Crude (USA, Ecuador)
Crude Independence (USA)
The Dancing Forest (United Kingdom, Togo, France)
Forgotten Transports: To Estonia (Czech Republic)
Garbage Dreams (Egypt, United Kingdom)
The Garden (USA)
Generation RX (USA)
Homegrown (USA)
Kassim the Dream (USA, Uganda)
The Last Days of Shishmaref (Netherlands, USA)
Lemon Tree (Israel)
Milking the Rhino (USA, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa)
Ordinary Boys (Spain, Morocco)
A Place to Live: The Story of Triangle Square (USA)
Poly Cultures: Food Where We Live (USA)
Prom Night in Mississippi (Canada, USA)
Ramchand Pakistani (Pakistan, USA)
The Reckoning (USA)
The Road Ahead: The First Green Long March (China, USA)
Sin by Silence (USA)
They Killed Sister Dorothy (USA)
Thing With No Name (South Africa, USA)
Tiny Tears (USA, Brazil, Thailand, Uganda)
Under Our Skin (USA)
Upstream Battle (Germany, USA)
War Child (USA)
The Way We Get By (USA)



The Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award for Best Film
Roxanne T. Mueller served as the film critic at the Plain Dealer from 1983 until 1988, when she lost a six-month battle with cancer at the age of 35. Mueller was a strong supporter of the Festival and through her writing helped to raise the general level of film appreciation in Cleveland. She was an exceptionally engaging writer who managed to weave personal insights into her film reviews, whether she was covering popular Hollywood fare or sophisticated foreign cinema. In its 12th year, the CIFF established The Plain Dealer Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award for Best Film to help bring this important festival friend back into focus a bit each year. Festival patrons rate each film they see and the most popular film is announced shortly after the Festival closes.