April 3 – 14
2013
At Tower City
Cinemas
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12 AM
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7:25 PM Buy Tix
The Suffering Grasses: When Elephants Fight, It Is the Grass That Suffers
61 min
Code: SUFF04
12:10 PM Buy Tix
The Suffering Grasses: When Elephants Fight, It Is the Grass That Suffers
61 min
Code: SUFF05
4:55 PM Buy Tix
Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington
77 min
Code: WHIC14
5:40 PM Buy Tix
Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington
77 min
Code: WHIC13
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
The Gala includes the film at 7:00 PM at Tower City Cinemas, followed by a THE KINGS OF SUMMER party at 9:00 p.m. at MK Ferguson Plaza in Tower City Center.
USA
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Premiering to rave reviews at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, THE KINGS OF SUMMER is a unique coming-of-age story about three teenagers who, in the ultimate act of independence, decide to spend their summer building a house in the woods. Free from their parents’ rules, their idyllic summer quickly becomes a test of friendship as each boy learns to appreciate the fact that family - whether it is the one you’re born into or the one you create – is something you can't run away from.
In celebration of the life of George Gund III (1937-2013)
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Everyone in attendance at any of the films showing in the last round is invited to join us for the Closing Night dessert reception and awards presentation program around The Fountain at Tower City Center.
The Closing Night Reception will include a brief program announcing the winners of the American Independents Competition, George Gund III Memorial Central and Eastern European Film Competition, Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Film Competition, Nesnadny + Schwartz Documentary Film Competition, Local Heroes Competition, the ReelWomenDirect Award, and the Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award.
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed by Paul Andrew Williams
Running Time: 93 Minutes
UNFINISHED SONG is a funny and inspiring story about Arthur (Terence Stamp), a curmudgeonly old soul, who is perfectly content sticking with his dull daily routine until his beloved wife (Vanessa Redgrave) introduces him to a local seniors singing group. The group is led by the youthful and charming Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton) and her unexpected friendship with Arthur reignites his passion for new adventures and shows us all life should be celebrated at any age.
Akron Art Museum
6:30 PM Buy Tix
Red, White and Blueprints: A Rust Belt Documentary
65 min
Code: BLUE11
10% Shorts Program
Artistic Touch Shorts Program
Bonus Round Shorts Program
Family Shorts Program 1
Family Shorts Program 2
Hollywood Shorts Program
Independent Shorts Program 1
Independent Shorts Program 10
Independent Shorts Program 11
Independent Shorts Program 12
Independent Shorts Program 2
Independent Shorts Program 3
Independent Shorts Program 4
Independent Shorts Program 5
Independent Shorts Program 6
Independent Shorts Program 7
Independent Shorts Program 8
Independent Shorts Program 9
Late Night Shorts Program 1
Late Night Shorts Program 2
Late Night Shorts Program 3
Late Night Shorts Program 4
Ohio Shorts Program
Scenarios
Transitions Shorts Program
10% Cinema
These gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender films range in subject, style, and tone, but they have one thing in common: they’ve been audience favorites for years!
Sidebar Sponsored by:
Cinema en Español
This eclectic array of Spanish-language films explores a multitude of subjects ranging from the culturally specific to the universal.
Sidebar Sponsored by:
Family Films
You can take a family trip around the world without leaving the city. Be sure to bring the kids to these family-friendly films, but please check the descriptions for disclaimers.
Sidebar Sponsored by:
Film Is Art
Art school isn’t only for the naturally gifted. Learn about artists and the artistic process in this group of films.
Islamic and Arab Societies
Focusing on traditions and modernity, these films explore different religious, political, cultural, and linguistic challenges of Islamic and Arab societies.
It's Easy Being Green
These films bring awareness and support to the environmentally-friendly movement to save our planet.
Sidebar Sponsored by:
Jewish and Israeli Visions
These films from - or about - Israel and the Jewish diaspora enlighten with their unique cultural perspective.
Music! Movies!
These films about music and musicians will be music to your ears (and eyes).
Pacific Pearls
Journey to the Far East. In these films from Asia and the Pacific Islands, we pay tribute to some of the most innovative films of today.
Sidebar Sponsored by:
Pan-African Images
These remarkable films hail from both Africa and the United States and feature stories made by and about Africans and African-Americans.
Sidebar Sponsored by:
Women of the World
This sidebar returns once again this year to recognize films that celebrate empowered women.
Sidebar Sponsored by:
American Independents Competition
With big dreams and small budgets, these films represent the finest in contemporary American cinema. Based on audience vote, this year's competition will yield an increased cash prize of $5,000 to the winner announced at the Closing Night Reception.
The American Independents award is presented with the generous support of ALAN and MARTA GLAZEN.
Competition Sponsored by:
George Gund III Memorial Central and Eastern European Film Competition
Over two decades 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 22 years is our commitment to bringing some of the most soughtafter films from this area of the world to Cleveland. This year the CIFF is proud to present its 10th 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.
Competition Sponsored by:
Jurors:
Tim Harry – Tim Harry has been the Assistant Director of The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque since 1998. He holds a degree in Eastern European History from Kent State University. Prior to his work with The Cinematheque, Tim worked in the music industry for Virgin Records America in New York as an artist and repertoire representative and in San Francisco for Chrysalis Records as senior promotional representative. He has been involved in the careers and promotion of many artists, including Sinead O'Connor, Ziggy Marley, Roy Orbison, The Smashing Pumpkins, and The Waterboys. He has studied film production at Kent State University and City College of San Francisco.
Liliana Komorowska – With a M.F.A. from the National Theatre Academy in Warsaw, Liliana Komorowska is an accomplished Polish-Canadian actress turned director and producer, leading a successful artistic career in Canada for the past 15 years. She has performed the classics on stage and has been showcased in many award-winning films and television programs in Poland, England, the United States, and Canada. In 2007, with her company QueenArt Films, she produced her first documentary film, "Paradis perdu, Paradis retrouvé." In 2012 she released "Beauty and the Breast," her directorial debut, which was featured at numerous film festivals worldwide and was the recipient of many awards.
Michael Rabehl – With over 50 film productions under his belt, Michael Rabehl holds a B.A. in Film from the University of California Santa Cruz, where he graduated with Honors after receiving numerous grants for his production work. Additionally, Michael's film production work went on to garner two national awards and several international awards at film festivals. In 1995, Michael took on the role as Cinequest Film Festival's Programming Director and has been instrumental in producing and managing an ongoing, adventurous film program. He also helps producers garner exposure through Cinequest's multi-platform distribution division, which now distributes over 75 titles.
Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up "For" Competition
Our Standing Up Film Competition is a tribute to Greg Gund. Greg’s friends and family described him as “intensely creative and talented, and wholly without pretension.” For five years Greg lived in Playa Negro near Tamarindo, Costa Rica where he immersed himself by becoming part of the local community. As much as he deeply loved his home there, Greg was also an extensive world traveler with an adventurous spirit and an insatiable curiosity about different cultures and people. He lived by this Mahatma Gandhi quote inscribed in his passport: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Greg died at the age of 32 in a small plane crash off the Pacific Coast on July 16, 2005.
Our Standing Up program includes “films with a conscience.” Standing Up started as a sidebar to focus on films with the mission to change the world and grew into a celebration of activism, the fight for social justice, and the battle to heal the earth. Many of these films highlight personal stories featuring individuals who set out to teach viewers lessons on how to live a better life. One of the aspects that all of these films share is the impact they make on viewers long after the credits roll. Through the films, Standing Up honors Greg Gund—as well as others with a different view of the world in which we live—and the continual fight to make it better.
In 2005 the George Gund Foundation granted the CIFF with an endowment to create the Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Competition. Since its inception, it has grown into our largest and most popular competition. Last year 33 films were screened in competition, including five of our top ten audience-rated films.
This year the Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Competition is being split into two categories: films Standing Up To something and films Standing Up For something. Make sure you Stand Up with your vote, as this competition now has two awards of $5,000 each, based on audience balloting. Winners will be announced at the Closing Night Reception.
Competition Sponsored by:
Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up "To" Competition
Our Standing Up Film Competition is a tribute to Greg Gund. Greg’s friends and family described him as “intensely creative and talented, and wholly without pretension.” For five years Greg lived in Playa Negro near Tamarindo, Costa Rica where he immersed himself by becoming part of the local community. As much as he deeply loved his home there, Greg was also an extensive world traveler with an adventurous spirit and an insatiable curiosity about different cultures and people. He lived by this Mahatma Gandhi quote inscribed in his passport: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Greg died at the age of 32 in a small plane crash off the Pacific Coast on July 16, 2005.
Our Standing Up program includes “films with a conscience.” Standing Up started as a sidebar to focus on films with the mission to change the world and grew into a celebration of activism, the fight for social justice, and the battle to heal the earth. Many of these films highlight personal stories featuring individuals who set out to teach viewers lessons on how to live a better life. One of the aspects that all of these films share is the impact they make on viewers long after the credits roll. Through the films, Standing Up honors Greg Gund—as well as others with a different view of the world in which we live—and the continual fight to make it better.
In 2005 the George Gund Foundation granted the CIFF with an endowment to create the Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Competition. Since its inception, it has grown into our largest and most popular competition. Last year 33 films were screened in competition, including five of our top ten audience-rated films.
This year the Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Competition is being split into two categories: films Standing Up To something and films Standing Up For something. Make sure you Stand Up with your vote, as this competition now has two awards of $5,000 each, based on audience balloting. Winners will be announced at the Closing Night Reception.
Competition Sponsored by:
Local Heroes Competition
Our annual celebration has now become one of our newest competitions, highlighting films made about Ohio, in Ohio, or by Ohioans. We are honored to support these films and filmmakers, hoping to empower the already booming independent film community of Cleveland and Ohio alike. Based on audience vote, this year's competition will yield a $5,000 cash prize winner announced at the Closing Night Reception.
The Local Heroes award is presented with the generous suport of MIKE and NICKI CANCELLIERE.
Local Heroes films are sponsored by Cleveland State University.
Competition Sponsored by:
Nesnadny + Schwartz Documentary Film Competition
The CIFF is excited to present the eighth Nesnadny + Schwartz Documentary Film Competition. In 2005, after CIFF atten- dees voted documentaries as the winners of its audience choice award three years in a row, we decided to highlight these films since they hold such enormous interest for our audience.
Nesnadny + Schwartz (www.BigFatIdeas.com) is a preeminent international visual communications consultancy committed to providing clients what they least expect. Nesnadny + Schwartz is very proud to continue their support of the Cleveland International Film Festival and to sponsor a program that has such social, artistic, and popular appeal.
Documentaries in competition that are screening in the Festival will be viewed by our panel of jurors throughout the week, and the winner will be announced at the Closing Night Reception. In addition to continuing this honorable competition, we are pleased to announce an increase in its awarded cash prize to $7,500.
Competition Sponsored by:
Jurors:
Erica Ginsberg – Erica Ginsberg is the Executive Director of Docs In Progress, an organization that supports the professional development of emerging documentary filmmakers in the Washington, D.C. area. She has previously served as a juror for Dokufest, the International Documentary Association Awards, and the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival; as a Curator of the Council on Foundations Film Festival; and as a panelist for cultural grants from the U.S. Department of State and the Maryland State Arts Council.
Michael Lumpkin – With nearly three decades of leadership in the independent film community, Michael Lumpkin joined the International Documentary Association in 2009 as Executive Director. Michael previously served as both Executive Director of Frameline and Festival Director for the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. He also co-produced the highly acclaimed HBO documentary "The Celluloid Closet." Michael has participated as a juror for the Sundance Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Seattle International Film Festival.
Rosie Wong – Rosie Wong is an independent producer and has been the Senior Manager of the Sundance Film Festival's Industry Office since 2006. After obtaining a B.A. in Literature from UCLA in 1997, she worked at its School of Theatre, Film, and Television. There, she produced numerous student shorts, including Student Academy Award® winner "Barrier Device" (2002). In 2003, Rosie received her M.F.A. in Producing from UCLA. In her spare time, she loves rockin' out to her favorite band Ginger N' Wasabi.
ReelWomenDirect Award for Excellence in Directing by a Woman
We are thrilled to announce that our celebration of women at the Cleveland International Film Festival has turned into our newest award this year. The ReelWomenDirect Award, based on audience vote, will be presented to a woman director at our Closing Night Reception, accompanied by a $10,000 cash prize. In an industry historically dominated by men, we are honored to showcase these women filmmakers and the empowered female perspectives they provide within their films.
This ReelWomenDirect Award is presented with the generous support of DEBORAH BACHMAN RATNER.
Competition Sponsored by:
Comedy
Documentaries
Drama
Recommended for High School +
Recommended for Middle School +
Thriller
COLOMBIA
Directed By: Alexander Giraldo
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Zico and his hacker sister Angie plan a major robbery on the day of Colombia's World Cup qualifying match with Uruguay. It's to be their final heist, providing enough money to keep them set for life. Along for the ride... {more}
PARAGUAY
Directed By: Juan Carlos Maneglia, Tana Schémbori
Running Time: 105 Minutes
Victor is a teenage delivery boy in Paraguay who dreams of being a famous movie star. Every day he passes by the electronics store in the market, staring at the television screens. When he discovers that cellphones can record video,... {more}
USA
Directed By: Audrey Ewell, Aaron Aites, Lucian Read, Nina Krstic
Running Time: 92 Minutes
When the Occupy Movement began in September 2011, many people wrote it off as a silly waste of time for unemployed college kids starving for attention. What many didn’t see, or maybe the media didn’t want to report, was that... {more}
USA
Directed By: Jennifer Phang
Running Time: 23 Minutes
Gwen is the spokesperson for a radical technology allowing people to overcome their natural disadvantages and begin life anew. But when her job and family are in crisis, will she undergo the procedure herself? {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
MEXICO
Directed By: Michel Franco
Running Time: 102 Minutes
After his wife dies in a car accident in Puerto Vallarta, Robert decides to move to Mexico City with his teenage daughter Alejandra. His depression over the loss leaves him emotionally crippled, sleeping all day, and struggling to adapt to... {more}
AUSTRALIA
Directed By: Hannah Moore
Running Time: 13 Minutes
'Where there's a will, there's a way... out.' Ali is an Afghan man seeking refuge in Australia but has ended up in the Woomera Detention Centre - the infamous subject of asylum seeker debate from 1999-2003. Ali runs. He runs... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Elie Wajeman
Running Time: 90 Minutes
This absorbing drama traces one young man’s emotional and physical exodus to the Promised Land, the Jewish tradition of immigration to Israel known as ALIYAH, Alex is a secular Jew who dreams of getting out of the projects outside Paris.... {more}
FRANCE
Directed By: Fabrice Herbaut
Running Time: 17 Minutes
Clemence waits for Vincent in a Parisian cafe where they used to meet. But instead of showing up, Vincent sends her an enigmatic recording of his voice where he invites the young woman to walk out of the cafe and... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
NORWAY
Directed By: Martin Lund
Running Time: 75 Minutes
An affable 35-year-old with a serious case of arrested development, Henrik is a constant source of laughs. Trouble is, he’s got a new job in marketing and a great girlfriend named Tone, both of which require him to be a... {more}
GERMANY
Directed By: Moritz Mayerhofer
Running Time: 5 Minutes
During his sermon a priest completely overshoots the mark! {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Freida Mock
Running Time: 86 Minutes
The story unfolded in October 1991, riveting Americans to their televisions. Anita Hill, a beautiful, dignified African-American law professor, was testifying before a Senate committee of 14 white men about the sexual harassment she endured while working with U.S. Supreme... {more}
USA
Directed By: Jacob LaMendola
Running Time: 10 Minutes
A visual and lyrical portrait about people with the rare condition that renders them unable to smell. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Joel Potrykus
Running Time: 86 Minutes
Trevor Newandyke isn't very funny. This is rather unfortunate since he longs to be a stand-up comedian. He spends most of his days frustratingly reciting his routines in the mirror. The crowds at the local comedy club rarely laugh during... {more}
SWITZERLAND, UKRAINE
Directed By: Christian Labhart
Running Time: 83 Minutes
The Ukrainian-Swiss pianist Alena Cherny is a woman impassioned. As she describes her life growing up under Communism and her subsequent work on international concert stages, her emotions color her entire being. Originally from Romny, Ukraine, Alena was sent to... {more}
USA, SPAIN, MEXICO
Directed By: Antonio Méndez Esparza
Running Time: 110 Minutes
After years of working in New York to support his wife and daughters back home, Pedro returns to Mexico to find that his absence has put a serious strain on his relationship with his family. His wife Teresa is guarded... {more}
SOUTH AFRICA, USA
Directed By: Bryan Buckley
Running Time: 18 Minutes
Set in a war-torn fishing village in Somalia, an all Somali, refugee cast brings to life this coming of age fable of a Somali boy who is faced with falling into the pirate life, or rising above to choose the... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CANADA
Directed By: Hart Snider
Running Time: 6 Minutes
The last thing nine-year-old Hart expects to do at Jewish summer camp is play a basketball game against the former students of a convicted Holocaust denier. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
GERMANY
Directed By: Katarzyna Wilk
Running Time: 6 Minutes
Love and other strange things... "Bear Me" is a funny animation film about love, a normal course of life and everything else a relationship can offer - but in an idealistic perception. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
Béatrice Coron's Daily Battles
CANADA
Directed By: James Stewart
Running Time: 7 Minutes
Béatrice Coron's Daily Battles is an art film about a work of art.Created in 3D, this short film brings a new dimension to the medieval papercut masterwork by New York Artist Béatrice Coron. Daily Battles tells the story of Béatrice... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
ARGENTINA
Directed By: Daniela Seggiaro
Running Time: 83 Minutes
Look for the beauty in the sparse landscape, with its twisting tangled trees that take on human forms. The once-fertile grassland of the stoic Wichi people of northern Argentina has been gradually appropriated by outsiders, forcing them to adapt to... {more}
BELGIUM, FRANCE
Directed By: Yann Le Quellec
Running Time: 33 Minutes
Rosalba, a young tourist guide, suffers from a rare disorder: overcome by an uncontrollable urge, her body shudders, twitches and dances whenever she hears a tune. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SPAIN
Directed By: Ander Mendia
Running Time: 8 Minutes
Someone is stealing Joe's beers and he is none too pleased about this. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Aemilia Scott
Running Time: 23 Minutes
A grocery store clerk's boyfriend suddenly dies, and she keeps their love alive by taking his body to the store's cooler. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Joshua Zeman
Running Time: 16 Minutes
When a hostage negotiation turns personal, a cop with a secret is forced to make a choice between his partner and the woman he loves. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Daniel Grove
Running Time: 24 Minutes
A lonely Singaporean death-row guard tries to help a young woman convicted of drug trafficking come to accept her fate, despite a bizarre contradiction—he is her executioner. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
BELGIUM, CANADA, FRANCE
Directed By: David Lambert
Running Time: 98 Minutes
One night Paulo is carried home drunk by Ilir, the handsome bartender Paulo flirted with. An affair begins, exposing Paulo to his girlfriend who abruptly evicts him. With nowhere to go, Paulo shows up on Ilir's doorstep. Ilir is hesitant,... {more}
SWEDEN
Directed By: Jesper Ganslandt
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Brilliant Swedish director Jesper Ganslandt has an unfailing eye for character and an uncanny ability to work in wildly varying styles. After making one raw film about rural slackers and one disturbing suspense thriller, he now presents BLONDIE, an acerbically... {more}
AUSTRALIA
Directed By: Rupert Reid
Running Time: 5 Minutes
Ma and Pa have been married forever and they keep the magic alive by staying one step ahead of each other, but how many steps are too many? {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA, ISRAEL
Directed By: Cecilia Peck
Running Time: 99 Minutes
Linor Abargil, an Israeli beauty queen, was raped two months before being crowned Miss World in 1998. Ten years later, she’s ready to talk about it – and to encourage others to speak out. Now a globe-trotting victims’ advocate, Linor... {more}
CANADA
Directed By: Marielle Nitoslawska
Running Time: 100 Minutes
A densely-textured experimental film, BREAKING THE FRAME weaves the art of ground-breaking feminist Carolee Schneemann into footage of her journals and paintings in order to capture the multi-dimensionality of her work. Schneemann, a central figure in 20th century avant-garde movements,... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Rufus Norris
Running Time: 90 Minutes
A girl witnesses the beating of a timid boy named Rick by their neighbor Mr. Oswald, whose troubled daughter has falsely accused the boy of sexual assault. The beating begins a tragic series of events. The girl, Skunk to her... {more}
AFGHANISTAN, USA
Directed By: Sam French
Running Time: 28 Minutes
Set against the dramatic landscape of contemporary Afghanistan and the National sport of Buzkashi - a brutal game of horse polo played with a dead goat - Buzkashi Boys tells the compelling coming of age story of two best friends,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CANADA
Directed By: Patrick Bouchard
Running Time: 9 Minutes
In Bydlo, which means cattle in Polish, Patrick Bouchard reinterprets the symphonic movement of the same name from Modest Petrovich Mussorgskys opus Pictures at an Exhibition. The filmmaker pushes the theme to its limit-Bydlo is inspired by the slow, cumbersome... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
ITALY
Directed By: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Running Time: 76 Minutes
To continue making Shakespeare’s plays into contemporary cinema, it seems almost obligatory to think of the most outlandish scenario in which to place the story. CAESAR MUST DIE is a brilliant and humanist take on the Bard’s Julius Caesar in... {more}
AFGHANISTAN, USA
Directed By: Micah Garen
Running Time: 9 Minutes
'Call Me Ehsaan' is a haunting look at the US war in Afghanistan through the eyes of Lt. Col. JD Loftis, one of only three US Airforce officers who spoke Pashto, who was killed in February while working at the... {more}
This short film preceeds the following feature:
The Suffering Grasses: When Elephants Fight, It Is the Grass That Suffers
USA, UGANDA
Running Time: 87 Minutes
CALL ME KUCHU is a powerful film about the resilience of the Ugandan LGBT community in the face of official discrimination. Homosexual acts are illegal in Uganda, though Parliament has recently retreated on an anti-homosexuality bill that called for the... {more}
USA, GUATEMALA
Directed By: Mark Kendall
Running Time: 72 Minutes
Like humans, yellow school buses are part of a universe that keeps living after they’re gone. LA CAMIONETA traces the unexpectedly fascinating transformation of one decommissioned American school bus into a glorious work of art. We ride along as the... {more}
GERMANY
Directed By: Marc Wiese
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Until the age of 23, Shin Dong-Huyk had no idea that a world existed outside of the North Korean re-education camp he was born in. His parents were both prisoners who were married by guards. At the age of six,... {more}
FINLAND
Directed By: Katja Gauriloff
Running Time: 78 Minutes
Beginning with a lonely woman who has given birth to a dozen children and is working in one of the largest open-pit mines in Brazil, CANNED DREAMS takes an eight-country journey across 30,000 km dissecting the processes of ingredients needed... {more}
AUSTRALIA
Directed By: Michael Noonan
Running Time: 6 Minutes
A confused old man receives a disturbing leaflet in the mail and realizes that the place he calls home, and the one he knows as his 'soulmate'... are not what they appear to be. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Tom Donahue
Running Time: 89 Minutes
Who's your favorite movie maker? Lynn Stalmaster? Marion Dougherty? Or Juliet Taylor? If you've never heard these names, it's because they belong to casting directors, the unsung heroes of Hollywood. CASTING BY is a fascinating look behind the scenes at... {more}
USA
Directed By: Timothy M. Flaherty
Running Time: 6 Minutes
Changing Reels is the story of a projectionist on his last day of employment, as his theater is closing down to change to new digital technology.The film is a reflection of an aging man feeling a disconnect from the world... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Etienne Faure
Running Time: 101 Minutes
When famous pianist Marie retires young, her nature-loving husband Vincent decides the family should move from Paris to a quiet farm town in the South of France. She reluctantly agrees, uncomfortable with the idea of rural life. He ends up... {more}
ROMANIA
Directed By: Dan Chisu
Running Time: 103 Minutes
In Romania, like everywhere else, people are looking to get rich quick. CHASING RAINBOWS, a darkly funny commentary on the lengths people go to in their pursuit of the Romanian dream, intertwines the stories of two very different characters. Tocitu... {more}
SPAIN
Directed By: Antonio Chavarrías
Running Time: 95 Minutes
As the saying goes, the past will come back to haunt you. This couldn't be truer for Daniel and Mario, two men living with guilt over an incident that happened when they were kids. Daniel's father was set to marry... {more}
COLOMBIA
Directed By: Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Choco’s daughter wants a fancy cake for her birthday. But Choco and her family live in poverty and this basic wish seems nearly impossible to fulfill. A bigger obstacle is Choco’s husband. He is a drunkard and a gambler, stealing... {more}
Choreography for Plastic Army Men
USA
Directed By: David Fain
Running Time: 5 Minutes
An animated music video created to the instrumental track 'Ohayoo Ohio' by the band 'Pink Martini'. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Carl Deal, Tia Lessin
Running Time: 87 Minutes
Recent politics have been triumphant for some and terrifying for others, but everybody seems willing to agree on one thing: something is fundamentally wrong. Many believe the template for that something is the effort to purchase the democratic process that... {more}
ARGENTINA, SPAIN, BRAZIL
Directed By: Benjamín Ávila
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Juan just wants to be himself. But his parents are Argentine guerillas, so it's not that easy. Loosely inspired by events in director Benjamin Ávila's life, CLANDESTINE CHILDHOOD follows Juan's family as they return to Argentina after years of exile.... {more}
USA
Directed By: Paul Emerson
Running Time: 11 Minutes
He's a sexual savior. Hero to the women that society forgot. But when Cliff unexpectedly meets the girl of his dreams, he may be the one that needs to be saved. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CANADA
Directed By: Ryan Bruce Levey
Running Time: 9 Minutes
3 Decades, 2 Men, A Love of a Lifetime. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Janek Ambros
Running Time: 5 Minutes
It is September 2008 and as Congress contemplates a 700 billion dollar bailout for the banks, a broker must decide where to allocate his money. With just a few minutes left before the closing bell, his mind drifts to the... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
PHILIPPINES
Directed By: Paul Sta. Ana
Running Time: 81 Minutes
In the Philippines, where gambling is illegal, families of the deceased are allowed to hold "sakla" games in order to make money during weeks-long wakes. And, in a place where poverty is prevalent, many take advantage of the license for... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Emily Greenwood
Running Time: 20 Minutes
A young gymnast questions her dreams of championship glory when she discovers she's part of a shady government plot to win at any cost. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Ryan Kravetz
Running Time: 9 Minutes
'The Collectors' Gift' is a modern day fairytale about a young girl who discovers the key to creating a new world. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Tom Shkolnik
Running Time: 80 Minutes
“You know you’re gonna be all right?” is the last line in Tom Shkolnik’s debut film about a thirty-something Londoner attempting to get a grip on his life. While trying his hand at stand-up comedy, Ed (played subtly by Edward... {more}
FRANCE
Directed By: Fabrice Maruca
Running Time: 11 Minutes
When Fred meets Anna, his life seems to be a romantic comedy. But when they move into an haunted mansion, it becomes a scary movie. What if Fred's life was a succession of trailers? {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Juan Cardarelli, Eric M. Levy
Running Time: 90 Minutes
On a road trip to visit his mother, Jim Riley proposes to his girlfriend Bridget. Not believing in the concept of marriage, she says no. Fogged by the pain of her denial, he forgets to call his mother, who's eagerly... {more}
USA
Directed By: Lucy Walker
Running Time: 107 Minutes
U.S. champion snowboarder Kevin Pearce was at the top of his sport in 2009 when he suffered massive head trauma while training for the 2010 Winter Olympics. What begins as a documentary of a daring and tireless athlete working to... {more}
USA
Directed By: Dennis Scholl
Running Time: 39 Minutes
Follow the Biloxi, MS based Ohr-O'keefe Museum of Art through its development by architect Frank Gehry, its destruction by Hurricane Katrina and its triumphant rebuilding. Learn the story of George Ohr, the mad potter of Biloxi. {more}
This short film preceeds the following feature:
USA
Directed By: Justin P. Lange
Running Time: 17 Minutes
A lonely young monster with deadly black eyes encounters a kidnapped and abused young boy whose eyes have been sewn shut. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
ITALY, UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Nicola Sersale
Running Time: 12 Minutes
David, a city tour guide, leads his faithful tourists into a bizarre and surreal excursion through Rome and its famous landmarks that have witnessed the reasons for his broken heart. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Joel Allen Schroeder
Running Time: 89 Minutes
Bill Watterson, the Chagrin Falls resident and creator behind the beloved comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, isn't an easy man to reach. Therefore, the filmmakers brilliantly explore his superb legacy through the people who were most affected by his work:... {more}
USA
Directed By: Peter Navarro
Running Time: 68 Minutes
DEATH BY CHINA 2.0 opens with Black Friday shoppers storming the malls in search for crazy bargains. When the filmmakers ask customers if they know or care where the products were made, one man exclaims: “If the American people can't... {more}
SERBIA
Directed By: Miroslav Momcilovic
Running Time: 80 Minutes
In the opening sequence of DEATH OF A MAN IN THE BALKANS, a man turns on the webcam of his computer, sits down in front of it, and shoots himself. From there this brilliantly original and (trust us) funny film... {more}
BELGIUM, FRANCE
Directed By: Tom Van Avermaet
Running Time: 20 Minutes
Soldier Nathan died during World War I. A strange collector imprisoned his shadow and gave him a new chance: a second life against 10000 captured shadows. It is love that guides him, as his purpose is to meet Sarah again,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
BULGARIA
Directed By: Boiko Boyanov
Running Time: 18 Minutes
BOXER is a bankrupt business-man with a criminal past who has gathered the courage to return to a deserted bulgarian town and pay off a 17-years-old debt. 17 years ago, he ran away, just before getting married to NEVENA, after... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
ICELAND
Directed By: Baltasar Kormákur
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Off the southern coast of Iceland lies the Westman Islands, an active volcanic chain. From here the fishing trawler Breki and its small crew leave for a routine commercial trip. Storms are roaming the bitter cold seas and the Breki... {more}
The Deflowering of Eva van End
NETHERLANDS
Directed By: Michiel ten Horn
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Eva barely exists to her odd and dysfunctional family. So nobody notices when she volunteers to host a German exchange student for two weeks. But when Veit appears–blond, handsome, and oddly perfect–he shakes the van End household to its core.... {more}
URUGUAY, MEXICO, FRANCE
Directed By: Rodrigo Plá
Running Time: 84 Minutes
LA DEMORA introduces us to Maria, who is raising three children in a very cramped apartment and living on the little she earns as a garment worker. Maria’s elderly and ailing father Agustin also lives with them, pushing her to... {more}
USA
Directed By: Rola Nashef
Running Time: 92 Minutes
Expanding on the award-winning 2007 short, DETROIT UNLEADED tells the story of Sami, a Lebanese-American who reluctantly takes over his father's gas station after he's murdered in an armed robbery. It's a life that Sami never wanted; nor did his... {more}
USA
Directed By: Zach Guerra
Running Time: 29 Minutes
From the ruins of 1949 East London rises Marcus, an unassuming young man working as a custodian in a notorious brothel. Gertie, Marcus' pregnant mother and the brothel's ruthless madam, regularly beats Marcus to 'make a man' out of him.... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
Digital Dharma: One Man's Mission to Save a Culture
USA, CHINA, INDIA, TIBET
Directed By: Dafna Yachin
Running Time: 82 Minutes
In the 1950s many were forced to flee Tibet, carrying with them bits of the culture’s precious literary heritage. Much was lost or destroyed. Gene Smith, a student of Tibetan Buddhism, offered to help refugees assimilate into America. These encounters... {more}
USA
Directed By: Justin Schwarz
Running Time: 104 Minutes
You know you’re in unfamiliar territory -- intelligent comedy territory – the moment Griffin Dunne (“After Hours”) and Madeleine Martin (“Californication”) start their father-daughter verbal jousting. Dunne plays down-and-out history professor Lewis Birch, who is trying desperately to publish his... {more}
ITALY
Directed By: Luca Elmi
Running Time: 20 Minutes
Cops are like surgeons... they must cut in order to heal, andthey must cause pain to defeat pain. A body in a jewelry store. Two cops confronted with an impossible choice. This is their story. This is a night filled... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Alex Grybauskas
Running Time: 19 Minutes
On the floor of a bar restroom, a man on his deathbed is met by Danny Pickler: an elementary school classmate of his ... who died twenty-six years ago. On the brink of damnation, he is offered a deal that... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
JAPAN, USA
Directed By: Naomi Kazama, Shigeru Ota
Running Time: 83 Minutes
Dementia, nursing home staff John Rodeman reminds us, is an awful disease. The afflicted can forget things that happened moments ago, just as they can forget the names of their children. But since 2011, there’s been hope: Cleveland’s Eliza Jennings... {more}
BELGIUM
Directed By: Ann Sirot, Raphael Balboni
Running Time: 24 Minutes
While visiting an apartment, Adrien feels a twinge of jealousy as he watches Tess, his partner, enjoy herself with another visitor. That very evening, he receives a surprise summons to return for another visit. He must go alone, Tess being... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
RUSSIA
Directed By: Oleg Pogodin
Running Time: 109 Minutes
When Russian mobster Viktor is released from prison, he makes an unexpected visit home to see his family. Unbeknownst to him, a group of hired assassins are hot on his trail and looking to knock off this mob lieutenant. DOM–A... {more}
SOUTH KOREA
Directed By: Kim Jee-woon, Yim Pil-sung
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Split into three fantastic stories, DOOMSDAY BOOK is an absolutely thrilling science-fiction anthology. “Brave New World” tells the story of nerdy scientist Yoon Seok-woo, who finally meets the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, they both become zombies after eating toxic... {more}
GERMANY
Directed By: Fabian Giessler
Running Time: 10 Minutes
Two old men share a hospital room, in which the window is the only connection to the outside world and thus becomes a highly demanded resource. "Double Occupancy" is a parable about the greed of man - an animated,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Nathaniel Krause
Running Time: 11 Minutes
Clark and Becca leave a bar after a night out with friends. When a homeless man approaches them on the street, Clark gets an idea. Adam Brody, Louisa Krause and Keith David star in this dark comedy by master... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: David Redmon, Ashley Sabin
Running Time: 77 Minutes
When the Stinson Seafood plant closed its doors in 2010, nearly 130 people in Gouldsboro, Maine lost their jobs. The cannery was the last of its kind, a relic from a time when the sardine industry ruled the Maine coast.... {more}
USA
Directed By: Alex Winter
Running Time: 106 Minutes
In the age of iTunes and Spotify, the heated controversy over Napster seems like ancient history. These days the internet is where many people discover and buy music. But, before Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning developed the program in 1999,... {more}
BELGIUM
Directed By: Anke Blonde
Running Time: 18 Minutes
Kristi, a single mother, has to prove her innocence in a human trafficking case, since it appears that her illegal cleaning lady is not who she claims to be. Kristi is confronted with an impossible choice. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Gayatri Roshan, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Running Time: 93 Minutes
While our planet is slowly dying, we need heroes to guide us toward saving Mother Earth. ELEMENTAL tells the story of three such individuals as they work to save not only their homelands, but also the entire planet. Rajendra Singh... {more}
Elliott Erwitt: "I Bark At Dogs"
USA
Directed By: Douglas J. Sloan
Running Time: 12 Minutes
Erwitt has made some of the most memorable photographs of the 20th century. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Caitlin Hodson
Running Time: 8 Minutes
Inspired by the faded elegance of the Newark, Ohio Arcade of shops, 'Empty Spaces' recalls the things we left behind. Jean Wheatley, played by Alexa Dorris, returns to the Arcade, but not everything is familiar. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SPAIN
Directed By: Diego Modino
Running Time: 18 Minutes
Alicia dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. In the cozy windmill where she lives with her grandmother, she waits for the moment to go to the long-awaited audition. But out there, the world is not as idyllic as she thinks... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
MEXICO
Directed By: Homero Ranirez Tena
Running Time: 10 Minutes
Eskimal and Morsa work together to preserve the Great Glacier, facing imminent disaster brought on by the industrialized world. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Megan Ebor
Running Time: 25 Minutes
A documentary about the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic among ethnic minority, older adults 50+. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
HUNGARY
Directed By: Péter Bergendy
Running Time: 89 Minutes
THE EXAM follows Jung, a dedicated mid-level agent in Budapest in 1957. After the failure of the Hungarian uprising, secret police become fixated with surveillance, constantly monitoring the actions of the people. They also conduct secret tests on their own... {more}
USA
Directed By: Ben Popik
Running Time: 84 Minutes
This is not a zombie film, so get that thought out of your head. THE EXQUISITE CORPSE PROJECT is a brilliantly comedic and original film about five comedy writers brought together to write a script. However, each writer can only... {more}
USA
Directed By: Mike Rauch, Tim Rauch
Running Time: 4 Minutes
Carl McNair tells the story of his brother Ronald, an African American kid in the 1950s who set his sights on the stars. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Mike Rauch, Tim Rauch
Running Time: 2 Minutes
Ramon 'Chunky' Sanchez recounts how the new kid at school became a hero when his name stumped their teachers. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CHINA
Directed By: Zhao Qi
Running Time: 90 Minutes
In May 2008 a devastating earthquake hit China, killing over 20,000 people. This powerful documentary spans the three years between the total destruction of the city of Beichuan and the building of a new one. It focuses on three families,... {more}
USA
Directed By: RJ Collins
Running Time: 16 Minutes
One ordinary day, 10-year-old Charles Henry is delighted to discover that he has the ability to float. But when society pressures him to conform and fix his 'problem', he must find the courage to overcome what others think and embrace... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Mike Rauch, Tim Rauch
Running Time: 4 Minutes
Sam Black tells his wife about his father, an enduring lesson, and the power of a look. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story
USA
Directed By: Brad Bernstein
Running Time: 99 Minutes
FAR OUT ISN'T FAR ENOUGH is not your typical documentary about an illustrator and author of children's books. In fact, the word "typical" could never be used to describe anything about Tom Ungerer. Born in France, he lived through the... {more}
AUSTRALIA
Directed By: Steve Anthopoulos
Running Time: 10 Minutes
When a middle-eastern couple face the pressures of a new culture, they each turn to the burqua in very different ways. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Delphine Lanson
Running Time: 84 Minutes
In France surrogacy is strictly forbidde. So when partners Jerome and Francois are looking to become fathers, they must search for the most liberal of places; a place where two gay lovers from France may make a baby with a... {more}
IRELAND
Directed By: Des Kilbane
Running Time: 57 Minutes
No one expected Johnny Kilbane to become a champion boxer. As a scrawny youngster, he sang and danced and dreamed of being an actor or gymnast. He worked hard from an early age as a switchboy on the railroad, supporting... {more}
CANADA, ICELAND
Directed By: Jonah Bekhor, Zach Math
Running Time: 72 Minutes
If seeing male genitalia makes you queasy, you haven't seen nothing yet. And if it doesn't, you haven't seen enough of nothing yet. You're about to see a whole lot of everything. THE FINAL MEMBER is a documentary following Siggi... {more}
USA
Directed By: Nina Davenport
Running Time: 105 Minutes
When director Nina Davenport found herself single and childless in her early 40s, she set sail on a journey of becoming a single mother in New York City. And FIRST COMES LOVE is an intimate and in-depth look at the... {more}
USA
Directed By: Brandon Hess
Running Time: 29 Minutes
TWO BICYCLE MECHANICS from Dayton Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, dared to believe they could fly. Their dream was so big it launched them into the skies. Now, these brothers are about to face their most difficult day: May 30th,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CZECH REPUBLIC
Directed By: Zdeněk Jiráský
Running Time: 91 Minutes
FLOWER BUDS, winner of four top Czech film prizes, is a grimly comedic family drama. It's Christmastime in a nameless small industrial town whose salient feature is its smoking chimneys. Jarda is an indifferent train signalman more intent on fashioning... {more}
CROATIA
Directed By: Krsto Papić
Running Time: 103 Minutes
Where do you turn when the cops, the Mafia, and the Church are all breathing down your neck? Filip Kapic is a Zagreb children’s performer. A policeman calls to say Filip's son has been caught with marijuana. He cuts Filip... {more}
CANADA
Directed By: Sean Michael Turrell
Running Time: 18 Minutes
The sight of a beautiful woman posting notices for a mysterious bookstore casts a spell over a young graphic designer named Greg. Compelled to seek her out, he makes a series of increasingly strange discoveries in the mazelike shop where... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Aaron Rudelson
Running Time: 14 Minutes
A man reluctantly counsels a friend who claims to be experiencing a supernatural digestive condition. In the process he makes a startling discovery which could change the world forever. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SWITZERLAND, GERMANY
Directed By: Markus Imboden
Running Time: 108 Minutes
For 150 years, Swiss authorities took disadvantaged children from their homes and forced them to labor on farms. THE FOSTER BOY is set in 1950 in an Alpine village of breathtaking beauty that belies the cruelty of its inhabitants. Max,... {more}
USA
Directed By: Joshua Sanchez
Running Time: 74 Minutes
Based on the play by award-winning playwright Christopher Shinn, FOUR is an extraordinary portrait of four individuals on a balmy 4th of July evening. Joe, expertly acted by Wendell Pierce (The Wire, Treme), is a middle-aged gentleman on a date... {more}
GERMANY
Directed By: Zoltan Paul
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Among the beautiful lakes in the lands north of Berlin, Rosa and her lover Kirsten live an idyllic life. Rosa is a professional fisherwoman and the guardian of these magical waters. Kirsten lives in a bungalow right on the water’s... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Chris Foggin
Running Time: 12 Minutes
Mary and Linda spend an afternoon discussing the pleasures, pitfalls and problems with using networking to try and woo the local choirmaster Trevor. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SPAIN
Directed By: Jaime Maestro
Running Time: 8 Minutes
A wolf starts working in an office full of delicious, sexy sheep. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Tim Cawley
Running Time: 79 Minutes
People of all professional disciplines encounter no greater threat than that of the proverbial blank page. Whether you're a fashion designer, architect, choreographer, super-chef, or cartoonist, your success and hard work all began with nothing. In his documentary, FROM NOTHING,... {more}
USA
Directed By: Amy Finkel
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Sixty-two percent of Americans own pets, spending nearly 53 billion dollars on their furry family friends annually. When our pets pass on, it can be a heartbreaking and personal tragedy that can also be tough to share with others. There... {more}
Fusion: The Art of Collaboration
USA
Directed By: Travis Pollert, Joseph Jurecki
Running Time: 20 Minutes
Fusion is a story that reveals the art of collaboration, the trials of the collaborative process, and the empowerment that comes from getting it right as it follows Inlet Dance Theatre through an international artist exchange with Sri Lankan choreographer... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Aron Gaudet
Running Time: 20 Minutes
Eighty-year-old retired radiologist, Alby Hurwit, battles against time and technology as he composes an award-winning symphony, all on his computer, with no musical training and no ability to read or write music. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
INDIA
Directed By: Rajan Khosa
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Cheeky nine-year-old GATTU is clever in the ways of the street. Illiterate and unwashed, he works in his uncle’s junkyard. In Gattu’s town, everyone is obsessed with kite-flying. One black kite called Kali rules the skies in battle, but no... {more}
USA
Directed By: Richard E. Robbins
Running Time: 101 Minutes
Everyone knows Malala, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban. Malala was attacked for voicing a simple principle: all girls should go to school. There are thousands of girls like Malala around the world who are standing up... {more}
USA
Directed By: Cory Krueckeberg
Running Time: 95 Minutes
A wild and exotic blend of narrative and documentary styles, THE GO DOC PROJECT is the video document of a relationship between two young gay men in New York City. Days before he graduates and leaves New York, “Doc” poses... {more}
USA, UGANDA
Directed By: Roger Ross Williams
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Exploring the thin line separating faith and fanaticism, evangelicalism and extremism, this jolting documentary traces how American groups like The International House of Prayer have been sending missionaries into AIDS-ravaged Uganda, preaching a highly conservative and highly controversial religious doctrine.... {more}
USA
Directed By: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, Dawn Valadez
Running Time: 86 Minutes
GOING ON 13 is a mesmerizing documentary by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and community worker Dawn Valadez. Adolescent girls from multi-ethnic families in the San Francisco Bay area have a lot on their minds these days: peer pressure, boys, and their changing... {more}
USA, UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Ryan White
Running Time: 86 Minutes
When it comes to the women of the Beatles, everyone knows about Linda and Yoko. But the woman people may not know is the one who may have had the biggest impact on the Fab Four. In the dark damp... {more}
SPAIN, UNITED KINGDOM, USA
Directed By: Ben Lewis
Running Time: 89 Minutes
British author H.G. Wells coined the phrase “World Brain,” referring to a future repository of all the writings and knowledge of mankind accessible to every person on earth. Libraries and universities have always attempted this, but at the end of... {more}
FRANCE, BELGIUM
Directed By: Benoît Delépine, Gustave Kervern
Running Time: 92 Minutes
He ain’t heavy, he’s my middle-aged punk brother. France is in need of another revolution. A punk revolution. Thanks to the ever-punk, "Not", who proudly displays his pooch, a mohawk, and his name penned into his forehead, France may get... {more}
USA
Directed By: Bill Morrison
Running Time: 80 Minutes
In April 1927 the Mississippi River broke its banks in 145 locations, flooding 27,000 square miles of land. Thousands of sharecroppers were displaced and the devastation was unthinkable, even in light of current tragedies. It was the most destructive river... {more}
FRANCE
Directed By: Mathias Rifkiss, Colas Rifkiss
Running Time: 21 Minutes
Two men will play their future on the result of a football game. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
GEORGIA
Directed By: Zaza Urushadze
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Tbilisi, 1994. After the fall of the Soviet system and the chaos of civil war, Georgia is controlled by criminal gangs. In the aftermath of a shootout that kills his best friend Gio, Gogliko is sent to prison. Fifteen years... {more}
GERMANY
Directed By: Boris Schaarschmidt
Running Time: 18 Minutes
Blistering heat in the desert of Sudan. A pregnant mother and her two young children are on the search for water and safety from the ruthless Janjaweed militia. When the brother is too weak to continue, Haleema is sent by... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CROATIA, SLOVENIA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Directed By: Arsen Anton Ostojic
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Before the Bosnian war ravaged their lives, Halima’s niece Safija became pregnant by Slavo, a Christian man. Beaten and ostracized by her Muslim family, Safija gave the infant boy to the childless Halima to raise, telling Slavo it was stillborn.... {more}
USA
Directed By: Mark Nickelsburg
Running Time: 12 Minutes
New York is a tough place to find love. Especially for an eighteen-month-old who lives on his own. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Peter Getzels, Eduardo López
Running Time: 90 Minutes
The immigration debate in America is a heated one. It can easily turn a family dinner table into a shouting match. But what often gets lost in all the yelling is the simple fact that immigrants are human beings. Their... {more}
IRAN
Directed By: Reza Dormishian
Running Time: 84 Minutes
Zhaleh is a tough young Iranian woman living in Istanbul. Dressed in biker black with kohl-rimmed eyes, she’s part of a marginal club crowd and determined to emigrate to the West. Hamed is a loose cannon, a crackhead graffiti artist... {more}
ITALY
Directed By: Alessandro Bardani
Running Time: 9 Minutes
'Have you got a minute?', this Oreste asks to Mahdi ... before giving him road direction needed to go from the suburbs of Rome to Palestine. A long travel enriched with amusing anecdotes and sad memories, an escape from loneliness... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Michael Urie
Running Time: 96 Minutes
If you’ve ever wanted to be a Hollywood starlet and are in Noah Baumbach’s cinematic masterpiece, “The Squid and the Whale,” and have become an indie-darling and besties with Ben Stiller’s personal assistant and have a gay brother whose boyfriend... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Timothy Reckart
Running Time: 11 Minutes
A husband and wife have grown apart over the years. He lives on the floor, she lives on the ceiling, and their marriage hangs in the balance. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
GERMANY, USA
Directed By: Frauke Sandig, Eric Black
Running Time: 98 Minutes
From the Mayan creation story the Popol Vuh, we know that “Heart of Sky” is the world’s maker, part of the Mayan cosmovision of oneness with nature. This exquisitely beautiful film introduces us to present-day Mayans, from the highlands of... {more}
USA
Directed By: Kathy Leichter
Running Time: 76 Minutes
There’s an empty chair in the sunlight, surrounded by shadows. Filmmaker Kathy Leichter will never stop missing the light and dark presence of her gifted mother Nina, who took her life by jumping out of a window in the family’s... {more}
USA
Directed By: Jill Durso
Running Time: 13 Minutes
Set in New York City's bustling subway system, a quirky Clown's daily routine starts to unravel, leading him closer and closer to the woman of his dreams. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
VENEZUELA
Directed By: Ivan Mazza
Running Time: 14 Minutes
In a school playground Figueroa, a small and lonely child, is accidentally pushed against the biggest boy of his class: Almendros. The boys around them decide they should fight, so it's decreed the two of them must face each other,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
NEPAL
Directed By: Deepak Rauniyar
Running Time: 75 Minutes
Though still a Shangri-la for trekkers, Nepal recently emerged from a 12-year civil conflict. Strikes, power cuts, and political impasses, as well as extensive road blockades known as "bandhs," still disrupt the lives of all social classes. Against this background,... {more}
CANADA
Directed By: Anthony McLean
Running Time: 8 Minutes
In this black-and-white silent film, an unlucky bachelor wins a chance at love when he finds a beautiful girl's lost cat. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Myriam Donasis
Running Time: 25 Minutes
Muriel is nearly 40 and still childless.Despite the misgivings of her girlfriend, Emmanuelle,she decides to take an emergency trip to the Belgians (neighbors of french people in Europe) where in vitro fertilization is legal. Thus begins a tragicomic journey. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SPAIN
Directed By: Carlos Martin
Running Time: 8 Minutes
Maxi has to take care of his grandson... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
NORWAY
Directed By: Martin Lund
Running Time: 10 Minutes
A film about the hardest, most common fight of them all. {more}
This short film preceeds the following feature:
USA
Directed By: Dan Hayes
Running Time: 83 Minutes
To many, World War II is a distant memory. And to our youth, its importance can be lost in the modern world. Although there are still veterans of the war living among us, based on recent statistics we are losing... {more}
USA
Directed By: James Westby
Running Time: 18 Minutes
A 1940's screwball comedy about 3 women living in Manhattan and their adventures. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SPAIN
Directed By: Jose Luis Aleman
Running Time: 12 Minutes
An exhausted man walks through the desert.The sun seems to melt the image.The man can barely walk, exhausted, hungry and thirsty. Defeated, he drops down.Between the heat and blazing sun on the horizon in the distance, he catch a glimpse... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CANADA
Directed By: Carolyn Wong
Running Time: 19 Minutes
An estranged Uncle is murdered. The niece he never knew reveals his complex, conflicted life as a gay man and muses about his life/death in an attempt to comprehend what it means to her. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Shia LaBeouf
Running Time: 11 Minutes
This is the story of Howard Cantour. A warrior. His life as a film critic and how he comes to terms with reviewing his hero's film. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CANADA, CHILE
Directed By: Carlo Guillermo Proto
Running Time: 78 Minutes
This beautifully shot documentary chronicles the family members of director Carlo Guillermo Proto as they grapple with the decision of their father to end his own life. The director's father, Gustavo, is haunted by the memory of his own father's... {more}
SCOTLAND, DENMARK
Directed By: Emma Davie, Morag McKinnon
Running Time: 73 Minutes
At 34, Neil Platt is facing the end of his life. He has Motor Neurone Disease, a condition that also took his father. MND causes his muscles to stop working, but Neil’s vibrant spirit and love of his wife and... {more}
USA
Directed By: Jeffrey Schwarz
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Described by John Waters as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” Divine is one of the most unique and iconic film personalities in the Universe, whether the establishment film community dares to admit it or not! Born Harris Glen... {more}
CANADA
Directed By: Jason Lapeyre, Robert Wilson
Running Time: 91 Minutes
Remember when you were young and you played War and Cops 'n Robbers? Pretty sweet, right? Well, in I DECLARE WAR, we get to actually see a game of War played through the eyes of the young participants … and... {more}
USA
Directed By: Glenn Gaylord
Running Time: 91 Minutes
Following the sudden and tragic death of his brother, British expat Jack stays stateside to help his sister-in-law (Alicia Witt) raise his unborn niece. Now it's five years later, Jack's visa is expired, and he's facing deportation back to England.... {more}
SWEDEN
Directed By: Martin Högdahl
Running Time: 77 Minutes
THE ICE DRAGON is a family film in the tradition of Nordic storytelling, where strange possibilities lie far in the north. Mik is a scrawny 11-year-old who lives in Stockholm public housing with his teenage brother Tony. Every once in... {more}
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp
USA
Directed By: Jorge Hinojosa
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Produced by rap legend Ice-T, ICEBERG SLIM: PORTRAIT OF A PIMP documents the storied life of the late Robert Beck, a reformed pimp turned African American literature icon. Beck spent his early days split between prison and the ghettos of... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM, USA, TANZANIA
Directed By: Harry Freeland
Running Time: 85 Minutes
In April 2006, a 35-year-old albino woman was murdered in Tanzania after witch doctors spread the belief that an albino’s skin and body parts could bring fortune and good luck. After that, everything changed for the estimated 170,000 Tanzanians born... {more}
Independent Shorts Audience Award Program
International
Running Time: 90 Minutes
CIFF patrons determine this program by casting ballots throughtout the 37th CIFF. The top vote-getter receives the Cleveland State University Audience Choice Award for Best Short Subject, which is accompanied by a $1,000 cash prize. {more}
Independent Shorts Jury Awards Program
International
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Three jurors select winners of the awards listed below. The shorts are screened and the filmmakers are recognized during this special program. Each award is accompanied with a $1,000 cash prize. Best Animated Short Film Award* - sponsored by Reminger Co.,... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Simon Atkinson, Adam Townley
Running Time: 16 Minutes
An eleven year old boy, unable to fly his kite alone, befriends a peculiar girl who can not leave her caravan. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Jamie Meltzer
Running Time: 82 Minutes
Activist Brandon Darby started off as a hero in some people's minds. Affiliated with the revolutionary Black Panther party, he viewed the government as an obstacle to peace. He co-founded the Common Ground Collective after Hurricane Katrina, providing aid to... {more}
USA
Directed By: Travis Mathews, James Franco
Running Time: 60 Minutes
In 1980 the MPAA demanded that 40 minutes be removed from the controversial film "Cruising" – footage never since seen. In INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR. actor and filmmaker James Franco decided to re-imagine and film those missing 40 minutes. With a... {more}
AUSTRALIA
Directed By: Genevieve Clay, Robin Bryan
Running Time: 12 Minutes
Thomas Howell gets more than he's bargained for in a job interview at a prestigious law firm; an insult about his tie, a rendition of Harry Potter and the chance to change the lives of a father and son. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
COLUMBIA
Directed By: Giovanni Granada
Running Time: 20 Minutes
What if a 12 year old boy had to devise an Invention to get the attention of his love interest?Monica has made it clear, she wants to be just friends... Sad, Danny starts working with his friend Andres in their... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Jonathan Langager
Running Time: 15 Minutes
'Josephine and the Roach' is a surreal, offbeat short film about a cockroach who falls in love with the woman whose apartment he infests. They play beautiful duets on their violin and accordion, only to be interrupted by Josephine's brutish... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
MEXICO
Directed By: J. Xavier Velasco
Running Time: 10 Minutes
Juan, who works in a uniform store, has taken refuge in a routine life without ambition. Until one day, La borrega came along. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: H. F. Crum
Running Time: 12 Minutes
A reclusive narcoblogger documenting the violence ravaging his hometown of Juarez, Mexico confronts the criminals responsible and makes a decision that changes his life forever. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
JAPAN
Directed By: Kenji Uchida
Running Time: 128 Minutes
In this comical farce from Japan, the lives of three people intertwine thanks to a knock on the head. Takeshi is an out-of-work actor at the end of his rope – literally. Kondo is a contract killer with ice flowing... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Cary Sawhney
Running Time: 8 Minutes
This short depicts a young orthodox Muslim woman and her husband who live in today's East London. The woman is clearly pregnant and through her preoccupation with food, we see her engagement with both her domestic culture and the outside. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Premiering to rave reviews at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, THE KINGS OF SUMMER is a unique coming-of-age story about three teenagers who, in the ultimate act of independence, decide to spend their summer building a house in the woods.... {more}
USA
Directed By: Alexander Klein
Running Time: 76 Minutes
As a documentary film crew sets out to profile the New York art scene, their project takes a drastically different turn when they meet Nicholas Forker. Known for his ink and pen renderings of astronauts, Forker is a buzzing artist... {more}
SWEDEN
Directed By: Goran Kapetanovich
Running Time: 15 Minutes
In the midst of frost and snow, a woman is driving her way to the hospital in Kiruna, the northernmost city of Sweden. Under the scorching sunlight of Kigali, Rwanda, another woman is being carried to the hospital on a... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: David Chai
Running Time: 10 Minutes
Escaping a life of sadness and adversity, a young Korean boy moves to America and learns that even though life is full of hard knocks, the time does come when it’s safe to answer the door. A true story chronicling... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
KOSOVO
Directed By: Ujkan Hysaj
Running Time: 22 Minutes
War. Kosovo 1999. Adem finds himself in situation that he has to choose: to save his son or his brother's son. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
AUSTRIA
Directed By: Umut Dağ
Running Time: 93 Minutes
This quiet domestic drama by young Austrian-Kurdish filmmaker Umut Dağ packs a powerful emotional punch. Lovely, sad-eyed Ayse is being given in a traditional Turkish marriage to handsome Hasan, whose extended family has come from Vienna to their native village... {more}
GERMANY
Directed By: Daniel Butterworth
Running Time: 21 Minutes
An aging border guard desperately tries to stop Europe from opening its borders, and at the same time jeopardises his secret love. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
New Zealand
Directed By: Peter Young
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Have you ever heard of the Ross Sea? No? Well, not many people have and that's a good thing. The Ross Sea is located about 2,500 miles south of New Zealand on the shores of Antarctica and is considered to... {more}
USA, CANADA
Directed By: Paul Saltzman
Running Time: 78 Minutes
The courtly older Southern gentleman expresses pleasure at seeing the off-screen interviewer again. But as he cheerfully describes his life philosophies, you might feel a jolt. This astonishingly forthright man is Delay de la Beckwith, Ku Klux Klan member "unto... {more}
CANADA
Directed By: Xavier Dolan
Running Time: 168 Minutes
Laurence appears happy. He's a respected teacher and his lover Frederica (Fred for short) adores him. But Laurence isn't happy…as a man. Laurence tells Fred that he is a woman imprisoned in his body. Fred is devastated, but after the... {more}
CANADA
Directed By: Stephen Dunn
Running Time: 14 Minutes
On the eve of her thirteenth birthday, Esther Weary must come to terms with the realities of becoming a woman through her clueless Grandfather and his pet pug. Life Doesn't Frighten Me is a coming-of-age comedy about a young woman's... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
GERMANY
Directed By: Florian Knittel
Running Time: 25 Minutes
Finn, a family man, finally gets a chance to go on a space mission. During the pre start test period strange phenomenons occur in his state of mind until Finn is not able to differentiate what is reality and what... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Amanda Pennington
Running Time: 13 Minutes
Lillian, a period film inspired by Edna St Vincent Millay's poem, 'What Lips My Lips Have Kissed' begins in 1940 where Lillian (Tony Nominee, Kathleen Chalfant) receives news that causes her to remember the summer of 1918 where she (Amanda... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
USA
Directed By: Sophie Schwartz
Running Time: 2 Minutes
The story of lost youth through a girl and her wardrobe. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Drew Mylrea
Running Time: 10 Minutes
Anders Ohm is a robotics engineer attempting to create the perfect robotic woman. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SPAIN
Directed By: Roger Gómez, Dani Resines
Running Time: 9 Minutes
Fourteen little kids go over an unsolved football mystery, and they end up teaching an unexpected life lesson to grown-ups. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SPAIN
Directed By: Marcel Barrena
Running Time: 84 Minutes
Meet Albert Casals, 20, a Barcelona native who has been traveling the world since he was 15. By himself. With no money. And his wheelchair. (What did you do today?) Relentlessly upbeat, Albert’s insistence on living the life he dreams... {more}
BELGIUM
Directed By: Nicolas Guiot
Running Time: 30 Minutes
Recently arrived in France with her parents from their native Russia, Natalia, six years old, has been impatiently awaiting her brother's return from right in Chechnya. D-day has come and so has disillusion for the little girl. Is this man... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
AUSTRALIA
Directed By: Alexandra Schepisi
Running Time: 9 Minutes
Some small stories are epic. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SLOVENIA
Directed By: Damjan Kozole
Running Time: 82 Minutes
THE LONG VACATION focuses on three heartbreaking stories of people who were erased from Slovenia's civil register in 1992, due to a controversial law put in place a year after the country declared its independence. At age 13, Aleksandar returned... {more}
USA, UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Luke Korem
Running Time: 80 Minutes
The life of Lord Edward Montagu is like a great English novel. At age two he became Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, a 10,000-acre estate with a 13th century residence named Palace House. After World War II, when the stately homes... {more}
USA, UKRAINE, ISRAEL, POLAND, BRAZIL
Directed By: Jeremy Goldscheider, Richard Goldgewicht
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Deep in Western Ukraine, in a clearing surrounded by forests and rich farmland, there once was a town called Trochenbrod. Founded in 1835 as a farming colony, by 1938 the town's exclusively Jewish population had grown to a bustling 3,000.... {more}
USA
Directed By: Michael Toscano
Running Time: 14 Minutes
Max Cotton is a right wing radio personality desperately fighting for ratings. When one of his listeners shoots an IRS agent on the air, he is thrown into a crisis of existential guilt, but the media powers that be have... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Ted Sikora
Running Time: 5 Minutes
Cambodian-born American Loung Ung, describes her career as an human rights activist and author. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Matthew Hashiguchi
Running Time: 21 Minutes
Description: The Lower 9: A Story of Home is a documentary showcasing four determined Lower Ninth Ward residents who share their most intimate stories of home, as they resume their lives years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged their neighborhood. Each story... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
ARGENTINA
Directed By: Juan Pablo Zaramella
Running Time: 6 Minutes
In a world controlled and timed by light, an ordinary man has a plan that could change the natural order of things. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Judd Ehrlich
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Since 1974, up-and-coming illusionists ages 12-20 have spurned tennis and badminton and wended their way to the Hogwartian halls of Bryn Mawr College and world-famous MAGIC CAMP. This enchanting documentary follows several campers with aspirations to become professional magicians as... {more}
USA
Directed By: Tim Rauch, Mike Rauch
Running Time: 3 Minutes
Nineteen-year-old Noe Rueda tells his former teacher Alex Fernandez about his clever money-making endeavors as a kid in Chicago's Little Village. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
MEXICO, USA
Directed By: Tom Gustafson
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Edward's life isn't going the way he planned. At 30 he still lives at home in the rural American town he grew up in. His parents spend their time glued to the television. His countless attempts to get them to... {more}
USA
Directed By: Tim Rauch, Mike Rauch
Running Time: 3 Minutes
Gweneviere Mann talks with her boyfriend, Yasir Salem, about navigating through life after losing her short-term memory. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SOUTH AFRICA
Directed By: Craig Freimond
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, MATERIAL is a comedy about textiles. Also, it’s about stand-up comedy. But mostly it’s about textiles and Ebrahim’s fabric store. It’s kind of about comedy, but it is definitely about the fabric store. In fact,... {more}
FRANCE
Directed By: Guillaume Pierret
Running Time: 9 Minutes
Visiting room of a prison.Confrontation between a mother and her son, after this one has took part in a bloody robbery. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Jacqui Morris, David Morris
Running Time: 92 Minutes
Don McCullin has seen things the rest of us could never imagine seeing up close. As a photojournalist, he's been within inches of some of the worst atrocities of our time. He stood helpless as children starved to death in... {more}
FRANCE
Directed By: Cyril Rigon
Running Time: 21 Minutes
Gabin is a young clown who mesmerizes his audience with the poetry of his perfect imitations. One day, in his caravan, whilst he is removing his make-up, something strange terrifies his pet chimpanzee Camille. The following morning on the newspaper,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Jeff Lipsky
Running Time: 102 Minutes
MOLLY’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY, the latest surreal comedy by New York indie filmmaker Jeff Lipsky, takes place one day in the life of a beautiful 28-year-old astronomer. Molly is the kind of person whose life is based on certainties—until now.... {more}
SPAIN
Directed By: Paul Urkijo
Running Time: 10 Minutes
Nai is having nightmares about the Yeak, a monster that eats naughty children. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
GERMANY, AUSTRIA, SWITZERLAND
Directed By: Markus Imhoof
Running Time: 91 Minutes
This. Film. Is. Fascinating. The most successful film in Switzerland for the year 2012, MORE THAN HONEY takes you inside the search for the missing honeybees. For over a decade, the bee population has dwindled, baffling scientists worldwide. And for... {more}
CANADA
Directed By: Nick Fox Gieg
Running Time: 3 Minutes
“They gave me a gun, a pick, and a hand grenade, and said ‘Win at any cost,’ and I said ‘Right.’ There’s nothing I love more than winning...” {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Nick Palmer
Running Time: 15 Minutes
Every Christmas, Bruce Mertz lights up the neighborhood with the 50,000 lights covering his house. For decades he's obsessively added to his display, creating beautiful, towering fixtures that people travel across the country to see. In this offbeat, touching portrait,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Chris Farrington
Running Time: 9 Minutes
While driving in the desert at night, a couple on the rocks wish the worst on each other, leading to a bizarre and bloody turn of events in which both their twisted desires come true. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
INDIA
Directed By: Manjeet Singh
Running Time: 78 Minutes
MUMBAI’S KING is a kaleidoscopic blur of color and sound; a freewheeling, episodic film reminiscent of “Slumdog Millionaire.” Teenage Rahul avoids home in the slums of Mumbai since his dad is a violent drunkard. He prefers to do backflips into... {more}
ESTONIA
Directed By: Toomas Hussar
Running Time: 93 Minutes
In case you didn't know it, mushroom-gathering is a big thing in Estonia. Aadu Kägu, a sad-sack lawmaker subject to the indignities of a political race, is not one to pursue such woodsy pastimes. His miseries are compounded when his... {more}
USA
Directed By: Maxine Trump
Running Time: 80 Minutes
The acoustic guitar has been involved in some of the most magnificent recordings ever made. Its gorgeous vibrations have been heard in a wide variety of genres, from classical, folk, and country, to rock, pop, and R&B. It's even been... {more}
MEXICO
Directed By: León Fernández
Running Time: 8 Minutes
A strange humanoid wakes up abandoned on a great rock in the middle of the ocean. Without shelter or food, he must confront the very purpose of his life and the great mystery that sustains his species. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
GERMANY
Directed By: Michaela Kezele
Running Time: 88 Minutes
In Kosovo the war between the Serbs and the Albanians shatters the lives of Danica and her two sons. Her husband is dead, bombings are daily occurrences, and material in an abandoned tank is making local children sick. Danica returns... {more}
TURKEY, UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Khurrum M. Sultan
Running Time: 12 Minutes
Nur a young girl from an orphanage is trying to find a runaway sacrificial goat out of guilt, but has to overcome her fears and take on responsibility for her actions before she can return home and find redemption. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
The New Woman: Annie 'Londonderry' Kopchovsky
USA
Directed By: Gillian Willman
Running Time: 27 Minutes
Until 1894, there were no female sports stars, no product endorsement deals, and no young, Jewish mothers with the chutzpah to circle the globe on a bicycle. Annie Kopchovsky changed all of that. A spicy blend of adventure, social history,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CZECH REPUBLIC
Directed By: Jiří Strach
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Ota is getting cantankerous in his old age. His son offers to take him in so he can have much-needed eye surgery, but he's having none of it. Ota sneaks off without telling anybody to do something he's been meaning... {more}
GERMANY
Directed By: Tomy Wigand
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Who put the “Oma” in “Mama Mia?” That would be Marianne Sägebrecht, who plays a feisty German grandma in OMAMAMIA. Oma Margherita, who longs to visit the Bavarian Pope in the Vatican, lives with her neurotic daughter Marie in Canada.... {more}
Once Upon a Time Was I, Veronica
BRAZIL, FRANCE
Directed By: Marcelo Gomes
Running Time: 92 Minutes
Newly-minted psychiatrist Veronica is trying to get to know herself. She has a job at a hospital and girlfriends to party with; she's ready for life to begin. But Veronica is a thinker, and the impersonality of existence is taking... {more}
AUSTRALIA
Directed By: Lee Rogers
Running Time: 7 Minutes
A mysterious donation sends the sales clerks of a suburban op shop (thrift shop) on a journey of self-discovery. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Kief Davidson
Running Time: 40 Minutes
Eight Rwandan children leave their families behind to embark on a life-or-death journey seeking high-risk heart surgery in Sudan. Their hearts ravaged by a treatable disease from childhood strep throat, they have only months left to live. Open Heart reveals... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
NORWAY
Directed By: Arild Andresen
Running Time: 104 Minutes
It’s 1985 in Stavanger, Norway and Jarle Orheim can’t wait for the Live Aid concert. An earnest preteen with a belief in the power of music, he’s standing by to record it off the TV. But, as always, his father... {more}
ISRAEL
Directed By: Khen Shalem
Running Time: 23 Minutes
A simple soccer ball sparks an unusual friendship between two young boys on opposite sides of the Israeli and Palestian separation wall. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
ISRAEL, USA
Directed By: Michael Mayer
Running Time: 96 Minutes
Nimr and Roy are two handsome young men passionately in love within the hostilities of the Middle East. Nimr, a Palestinian, travels to Tel Aviv from Ramallah on a special student pass. Roy is an Israeli lawyer with a well-connected... {more}
USA
Directed By: Noldon Starks, Jen Poland
Running Time: 10 Minutes
Noldon Starks has a disorder but eventually gets support through God, Family and Friends. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Richard Goldgewicht
Running Time: 103 Minutes
Behind many of the great films of the past 60 years has been one man whose imagination and creativity helped revolutionize his genre. Narrated by Jeff Bridges, PABLO is a look at Pablo Ferro, the Title Designer for over 90... {more}
USA
Directed By: Adolfo Martinez Perez
Running Time: 11 Minutes
It was a wonderful day, the sun shone, the birds chirped... until the best-friend-asking-for-a-favor from hell showed up. What starts as social drama about cancer quickly slips towards over the top, surreal dramedy. If you feel uncomfortable laughing at no... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE, JAPAN
Directed By: Jean-François Laguionie
Running Time: 78 Minutes
A multi-hued, wildly imaginative film with a sweeping musical score, THE PAINTING will restore your faith in the power of children’s animation. Within the frame of one unfinished painting, there exist three castes of figures: the rich, fully-painted Alldunns; the... {more}
AUSTRIA, GERMANY, FRANCE
Directed By: Ulrich Seidl
Running Time: 113 Minutes
After her husband’s accident cripples him, Anna retreats completely into her religion. She travels with a statue of the Virgin Mary, forcing herself into strangers’ homes to convert whomever she can. In her own room, she scourges herself to atone... {more}
AUSTRIA, GERMANY, FRANCE
Directed By: Ulrich Seidl
Running Time: 91 Minutes
While her mother goes to Kenya to frolic in the male sex trade (told of in paradise: love) and her fanatical aunt evangelizes and wars with personal demons (told of in paradise: faith), young Melanie is sent to a diet... {more}
AUSTRIA, GERMANY, FRANCE
Directed By: Ulrich Seidl
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Teresa has left Austria to celebrate a fifty-something birthday at a resort in Kenya. It is, a friend assures her, a paradise for older women seeking love from the local and always available men. Hesitant at first, Teresa dips her... {more}
USA
Directed By: Beneyam Wolde-Yohannes
Running Time: 17 Minutes
It doesn't take to long to figure out that you've been given the short end of the stick in life if you grew up in poverty. It's an everyday struggle, a rat race if you will, all for one thing-... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Becca Friedman
Running Time: 23 Minutes
A look at the world of geriatric zoo animal care, through Colo--the oldest living gorilla in captivity--on her 55th birthday. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Shane Atkinson
Running Time: 18 Minutes
The story of a kidnapping gone horribly wrong. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Russ Lamoureux
Running Time: 23 Minutes
Facing an uncertain future, Peter travels home for a final visit with family and friends. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
IRELAND
Directed By: Conor Ferguson
Running Time: 7 Minutes
Proud Madame Rousseau embarks on an epic journey to eat cakes with sweet abandon. But life has some bittersweet lessons to teach her. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy
ITALY
Directed By: Marco Tullio Giordana
Running Time: 129 Minutes
In 1969 the Piazza Fontana building in Milan was bombed. The tragedy killed 17 people and wounded 88. To date, no one has ever been convicted of the crime. Italian State Police placed blame on left-wing organizations from the start,... {more}
USA
Directed By: Winston Titus Tao
Running Time: 25 Minutes
17 yr. old Russell Clayton has always loved photography. When he's given the chance to enter in to a school competition to win some prize money for Maggie, his 11yr. old sister, he takes the opportunity. Faced with... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SOUTH KOREA
Directed By: Kim Ki-duk
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Visionary director Kim Ki-duk takes us on a savage and disturbing journey into the heart of darkness. A ruthless loan shark calmly extracts brutal penalties from clients unable to pay. He cripples his pleading victims in front of their families... {more}
Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself
USA
Directed By: Tom Bean, Luke Poling
Running Time: 89 Minutes
George Plimpton was an outcast among the elites of his childhood and was even kicked out of his boarding school mere months before graduation. But his life took a fortuitous turn when his dream of writing came true with an... {more}
USA
Directed By: Ryan Denmark
Running Time: 11 Minutes
Kathy is a mature, professional woman who still sleeps with her cuddly teddy bear Vincent. One night, when a burglar invades, Kathy's home comes alive with magical surprises. To his horror, the intruder learns that not everything is... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
TURKEY
Directed By: Fatih Akin
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Many of us worry about pollution. But probably not as much as the people of Camburnu do. Ten years ago the government allowed a garbage dump to be built in the hills above the small Turkish Black Sea town. As... {more}
USA
Directed By: Rob Festinger
Running Time: 13 Minutes
Julie tearfully asks her brother, Jason, and their Mom to attend the funeral of afriend. Mom and Jason would rather not – they’d never even met the deceased woman. But they can’t say no. They do manage to negotiate with... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Benjamin Grayson
Running Time: 25 Minutes
The story of a father's redemption and a daughters love. David O'Neil is an ordinary man who, as a result of poor judgement, now finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Santina Protopapa
Running Time: 18 Minutes
Project 5: When I Hear Music tells the powerful story of a 1980s Cleveland break dancing group and how hip-hop and break dancing united the youth from different backgrounds. Featured in the film is the group's founder Matt Zone, now... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
AUSTRIA
Directed By: Michael Rittmannsberger
Running Time: 11 Minutes
After being checked by the police, a young father of Arabic origin fails to explain the situation to hist son - unaware that the most inexplicable happenings were yet to come. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FINLAND
Directed By: Jukka Kärkkäinen, J-P Passi
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Pertii Kurikka's Nimipäivät is a four-piece Finnish band whose members all suffer from mental disabilities. In many ways they embrace the spirit of punk rock more than most groups today could ever dream. The loud, angsty genre provides the perfect... {more}
USA
Directed By: Jason Chaet
Running Time: 88 Minutes
All is not well at Himmelstein’s House of Lox in New York. Walter “Putzel” Himmelstein, heir apparent to the Himmelstein smoked fish empire, is having yet another crisis. He is pathologically unable to go beyond the boundaries of the Upper... {more}
FRANCE
Directed By: Jan Rouiller, Nicky Marbot
Running Time: 18 Minutes
How do you get your photos out of a speed camera box? You certainly should not count on the help of FENDER and BAGUETTE, and even less on JOSE, the Gypsy. As for the police, they're busy dealing with… ravens! {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA, DENMARK, UNITED KINGDOM, JORDAN, INDIA
Directed By: Mona Eldaief, Jehane Noujaim
Running Time: 75 Minutes
Thirty-two-year-old Rafea raises her daughters in an extremely poor Bedouin community in Jordan. Her unemployed husband isn't much help as he spends most of his time with his first wife. Needless to say, things could be better. As luck would... {more}
USA
Directed By: Nancy Kelly
Running Time: 73 Minutes
Beginning in the 1950s, a national movement was born of principles that may seem obvious today. Unconvinced by land developers who promoted residential construction as unmitigated progress, citizens began banding together to preserve open spaces near where they lived. REBELS... {more}
DENMARK
Directed By: Brian McGinn
Running Time: 25 Minutes
Ashrita Furman holds the official record for the most Guinness World Records by one individual. A health food store owner and devotee of meditation, Furman travels the world creating new categories for record achievement. In this fascinating and quirky doc... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
Red, White and Blueprints: A Rust Belt Documentary
USA
Directed By: Jack Storey
Running Time: 65 Minutes
People in the Rust Belt are thick-skinned. After years of being mocked as a dried-up region with nothing left to offer America, its cities are now rising from the ashes of the past, looking ahead to their role in the... {more}
USA
Directed By: Brandon Harris
Running Time: 67 Minutes
REDLEGS follows three childhood friends as they traverse through their hometown of Cincinnati on the weekend of another friend’s funeral. A candid and emotional look into grief and mourning, REDLEGS’ Ulysses-like odyssey has these young men looking for any sort... {more}
FRANCE
Directed By: Gilles Bourdos
Running Time: 111 Minutes
As lovely and haunting as a painting by the Master himself, this exquisite film tells of the final years of Master painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is 1915. Crippled by arthritis and mourning the loss of his wife, Renoir’s life is... {more}
ALGERIA, FRANCE
Directed By: Merzak Allouache
Running Time: 87 Minutes
A lone jihadist runs through the high flatlands of Algeria, looking over his shoulder as he heads back to his native village. The Civil War has raged for more than ten years, and though Islamic terrorists continue to sow fear,... {more}
USA
Directed By: Tom Gustafson
Running Time: 8 Minutes
From the closet of a hate group: a scandalous confession.A short film from the creators of WERE the WORLD MINE. {more}
This short film preceeds the following feature:
GERMANY
Directed By: Milen Vitanov
Running Time: 10 Minutes
All know the way, but few actually walk it - Rising Hope, once the fastest horse in the world, dares to be one of the few. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Alfred Thomas Catalfo
Running Time: 15 Minutes
An unlikely bond is forged between a lonely boy and an elderly man claiming to be a former astronaut. Together, they transform a vintage vacuum cleaner into a rocketship for a surprising journey. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Max Lang, Jan Lachauer
Running Time: 26 Minutes
A half hour animated film based on the wonderful children's picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Room on the Broom is a magical tale about friendship and family from Magic Light Pictures, the producers of... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CANADA
Directed By: Glen Matthews
Running Time: 5 Minutes
A woman confronts her husband's mistress in a motel room with unexpected results. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
PANAMA, ECUADOR
Directed By: Juan Sebastián Jácome
Running Time: 75 Minutes
Tito is a deliberate fellow. He won't rush to answer a phone, and he likes the methodic rhythms of bowling. Imagine his shock when he must suddenly travel from Panama to Costa Rica to retrieve his father Cesar, whom he... {more}
USA
Directed By: Barbara Kopple
Running Time: 100 Minutes
Mariel is likely the bravest Hemingway of all. Her life growing up in the fishbowl of celebrity has had its share of tragedies and triumphs. Granddaughter of novelist Ernest Hemingway and sister of “wild child” model Margaux, she first became... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM, INDIA
Directed By: Kim Longinotto
Running Time: 90 Minutes
This groundbreaking film is a story of triumph over such unimaginable adversity that it will take your breath away. SALMA is a Tamil Muslim woman who was forced to leave school, then locked up by her family for 25 years.... {more}
USA
Directed By: Daniel Carberry
Running Time: 4 Minutes
An action short film about a squad of five soldiers lost in the desert. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Emilie Cherpitel
Running Time: 15 Minutes
Eva wakes up alone in an unknown flat. Her boyfriend from the night before has disappeared, but Leon - his little brother - is there and she is left with no other option than spending than staying with him and... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Katie Damien
Running Time: 3 Minutes
Only eleven states allow second parent adoption for same-sex couples. Single parent adoption is sometimes the only option for same-sex couples, but in that case only one parent has legal rights to the child they adopt. This film explores one... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
MEXICO, SWITZERLAND
Directed By: Gabriel Mariño
Running Time: 87 Minutes
Eighteen-year-old Maria (Lucía Uribe) is fed up with school in Mexico City. She has a strained relationship with her mother and harbors no plans for her future. The joyless sex she has with guys is just something to do before... {more}
POLAND
Directed By: Filip Marczewski
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Nothing is more important to young Tadzik than healing his relationship with his estranged sister Anka. She is the only family he has left. But when he arrives unannounced to spend his summer break with her, she is unenthusiastic about... {more}
SLOVENIA
Directed By: Marko Nabersnik
Running Time: 124 Minutes
SHANGHAI GYPSY is the saga of the Mirgas, a fun-loving and charismatic Slovenian Romani clan whose upward mobility over the course of four generations leads them far from their traditional way of life. Smolderingly handsome "Belmondo" Mirga (Visar Vishka), a... {more}
SPAIN
Directed By: Juan Montes De Oca
Running Time: 19 Minutes
In Palma de Mallorca, through 5 year old kid innocence, and common life coincidences, an Afro-American homeless remember his non-senselife going back 45 years in New York. All together makes his life change to find at last the way to... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Mako Kamitsuna
Running Time: 20 Minutes
In 1960 during the Space Race a woman vying to become the first US female astronaut meets a nurse ready to give up on a dream of her own. Inspired by a true story. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Treva Wurmfeld
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Sam Shepard is an icon of letters, stage, and screen who, for decades, has represented a lost highway to America’s Western subculture. Johnny Dark has been his friend for nearly five decades, exchanging letters and dialogue about philosophy, music, theory,... {more}
USA
Directed By: Rick Williamson
Running Time: 3 Minutes
The epitome of a short western film with short actors, short horses and long credits. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: José Asunción
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Mike Charlton of Eastlake is a man with a past. Dozens of arrests for anything from drunk and disorderly to DUI to assault are enough to make any man live with a stigma difficult to leave behind. But Mike Charlton... {more}
COLOMBIA
Directed By: William Vega
Running Time: 88 Minutes
The camera sweeps the reeds, following a lonely young figure as she trudges through the swamp. Suddenly she collapses. A young man paddling a boat ferries her to a rickety wooden inn, which a painted shingle identifies as LA SIRGA.... {more}
USA
Directed By: Jason Kohl
Running Time: 15 Minutes
A pig farmer tests his son's resolve to join the family business by taking him through the process of slaughtering a pig. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
NETHERLANDS
Directed By: Sanne Vogel
Running Time: 7 Minutes
In Small, twelve-year-old Noortje experiences her first massage, given by a large and muscular man. Noortje feels insecure because of her awakening sexuality; she is not quite ready to have her skin touched by strange hands, and certainly not by... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SOUTH AFRICA
Directed By: Brent Dawes
Running Time: 5 Minutes
Chameleon is very proud of his pristine white complexion. When he steps into a puddle of mud he does all he can to get clean again only to end up further and further from white. Finally he manages to clean... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Julia Reichert, Steven Bognar
Running Time: 18 Minutes
Sheri Sparkle Williams has been a star dancer with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) for nearly 40 years, a track record virtually unheard of in the professional dance community. The powerhouse dancer suffers her first serious injury, on... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Karyn Kusama
Running Time: 23 Minutes
Desmond has a secret he cannot share with anyone. The family, the school, the white picket fence community surrounding him do not provide solace. Support of a new friend and the need for the cycle to end pushes Desmond to... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Blake Heiss
Running Time: 16 Minutes
Sam's a regular guy, or at least he would be if not for his split personality problem. After making some bad bets with the wrong people, Sam attempts a small time bank robbery only to find that nobody makes a... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
CANADA
Directed By: Michael McGowan
Running Time: 102 Minutes
STILL MINE features a world that has changed a lot during Craig’s (James Cromwell) 80-plus years. Energetic and stubborn, change is something he either ignores or only happens on his terms. But even Craig realizes the crumbling farmhouse he and... {more}
USA
Directed By: Andre LeBlanc
Running Time: 14 Minutes
A remote arctic station is overrun by its own monstrous experiment, leaving the survivors no choice but to face what they've created. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Directed By: Anna Arlanova
Running Time: 23 Minutes
Smile of Marilyn, gait of Marilyn, manners of Marilyn... Even the dress looks like Marilyn's. An accidental encounter in a second-hand shop - and the sharp reality is ready to crash the world of dreams. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
The Suffering Grasses: When Elephants Fight, It Is the Grass That Suffers
SYRIA, TURKEY
Directed By: Iara Lee
Running Time: 52 Minutes
When elephants go to war, it is the grass that suffers. Syria is a nation of 20 million people being trampled underfoot as resistance fighters battle government troops for supremacy. In THE SUFFERING GRASSES, filmmaker-activist Iara Lee interviews dozens of... {more}
USA
Directed By: Ryan Arthur
Running Time: 5 Minutes
A young girl encounters a suspected kidnapper at her lemonade stand. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
The Sugar Wars: The Life Story of Angelo Lonardo
USA
Running Time: 52 Minutes
THE SUGAR WARS: THE LIFE STORY OF ANGELO LONARDO chronicles the life of the legendary mobster. His father, "Big Joe" Lonardo, was Cleveland, Ohio's first mafia godfather. During prohibition, he operated refineries that turned sugar into alcohol. In 1929, Joe... {more}
USA
Directed By: Mike Rauch, Tim Rauch
Running Time: 4 Minutes
Nicholas Petron remembers how everything changed when the city made new plans for his family home. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA, CANADA
Directed By: Benjamin Greené
Running Time: 70 Minutes
Formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands, Haida Gwaii is an archipelago off the North Coast of British Columbia, consisting of approximately 150 islands. Its inhabitants, the Haida, are noted seafarers and a linguistically-distinct group. They're so distinct, in fact, that... {more}
USA
Directed By: Chin Tangsakulsathaporn
Running Time: 12 Minutes
Children are trapped in the sweatshop. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Nancy Savoca
Running Time: 23 Minutes
Timmy wanted nothing more than to be the focus of desire of his high school crush. Known around town as Timmy Two Chins, his large size made him feel unmanly, uninteresting and just plain invisible. Recognizing the family and social... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
Talking Dog for Sale, 10 Euros
FRANCE, SPAIN
Directed By: Lewis-Martin Soucy
Running Time: 8 Minutes
When a man sees a curious advertisement for a talking dog for sale cheap, he pursues the offer with natural skepticism. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SINGAPORE, USA
Directed By: Philip DeRise
Running Time: 13 Minutes
The only thing separating Peter Jenkins from his dream of World Peace was the paperwork. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
SPAIN
Directed By: Esteban Crespo
Running Time: 24 Minutes
'Being a soldier is not difficult: either you get used to it or they kill you. The hardest thing is getting used to living with your memories and being yourself again after doing what you have done' {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Claude Miller
Running Time: 110 Minutes
François Mauriac’s legendary 1927 novel of French provincial life has been gloriously brought to the screen by the inestimable Claude Miller in his final film. Sumptuously photographed to capture the full beauty of the pine-forested Landes area in southwest France,... {more}
USA
Directed By: Michael Sarrow
Running Time: 7 Minutes
Secret cross-dresser Ronnie is able to quickly change clothes when his wife comes home from work early. But he doesn't get off that easy when she finds his lipstick stains and accuses him of cheating! {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
AUSTRALIA
Directed By: Daniel Mitchell
Running Time: 24 Minutes
Two youths, eager to make a quick buck, accept a job from a nightclub owner to kidnap the girlfriend of a famous football player.In a turn of mistaken identity, the kidnapped girl convinces our bemused boys that she is really... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Catherine Corsini
Running Time: 101 Minutes
THREE WORLDS collide as an accident on a Paris street changes lives forever. Juliette is a medical student, pregnant by a university lecturer to whom she can't commit. Handsome Al is at the top of his game, about to inherit... {more}
USA
Directed By: Sarah Gurfield
Running Time: 6 Minutes
After losing a playful 'thumb war' to his date, our hero puts his losing digit through a grueling (and hilarious) ROCKY-esque training regimen in an obsessive quest to reclaim the title...and his manhood. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
BELGIUM
Directed By: Nic Balthazar
Running Time: 118 Minutes
In one of the best performances of this year's CIFF, Koen De Graeve plays real life Belgian politician Mario Verstraete, the first man to take advantage of a new euthanasia law in Belgium – a law that Verstraete fought long... {more}
USA
Directed By: Martin Strauss, Justin Plummer III
Running Time: 17 Minutes
When the nascent romance between a mid-twentieth century repair shop owner and his charming young customer falters, he struggles to find a solution for his most daunting task-- repairing himself. {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Fro Rojas
Running Time: 83 Minutes
RayRay Dominguez is the happily single resident of a Puerto Rican barrio in New York. His aversion to relationships gets him in hot water with long-time girlfriend Cheeky. RayRay can’t imagine living a complicated, expensive life like his sister, who... {more}
USA
Directed By: Ron Fleischer
Running Time: 7 Minutes
This traditionally animated short tells the story of Tommy Malloy, a 6-year old boy who loses his first tooth. When he learns that the Tooth Fairy will give him money for it he hatches a plot to trap and shake... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Pascal Roy
Running Time: 28 Minutes
Lucie, home-hairdresser, is moved by Martial's, a young handicapped person, lonelyness. In spite of her own hesitations and of her husband's Vittorio, will Lucie accept to exceed the limits of her mission to help Martial discover his body? {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Wenhwa Ts'ao
Running Time: 14 Minutes
Towing is a film about a female veteran's struggle to make the adjustment to civilian life, one fateful night her experiences in the war come back to challenge her as she's yet again forced to face meaningless death. Towing explores... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
FRANCE
Directed By: Michaela Pavlátová
Running Time: 8 Minutes
It's the humdrum daily routine for Tram's conductress. As every morning, men get on the tram to go to work, one after another, all similar, quiet, gray, apathetic. And yet, on that day, following the jolts and the road's vibrations,... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
USA
Directed By: Josh Marvin Solomon
Running Time: 16 Minutes
In a time of bromance, they forged a manlationship… After winning a high stakes game of beer pong at a party, two best friends are challenged by their rivals to prove who is the better pair of friends. With $300... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
NORWAY
Directed By: Martin Lund
Running Time: 78 Minutes
Junior is a little boy with a big imagination who lives in an idyllic, sun-lit Norwegian village. His best friend is a lively piece of wood named Twigson who’s always making silly jokes. Junior’s mom works in a store where... {more}
USA
Directed By: Andrew Young
Running Time: 21 Minutes
A bedtime story about a robin chick who falls from its nest turns into a dramatic confession, as Joy relives a tragic accident she caused when her daughter Callie was a baby. The trauma sends shock waves between Joy and... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
PUERTO RICO, USA
Directed By: Arí Maniel Cruz
Running Time: 102 Minutes
Solimar is an attractive Puerto Rican in her 30s who came to New York after losing her parents as a child. Now she leads a lonely life devoid of emotion. A nail tech in a Hispanic salon by day, by... {more}
USA
Directed By: Doug Dearth
Running Time: 102 Minutes
In small town America, high-school football is everything. For the players, it provides notoriety and a possible ticket to a bigger world. For the community, it's a source of pride. Filmed in Canton, Ohio, UNDERDOGS focuses on the Knights, a... {more}
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Paul Andrew Williams
Running Time: 93 Minutes
UNFINISHED SONG is a funny and inspiring story about Arthur (Terence Stamp), a curmudgeonly old soul, who is perfectly content sticking with his dull daily routine until his beloved wife (Vanessa Redgrave) introduces him to a local seniors singing group.... {more}
United in Anger: A History of ACT UP
USA
Directed By: Jim Hubbard
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Since activist Larry Kramer called for its organization in 1987, ACT UP has been on the frontline in the war against the AIDS epidemic. Even from the beginning ACT UP was not a monolithic group; it acted as a magnet... {more}
USA
Directed By: Patrick Waismann
Running Time: 23 Minutes
When Yankel's older brother runs away from home after a bitter fight with their father, Yankel decides to seek revenge. He learns in school that fathers are punished for their children's sins before their Bar Mitzvahs, so Yankel decides to... {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs:
UNITED KINGDOM
Directed By: Zam Salim
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Martin (the perfectly cast Burn Gorman) has been deceased for a few years now and spends his days working as a Carer, welcoming new arrivals to the after-life. Not all angels, harps, and clouds, the after-life instead includes group therapy,... {more}
EGYPT, USA
Directed By: Fredrik Stanton
Running Time: 85 Minutes
In 2011 Egypt made history when President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, following weeks of citizen protests. The people's loud but mostly peaceful actions directly led to the results they wanted. By standing together, despite fierce opposition, they successfully ended a... {more}
CANADA
Directed By: Maryanne Zéhil
Running Time: 95 Minutes
In THE VALLEY OF TEARS, there is sometimes solace to be found. Marie is a chic but emotionally cold Quebecoise editor who specializes in the testimonies of genocide survivors. A self-described “functional alcoholic,” she’s alienated from her family, with little... {more}
CZECH REPUBLICA
Directed By: Olga Sommerová
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Věra Čáslavská is a Czech Olympic champion who, in 1968, was voted the world's second most popular woman after Jackie Kennedy. A cheerful blonde who excelled in every area of gymnastics, Věra shot to fame in 1964 after winning three... {more}
SPAIN
Directed By: Martin Rosete
Running Time: 10 Minutes
A voice over guides us through three extreme situations which are actually the same. Will you survive? {more}
This film is part of the following shorts programs: