USA – 2011 – 95 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY BILL HANEY
In the valleys of Appalachia, a battle is being fought over a mountain. It is a battle with severe consequences that affect every American, regardless of their social status, economic background or where they live. It is a battle that has taken many lives and continues to do so the longer it is waged. It is a battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal.
USA – 2014 – 105 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH & JAPANESE
A FILM BY DAVID ZELLNER
In this darkly comedic odyssey, Academy Award nominee Rinko Kikuchi (Babel, Pacific Rim) stars as Kumiko, a frustrated Office Lady whose imagination transcends the confines of her mundane life. Kumiko becomes obsessed with a mysterious, battered VHS tape of a popular film she’s mistaken for a documentary, fixating on a scene where a suitcase of stolen cash is buried in the desolate, frozen landscape of North Dakota. Believing this treasure to be real, she leaves behind Tokyo and her beloved rabbit Bunzo to recover it – and finds herself on a dangerous adventure unlike anything she’s seen in the movies.
USA – 2011 – 84 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY VIKRAM GANDHI
Kumaré is an enlightened guru from the East who builds a following of loyal disciples in the West. But Kumaré is not real. He is an American filmmaker named Vikram Gandhi, who has transformed himself into Kumaré as the centerpiece of a social experiment designed to explore and test one of the world's most sacred taboos.
AUSTRALIA – 2006 – 104 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY SHANE JACOBSON
GERMANY – 2008 – 93 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
A FILM BY CHRISTIAN PETZOLD
Jerichow, a town in Germany’s northeast lies in an impoverished area with few jobs to be had. Following his mother’s death Thomas returns to his hometown, a former soldier who has been dishonourably discharged from the army. He has inherited his mother’s house and wants to renovate it and look for job.
USA – 2010 – 93 MIN – COLOUR / BLACK & WHITE - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY TAMRA DAVIES
This thoroughly engaging documentary, charts the meteoric rise and fall of the inimitable New York painter with rock-star status and one of the leading lights of late-20th-century art. The film is centered on a rare interview that director and friend Tamra Davis shot with Basquiat over twenty years ago. Much can be gleaned from insider interviews and archival footage, but it is Basquiat's own words and work that powerfully convey the mystique and allure of both the artist and the man.
USA – 2003 – 88 MIN – COLOUR / BLACK & WHITE - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY CHAD FREIDRICHS
JANDEK ON CORWOOD is the 88-minute documentary that explores this man, his world and his music. Jandek released his first album, Ready for the House, in 1978 on his own record label, Corwood Industries (he is, of course, the only artist on this label). The release went relatively overlooked until a review by Phil Milstein appeared in Op magazine in 1980. Bolstered by that slight measure of notice, Jandek set about releasing at least one album per year over the next quarter century of his unique brand of cacophonous rock and suicide-note blues.
FRANCE – 2008 – 94 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN FRENCH
A FILM BY SERGE BROMBERG
In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot chose Romy Schneider, age 26, and Serge Reggiani, 42, to be the stars of L’ENFER. It was an enigmatic and original project with an unlimited budget that was to be a cinematic “event” upon its release. But after three weeks of shooting, things took a turn for the worse. The project was stopped, and the images, which were said to be “incredible,” would remain unseen. These images, forgotten for over half a century, were recently found and are more breathtaking than legend had predicted. They tell us of a unique film about madness and jealousy, filmed in the first-person, the story of an ill-fated film shoot, and of Henri-Georges Clouzot, who had given free reign to his filmmaking genius. Never has Romy been so beautiful and hypnotic. Never will an auteur be as close and as passionately linked to a hero he has created.
UNITED KINGDOM – 2007 – 94 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY ZAK PENN
FEATURING WERNER HERZOG, ZAC PENN, KITANA BAKER, GABRIEL BERISTAIN, MICHEAL KARNOW, JOHN BAILEY, ROBERT O'MEARA AND JEFF GOLDBLUMY
In the Summer of 2003, acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog set out to make a documentary about Scotland's infamous Loch Ness, purported home of a prehistoric creature known as "Nessie." Herzog's stated intent was "to explore the origin and the necessity of the monster" rather than to look for the creature itself. The film was to be called "Enigma of Loch Ness."
At the time Herzog began production, noted cinematographer and filmmaker John Bailey was already directing a documentary about him, tentatively called "Herzog in Wonderland." This would not be the first time that Herzog would be profiled while making a film, but it would perhaps be the last.
CHINA – 2010 – 118 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN MANDARIN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
A FILM BY JIA ZHANGE KE
Shanghai has hosted all kinds of people – revolutionaries, capitalists, politicians, soldiers, artists, and gangsters. Shanghai has also hosted revolutions, assassinations, love stories.
After the Chinese Communists’ victory in 1949, thousands of Shanghaiers left for Hong Kong and Taiwan. To leave meant being separated from home for thirty years; to stay meant suffering through the Cultural Revolution and China’s other political disasters.
Eighteen people from these three cities — Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong — recall their lives in Shanghai. Their personal experiences, like eighteen chapters of a novel, tell stories of Shanghai lives from the 1930s to 2010.
An eternally wandering soul returns to Shanghai and, walking along the banks of the Huangpu River, awakens to all the changes the city has undergone.
USA – 2013 – 100 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY STEVIE NICKS & DAVE STEWART
Decadent rock star, ’70s survivor, gypsy songbird, white-winged dove — the inimitable Stevie Nicks has entranced millions of fans worldwide with her poetic lyrics, sultry singing and featherand-lace style. In 2010 Nicks embarked on the recording of a new solo album, IN YOUR DREAMS, produced by former Eurythmics mastermind Dave Stewart. With cameras in tow, documentarian Stewart and diva Nicks set up shop in her home studio and reveal their collaborative creative process. Shifting dynamically among video formats, painstaking recording sessions and revealing interviews, this magic-tinged musical journey is a loving and tuneful portrait of the eternally bewitching Gold Dust Woman.
CANADA – 2008 – 85 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY SANDRA CHWIALKOWSKA
IN THE MOMENT follows six high school improv teams on their journey to compete for the gold at the Canadian Improv Games.
Told from the candid perspectives of the kids themselves, at practices and team sleepovers, the film captures what it's like to be a teenager today. Though the focus of the film is improv, the National Tournament becomes a dramatic backdrop for the bigger story about modern kids and their families.
GERMAN / RUSSIAN / LATVIAN / DUTCH / BELORUSSIAN – 2012 – 128 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN RUSSIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
A FILM BY SERGEI LOZNITSA
Western frontiers of the USSR 1942. The region is under German occupation and local partisans are fighting a brutal resistance campaign.
A train is derailed not far from the village, where Sushenya, a rail worker, lives with his family. Innocent Sushenya is arrested with a group of saboteurs, but the German officer makes a decision not to hang him with the others and sets him free. Rumours of Sushenya’s treason spread quickly and partisans Burov and Voitik arrive from the forest to get revenge.
As the partisans lead their victim through the forest, they are ambushed, and Sushenya finds himself one-to-one with his wounded enemy.
Deep in an ancient forest, where there are neither friends nor enemies and where the line between treason and heroism disappears, Sushenya is forced to make a moral choice un- der immoral circumstances.
USA – 2009 – 93 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY MICHEL O. SCOTT
How far would you travel to heal someone you love? An intensely personal yet epic spiritual journey, THE HORSE BOY follows one Texas couple and their autistic son as they trek on horseback through Outer Mongolia in a desperate attempt to treat his condition with shamanic healing. When two-year-old Rowan was diagnosed with autism, Rupert Isaacson, a writer and former horse trainer, and his wife Kristin Neff, a psychology professor, sought the best possible medical care for their son — but traditional therapies had little effect. Then they discovered that Rowan has a profound affinity for animals — particularly horses — and the family set off on a quest for a possible cure…
GERMANY – 2012 – 110 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN GERMAN & ENGLISH
A FILM BY MARGARETHE VON TROTTA
The film portrays Hannah Arendt (Barbara Sukowa) during the four years, (1960-64), that she observes, writes, and endures the furious reception for her work about the trial of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann. Watching Arendt as she attends the trial, staying by her side as she is both barraged by her critics and supported by a tight band of loyal friends, we experience the intensity of this powerful Jewish woman who fled Nazi Germany in 1933. The fierce, chain-smoking Arendt is an exile who is happy and flourishing in America, but whose penetrating vision makes her an outsider wherever she goes.
USA – 2005 – 96 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY TODD ROHAL
In the confusion following a massive power outage, an awkward demolition derby driver vanishes, setting in motion a series of events affecting his pregnant girlfriend, his helplessly car-less father, a pack of wild boy scouts, a lactose intolerant roller rink employee, an elderly woman in search of her lost dog, and his best friend — a ten year-old girl named Turkeylegs.
Pieces of the mystery begin to come together as Turkeylegs sets out to find her missing friend. Cars drive circles in the dirt, a woman attends her own funeral, the sun rises sideways and an orange vehicle trades hands again and again. Everything eventully culminates in a massive demolition derby that throws all of the characters into different directions.
USA – 2012 – 89 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY TOM DONAHUE
FEATURING: MARTIN SCORSESE, WOODY ALLEN, CLINT EASTWOOD, GLENN CLOSE, ROBERT DUVALL, JEFF BRIDGES, AL PACINO, ROBERT DE NIRO, DIANE LANE, JON VOIGHT, BETTE MIDLER AND JOHN TRAVOLTA
Putting the spotlight on filmmaking’s unsung heroes – the casting director – CASTING BY takes us on a fast-paced journey through the last half century of Hollywood history from an entirely new perspective. Pioneers like Marion Dougherty and Lynn Stalmaster were iconoclasts whose exquisite taste and gut instincts helped to put the final nail in the coffin of the old studio system and usher in the New Hollywood.
UNITED KINGDOM / IRELAND – 2012 – 101 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
FILM BY LISA BARROS D’SA AND GLENN LEYBURN
Terri Hooley is a radical, rebel and music-lover in 1970s Belfast, when the bloody conflict known as the Troubles shuts down his city. As all his friends take sides and take up arms, Terri opens a record shop on the most bombed half-mile in Europe and calls it Good Vibrations. Through it he discovers a compelling voice of resistance in the city’s nascent underground punk scene. Galvanising the young musicians into action, he becomes the unlikely leader of a motley band of kids and punks who join him in his mission to create a new community, an alternative ulster, to bring his city back to life.
GERMANY – 2013 – 101 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN GERMAN & ENGLISH
A FILM BY THOMAS ARSLAN
FEATURING NINA HOSS, MARKO MANDIC, UWE BOHM, LARS RUDOLPH, PETER KURTH , ROSA ENSKAT, WOLFGANG PACKHÄUSER
Summer 1898. Canada during the Klondike Gold Rush. Emily Meyer joins a group of seven German American immigrants. Together they embark on the long journey to the newly discovered gold fields in Dawson. Brought together by shady businessman Wilhelm Laser's advertisement, the members of the group put it all on the line to change their miserable lives. Recommended by Laser, they decide to take the Ashcroft Trail, a route through the Canadian interior. With horses and a covered wagon, they take off without an exact idea of the dangers and strains that this journey has in store for them. Hardly any of them will have known that from their point of departure in Ashcroft, the distance to Dawson was more than 2,500 kilometres.
USA – 2010 – 34 MIN – COLOUR - SHORT - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY THOM ANDERSEN
From Thom Andersen comes a miniature city symphony exposing Los Angeles’ gentrification and neglect through a cheeky montage of static images set against the region’s musical history. The film takes its cue from Richard Berry’s song "Get Out of the Car", prompting an exploratory walk about Los Angeles.
