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A LITTLE HELP (PI)
United States / 2010 / Colour / 109 min / Dir.: Michael J. Weithorn
Cast : Jenna Fischer, Chris O’Donnell, Daniel Yelsky, Rob Benedict, Brooke Smith, Kim Coats, Lesley Ann Warren, Ron Leibman
For most of her 35 years, Laura, a dental hygienist living on Long Island, has had the wind at her back. She’s physically attractive, has a good job and a winning personality. But lately things have begun to take some dark and difficult turns. Her marriage to real estate agent Bob Pehlke has become tense and loveless (Laura suspects, correctly as it turns out, that he’s been cheating on her), and her relationship with her 12-year-old son Dennis has become strained as well. Laura doesn’t deal with it well. Always a bit of a party girl in her youth, she’s now clearly drinking too much, losing her self-esteem and her sense of connection to the world. When Bob dies suddenly as the result of a heart problem that went undetected by an ER physician, her overbearing family steps in to help. First they insist that she sue the doctor responsible (a questionable choice since Bob lied about his health to conceal his infidelity). Next they want her to enroll her son Dennis in a fancy private school. But when Dennis arrives at his new school, his classmates aren’t particularly welcoming -- until he tells them that his father was a firefighter who died on 9/11. As these lies begin to take on a life of their own, Laura must find a way to extricate herself, support her son, and regain control of her life...

AMORE LIQUIDO (PI)
Italy / 2010 / Colour / 100 min / Dir.: Marco Luca Cattaneo
Cast : Stefano Fregni, Sara Fortini, Pina Randi, Simonetta Solder, Martina Capannini, Pier Paolo Paganelli
Mario is a 40-year-old street sweeper in Bologna who is addicted to pornography. During the month of August, Mario remains in the city despite it becoming essentially a ghost town as the population leaves for the summer holidays. He lives in the city centre, the “old town”, with his elderly mother. She has been confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke, and requires the constant care of Olga, a 50-year-old Polish nurse who looks after her while Mario is at work. It is during this period that Mario encounters Agatha, a young single mother, a meeting as random as it is unexpected. Mario’s life until now has been monotonous and lonely, but this is about to change. As Agatha bursts into his life like a hurricane, Mario will have to come to terms with long-dormant feelings and emotions.

APNEA (PM)
Greece / 2010 / Colour / 90 min / Dir.: Ari Bafalouka
Cast : Sotiris Pastras, Yioulika Skafida, George Karamichos, Andrianna Babali, Vangelis Rokkos, Akyllas Karazisis
The exercise of “apnea” is a technique used by swimmers and divers in which they stay below water several minutes. It is an exercise used to maintain and improve their physical condition. It is especially beneficial for breathing control and blood oxygenation. If the stay below water is prolonged, there is danger of hallucination followed by involuntary sleep and inevitably, drowning... Dimitris, a 23-year-old swimmer who has just been successful at the European Championships, dives into the water of a dark pool. A young man from a working class family who trained hard to fulfill the dream of a lifetime, Dimitris feels strangely empty. He won the gold medal he coveted but the price he has paid in his personal relationships now seems excessively high. As his body floats in the water, memories from the past come flooding into his head, reminding him about his relationship with Elsa, an environmental activist who has mysteriously disappeared.“There are some subtle forces that lead modern man to chase after things that are far from his true will, giving him a sense of suffocation. As a result, society is on the verge of erupting like a volcano, given that its core consists of individuals under tremendous pressure. The modern man screams silently in him...” -- Ari Bafalouka

ÇA COMMENCE PAR LA FIN (PI)
France / 2010 / Colour / 88 min / Dir.: Michaël Cohen
Cast : Emmanuelle Béart, Michaël Cohen, Léopold Kraus, Jean-Paul Dubois, Jean-Marc Minéo
Gabrielle and Jean were in love. Whatever that entailed. And in this relationship it entailed -- and still entails -- jealousy, possessiveness, obsession. This is an impulsive and chaotic relationship. Full of arguments and uncontrollable passion. They separated a year earlier, after living through a destructive infatuation, an affair that, at once, pushed at the boundaries of body and heart but was seemingly unable to satisfy their desires fully. But, regardless how damaging their relationship, terminating it remains difficult. The intensity of the passion of the early days still haunts Jean and he repeatedly replays their sexual encounters in his head. What went wrong? Or are “wrong” and “right” the wrong things to be seeking in love? That night, they find themselves together again. John explores the memory of their common history and is overwhelmed by the desire to understand the reason for their failure. Bit by bit, until dawn, thanks to round-trips between past and present, the pieces begin coming together. The portrait of their love is perhaps not complete.

CHRISTINE, CRISTINA (PI)
Italy / 2010 / Colour / 92 min / Dir.: Stefania Sandrelli
Cast : Amanda Sandrelli, Antonella Attili, Alessio Boni, Paola Tiziana Cruciani, Alessandro Haber, Roberto Helitzka
The first woman in history to make a living with her pen, thanks to the poems she wrote and published, was Cristina da Pizzano, an Italian who lived in France during the period of transition between the darkness of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Enlightenment. After growing up at the court of Charles V in France, where her father was court astrologer and physician, Cristina, also known as Christine de Pizan, is left completely destitute during the struggle between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Forced to survive by her wits at the bottom of society, with two small children to support, Cristina overcomes hunger and fear, and thanks to Charleton, a minstrel who tours the taverns, and Gerson, a theologist, she discovers she has a talent for poetry. She quickly wins fame as a poetess of simple things, of the disadvantaged and of women, all in a society that is still throughly inhospitable to independent women. One of the rare female poets to emerge from the late Middle Ages, she was also one of the first women to raise her children while practicing a trade of her own in the "dark” ages, before humanism introduced the idea that women could have lives of their own.

EUROPOLIS (PM)
Romania - France / 2010 / Colour / 100 min / Dir.: Cornel Gheorghita
Cast : Adriana Trandafir, Araon Dimeny, Elena Popa, Dorin Andone, Adina Cartianu, Ionela Nedelea, Petrica Nicolae
Nae lives in a small village in eastern Romania. A telegram arrives telling him that his long lost uncle Luca has died. The wire was sent by the executor of Luca’s estate and asks Nae and his mother to go to France to make proper arrangements for disposal of the body. One of the deceased’s last wishes was to be buried in the cemetery of his hometown in Sulina, Romania, located on the shores of the Back Sea, on the other side of the continent. When the two Romanians get to the house of the deceased, they meet a shaman, Ata, who was Luca’s best friend. Ata tells them that Luca’s fortune was lost and the only thing left is an unusual coffin. Without their knowing it, Luca’s soul has taken advantage of their return trip to Romania. The Romanian tradition requires the soul to retrace its life’s steps during the forty days of mourning. Luca’s soul chooses to inhabit Nae in order to return to its last resting place. The procession of these “three” Romanians is guided by their guardian angel through the celestial border control which leads to the final judgement.

FASL-E BARAN-HAYE MOOSEMI (PI)
Iran / 2010 / Colour / 90 min / Dir.: Majid Barzegar
Cast : Navid Layeghi Moghadam, Marzieh Koshtarash, Alireza Bagheri, Mehran Khodaie
The parents of Sina, a sixteen-year-old middle-class teenager in Tehran, are preparing to divorce, and Sina’s life is suddenly filled with new experiences and new worries. A solitary boy, he has no one to rely on and he finds his new domestic situation very daunting. He will need to make some bold choices. “Two years ago, I wrote the screenplay of a short film with Hamed Rajabi. It was the story of a teenage boy who lives in Tehran who is faced with the problems of living in the big city. Of course this was just the general plot of the film and we needed to supply the details. While writing the screenplay, many of our ideas were changed. We found the story so fascinating that, after many years of making shorts, we decided we were ready to make a feature-length film. Five or six years ago I was faced with the same situation: conditions were ready for me to make the jump into features. But then obstacles arose. This time, with RAINY SEASONS, the story lent itself to a longer film.” -- Majid Barzegar

HAMSEYEH (THE NEIGHBOR) (PM)
Canada - United States / 2010 / Colour / 104 min / Dir.: Naghmeh Shirkhan
Cast : Azita Sahebjam, Tara Nazemi, Parisa Wahedi, Kamyar Mahinsa, Matt Dean, Ramin Sanadizadeth, Parvin Sahebjam
Shirin lives in Vancouver, a city in a “foreign” land. Estranged from her mother, and involved in a long-distance relationship that keeps hitting a dead end, Shirin tries to keep afloat. She supports herself as a folk dancer and instructor, but it’s her passion for tango, as well as her fond memories of her grandmother in Iran that keep her going. Shirin’s routine is disrupted when she meets her new next door neighbour, Leila. Intrigued by the younger woman’s comings and goings, and their common roots, Shirin tries to befriend her despite Leila’s lack of interest and cold demeanor. Shirin soon discovers that Leila doesn’t live alone. She has a small child whom she often leaves unattended. Their worlds intersect as Shirin confronts Leila about her daughter. Leila denies her allegations, but feeling the pressures of her lonely situation, she finally seeks out her neighbour’s help. Shirin and Parisa, Leila’s 5-year old daughter, bond over the course of the next few weeks, while Leila struggles with her ties to the past and desires for her future. One night, Leila doesn’t return, leaving Shirin to care for Parisa. As Shirin anxiously tries to find Leila, she begins reconciling her own unresolved feelings about her mother...

HELENA FROM THE WEDDING (PI)
United States / 2010 / Colour / 86 min / Dir.: Joseph Infantolino
Cast : Lee Tergesen, Melanie Lynskey, Paul Fitzgerald, Gillian Jacobs, Dominic Fumusa, Corey Stoll, Jessica Hecht
Alex and Alice Javal have gone to a remote cabin in the mountains where they plan to host a weekend-long New Year’s Eve party for their closest friends. They expect Alex’s best friend Nick, newly separated from his wife, to show up at the cabin with his girlfriend Lola. Alex and Nick’s childhood friend Don is also set to arrive with his wife-of-many-years Lynn, as are Alice’s pregnant friend Eve and her husband Steven. Any thoughts of a perfect weekend are quickly thrown out the window as Nick arrives with only a cooler of meat and the news that he and Lola have recently called it quits. Don and Lynn show up a few minutes later in Don’s beloved Jeep... deep in an argument. Finally, Eve and Steven make it to the cabin with a surprise guest in tow -- Eve’s friend Helena, who was a bridesmaid with Alice at Eve’s wedding. With tensions running high at the cabin, Alex tries to approach the young and beautiful Helena. When she rebuffs him, Alex becomes unhinged. He seems to forget about his new wife and the life she represents, and instead begins to wallow in the fact that nothing seems to go right for him. As it creeps closer to midnight on New Year’s Eve, we realize that nearly everyone in the group of friends aren’t who they appear to be...

IVORY (PI)
United States / 2009 / Colour / 95 min / Dir.: Andrew W. Chan
Cast : Martin Landau, Peter Stormare, Erika Marozsan, Tim Draxl, Travis Fimmel, Beau Garrett, Charlotte Salt
Andreas and Jake are both gifted classical pianists who met at a competition in Kansas City. Failing to win the top prize at yet another contest, Andreas decides to enlist the help of a Russian piano professor, Olga Primakova, who teaches at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. Andreas is also attracted by the knowledge that she will serve on the jury of Andreas’ next competition, the International Liszt Competition in Budapest, Hungary. In the year leading up to the event, tension mounts as each young man prepares for the moment that will decide his professional fate. What Andreas does not anticipate from Olga is that she will challenge him personally as well as musically -- ultimately calling into question his artistic purpose. Jake, on the other hand, begins to unravel throughout the year. Living more dangerously all the time, one wonders if he will even make it to Budapest. To further complicate matters, Andreas becomes involved in a love triangle with Jake’s girlfriend, Alicia, a beautiful and gifted opera singer. The suspense builds as the competition draws closer with more at stake for Andreas and Jake than just their onstage performances...

KOLORÁDÓ KID (PI)
Hungary / 2010 / Colour / 93 min / Dir.: András B. Vágvölgyi
Cast : Zsolt Nagy, Tibor Gáspár, Lilla Sárosdi, Zsuzsa Dedre, Péter Kokicz, Károly Hadjuk, Ferenc Elek
Budapest, Hungary in the summer of 1959. Béla Kreuzer is handcuffed and arrested. An inveterate gambler who, through a bit of cunning, has hit a jackpot, Béla has foolishly bragged about his exploit, unaware that the secret police have been trying to nail him. He is placed in detention and at first he thinks this is because of his dubious activities on the racecourse, but it soon becomes apparent that the real reason is his participation in the revolution in 1956. During the investigation old friends turn their backs on him as does his girlfriend. The only person he can trust is his cellmate. The ruthless prosecutor would rather have him hanged, but the detective, who is more of a Schweik-ish character, just wants the case off his hands. The prosecutor asks for capital punishment, but the judge opts for a sentence of 15 years in jail, which Béla Kreuzer serves to the last day. When he emerges from prison in 1974, he finds that the world is no longer the same...

KOMT EEN VROUW BIJ DE DOKTER (PNA)
Netherlands / 2009 / Colour / 119 min / Dir.: Reinout Oerlemans
Cast : Barry Atsma, Carice van Houten, Anna Drijver, Pierre Bokma, Jeroen Willems, Eline Van der Velden
Stijn and Carmen have everything: They are young, successful and wealthy. They live a perfect life in Amsterdam and move to Amstelveen when they have a child, Luna. Then their world collapses: Carmen is diagnosed with breast cancer. Stijn has trouble dealing with it and starts living a second life. By day he's all support to Carmen, by night he's out drinking and philandering. Carmen has always known that Stijn was not the faithful type, but after her breast is amputated she is less confident and finds herself troubled by his unfaithfulness. For Stijn it has always been just sex, until he meets Roos. During the cancer period he sees her more and more. Then a miracle: Carmen is better. She asks Stijn to quit cheating and to work things out between them. He promises her that he will. They go on a holiday together where Carmen finds out that Roos is still trying to contact Stijn, and she breaks down. She wants a divorce. But holidaying together in paradise on the other side of the world brings them closer than they have been in a long time, and they seem headed to a happily-ever-after. But fate still has a say in the matter...

MISS MOUCHE (PM)
Belgium / 2010 / Colour / 82 min / Dir.: Bernard Halut
Cast : Mona Jabé, Bernard Cogniaux, Valérie Bauchau, Chantal Pirotte, Thierry De Coster, Elfée Dursen
Twelve-year-old Nina is enjoying a happy early adolescence, in a beautiful country house where she can satisfy her passion for flies, which she lovingly displays on the Internet. When her father gives her a mobile phone with built-in video camera, she turns into an image thief, secretly capturing fragments of life. If pieced together, they could tell a story of money, adultery, personal and professional bankruptcy that the others are trying to hide from her. A key part of the story is that of her mother, Sophie, who has become bedridden as a result of a traffic accident. Cedric, Nina’s dad, hopes to revive Sophie’s memory through fragments of film hastily shot by Nina on her cellphone. Nina’s exposed private life spreads contagiously to that of her parents and turns viewers into voyeurs. This retrospective view plunges us in the messy lives of a petit bourgeois couple who pursue financial and social success without realizing they are missing out on both their own lives and that of their daughter. Under the influence of Arnold, a wealthy gambler who has charmed Sophie, they borrow heavily in the hope of financial success. But their incompetence, exacerbated by the subprime crisis, derail their scheme, resulting in a succession of tragic accidents...

NO OLHO DA RUA (PM)
Brazil / 2010 / Colour / 100 min / Dir.: Rogério Corrêa
Cast : Murilo Rosa, Gabriela Flores, Leandro Firmino da Hora, Pascoal da Conceição, Eric Lenate, Nelson Baskerville
Oton, 38, has a good job as a metalworker in São Paulo. He has a young son, Caio, and his wife Camila is expecting a baby girl. Then his world collapses. His company is becoming computerized and in an effort to cut costs has laid off workers, Oton among them. Enraged, Oton cuts his wrists and signs his dismissal papers with his own blood. He makes the rounds of other factories to no avail: no one is hiring. Oton hooks up with Algodão, a university dropout who wants to make a documentary film about an unemployed worker. They use Oton’s pickup to run a delivery service and set up office in the middle of a public square. This doesn’t go down well with Camila, who has become religious under the influence of Oton’s ex-workmate, Emiliano, a passionate evangelical. When she gives birth to their new daughter, Camila moves in with Emiliano. When Tiago, another old workmate of Oton’s, is laid off he is desperate. Deeply in debt to a moneylender, Tiago approaches Oton with a scheme to rob the company’s payroll. Oton declines the invitation and snatches Tiago’s gun away but Tiago manages to escape with Oton’s pickup. Now it’s Oton’s turn to be desperate. His landlord has changed the lock on his apartment and Oton has been reduced to sleeping in the streets. He still has Tiago’s gun...

OBRATNOE DVIZHENIE (REVERSE MOTION) (PI)
Russia / 2010 / Colour / 93 min / Dir.: Andrey Stempkovsky
Cast : Vladislav Abashin, Olga Demidova, Nikita Emshanov, Aleksandr Plaksin, Darya Gracheva
A mother is informed that her only son, who is serving in a combat zone, has gone missing in action. A soldier who served with her son arrives to confirm that he has probably been killed. Nothing interrupts the everyday course of events. After a while, the mother notices a homeless boy -- an immigrant worker with an injured hand. She takes him in. What she doesn’t realize is that in some way she has decided the fate of her son, who has in fact survived and is soon to return home...“When we began working on this film, we wanted to make something very different from all other films about war. We wanted to take a very different look at the inner workings of the human soul, at a return from war as part of the daily course of events, rather than the events themselves.” -- Andrey Stempkovsky

PÁJAROS DE PAPEL (PI)
Spain / 2010 / Colour / 115 min / Dir.: Emilio Aragón
Cast : Imanol Arias, Lluís Homar, Roger Princep, Carmen Machi, Fernando Cayo, Diego Martín
In the post-Spanish Civil War period, Jorge, a musician, Enrique, a ventriloquist, Rocio, a singer and Miguel, a young orphan boy, make up an unlikely family of lost souls, struggling to get by one day at a time with an itinerant vaudeville company, sharing their joys and sorrows. Their only escape from the misery around them: their music. As it turns out, when bread is scarce, applause can really hit the spot. As they travel around the country, Jorge and Enrique witness the horrors left by the war, but they’re too busy looking for something to eat and a bed to sleep in to worry either about politics or showbusiness success. That doesn’t prevent suspicious Francoist officials from planting spies in the troupe...“Showman-turned-TV executive Emilio Aragón has made a career out of giving audiences what they want, and his directing debut, PAPER BIRDS, delivers just that. An accomplished, old-fashioned melodrama based around a post-Spanish Civil War vaudeville troupe, the film unabashedly tugs at the heartstrings, but its unpretentious air of sincerity and zesty celebration of those who entertain us, while themselves in despair, redeem even its cheesiest moments.” -- Jonathan Holland (Variety)

PLANES PARA MAÑANA (PI)
Spain / 2010 / Colour / 96 min / Dir.: Juana Macías
Cast : Carme Elías, Goya Toledo, Ana Labordeta, Aura Garrido, Jorge Bosch, Brendan Price, Adrían Marín, Pablo Viña
The day we meet Ines, Antonia, Marian and Monica, their lives are about to change dramatically. Shortly before her fortieth birthday, Ines discovers that she's pregnant, that her boyfriend does not want to know, that her boss is worried, and that her mother just doesn’t understand. Antonia meets an old flame who asks for a second chance, making her realize that her feelings towards him will disrupt her comfortable lifestyle. Marian must decide again, whether or not to stay with her husband, an unstable, violent and manipulating man, or start a new life on her own. She is thoroughly aware of the high price she must pay if she tries to save her deteriorating marriage. Monica, having suffered a tense family situation for years, now faces an unexpected irreparable loss and a desire for vengeance. Today is the day we join Ines, Antonia, Marian and Monica. It's the most important day of their lives; it's the day they must choose between returning to their old lives or beginning afresh. In a struggle against routine and stereotypes, against their own fears and feelings of guilt, they have the opportunity to start from zero, though they have to be capable of breaking the moulds restraining them until now, and reinventing themselves. Whichever decisions they make, it is clear that their lives will never be the same.

PRINSESSA (PI)
Finland / 2010 / Colour / 100 min / Dir.: Arto Halonen
Cast : Katja Kukkola, Samuli Edelmann, Krista Kosonen, Peter Franzén, Pirkka-Pekka Petelius, Antti Litja, Irma Junnilainen
Based on a true story, this is a film about a woman who is judged to be sick by society, yet heals and brings joy to others around her by force of her presence and personality. As she heals others more effectively than the prevailing healthcare system, society and its institutions are suspicious and they resist her efforts. The most famous patient of Kellokoski Mental Hospital, Anna Lappalainen is diagnosed as a manic depressive with symptoms of schizophrenia. She claims to be a princess when brought into the hospital and does not want to be addressed by her own name. Her arrival sets off a long battle between Lappalainen and the hospital staff over her identity and her right to dictate her own personality. Eventually the Kellokoski hospital becomes the Princess's castle, where Anna holds court bringing joy and healing to her surroundings and everyone in them. 

REKRUT (PI)
Philippines / 2010 / Colour / 90 min / Dir.: Danilo Gomez Añonuevo
Cast : Emilio Garcia, Joem Bascon, Jm DeGuzamn
What is the measure of true friendship? Jamir, a devout Muslim, and Lando, a Christian, are among an elite group of young recruits formed by military officers for a clandestine operation. These impressionable young men undergo an intense and grueling training program that put their will and strength of character to the test. Amidst all the hardships, the young men set aside their differences and become brothers. But what happens when the institution they have sworn to protect becomes the wedge that tears their brotherhood apart?“THE RECRUITS... inspired by the Jabidah massacre, an incident during the Marcos regime when Moro recruits were slaughtered by agents of the Armed Forces of the Philippines... is not merely an enjoyable film with memorable portrayals and exciting action scenes, it's the fresh and out-of-the-mundane experience which one looks for in independent films.” --Glenn Atanacio (www.pep.ph)

RSASA TAYCHEH () (PM)
Lebanon / 2010 / Colour / 75 min / Dir.: Georges Hachem
Cast : Nadine Labaki, Takla Chamoun, Hind Taher, Badih Bouchakra
Noha is about to get married. Her family is relieved to see her take advantage of this last chance before officially becoming a spinster just like her sister. Everything seems to be going well. However, on this special Sunday of August 1976 in Lebanon, on the same evening that her elder brother has organized a dinner in her honour fifteen days prior to the wedding, Noha changes her mind...

SENTIMENT DE LA CHAIR, LE (PM)
France / 2010 / Colour / 91 min / Dir.: Roberto Garzelli
Cast : Thibault Vinçon, Annabelle Hettmann, Emmanuel Salinger, Pierre Moure, Pascal Nzanzi, Claudia Tagbo
During a medical exam, Héléna, a student in anatomical drawing, meets Benoît, a young radiologist. Their mutual fascination with the human body prompts them to begin a passionate romance. Héléna’s ability to memorize every detail of Benoît’s body and Benoît’s irresistible urge to uncover the “interior” secrets of Héléna’s body lead them along a perilous path. But Benoît’s initial eagerness for the intimacy soon gives way to a wariness about the direction of their affair. Is it too late to disembark? “I was particularly interested in examining the fantasy of fusion inherent in passionate love. I wanted to address it in a way that was both tangible and off-beat by looking at it through the prism of anatomy. Héléna and Benoît, the two main characters, are frustrated by a physical relationship that is no longer enough for them. They are in search of absolute intimacy, which they are going to try to achieve through the ‘visual knowledge’ of the other’s body. Observing it, studying it, ‘seeing inside it’, ultimately trying to become one with it. While writing, I kept thinking of some words by Flaubert: ‘By dint of gazing at a pebble, an animal, a painting, I felt myself enter into them…’”

SINESTESIA (PI)
Switzerland / 2010 / Colour / 91 min / Dir.: Erik Bernasconi
Cast : Alessio Boni, Giorgia Wurth, Melanie Winiger, Leonardo Nigro, Teco Celio, Roberta Fossile
A chronicle of four young adults at two moments of their lives which are in turn linked to two dramatic episodes three years apart. The intervening years see the characters confronted by the usual joys and difficulties of everyday life. However, they also find themselves having to react to a destiny in which, every now and again, they arrive at a life-altering crossroads. In the summer of 2006, after a romantic day spent with his mistress Michela, Alan is badly injured in a motorbike accident. Three years later, Françoise, Alan's pregnant wife has to travel to Geneva to attend the court case stemming from the 2006 accident. A series of small mishaps drives her to imagine that she is being harassed and leads her to the brink of a nervous breakdown. By chance, thirtysomething Igor, who happens to be Alan’s best friend, also begins a relationship with Michela, Alan’s former mistress, who has had great difficulty coping with the dissolution of her great love. During a weekend in the mountains, Igor meets Alan. But Alan, a paraplegic since the accident, remains lost in the middle of nowhere, and must once again confront the vicissitudes of fate.

TOROCCO (PNA)
Japan - Taiwan / 2009 / Colour / 116 min / Dir.: Hirofumi Kawaguchi
Cast : Machiko Ono, Kento Harada, Kyoichi Omae, Hong Liu, Chang Han, Wan Fan, Bryant Chang, Mei Fang
Yumiko Yano travels with her sons Atsushi and Toki from her home in Tokyo with the ashes of her late husband to his parents' home, a mountain village in the south of Taiwan. Having been raised in the big city, the boys are wide-eyed at the verdant rural scenery. And waiting for them is a Taiwanese grandfather who speaks Japanese. Yumiko, who married against her parents' wishes, has struggled on in stubborn determination since his death. Her son Atsushi, strongly conscious that in ethnocentric Japan he is “different”, is in rebellion against both the society in which he has grown up and his mother. In the home of his grandparents, who have lived through vast changes in the political landscape and the values that prevail in society, the family rediscovers the bonds that unite it. Setting out on a journey aboard an old-fashioned hand-powered “rail truck”, Atsushi discovers a world outside of his family and his school, and is forced to confront the question of what it means to be both an “elder brother” and a “son”. 

YONG SHENG YANG (PM)
China / 2010 / Colour / 96 min / Dir.: Gao Feng
Cast : Maerjiang Bayituken, Abuduwayiti Aibibao, Nuerlan Alimujiang, Aizimati Hashan, Biekebaolati Zhumahan, Zaiyinaipu Ailemutayi
Ninety-year-old Hali remembers it all. Like all shepherds in the Kazakh region of China, Hali lived a nomadic lifestyle when he was young. Once an old man gave Hali an abandoned lamb named Saerbasi to look after. That summer, Hali set up camp in the steppe with his family, his herd of sheep and Saerbasi. His rich neighbour Sudan had promised his daughter Wukubula’s hand in marriage to her cousin. Against her will. Wukubula did not like her cousin and complained about it to her sister-in-law. Others were interested in Wukubula as well. Hali’s uncle Castel was smitten by the young woman, and on the very day of the wedding, Ahetai, a musician, who had come to the village to attend the nuptials, was also attracted by the bride-to-be. Wukubula reciprocated Ahetai’s feelings and saw the opportunity to gain her freedom; she eloped with with him. But this didn’t cool Castel’s ardour, and five years and two children later, when Wukubula was unexpectedly widowed, she ended up marrying Castel... once again something decided by everyone but the bride herself. Hali’s grandmother understood it well. “Women never live for themselves” was her opinion; they are like lambs to shepherds.