Early summer. In a village in northern Turkey, Lale and her four sisters are walking home from school, playing innocently with some boys. The immorality of their play sets off a scandal that has unexpected consequences. The family home is progressively transformed into a prison; instruction in homemaking replaces school and marriages start being arranged. The five sisters who share a common passion for freedom, find ways of getting around the constraints imposed on them. Written by Festival de Cannes
During a student party, Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, meets the mysterious Youssef and leaves with him. A long night will begin, during which she'll have to fight for her rights and her dignity. But how can Justice be made when it lies on the side of the tormentors? Written by Jour2Fête
Aiman is a 28-year-old Malay correctional officer who is recently transferred to the territory's top prison. He lives with his older sister Suhaila in a modest housing estate. At his new workplace, Aiman begins to take an interest in a 65-year-old sergeant named Rahim. Soon, it is revealed that the charismatic Rahim is actually the long-serving chief executioner of the prison. Rahim also takes notice of the principled and diligent Aiman. When Rahim's assistant suddenly quits, he asks Aiman to become his apprentice. Aiman tells Suhaila of his new job position, but Suhaila becomes upset, as their father was actually executed by Rahim. Aiman knew this all along. Can Aiman overcome his conscience and a haunted past to possibly take over as the next chief executioner? Written by augenschein Filmproduktion
As a mother and daughter struggle to cope with the terrors of the post-revolution, war-torn Tehran of the 1980s, a mysterious evil begins to haunt their home.
A young Pakistani man is chasing corporate success on Wall Street. He finds himself embroiled in a conflict between his American Dream, a hostage crisis, and the enduring call of his family's homeland.
The cold war, the space race, and NASA’s moon landing are landmark events that defined an era. But they are also fodder for conspiracy theories. In Houston, We Have a Problem! filmmaker Žiga Virc adds new material to the discussion on both fronts. This intriguing docu-fiction explores the myth of the secret multi-billion-dollar deal behind America’s purchase of Yugoslavia’s clandestine space program in the early 1960s.
A street teenager from a dysfunctional family from a banlieue (HLMs) in Paris comes across a young dancer who turns her life upside down.
Exiled artist and poet Mustafa embarks on a journey home with his housekeeper and her daughter; together the trio must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in Mustafa's words will incite rebellion.
In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, in Arabia, Emir Nesib of Hobeika defeats Sultan Amar of Salma after years of war between their tribes and they make a peace treaty creating "The Yellow Belt", a large no man's land that would separate their lands and would not belong to neither of them. Further, Nesib demands the sons of Amar, Saleh and Auda, to be raised together with his children Tarik and Leyla by him in Hobeika as a guarantee of their agreement. Fifteen years later, representatives of the Texas Oil find oil in the Yellow Belt and the modern and liberal Emir Nesib sees the opportunity to improve and modernize the life of his tribe, building hospitals and schools, and the American Company begins the exploitation of the oil field, violating the peace pact. Nasib sends a representative to make an agreement with the fundamentalist Sultan Amar, but he does not accept the offer. Saleh decides to travel to Salma to talk to his father and kills his two companions, but he is ... Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
A farm girl mistakenly shoots and kills an endangered Philippine Eagle. When authorities begin a manhunt to track down the eagle’s killer, they stumble upon an even more horrific discovery.
In the Ottoman province of Hijaz during World War I, a young Bedouin boy experiences a greatly hastened coming-of-age as he embarks on a perilous desert journey to guide a British officer to his secret destination.
High off the success of her first book and planning to marry ZIAD, her sensible, stable and studious fiance, MAY BRENNAN has it all. At least that's what she'd like people to believe. Reunited with her family in Amman, she's thrust back into the chaos of her former existence. Her headstrong mother NADINE, a born-again Christian disapproves of her Muslim fiance so thoroughly she plans to boycott the wedding. Her younger sisters DALIA and YASMINE behave like her children. And her estranged father EDWARD is suddenly and suspiciously interested in making amends. As her wedding day looms, May finds herself more and more confronted by the trauma of her parents divorce. And soon, her once carefully structured life spins hopelessly out of control. Written by Anonymous
Mohammed Assaf, an aspiring musician living in Gaza, sets a seemingly impossible goal: to compete on the program "Arab Idol."
J is in their early teens and lives in the countryside. J has been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, goes by the selected pronoun “they”, and takes hormone blockers to suspend puberty. While J’s parents are away, their older sister and her Iranian boyfriend are assigned the duties of house-sitting and looking after J.
Two men make the dangerous journey from Africa to Italy for a better life, but then face hostility and violence in this shocking look at the life-and-death struggle of refugees.
Brothers Ziad (Alain Saadeh) and Joe (Tarek Yaacoub) run a small but lucrative drug dealing business out of their takeout pizzeria in one of Beirut's working class districts. With their youngest brother Jad (Wissam Fares) about to be released from prison - where he was serving a sentence for a crime that Ziad had committed - Ziad plans to go straight by using their coke-peddling profits to open a restaurant. But Ziad's supplier, a powerful drug lord who is none too keen to see his dealers retire, convinces the brothers to take on one last job. Written by Anonymous
When Ephraim, an Ethiopian boy, is sent from his homeland to live with distant relatives, he takes his beloved sheep with him. One day, his uncle announces that he will have to sacrifice his sheep for the upcoming religious feast, but Ephraim is ready to do anything to save his only friend and return home.
The Speed Sisters are the first all-women race car driving team in the Middle East. They're bold. They're fearless. And they're tearing up tracks all over Palestine.
With Istanbul mired in political violence, Kadir is offered release after 15 years in prison if he’ll work as an informant. In a shantytown he stumbles upon his brother Ahmet, working for the city rounding up stray dogs and shutting himself in his home.
It's 1992. Young Dina lives in a remote mountain village where life is strictly governed by centuries of tradition. Dina's grandfather has promised her to David, who is returning from the war. But with him comes a comrade-in-arms, the handsome Gegi, and Dina falls in love. Is it possible to defy the firmly established order?
A film director and her muse who was a student activist in the 1970s, a waitress who keeps changing jobs, an actor and an actress, all live loosely connected to each other by almost invisible threads. The narrative sheds its skin several times to reveal layer upon layer of the complexities that make up the characters’ lives.
The global corporations have established cities and agricultural zones in areas where the climate is relatively good. These cities are populated by the elites, while the immigrant masses struggle with hunger and epidemics. For unknown reasons, the city’s agricultural plantations have been hit by a genetic crisis - and, as a result, by massive crop failure. Professor Erol Erin, a seed genetics specialist learns of Cemil Akman, a fellow scientist. Apparently, Cemil wrote a thesis about the recurrent crisis affecting genetically modified seeds - but the work was banned by the corporation..
Deep beneath the surface in the Syrian province of Ghouta, a group of female doctors have established an underground field hospital. Under the supervision of paediatrician Dr. Amani and her staff of doctors and nurses, hope is restored for some of the thousands of children and civilian victims of the ruthless Syrian civil war.
An Arab surgeon living in Tel Aviv discovers a dark secret about his wife in the aftermath of a suicide bombing.
Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.
Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses on Osama and his younger brother Ayman, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up in an Islamic Caliphate.
Mustafa and his wife Salwa come from two Palestinian villages that are only 200 meters apart, but separated by the wall. Their unusual living situation is starting to affect their otherwise happy marriage, but the couple does what they can to make it work. Every night, Mustafa flashes a light from his balcony to wish his children on the other side a goodnight, and they signal him back. One day Mustafa gets a call that every parent dreads: his son has been in an accident. He rushes to the checkpoint where he must agonisingly wait in line only to find out there is a problem with his fingerprints and is denied entry. Desperate, Mustafa resorts to hiring a smuggler to bring him across. His once 200-meter journey becomes a 200-kilometer odyssey joined by other travellers determined to cross.
During the Syrian civil war, the district of Yarmouk, home to thousands of Palestinians, became the scene of dramatic and ferocious fighting. Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege) is a film that follows the destiny of civilians during the brutal sieges, imposed by the Syrian regime, that took place in the wake of the battles. With his camera, Abdallah Al-Khatib composes a love song to a place that proudly resists the atrocities of war.
Liborio is a peasant who disappears in a hurricane and returns as a prophet. He says he’s been given a mission: to bring the good and take away the evil, curing the sick and teaching by example. People begin to congregate by his side and they move to the mountains to have total freedom and develop his dream of an independent community. Everything changes when the invading US Marines wants to disarm and disband the community. Liborio wants to avoid a confrontation but they know they can't run forever.
Members of a family who quit the polluted, rubbish-strewn city of Beirut for an idyllic mountain home. However, their dreams of a utopian existence are shattered by the construction of a landfill on the boundary of their land.
A Scottish orchid farmer visiting her ill sister in Bogotá, Colombia, befriends a young musician and a French archaeologist in charge of monitoring a century-long construction project to tunnel through the Andes mountain range. Each night, she is bothered by increasingly loud bangs which prevent her from getting any sleep.