678 reveals revealing a raw side of Egypt that the world has barely seen. The film unfolds the poignant story of three women and their search for justice from the daily plight of sexual harassment in Egypt. When one of the women resorts to stabbing harassers in the groin, she becomes a phantasmal hero that causes a nationwide stir.
100'
Egypt
IFFR 2011
Fascinating film is partly based on the life of the blind actor Larry Lewis who tries to stop drinking. To improve his defences, he practises jiu-jitsu. He makes friends with his teacher Darren, who is however involved in dubious activities. Slowly, Larry gets dragged in.
80'
USA
IFFR 2011
An alienated, overweight nurse whose life is surrounded by death sets off to find her long-lost childhood friend, Adrienn Pál. In the process, she embarks on a paradox-filled voyage within her own memory, and the memory of those she encounters.
136'
Hungary
IFFR 2011
Two young sisters, one terminally ill with a last wish - to flee her life in poverty-stricken Buenos Aires. The other is looking for ways to make that possible. An attractive alcoholic accordionist makes things even more complicated in this convincingly acted and moving drama.
84'
Argentina
IFFR 2011
The ravages of time take their toll on the filmmaker's large, deserted family house. The old concierge speaks to the village priest. Shot in a beautifully intriguing style (by prize-winning cameraman Gimferrer), the film evokes personal and historical memories from all the darkest corners of the building.
85'
Spain
IFFR 2011
Cheerful sketch about the love life of a group of twenty-somethings. Marie and her best male friend fall for the same guy and creatively try to scupper each other’s chances with this young god. The second film by the young director of the widely praised I Killed My Mother (IFFR 2010).
95'
Canada
IFFR 2011
Ambitious and already much-admired debut. Sultry Australian crime drama about the battle between a criminal family and the strong arm of the law. The young Joshua becomes embroiled in a bloody revengeful plot and is driven into the path of the detective Leckie (Guy Pearce). The Sopranos meet the Syndicate down under.
113'
Australia
IFFR 2011
Successful mix between documentary and ficiton is a layered quest through history, modern life and architecture and politics in the Korean city of Anyang. The maker is already an established name as a visual artist - but in film circles is still primarily known as ‘the brother of Park Chan-wook'.
102'
South Korea
IFFR 2011
Attenberg proves once again that Greek film is making great progress. Rebelliously designed and surprisingly structured narrative about a young woman (Labed, best actress in Venice), who prefers to look at human love from a distance. The director produced for instance the kindred Dogtooth.
95'
Greece
IFFR 2011
Rafiq's brother has been missing for more than four years as a result of the violence in the Indian state of Kashmir. As a result, his parents are slowly going downhill and the same fate almost overcomes Rafiq, until he finds his brother’s old camera. An oppressive film about life with no prospects for young people in Kashmir.
99'
India
IFFR 2011
During a hot and boring summer in Albuquerque, Flo and Trey go off the rails. Flo's budding infatuation for Marisa puts him in a difficult position. Will he succumb to group pressure or choose his own way? Realistic and visually powerful feature debut.
93'
USA
IFFR 2011
Crazy shit's going down on the nightshift at a hopeless Route 66 motel. Management gets upset if a holidaying family watches the Disney channel, yet expects the worst of the regulars. Relentlessly throbbing with a kind of fluorescent beauty and forlorn humour.
92'
USA
IFFR 2011
Turithrepe could be the translation of Belkibolang, a contraction of 'Belok kiri boleh langsung' ('Turning right through red permitted'). An exception to the rule. Nine young Indonesian filmmakers take a light-hearted yet profound look at rapidly changing rules in their society.
87'
Indonesia
IFFR 2011
Not everything is progress in China. Less and less rain means that the inhabitants of Inner Mongolia have to do everything to survive. For instance, sell their own blood. And in order to sell enough blood, you have to drink. A drama of fate shot in impressively expressive black-and-white.
128'
China
IFFR 2011
In this western-like docufiction, the inhabitants of a trailer park play themselves. Fred and his friends are involved in dubious affairs: stealing expensive cars. Then a white stray dog brings about a complete change in Fred’s life. His surroundings have trouble understanding.
84'
France
IFFR 2011
Three tasty shorts. The lunch is from a female Tiger winner, but the breakfast and dinner are also top-notch. However, there is an aftertaste, because these are three refined recipes for ending a relationship. A dinner can also be very unromantic.
87'
Singapore
IFFR 2011
Clever and moving play with double mirrors. A melancholy female scriptwriter is working with a narcissistic director on a new script. A personal ode to ambition and perseverance in the creative process, but also an ironic deconstruction of the vain laziness with which scripts are often made.
99'
South Korea
IFFR 2011
The Venezuelan-born maker edited shots of friends, of wanderings around the city of Barcelona where he lives and the journey to his chaotic, colourful native country into a complex film. An intimate travel diary film, but also as absurd and miraculous as a painting by Hieronymous Bosch.
70'
Spain
IFFR 2011
His 'crab hands' form a welcome excuse for the blunt cynicism with which Levi keeps everyone at arm's length. Disappointed by life, he gets on with his daily affairs. In this anti-romantic comedy, only his love for his only friend's girlfriend offers him some hope, albeit false.
102'
USA
IFFR 2011
Very personal film essay about immigration, seen through the eyes of a refugee. About what it’s like to be a foreigner in a strange country, about loneliness, homesickness and doubt.
61'
Netherlands
IFFR 2011
Difficult to classify, and that is only one of the attractive sides of this episodic film about the many manifestations of love, sex and film. An affair between confession documentary and ghost story, between expressive black-and-white and faded colour.
62'
Argentina
IFFR 2011
The debutant Jo took an almost Lynchian approach with limited means and plenty of surrealist talent to make an apocalyptic road movie. A pregnant teenager is in a taxi on her way to the remote village where she was born. They pick up an eloquent hitchhiker who turns out to have special talents.
114'
South Korea
IFFR 2011
Bubbly and energetic love story about a boy who is a free spirit and moves through Paris dancing and an Iranian girl who is in exile in the City of Light. Using media such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, they follow the situation in Iran and each other. Rebellious feature debut by David Dusa.
100'
France
IFFR 2011
Unpolished jewel from China's blossoming documentary scene: not far from Beijing lives old Li, a dwarf-like charismatic soothsayer, who is married to the simple, deaf and dumb Little Pearl. Xu Tong films life on the fringe: stranger than fiction, but also more intimate and confusing.
157'
China
IFFR 2011
Film debut from the tradition of semi-documentary filmmaking in Iran, looking at three emigrant workers and their everyday hardship to earn money. It unveils the southern part of the country, and the modernization of its industrial landscapes.
84'
Iran
IFFR 2011
An ad-hoc orchestra treks through the woods, strolling and drinking, to the 'Carnaval du Monde' in Stavelot. The drunken procession appeals to them so much that they forget house and home. Like medieval wandering scholars, they travel from fair to village fête. Then their leader says he’ll stop taking drink and drugs. What next?
98'
Belgium
IFFR 2011
In the 1950s, a majestic Grande Hotel was built in Beira in the former Portuguese colony Mozambique, as if it were the Côte d´Azur. It was doomed from the start and has now been stripped of everything of value: this film is a portrait of a skeleton and of some of the 3500 people who live there now.
70'
Belgium
IFFR 2011
Mary is ill and Leonard loves her so much that he decides to build a house for her. Brent Green reconstructed this house in his garden and used it as a film set for a special and moving story. A beautiful mix of animation, stop motion and live action.
72'
USA
IFFR 2011
This first fiction film by a prize-winning documentary maker is a very sharp and realistic, but also dreamy and surreal urban portrait from today’s China. A young Chinese man with a fake temp agency exploits naive migrant workers in Guangzhou. But it doesn’t make him any happier.
96'
China
IFFR 2011
School’s out for summer in a small, mountain-encircled town somewhere in Switzerland. But Milena has failed to graduate and her best friend Heidi would like to move to the city. Drenched in heat, the hitherto secure world seems to drift away from reality.
76'
Switzerland
IFFR 2011
The recipe seems simple: a drugs deal goes awry and then a thousand things go wrong. A pinch of Tarantino, yet most comes from the Japanese director/actor (he is the fat gangster) himself. Done often enough, but different. That’s how you prove your talent.
75'
Japan
IFFR 2011
Can you make a documentary portrait of a man who says he is Jesus? Fictional not, the directors found three Jesuses in different continents and played the game with them. Or is it real? Respectable documentary - if respectable is the right word here.
75'
Italy
IFFR 2011
An original portrait of young people in Russia, mostly amateurs who received cameras from the directors and help in filming their own life stories. A mosaic of everyday situations with unexpected camera angles revealing characters’ ordinary but also hidden lives.
72'
Russia
IFFR 2011
Overwhelming leading role by Anne Coessens as a suspicious, hard-working Belarussian illegal immigrant who has come to Belgium looking for a better future for her son. One day she is accidentally caught, while her son escapes. A punch in the belly and an indictment of the system.
90'
Belgium
IFFR 2011
Philosophical and observational documentary portrait of the pupils at a School for the Blind in Sierra Leone. An improvised court in the school forms the heart of the film. An impulsive blind judge questions the teenagers from the school about their alleged crimes.
80'
Switzerland
IFFR 2011
In the cold and damp winter in the heart of the Argentine outback, far from the bustle of modern life, people routinely do what they did yesterday too. In this beautifully shot, micro-kaleidoscopic debut, the promising Guerrero follows six characters for whom something starts to change one day.
112'
Argentina
IFFR 2011
After a concert in his birthplace and a bizarre night with a groupie, singer Philippe happens to end up back at his parents’ place. But he doesn't manage to get away again. An enchantment stops him. Is it the ornithologist who operates at night? A cheerful comedy.
92'
France
IFFR 2011
The journey by the Haitian Jean Remy Genty, a French teacher looking for work in the Dominican Republic, takes him from the urban bustle to the jungle. Yet his journey is primarily an inner struggle. The second film by the makers of the award-winning Cocochi.
84'
Dominican Republic
IFFR 2011
Luiza (16) has had enough of stories about the end of the world. On Christmas Eve, her cousin is shot; a few weeks later she bumps into him as a ghost. In a conscious change of style with many recent Brazilian films, The Joy is utopian and fairy-tale: an ode to young courage.
100'
Brazil
IFFR 2011
Teenagers playing knights. They dream of a future far from their native village of Beauce. A loving and poetic glimpse of the young people and their surroundings, the French countryside. Julien prepares to leave his friends, his parents and the landscape of his childhood.
80'
France
IFFR 2011
One of the most talented directors of South Asia returns to Rotterdam with a provoking contemplation on notions of pain, passion, sexual desire, guilt and death. Expressionist and minimalist, the film focuses on spirituality and human relationships.
88'
Sri Lanka
IFFR 2011
For five years, Schmitt and Lynch followed the buffalo hunt in the American West. Their fascinating portrait of a disappearing world contrasts unspoiled landscapes with commercial influences on the American myth. A film to make you think.
76'
USA
IFFR 2011
Intimate family drama about a single mother and her two sons. They are all wrestling in their own way with questions about sexuality and love, but this does not bring them closer together. On the contrary, the distance between the family members is always tangible in this visually powerful debut.
72'
USA
IFFR 2011
A beautifully made portrait of the seamstress Lucia, who lives with her father in an old house in Santiago, that offers an unexpected glimpse of the consequences of Pinochet’s dictatorship that have not been dealt with. Young filmmaker proves that if you look closely, you always see unexpected things.
80'
Chile
IFFR 2011
A wonderful portrait of a rural family and modern city existence, told through the life (and its problems) of a teenage boy, his relatives and friends. The director tackles present day Turkish society in a subtle and attractive way.
102'
Turkey
IFFR 2011
A melancholy marimba player, a long-haired doctor who sings heavy metal and a wannabe rapper form the unlikely musical group that dreams of success. Stylised surprise from Guatemala, shot in a guerrilla style, is now collecting film prizes galore.
73'
Guatemala
IFFR 2011
A human story of an emigrant who seeks a way to the West and gets stuck in the house of an ordinary man on the Hungarian border. A deliberation on a contemporary world divided into those who want to get in and those who control the law and the borders.
100'
Romania
IFFR 2011
A warm, intimate look back at changes in Russia during the past twenty years. Seen through the eyes of a few friends who, aided by their home movies, remember a youth spent during the times of the Soviet Union. Humorous and nostalgic.
87'
USA
IFFR 2011
A compelling tale on a 18th century Indian painter from a small hill state, created as a stunning poetic meditation on universal notions of devotion, love and passion. Recreated images of the artist's miniatures perfectly merge with the stunning landscape of the locations.
75'
India
IFFR 2011
A collective film, coordinated by Felipe Bragança and Marina Meliande (see also The Joy). They sent a letter of ‘unease’ to filmmakers in which they asked for love, utopia and explosions... The many-faceted and poetic result is wonderful to watch and balm to the soul.
65'
Brazil
IFFR 2011
Will Oldham excels as a naive, cocky American who's found God. His co-worker at a tyre shop is an Irishman who has served in Afghanistan. With little to do at work, the two dance around their inner struggles and cultural differences. A meditative character study.
92'
USA
IFFR 2011
Painter and filmmaker Collar allows his uncle Juan de Dios and his Paraguayan fellow villagers to more or less play themselves in this authentic portrait of rural culture. During nine days of mourning ('novena') for his deceased mother, uncle Juan reflects on life as a guest worker in Buenos Aires.
96'
Paraguay
IFFR 2011
With the eye of a practised photographer, the debutant Court makes an atmospheric elegy for an unnecessary person. In a derelict mansion in the misty Chilean countryside, the old major-domo Rafael does his work with routine regularity. But he cannot hold back the consequences of decay.
80'
Chile
IFFR 2011
When their wives go to work in Germany, the men in a rural Romanian village suddenly don’t have any spare time any more. Beautifully observed, powerful but gentle documentary about the changing world of shepherds in Transylvania. With great empathy and original ‘sheet music’.
93'
Ireland
IFFR 2011
With as much feeling for irony as for justice, the young director studies the older generation from his home village, the people who do not experience the pros but only the cons of a changing China. Ma, nicknamed the Old Donkey, saw his children leave for the city but refused to give up his land.
112'
China
IFFR 2011
Original story of a young woman who is released from prison to attend her mother’s funeral, and who takes this opportunity as a challenge to solve various issues in her life. An outstanding debut from a Romania continually impressive with its output of cinema.
87'
Romania
IFFR 2011
The director of the award-winning documentary Shakespeare and Victor Hugo's Intimacies makes an impressive feature debut with an atmospheric narrative about a young woman addicted to heroin who tries to break the habit in a week on the Mexican Gulf Coast and makes contact there with a mysterious neighbour.
90'
Mexico
IFFR 2011
Documentary director Darrah Byrne turns to fiction with this beautifully shot film. Set in Dublin, with the powerful Colm Meaney as Fred, Parked tells the story of a man down on his luck, who absolutely wants to blend in. Problem is, he lives in his car.
90'
Ireland
IFFR 2011
After their divorce, an unemployed steelworker and his nouveau riche ex-wife quarrel about their daughter, who decides to go and live with the one who buys a piano. Charmingly acted morality play is not a Chinese version of Kramer vs. Kramer, but a warm comic drama punctuated with musical intermezzos.
105'
China
IFFR 2011
It could have been a film about Pakistanis in England, but it’s a film about Filipinos in Taiwan. A serious film about immigrants in which there is plenty to laugh at, or a profound comedy. It is both and anything goes in film, apart from taking home a sofa you found.
85'
Taiwan
IFFR 2011
When the young teenager Anna comes home from boarding school, she discovers that her father has left. Her mother clings onto the local priest, a childhood friend. With the aid of her grandfather and her free-spirited boyfriend, Anna tries to hold her own in this new situation.
92'
France
IFFR 2011
Coming-of-age story of Marjorie Ely, a beautiful 19-year-old who imagines that she was created through extraordinary, magical means by her mysterious and long-dead father. As time passes, she disengages further from an ordinary world full of banalities and loneliness.
90'
Canada
IFFR 2011
This moving film debut about class, power, art, love and Facebook touched a sensitive nerve for many film juries. Pure is carried by the actress Vikander, who plays a closed, tormented young woman looking for something 'pure', a desire she recognises in Mozart’s Requiem.
98'
Sweden
IFFR 2011
Refined drama about an Iraqi family that has been forced to move into a derelict building and the hitman who has moved into the top floor. Despite the many domestic and social problems that haunt the family, Oday also makes room for a hopeful note about the future.
90'
Iraq
IFFR 2011
When all you have left to make love to is sheep, life can only improve. Except that we are in Ireland, a bankrupt economy where 26 year old Donal must buy sex before he can find love. And even then, he’ll find love in rather dodgy ways...
107'
Ireland
IFFR 2011
We all have an idea of what an American film is. Septien may change that. A story that does not allow itself to be predicted. A location you cannot place. And a brother who suddenly returns home after 18 years - but why? And why did he disappear in the first place?
79'
USA
IFFR 2011
Teenage Bulgarian boy Radostin collides with his parents by disappearing for two days and then bringing home his two new friends - devoted punks. Their encounters in a small flat are challenging, serious and at the same time funny.
88'
Bulgaria
IFFR 2011
Limited means, maximum effect. The stunning story of El Sicario, a hitman for organised crime in Ciudad Juárez, the murder capital of the world. He tells all: how, what, where, who and why. In a hotel room, with a bag over his head, because if they find him, he’s dead.
84'
France
IFFR 2011
High school thriller about the disappearance of Simon Werner, pupil at a lycée just outside Paris. The only clue: bloodstains in a classroom. A few days later, a girl disappears. And then another one... Four pupils tell their version of the story. With a striking and strange melancholy score by Sonic Youth.
87'
France
IFFR 2011
They were called Scorpions. A South African elite unit that was allowed to operate above the police and beyond politics. Trained fighters in black suits. Like cowboys, they tackled corrupt police chiefs. A kind of Western, but then about things that really happened not so long ago.
106'
South Africa
IFFR 2011
Peter Stormare excels as a tormented sheriff in a Canadian Mennonite hamlet where the body of an unknown woman is found. Everyone did their best for this film, as is apparent from the beautiful photography and the powerful thunderous music by Bruce Peninsula.
75'
Canada
IFFR 2011
A very Indian film in very Indian surroundings, yet not a very Indian film. A guard keeps watch strictly but pointlessly at a deserted mine. When a fleeing couple wants to hide there one night, his world shifts. A harrowing metaphor for unrelenting inequalities.
99'
India
IFFR 2011
The Ugandan logline is 'Obusilise bwogezi', which means 'silence speaks'. The protagonist is the deaf and dumb girl Hope, who is closely followed during an adventurous journey through the hectic city of Kampala. Fiction, yet more realistic than many documentaries.
85'
Uganda
IFFR 2011
With disturbing honesty, performance dancer Li Ning turned his life in China into a work of art. Using a range of cinematographic means for five often absurd years, swerving between harsh reality and artistic pretensions, between pathos and insight, between perseverance and self-pity.
168'
China
IFFR 2011
A childhood filled with hanging around, skating, doing silly stunts and especially friendship is bound to come to an end for Toda and Stefan. Stefan is going to university, Toda is staying behind in the biggest dump in Europe. There is also a girl in between the two friends. Growing up isn’t easy anywhere.
102'
Serbia
IFFR 2011
Danielson filmed his nephews in the Swedish countryside for ten years, from the age of nine until they were 19. The result is a poetic and universal story about growing up.
85'
Sweden
IFFR 2011
British actor Paddy Considine provides fellow actors Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman with beautiful parts in Tyrannosaur, his first film as a director. One day Mullan, a man who can’t control his fits of violence and rage, meets a Christian charity shop worker.
91'
United Kingdom
IFFR 2011
Ode to love and a melancholy lament about fading film culture go hand in hand in this old-fashioned precise black-and-white jewel. About a man whose talents seem to be becoming out of place in this modern era, when his job at the Uruguayan cinematheque is under threat.
67'
Uruguay
IFFR 2011
Debut with a clean design about a young Orthodox Jewish student with failing parents and a failing body. He silently seeks solace in long and increasingly desperate roamings through the city at night and a clumsy way of approaching women, vainly searching for redemption.
86'
Israel
IFFR 2011
'Water hands' is the literal Chinese word for 'sailor'. The sailor himself remains off-screen in this film, just like the woman who is waiting for him. The tight black-and-white images move through Singapore and Montenegro, while a logic all of its own links the various worlds and narrations.
93'
Singapore
IFFR 2011
Meticulous web spun around characters who all seem to be looking for the essence of life. Searching becomes more important than finding in a narrative that the maker himself describes as 'part science fiction, part meta-narrative, part philosophical slapstick'.
78'
Canada
IFFR 2011
Teenage girl Zephyr spends her youth in the house of her grandparents, in the stunningly beautiful countryside. Every day she awaits the return of her mother. A deep look into the psyche of the girl and her discoveries about love, life and nature.
93'
Turkey
IFFR 2011