Film Under the Stars 2018
Joel Joel
Carlos Sorín / Argentina / 2018 / 100 min / Spanish
A heart-rending and complex drama about overcoming prejudices within the contexts of a family and broader community.
O Beautiful Night O Beautiful Night
Xaver Böhm / Germany / 2019 / 89 min / Russian, Korean, German
Replete with dark oneiric images evocative of human mortality, this unusual nocturnal odyssey stars Slovenian actor Marko Mandić in a leading role.
So Long, My Son Di jiu tian chang
Wang Xiaoshuai / China / 2019 / 176 min / Chinese
In the early 1980s, Liyun and Yaojun were a happy couple, until a tragic event turned their lives upside down. For the next three decades, the fate of the couple, bitterly impacted by the politics of their child, is intertwined with that of modern China.
Aga's House Shpia e Agës
Lendita Zeqiraj / Kosovo, France, Croatia, Albania / 2019 / 107 min / Albanian
Lendita Zeqiraj’s debut authentically re-creates the vibrant world of her energetic female protagonists, in which the flow of stories, the sound of singing, and coarse humour cannot mask the dark undertone of their country’s wartime past and its enduring ethnic tensions.
Lara Lara
Jan Ole Gerster / Germany / 2019 / 98 min / German
It is Lara’s 60th birthday and she has every reason to celebrate: her son Viktor will be giving the most important piano concert of his career. Lara was, after all, the one who had mapped out and driven his musical career. Yet nothing indicates that Lara will be welcome at his debut performance.
Monos Monos
Alejandro Landes / Colombia, Argentina, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Uruguay / 2019 / 102 min / English, Spanish
An adventurous utopia-cum-thriller delivered as a study of growing up with a strict hierarchy of power.
Our Mothers Nuestras madres
César Díaz / Belgium, France / 2019 / 78 min / Spanish
Guatemala, 2018. All the country’s attention is focused on a trial against the soldiers who sparked the civil war. Victims give testimonies. Young forensic anthropologist Ernesto has the task of identifying the missing people. One day, while listening to an old woman’s testimony, he suspects he might have caught the trail of his father, a member of the guerrilla, who had disappeared during the war…
Ray & Liz Ray & Liz
Richard Billingham / United Kingdom / 2018 / 108 min / English
Renowned British photographer and visual artist Richard Billingham makes his feature-film debut with this intricate portrayal of a family in their council flat outside Birmingham, inspired in part by his own memories.
Stitches Šavovi
Miroslav Terzić / Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina / 2019 / 98 min / Serbian
Featuring a protagonist who fights against the system in her quest for truth, Stitches exposes one of the greatest scandals in Serbia’s recent history.
Beanpole Dilda
Kantemir Balagov / Russia / 2019 / 137 min / Russian
A story about Ija and Maša, two young women seeking sense and hope in the ruins of post-war Leningrad.
System Crasher Systemsprenger
Nora Fingscheidt / Germany / 2019 / 118 min / German
Nine-year-old Benni is loud, wild, and unpredictable. Her unbridled energy is frustrating for everybody around her. But Benni only wishes for one thing: to return to her mother.
Bacurau Bacurau
Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles / Brazil, France / 2019 / 131 min / Portuguese, English
Flying saucers, duplicitous politicians and undercover assassins. A metaphor for present-day Brazil delivered as a dystopic western starring Sonia Braga and Udo Kier.
Ema Ema
Pablo Larraín / Chile / 2019 / 107 min / Spanish
Ema, a young reggaeton dancer, decides to separate from Gastón after giving back the son they adopted and were unable to raise. However, she has a secret plan to recover everything she’s lost.
His Master's Voice Az Úr hangja
György Pálfi / Hungary, Canada, Sweden, USA, France / 2018 / 108 min / Hungarian, English
Acclaimed Hungarian director György Pálfi (Taxidermia) drew inspiration for his dystopic tale about a family’s dark history from Stanislav Lem’s iconic novel of the same name.
A Voluntary Year Das freiwillige Jahr
Ulrich Köhler, Henner Winckler / Germany / 2019 / 86 min
This family drama tells the story of a father who falls victim to his own unrealised dreams and refuses to accept the fact that he no longer has control of his adolescent daughter’s life.
Lillian Lillian
Andreas Horvath / Austria / 2019 / 128 min / Russian, English
Austrian documentarian Andreas Horvath’s fiction debut tells a true story about a young immigrant who decides to walk back to her native Russia from New York.
A Hidden Life A Hidden Life
Terrence Malick / USA, Germany / 2019 / 173 min / English, German, Italian
Based on real events, A Hidden Life tells the story of the Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to take the Hitler Oath and fight for the Nazis. Faced with the threat of execution for treason, it is his unwavering faith and his love for his wife and children that keeps his spirit alive.
Liberté Liberté
Albert Serra / France, Spain, Portugal / 2019 / 132 min / French, German, Italian
A forest at night. Three libertines, expelled from the puritan court of Louis XVI, run into the legendary German seducer and freethinker, the Duke of Walchen. Their mission is to export libertinage, a philosophy based on rejecting all moral restraints and authorities but above all, to find a safe place to indulge in their misguided games.
It Must Be Heaven It Must Be Heaven
Elia Suleiman / France, Canada, Turkey, Germany, Palestine, Qatar / 2019 / 97 min
A “comedy of errors” in which the director’s travels take him from Palestine to Paris and New York—yet everywhere he goes, it is his homeland that he finds.
Vitalina Varela Vitalina Varela
Pedro Costa / Portugal / 2019 / 124 min / Portuguese
Winner of the Golden Leopard at the 2019 Locarno Film Festival. The suggestive reality told by Vitalina, a 55-year-old Cape Verdean actress playing herself, is fraught with pain, its desperate sadness displayed in nocturnal images and a Caravaggio-esque chiaroscuro.
Zombi Child Zombi Child
Bertrand Bonello / France / 2019 / 103 min / French
French director Bertrand Bonello uses zombies as a metaphor for historical trauma whose echoes re-emerge to haunt new generations of white elites.
The Whistlers La Gomera
Corneliu Porumboiu / Romania, Germany, France / 2019 / 97 min
Police inspector Cristi arrives to the Canarian island of Gomera to meet Gilda, a femme fatale, and learn the ancient whistling language. But nothing is as it seems, and things don’t go as planned.
God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya Gospod postoi, imeto i’ e Petrunija
Teona Strugar Mitevska / North Macedonia, Slovenia, France, Belgium, Croatia / 2019 / 100 min / Macedonian / 16+
A film based on a real event that, years ago, brought outrage to a small Macedonian community. A universal and immensely relevant story of rebellion in the face of a patriarchal society.
Synonyms Synonymes
Nadav Lapid / France, Israel, Germany / 2019 / 123 min / Hebrew, French, English
A young Israeli man, Yoav, comes to Paris hoping that France and the French people will save him from the madness of his home country. The film, awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, was also screened at the last Liffe festival.
The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão A vida invisível de Eurídice Gusmao
Karim Aïnouz / Brazil, Germany / 2019 / 142 min / Portuguese
Rio de Janeiro in 1950. Sisters Eurídice and Guida live with their conservative parents and dream about a different life. Eurídice dreams of becoming a piano player and Guida seeks her great love. When Guida gets pregnant, their infuriated father breaks contacts between the two sisters. So commences the long separation of the two women who never lose hope to be reunited one day.