Faith, Love And Whiskey and Kill Me
170Hz
(Country: Netherlands; Year: 2011; Director: Joost van Ginkel; Writer: Joost van Ginkel; Stars: Gaite Jansen, Michael Muller, Eva van Heijningen, Ariane Schluter, Porgy Franssen, Robert de Hoog, Hugo Haenen, Baue van Leyden, Valerie Pos)
A film about unconditional love and the freedom that goes with it as two adolescents who fall hopelessly for one another.
UK premiere. European Features Competition
Babylon
(Country: Tunisia; Year: 2012; Director: Ismael Chebbi, Youssef Chebbi, Ala Eddine Slim)
Chronicle of a temporary refugee camp in Tunisia.
UK premiere
Cursed Be The Phosphate
(Country: Tunisia, UAE, Lebanon, Qatar; Year: 2012; Director: Sami Tlili)
When a strike in an obscure Tunisian mining-town in 2008 was brutally suppressed by government forces, the local people fought back - and paid a heavy price.
UK premiere
Dragonflies With Birds And Snake (Trollsländor med Fåglar och Orm)
(Country: Sweden / Germany; Year: 2011; Director: Wolfgang Lehmann)
Not a scientific film, but rather a meditation, a contemplation on being itself.
UK premiere
Magpie and The Love Songs Of Tiedan
A Dream's Merchant (Un gând, un vis, Doyle... si-un pix)
(Country: Romania; Year: 2012; Director: Bogdan Ilie-Micu; Writer: Mihai Barbu, Bogdan Ilie-Micu; Stars: Mihai Barbu, Ionut Kivu)
This true-life 'Motorcycle Diary' recounts the epic trek of genial, thirtyish photographer Mihai Barbu as he rumbles to the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator - and back.
UK premiere
East Hastings Pharmacy
(Year: 2012; Director: Antoine Bourges; Stars: Shauna Hansen, Luis Figueroa)
An introduction to the various people who visit a methadone clinic over the course of a day.
Faith, Love And Whiskey (Faith Love & Whiskey)
(Country: Bulgaria; Year: 2012; Director: Kristina Nikolova; Writer: Paul Dalio, Kristina Nikolova; Stars: Yavor Baharov, Lidia Indjova, John Keabler, Ana Stojanovska, Valeri Yordanov)
Young Neli abandons a secure future in with a wealthy, straight-laced fiancé for one last fling with her passionate but boozily self destructive ex-boyfriend.
UK premiere
Gone Wild
(Country: Romania; Year: 2012; Director: Dan Curean),
Trailer
In a landscape now largely abandoned by humans, wild horses face gradual extinction.
UK premiere
A Hijacking (Kapringen)
(Country: Denmark; Year: 2012; Director: Tobias Lindholm; Writer: Tobias Lindholm; Stars: Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling, Dar Salim)
A brutal drama about a ship hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean and the subsequent struggles for survival and freedom.
La Playa DC and Somebody Up There Likes Me
I Have Always Been A Dreamer
(Country: US, United Arab Emirates; Year: 2012; Director: Sabine Gruffat; Stars: Jerry Herron, George Karyotidis, Mitch Cope, Constance Bodurow, Freda G.
Sampson, Colin Branson, Co-lab Creative, Matt Kelson, Douglas Crawford, Toufic
Araman),
Trailer
A documentary travelogue and portrait of two cities in contrasting states: Dubai and Detroit.
UK premiere
Kill Me (Töte mich)
(Country: Germany, France, Switzerland; Year: 2012; Director: Emily Atef, Esther Bernstorff; Writer: Emily Atef; Stars: Maria Dragus, Roeland Wiesksnekker, Wolfram Koch, Christine Citti, Jean-Jérome Esposito)
A suicidal teenager agrees to help a murderer on the run if he will kill her afterwards, but as they flee, he finds himself beginning to care for her.
European Features Competition
The Last Dogs Of Winter
(Country: New Zealand; Year: 2011; Director: Costa Botes; Stars: Brian Ladoon, Caleb Ross)
In 1976, Ladoon began a lifelong mission to protect and preserve the beautiful Canadian Eskimo dog – qimmiq – which is the rarest registered breed of dog in the world. This documentary tells Ladoon’s story and that of Caleb Ross, a young New Zealand actor who travelled to Churchill, Manitoba in search of adventure and stayed three years.
Little World (Món petit)
(Year: 2012)
UK premiere
Love Is All You Need (Den Skaldede Frisør)
(Country: Denmark, Sweden, Italy, France, Germany; Year: 2012; Director: Susanne Bier; Writer: Anders Thomas Jensen, Susanne Bier; Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Kim Bodnia, Trine Dyrholm, Paprika Steen, Sebastian Jessen)
Having just lost her hair to cancer and her husband to another woman, a hairdresser travels to Italy for her daughter's wedding and meets a man with troubles of his own.
Much Ado About Nothing and Tower
The Love Songs Of Tiedan
(Country: China; Year: 2012; Director: Hie Jao; Writer: Hie Jao; Stars: Feng Si, Ye Lan, Feng Yun, Li Yuqin, Hao Guoying, Du Huanrong, Ge Xia)
The film recounts a romantic obsession that spans several decades. In a poor Shanxi Province village, six-year old Tiedan falls in love with May, the beautiful neighbor who practices a traditional form of singing, Er-ren-tai, and this love will never die.
UK premiere
Magpie
(Country: UK; Year: 2012; Director: Marc Price; Writer: Marc Price; Stars: Daisy Aitkens, Craig Russell, Phil Deguara, Alastair Kirton, Les Kenny-Green, Carina Wan, Richard Corgan, Veronica Aitkens, David Day, Mick Robinson, Alicia Gray, Vanessa Everts, John Hendren, Shaun Collins, James Groom)
Aided by two of their friends, a former couple steal their dead son's body and set off to drive it to Cornwall, but nothing goes to plan.
World premiere
Me And You (Io E Te)
(Country: Italy; Year: 2012; Director: Bernardo Bertolucci; Writer: Niccolò Ammaniti, Bernardo Bertolucci, Niccolò Ammaniti, Umberto Contarello, Francesca Marciano; Stars: Tea Falco, Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Sonia Bergamasco, Veronica Lazar, Tommaso Ragno, Pippo Delbono, Francesca De Martini)
An introverted teenager forges a bond with his step-sister as he hides out in his family's basement.
UK premiere
Much Ado About Nothing
(Country: US; Year: 2012; Director: Joss Whedon; Writer: Joss Whedon, based on the play by William Shakespeare.; Stars: Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Fran Kranz, Reed Diamond, Ashley Johnson, Spencer Treat Clark)
A fresh take on Shakespeare's romantic comedy about sparring couples.
My House Without Me (Mój Dom)
(Country: Poland; Year: 2012; Director: Magdalena Szymków; Writer: Magdalena Szymków)
A documentary looking at two women permanently displaced as a result of the Second World War.
An Anthropological Television Myth and Tokyo Waka
A Night Too Young (Prílis mladá noc)
(Country: Czech Republic, Slovenia; Year: 2012; Director: Olmo Omerzu; Writer: Bruno Hájek, Jakub Felcman, Olmo Omerzu; Stars: Martin Pechlát, Jirí Cerny, Natálie Rehorová, Vojtech Machuta, Jan Vasi)
Two adolescent boys, on the first day of the New Year, meet their school teacher and her two male friends, with emotional consequences.
European Features Competition
La Playa DC
(Country: Colombia, Brazil, France; Year: 2012; Director: Juan Andrés Arango; Writer: Juan Andrés Arango; Stars: Luis Carlos Guevara, Jamés Solís, Andrés Murillo)
Tomás is trying to make his way in Bogota. Looking for his young brother Jairo, he sets out on a journey that will test his ability to deal with the fear and wounds of the past.
Something In The Air (Après mai)
(Country: France; Year: 2012; Director: Olivier Assayas; Writer: Olivier Assayas; Stars: Lola Créton, Dolores Chaplin, India Menuez, Carole Combes, Clement Metayer, Victoria Ley, Felix Armand, Nathanjohn Carter, Mathias Renou, Nick Donald, Félix de Givry)
An 18-year-old man reacts to the social changes of late 1960s Europe.
Somebody Up There Likes Me
(Country: US; Year: 2012; Director: Bob Byington; Writer: Bob Byington; Stars: Nick Offerman, Keith Poulson, Jess Weixler, Stephanie Hunt, Marshall Bell, Kate Lyn Sheil, Kevin Corrigan, Jonathan Togo, Megan Mullally, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Ted Beck, Allison Latta, Bob Schneider, Chris Doubek, Mike Wachs)
Dark comedy tracks happy-go-lucky slacker Max across three decades.
UK premiere
This Ain't California
(Country: Germany; Year: 2012; Director: Marten Persiel; Writer: Marten Persiel, Ira Wedel)
A hymn to the subversive power of vitality, this fast-paced documentary takes us on a trip through the strange unknown world of the ‘Rollbrettfahrer’ as skateboarders were known in the GDR, a country where besides those loyal to the regime, there was also an avowed political resistance. Apart from this, there was also a movement of young rebels whose only raison d’être was the illusion of staying young, immortal and non-committal. In THIS AIN’T CALIFORNIA three kids discover their love of skateboarding on the cracked asphalt of the GDR – a madcap, even unacceptable sport that was perhaps so incredibly exciting because of its nuttiness. This punk fairytale created by a bunch of kids who luckily possessed sufficiently manic levels of energy to record their lives on Super-8mm film, shows us life in the GDR life as it has never been seen before. The film follows its three main protagonists from their childhood in the seventies, through their turbulent teens in the eighties right up to that autumn of 1989 when they were twenty and suddenly, everything they had known up to that point was about to change forever.
A Hijacking and Me And You
Tokyo Waka
(Country: US, Japan; Year: 2012; Director: John Haptas, Kristine Samuelson)
Documentary about the life and culture of Tokyo.
UK premiere
Tower
(Country: Canada; Year: 2012; Director: Kazik Radwanski; Writer: Kazik Radwanski; Stars: Derek Bogart, Nicole Fairbairn, Deborah Sawyer)
An isolated, nerdy man with poor social skills embarks on a romantic relationship, but can it help him connect to the wider world?
UK premiere
To Kill A Beaver (Zabic bobra)
(Country: Poland; Year: 2012; Director: Jan Jakub Kolski; Writer: Jan Jakub Kolski; Stars: Eryk Lubos, Agnieszka Pawelkiewicz, Alexandra Michael, Marek Kasprzyk, Mariusz Bonaszewski, Mateusz Król, Daniel Misiewicz, Maciej Maciejewski, Kamil Pardo, Tomasz Pietryga, Kamil Sonta, Sylwester Zawadzki, Zuzanna Romanska, Bongos Romanski)
Hiding out in his rural safe-house while awaiting his next job, ice-cold hitman Eryk is startled to find that a teenaged runaway has moved in during his absence.
European Features Competition
Under The Weight Of Clouds
(Country: Netherlands; Year: 2012; Director: Martijn Maria Smits; Writer: Martijn Maria Smits, Lenina Ungari; Stars: Juda Goslinga, Valentijn Dhaenens, Tanja Otolski, Golda de Leon, Spataru Daniela)
Elena (Tanja Otolski), a young woman from Ukraine enmeshed in the grim world of human-trafficking and forced prostitution. Taking responsibility for a colleague's infant child, Elena finds herself facing a nightmarish dilemma.
International premiere
Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning
(Country: US; Year: 2012; Director: John Hyams; Writer: John Hyams, Doug Magnuson, Jon Greenhalgh, John Hyams, Moshe Diamant, Richard Rothstein, Christopher Leitch, Dean Devlin; Stars: Scott Adkins, Dolph Lundgren, Andrei Arlovski, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mariah Bonner, Tony Jarreau, Craig Walker, Andrew Sikking, James DuMont, David Jensen, Audrey P. Scott, Rus Blackwell, Dane Rhodes, Susan Mansur, Kristopher Van Varenberg)
John takes on an army of genetically enhanced fighters, while being pursued by a UniSol.
Babylon and I Have Always Been A Dreamer
Vegetarian Cannibal
(Country: Croatia; Year: 2012; Director: Branko Schmidt; Writer: Branko Schmidt; Stars: Rene Bitorajac, Zrinka Cvitešić, Leon Lučev)
A ruthless gynaecologist will stop at nothing to get his own way.
European Features Competition