Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko – the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste – but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance – for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke’s little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko’s hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba’s short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director – who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game – throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR

A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.

DARK HORSE tells the larger than life true story of how a barmaid in a former mining village in South Wales bred a racehorse on her allotment that went on to become a champion. Jan had successfully bred dogs and birds and believed she could do the same with a different animal – though she knew nothing about racing and had never been on a horse. Convincing a handful of locals to part with ten pound a week for her scheme, she found a thoroughbred mare with a terrible racing record for £300, a stallion past his best, put them together and – against all the odds – bred a winner. It’s an audacious tale of luck and chance and beating the odds; a story of how a gaggle of working class folk from the Welsh Valleys took on the racing elite, broke through class and financial barriers, and brought hope and pride back to their depressed community.

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The Falls: Testament of Love is a continuation of the story of RJ Smith and Chris Merrill, two Mormon missionaries that fell in love during their mission in a small town in Oregon. The boys haven’t spoken in five years, but when an unexpected tragedy compells them back to the Oregon town where they served, they find themselves, once again, thrust into one another’s lives. As old feelings begin to surface they find themselves again facing difficult choices. If they pursue their desire to be together, RJ and Chris risk hurting the ones they care about as they embark on a spiritual journey to discover love, freedom, and happiness.

An overstressed American businessman and a French chambermaid make a connection at an airport hotel in Paris.

A young and inexperienced priest encourages a family to declare their long-missing son dead, but once they do, the boy mysteriously returns, testing the priest’s commitment to church doctrine over the laws of the natural world.

In an ordinary Chinese winter, a small city junior high student, YU, tries to quit her school aerobic dancing team.

Harmony is tricked into auditioning for the Holiday Chorus — directed by an ex-boyfriend. By Christmas Eve, they could be harmonizing in the key of love.

A corrupt politician covers up his daughter Vicky’s pregnancy by forcing her to give the baby up for adoption. The newborn is adopted by a loving couple unable to have children, but a year later Vicky, now in college, realizes she was forced into signing the papers and really wants her daughter back. After sneaking into the adoption agency to find out who the adoptive parents are, she takes them to court to fight for custody.

Based on a famous stage play and set in the year 1912, an upper crust English family dinner is interrupted by a police inspector who brings news that a girl known to everyone present has died in suspicious circumstances. It seems that any or all of them could have had a hand in her death. But who is the mysterious Inspector and what can he want of them?

A jazz musician falls in love with a comatose woman at a carny sideshow and takes her to his mansion to join his cabinet of sexual curiosities.