1 - Le Dernier des Fous (2006)

Director: Laurent Achard
Winner 2006 Locarno International Film Festival

Prix Jean Vigo 2006

Cast: Julien Cochelin, Annie Cordy, Pascal Cervo,
Dominique Raymond

Laurent Achard's taut, unsetting feature is not your average French film about rural childhood. Based on "The last of the Crazy People", a 1957 novel by Timothy Findley, the film is a powerful, atmospheric, distinctly unsetting story of desperation, madness and psychological violence.Eleven-year-old Martin is growing up on an isolated rundown farm. His forbidding grandmother rules the roost, his older brother - a frustrated poet - is in the midst of an emotional meltdown, and Maman is the proverbial madwoman in the attic, a terrifying figure living behind locked doors. It is a brilliant psychological horror story.

2 - Qui m'aime me suive — Follow me if you love me - (2006)

Director: Benoit Cohen

Cast: Mathieu Demi, Eleonore Pourriat, Julie Depardieu, Romane Bohringer

The film tells the story of 35-year-old Maxime, a brilliant doctor, who leads an orderly life with his lawyer wife, admired by his friends and family. But ,one day, he meets Chine, a singer. Max decides to chuck in his career and starts up a rock group, fulfilling at last a youth dream. He drags everyone into his madcap escapade affecting all their lives...

3 - Ça brûle (2006) — Burning -

Director: Claire Simon

Cast: Camille Varenne, Gilbert Melki, Kader Mohamed, Marion Maintenay

The South of France in summer, threatened by fire. Livia, fifteen, is one with her environment, living every day the strength of the elements of nature as she rides her horse. She falls in love with Jean, a fireman and married father of two. In her mind his profession makes him the incarnation of rightness, a steady force against excesses and panic. But their love falls apart when he returns to his family. The battle between the extreme desire of a girl and the silence of the rest of the world makes her use a catastrophe as a way of expression...

4 - Je crois que je l'aime (2007) — I think I love her -

Director: Pierre Jolivet

Cast: Vincent Lindon, Sandrine Bonnaire, François Berléand, Kad Merad

Forty-three-year old Lucas, a rich and newly divorced industrialist, is irresistibly attracted to thirty-eight-year-old Elsa, a renowned ceramist whom he has commissioned to create a fresco for his office foyer. But, still smarting from his recent love disappointment, he asks Roland, a private detective, to discover the reason why this lovely woman is still single. Without the slightest scrupule Roland puts the most modern surveillance methods into operation...

1 — One Day in Europe (2005)

Director: Hannes Stöhr

Nominated for the Berlin Film Festival
Cast: Megan Gay, Ludmila Tavetkova, Andrei Sokolov, Nikolai Svechnikov, Florian Lukas, Boris Arquier

Funny but balanced approach towards national differences, showing respect to the nationalistic views and notion of Europe not being a continent just constituted by EU-countries...

2 — Gespenster (Ghosts) (2005)

Director: Christian Petzold

Nominated for the Berlin film Festival
2006 Winner of the German Film Critics Award

Cast: Julia Hammer, Sabine Timoteo, Marianne Basler, Aurélien Recoing, Benno Fürmann

Sensitive story of Nina, an end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems, who starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni...

3 — Kebab Connection (2004)

Director: Anno Saul

Nominated for the German Camera Award

Cast: Emmanuel Bettencourt, Numan Acar, Nora Tschimer, Hasan Al Mete, Kida Ramadan

In Hamburg, Ibrahim "Ibo" Secmez, of Turkish descent, wants to direct the first German kung-fu movie. Sensitive description of contemporary Turkish popculture in Germany...

4 — Moon Sun Flower Game (2008)

Director: Claus Strigel

Cast: Hossein Mansouri, Forough Farrokhzad, Ebrahim Golestan, Farzaneh Milani

In 1962 the young Iranian poetess Forough Farrokhzad visited the lepers at the end of the earth to make a film about their world. Her film,"The house is black', was to become world famous and change the world of a small boy who had the good fortune to meet her. Moon Sun Flower Game begins by revisiting the colony and winds its way to Münich, where exiled Iranian poet Hossein Mansouri searches for the boy and discovers a fable about his own roots and the magical power of words...

1 — The Lovers from Axos (2008)

Director: Nicos Ligouris

In the small Cretan village of Axos, the quiet days of George, 75, and Maria, 71, are filled with a rare and undying passion...

2 — Resurface (2008)

Director: Alexandre Papanicolaou, Emilie Yannoukou

Alexis is a 25 year old, quadriplegic after an accident at sea. He is swimming to surpass himself and to transform his handicap into an opportunity to participate in the Paraolympic Games in Athens in 2004...

3 — False Alarm (2006)

Director: Katerina Evangelakou

Residents of a building in Athens are slowly driven mad by a car alarm that blares intermittently through the day and night. As evening falls, Andreas loudly tries to woo back wife Eleni; actor Fanis longs to rekindle his secret gay relationsip with Marios; and sisters Loukia and Niki bicker through their insecurities. Next door, Irene is robbed by amoral Nicholas and thick Dinos. Behind all the shutters, no one is happy and few are true to themselves...

4 — Coming as a Friend (2006)

Director: Dora Masklavanou

It is a story about trust. A small criminal who is released from prison, meets a woman who lives as a "prisoner" on a coal mine mountain. She has come to terms with a tough and lonely life. He is agitated by the need to restart his life from the beginning. To carry on together they will have to trust each other...

1 — La seconda notte di nozze (2005)

Director: Pupi Avati

Nominated for the Venice Film Festival
2006 Winner of the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists

Cast: Antonio Albanese, Neri Marcore', Katia Ricciarelli, Angela Luce, Marisa Merlini

In Italy at the end of WWII Liliana, a widow, leaves her home town Bologna with her son. They move to Puglia and go to live in Giordano's farmhouse. Giordano, the brother of Liliana' late husband, had in its youth been in love with her. Their arrival upsets both the life of the fragile Giordano and the usual farm routine...

2 — Se fossi in te (2001)

Director: Giulio Manfredonia

Nominated by the Italian National Syndicate of Films Journalists

Cast: Emilio Solfrizzi, Gioele Dix, Fabio de luigi, Paola Cortellesi, Lunetta Savino

Three very different men are accidentally brought together for a drunken night on the beach. Andrea is an unfulfilled family man, Bernardo is an angry corporate businessman, Christian is a nice yet broke DJ. When each one wishes to be in another's place, they magically switch identities. However problems come up and they miss their old lives, causing them to reevaluate their initial wishes...

3 — Se devo essere sincera (2004)

Director: Davide Ferrario

Cast: Luciana Littizetto, Neri Marcore', Fabio Troiano, Donatella Finocchiaro

Adelaide is a calm person and she teaches Literature in a high school. She is married to Renzo, a driving instructor and they have an eight years old daughter. Adelaide hasa young mother, a best girlfriend, gina, and a dog, bertha. It seems npthing could disturb her happy and predictable life. However, one day, a colleague is murdered, and Gaetano, a chrming police commissioner called to make inquiry, enters her life...

4 — Lettere dal Sahara (2006)

Director Vittorio de Seta

2006 Winner of the City of Rome Award at the Venice Film Festival

Cast: Djibril Kebe, Paola Ajmone Rondo

Emotionally charged drama about a young man from Senegal who stows away on a ship headed to Italy, only to be thrown overboard by the crew not far from his destination. He succeeds in making his way to Sicily where he works a variety of punishing odd jobs. Living in fear of the police, Assane makes a valuable friend in Caterina, a social worker who helps him get papers as a legal resident. Their relationship becomes difficult when he falls in love with her. Now that he is no longer on the run he experiences the hostility of a gang of thugs...

1 - La Pelota Vasca (2003)

Director: Julio Medem

Nominated for 2004 Goya Awards and 2004 European Film Awards

Cast: Xabier Arzalluz, Bernardo Atxaga, Txiki Benegas, Txetxo Bengoetxea,
Julen de Madariaga

Feature length documentary based on interviews with seventy people about the Basque nationalistic conflict. It is a portrait of the multiple aspects of an old problem, the most devastating consequence being the ETA's armed struggle.

2 — Camaron (2005)

Director: Jaime Chavarri

2006 Winner Cinema Writers Circle Awards Spain, 2006 Winner Fotogramas de Plata, 2006 Winner Goya Award

Cast: Oscar Jaenada, Veronica Sanchez, Merce Llorens, Jacobo Dicenta

Camaron is the untold biography of flamenco music genius, Jorge Monge Cruz, "Camaron de la Isla". A study of his life and work, an up-close look at this brilliant singer-song writer who innovated in flamenco, influencing new generations and breaking down social and artistic barriers. His desires, his successes, his fights are the ingredients of a personal career reflected in his particular manner of making music, a new way of making and listening to flamenco that Camaron taught the world. His most prolific stage contains highlights and dark spots reflected in his amorous intrigues, his national and international recognition, the way he recorded, causing a revolution in flamenco performance, his marriage to Dolores "La Chispa", his flirting with drugs and his physical deterioration at a very young age...

3 — Barrio (1998)

Director: Fernando Leon de Aranoa

1999 Winner Goya Award, 1999 Winner Fotogramas de Plata, 1998 Winner San Sebastian Film Festival, 1999 Spanish Actors Award

Cast: Crispulo Cabezas, Timy Benito, Eloi Yebra, Marieta Orozco

Javi, Many and Rai are above all friends. They share that age in which there are neither men nor boys, in which they talk a lot about girls and very little to them. They also share life in the neighborhood, the heat of the summer and lots of problems. The first is the neighborhood itself, an area of high rise social housing, dark brick, impossible architecture. There is little to do there and, in August even less. The city center is far away and badly communicated, so the three friends spend most of their hanging out in the neighborhood. But time in the neighborhood passes slowly, and of course in summer there is a lot of spare time. Too much time not to get into trouble...

4 — El Bosque Animado (2001)

Directors: Angel de la Cruz, Manolo Gomez

2002 Winner Carrousel International du Film, 2002 Winner Goya Award
Animation produced by Megatrix/Dygra Films/Antena 3/Via Digital/Television de Galicia
Art director Javier Reigada and Alberto Taracido, Producer Manolo Gomez, Director Animation Julio Diez

Every day the leisurely Sr. d'Abondo and his faithful servant Rosendo go through woodland of Cecebre exclaiming "Lord above, it is as the whole wood were alive. And so it is, for when the humans are gone the trees open their eyes, the whole wood comes to life and nature is transformed, showing itself in all its splendor. One day, men plant a new lodger, the haughty telephone post. That's when the trouble starts, and if anyone is an expert in trouble, it's Furi, a friendly little mole, in love with Linda, who disappears one day along with the entire mole colony of the woodland. The inhabitants of the wood all rally to solve the problem of the woodland and to regain the former harmony and happiness of the Enchanted Wood...

1 — I was a Swiss Banker (2007)

Director: Thomas Imbach

Nominated for 2008 Swiss Film Prize Award

Cast: Beat Marti, Laura Drasbaeck, Anne-Grethe Bjarup Riis, Sandra Medina

Roger is a young dashing banker full of boyish self-confidence. He has a highly successful business, smuggling black money across the border for reinvestment. But then a split second reaction changes his entire life. Flagged down one day by a customs officer, Roger loses his cool and makes a run for it. His only means to escape: diving headlong into Lake Constance, thereby catapulting himself out of his life as a banker and into a totally new universe, populated with shy mermaids decked out in Lara Croft gear, and cunning magpie witches in helicopters. As in a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, Roger has to pass three tests to cast off the witches curse and find happiness. His underwater journey through an intoxicatedly beautiful Switzerland is enhanced by the enchanting songs of sirens...

2 - Lenz (2006)

Director: Thomas Imbach

Cast: Noah Gsell, Barbara Heynen, Barbara Mauler, Milan Peschel

Film-maker Lenz leaves his native Berlin for the Vosges to research the story behind Georg Büchner's novel "Lenz". He soon trades the Alsatian landscape for higher altitudes. Imbach weaves the tale of a driven explorer of life, and in all likelihood doomed love and a tender father-son relationship. He also highlights the absurdities of modern, mundane tourism and presents a stereotype symbol of Switzerland in a new light. The Matterhorn takes on a mystic quality, becomes a protagonist in its own right, telling of nature and the difficult nature of mankind. This tragicomic drama set in the mountains is also one of the most sensuous Swiss-based films in recent years.

3 — Ghetto (1997)

Director: Thomas Imbach

1997 Winner Manheim-Heidelberg Film Festival

A group of disoriented teenagers face a number of important decisions as their school days come to an end. Devoid of any focus or guidelines and still trying to find their feet in many ways, they are by turn ironic, spontaneous and subversive. Scenes range from anarchy in the classroom, defeaning techno music in basements and nights on the prowl to the problems of finding a job as an apprentice or trainee. The result is a fast moving, perceptive and touching film. Despite all the failures, barriers and reproaches they have to cope with, the teenagers remain charged with energy...

4 — Fragile (2006)

Director: Laurent Negre

2006 Winner Swiss Film Prize Award, 2006 TV5 Prize for best French-speaking feature film

Cast: Marthe Keller, Felipe Castro, Stephanie Günther, Joël Demarty

Having deliberately lost sight of each other because they do not get along, Sam and his sister Caroline must now deal with their mother's sudden death. All through the night before the funeral, the two seek together a way of coming to terms with their sorrow and resolving their longstanding and bitter differences in the face of this tragedy. Because they are young and still have a whole lifetime ahead...