Country:China

Director:Zhang Yimou

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

China, Later Tang Dynasty, 10th Century. The Empress and Crown Prince Wan, her stepson, have an illicit liaison. Feeling trapped, Prince Wan dreams of escaping the palace with his secret love Chan, the Imperial Doctor's daughter. Prince Jai, the faithful son, grows worried over the Empress's health and her obsession with golden chrysanthemums. Could she be headed down an ominous path? When the Emperor senses a looming threat, he relocates the doctor's family from the Palace to a remote area. While they are en route, mysterious assassins attack them. Who is behind this brutal rebellion?

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Country:Thailand

Director:Apichatpong Weerasthakul

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

This ‘story’ involves two doctors - a woman working in a rural clinic and a man working in a big-city hospital - and their various encounters with patients, lovers and colleagues. Often, a scene is enacted a second time, in an entirely different setting and from an opposing angle creating confusion on the part of the viewer. But it is style, rather than plot, that is of primary importance here. The film is comprised almost entirely of beautifully composed and rigorously sustained medium and long shots, with few close-ups, very little camera movement and only minimal editing within scenes.

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Country:Netherlands

Director:Jacqueline van Vugt

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

Ami Diarra sees it as her mission to educate the residents of a mining town on Aids and organizes an informal meeting on the disease. Because of her respected position as a griot- a West African musician considered to be protector and narrator of the oral tradition and history –she succeeds in reaching many people. Unfortunately, the authorities will not take her seriously, as we witness when she asks the local health centre to support her campaign. Apparently they will only work with NGOs.

Country:Netherlands

Director:Femke and Ilse Van Velzen

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

During the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s seven year war, more then 80.000 women and girls were raped. Fighting the Silence tells the story of ordinary women and men struggling to change their society: one that prefers to blame victims rather than prosecute rapists. Survivors tell of the brutality they experienced. Husbands talk of the pressures that led them to abandon their wives. A father explains why he has given up on his daughter’s future.

Country:Netherlands

Director:Mirjam Van Veelen

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

In this unusual film, several genres are mixed together. The documentary parts comprise fictional elements and the fictional parts remain close to reality. The film tells the story of a dramatic disappearance. On 15 November 1977, the Japanese school girl Megumi disappeared off the face of the earth as if by magic. Thirty years later, the family and the acquaintances of the girl are still stunned. In the meantime it has become apparent that Megumi was kidnapped by spies to North Korea with several others to teach North Korean spies to speak fluent and natural Japanese.

Country:Taiwan

Director:Tsai Ming-Liang

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

This is now a signature work for the incomparable Tsai Ming-Liang and some time has passed since it appeared but it is certainly a touching and unforgettable parallel universe which is found, most appropriately, in an aging cinema. A Japanese tourist takes refuge from a storm inside a once-popular movie theatre, a decrepit old barn of a cinema that is screening a martial arts classic, King Hu's Dragon Inn.

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Country:Mexico

Director:Guillermo del Toro

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

In 1944, in the post-Civil War in Spain, rebels still fight in the mountains against the fascist troops. The young and imaginative Ofelia travels with her pregnant and sick mother Carmen Vidal to the country to live with her stepfather, the sadistic and cruel Captain Vidal, in an old mill. During the night, Ofelia meets a fairy and together they go to a pit in the centre of a maze where they meet a faun that tells that she is a princess from a kingdom in the underground.

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Country:United Kingdom

Director:Jihan el Tahri

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

This revealing documentary adds to our understanding of the Cold War through its least known context, Africa. From 1961 to 1991, the Dark Continent was a battleground for four competing interests. The Soviet Union wanted to extend its influence into a new continent; the USA lusted after Africa's natural resources; former European empires felt their grip on the area weaken; and newly formed African nations fought to defend their recently won independence.

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Country:Belgium

Director:Olivier Smolders

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

African born Olivier Smolders, well known for his surreal short films has finally completed his first feature. This is a kind of nocturnal nightmare about doubles and about motherhood, the latter approached not from its painful, religious side but from a pagan angle, proclaiming fertility and the regeneration of the species. It follows no chronological order, but there is a guiding thread. As in our own subjectivity, associations of ideas are but grist to the mill.

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Country:United States of America

Director:Franco Sacchi

Program:Contemporary World Cinema

Summary:

This film tells the story of the Nigerian film industry—a revolution enabling Africans with few resources to tell African stories to African audiences. Despite all odds, Nigerian directors produce 2,000 movies a year. The disks sell wildly all over the continent—Nollywood actors have become stars from Ghana to Zambia. We experience the world of Nollywood through acclaimed director Bond Emeruwa's quest to make a feature-length action film in just nine days. Armed only with a digital camera, and two lights, Bond faces challenges unimaginable in Hollywood and Bollywood.

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