Recommended World Cinema
If you expect out of cinema not just a technological extravaganza, but something more than superficial, something real, inartificial, closer, sensitizing and lingering, then this list is for you.
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- DirectorJie LiuStarsBaotian LiYaning YangYulai LüThe film follows three characters on a tour of the remote Yunman province of China where they travel with a horse to deal with legal disputes in mountain villages.Judge Feng is an old, humane judge, settling small disputes through his ‘mobile courthouse’ on the horseback to isolated mountain communities in the forlorn minority hamlets of the Yunnan Mountains in the far southwest of China. Although a representative of an autocracy, Judge Feng is greatly liked by the inhabitants of the mountain hamlets.
A change in government policy is forcing "Auntie" Yang, a lifelong assistant to the Judge into retirement. On "Auntie" Yang's final trip, they are accompanied by her replacement, recent law school graduate Ah-Luo. He has yet to realize that in these tiny hamlets, the government's representatives must often bend the letter of the law to honour more deeply entrenched village codes and customs. - DirectorYang ZhangStarsJiayi DuZheng FangBing HeA young wealthy businessman's icy attitude toward his working-class background is about to thaw as he is forced to reconnect with his elderly father and mentally challenged younger brother, who together run a public bathhouse.Contrasting yuppie ambition with family ties and tradition, it's the story of a wealthy businessman who pays an overdue visit to his father and mentally disabled younger brother.
Dad, humble but pure, runs a crumbling bathhouse that caters to an all-male clientele of geezers, misfits and crooks on the lam. A refuge from progress, an oasis in rapidly changing Beijing, the bathhouse is about to fall victim to urban renewal. Is it older son's job to rescue Dad and brother from their myopic delusions? Or can Dad and younger brother save Big Shot -- and the bathhouse -- with wisdom and humanity? - DirectorBertrand TavernierStarsPhilippe TorretonMaria PitarresiNadia KaciA teacher from a small, depressed town is trying to do something useful.
- DirectorOgnjen SvilicicStarsEmir HadzihafizbegovicArmin OmerovicJens MünchowIbro takes his son Armin from their small Bosnian village to Croatia to audition for a German film about the Balkan conflict.
- DirectorSemih KaplanogluStarsBora AltasErdal BesikçiogluTülin ÖzenThe quiet life of a boy and his family is endangered when his father does not return home from his work collecting honey in the forest.
- DirectorYang LiStarsYixiang LiBaoqiang WangShuangbao WangTwo coal miners and conmen looking for their next murder victim decide on a naïve country boy desperately looking for a job.
- DirectorYôjirô TakitaStarsMasahiro MotokiRyôko HirosueTsutomu YamazakiSoon after buying an expensive cello, Daigo learns that his orchestra is disbanding. He moves back to his hometown with his wife, where he answers an ad for what Daigo thinks is a travel agency but is, in actuality, a mortuary.
- DirectorMiwa NishikawaStarsTsurube ShôfukuteiEita NagayamaTeruyuki KagawaA young medical intern student is dismayed when he is assigned to work in a remote countryside village.
- DirectorEran RiklisStarsHiam AbbassMakram KhouryClara KhouryIn Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona is engaged to get married with Tallel, a television comedian that works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed is a political activist pro-Syria that is on probation by the Israeli government. His older son Hatten married a Russian woman eight years ago and was banished from Majdal Shams by the religious leaders and his father. His brother Marwan is a wolf trader that lives in Italy. His sister Amal has two teenager daughters and has the intention to join the university, but her marriage with Amin is in crisis. When the family gathers for Mona's wedding, an insane bureaucracy jeopardizes the ceremony.
- DirectorIdrissa OuedraogoStarsFatimata SangaNoufou OuédraogoRoukietou BarryA small village in Burkina Faso. The story focuses on Bila, a ten year old boy who befriends an old woman, Sana. Everybody calls her 'Witch' but Bila himself calls her 'Yaaba' (grandmother). When Bila's cousin Nopoko gets sick it is Sana's medicine who saves her.
- DirectorJean BeckerStarsDaniel AuteuilJean-Pierre DarroussinFanny CottençonA successful artist, weary of Parisian life and on the verge of divorce, returns to the country to live in his childhood house. He needs someone to make a real vegetable garden again out of the wilderness it has become. The gardener happens to be a former schoolfriend. A warm, fruitful conversation starts between the two men...
- DirectorEran KolirinStarsSasson GabayRonit ElkabetzSaleh BakriA band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town.
- DirectorEran RiklisStarsHiam AbbassRona Lipaz-MichaelAli SulimanThe story of a Palestinian widow who must defend her lemontree field when a new Israeli Defense Minister moves next to her and threatens to have her lemon grove torn down.
- DirectorJulie BertuccelliStarsEsther GorintinNino KhomasuridzeDinara DrukarovaThe one joy in the lives of a mother and daughter comes from the regular letters sent to them from Paris from the family's adored son, Otar. When the daughter finds out that Otar has died suddenly, she tries to conceal the truth from her mother, changing the course of their lives forever.
- DirectorJamshed UsmonovStarsUktamoi MiyasarovaMaruf PulodzodaKova TilavpurSet in the Tadjik village of Asht, this film draws on the Muslim notion that we are born with an angel on each shoulder, and that the angel on the right records the good that we do throughout our lives, and the angel on the left the bad. A man who has served ten years in a Moscow prison is summoned home upon release, to help settle the affairs of his dying mother, but it is soon borne into him that he must settle his own outstanding affairs with the villagers. The nine year old son he never knew about is entrusted by the dying mother with the family heirloom jewellery, tasked with only passing it on to his father if he becomes a good man.Hamro is an unrepentant prodigal son straight out of a Russian jail returns to his hometown, Asht, to visit his dying mother, Halima. But his debts in his hometown are many and long overdue, the townspeople are tough as nails, and he soon gets more than he expected from the quiet village.
The title derives from an Islamic legend, which talks of an invisible angel standing on each of our shoulders. That on the right witness our good deeds and thoughts, that on the left our bad ones. Upon death the Scales of Justice are weighed with the angels' host being sent to Heaven or Hell. Yet the director refuses to paint his characters in black and white terms, according a sense of mystery to the motivations and actions of mother and son.
Filming in his own village, and using his close relatives in key acting roles, the director constructs a revealing portrait of an impoverished community, still recovering from the effects of civil war. Many of the pleasures here are in the details and rituals of everyday life: the vigorous handshakes when doing business, the techniques of the local estate agent, the way somebody books the time of their passage into the next life. - DirectorChuan LuStarsDuobujieLei ZhangDao QiA moving true story about volunteers protecting antelope against poachers in the severe mountains of Tibet.Kekexili, the largest animal reserve in China, is home to many rare species, including the Tibetan antelope. Prized for its skin that is used in making luxurious, albeit illegal, shahtoosh scarves, the antelope’s numbers have been dwindling drastically in the past 20 years as poachers slaughter the animals, often hundreds at a time. In the 1990s local Tibetans formed a volunteer patrol to try to stop the illegal poaching—sometimes at the cost of their own lives. The film chronicles the life-and-death struggle between these volunteers and the poachers, and takes place in the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) high Kekexili on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
A journalist from Beijing ventures to this far country to spend some time living with the mountain patrol. He meets their legendary leader, Ri Tai. The leader is a man of few words, a man consumed by his mission. and he and his consider themselves the hand of justice. We are also left with wonder about what drew these desperate men to this desolate place for their thankless struggle. The film is based on a true story is filmed on the actual locations - DirectorCristian MungiuStarsAnamaria MarincaLaura VasiliuVlad IvanovA woman assists her friend in arranging an illegal abortion in 1980s Romania.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsMaksim MunzukYuriy SolominMikhail BychkovThe Russian army sends an explorer on an expedition to the snowy Siberian wilderness where he makes friends with a seasoned local hunter.
- DirectorEric ValliMichel DebatsStarsThilen LhondupGurgon KyapLhakpa TsamchoeAn aging chief's last stand, lessons for the new, and the education of a young chief-to-be played against harsh Nature in Nepal's Dolpo. When his son dies returning from Tibet's salt lakes, Tinle blames Karma, his son's friend, refuses to give Karma his blessing as the new chief, and organizes a rival caravan to take the salt to lower Nepal to trade for grain. He, a few old men, his son's widow, his grandson, and his second son, a monk, set out on the arduous journey. Fearing storms, Karma has led his caravan out of the village before the auspicious day ordained by the lamas. Tinle's group catches Karma's before the final pass; the two stubborn men lock wills with Tinle's grandson watching.
- DirectorKhyentse NorbuStarsOrgyen TobgyalNeten ChoklingJamyang LodroWhile the football World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery/boarding school in exile in India. Its atmosphere of serene contemplation is somewhat disrupted by soccer fever, the chief instigator being a young student, the soccer enthusiast Orgyen. Prevented by various circumstances from seeing the Cup finals on television in a nearby village, Orgyen sets out to organize the rental of a TV set for the monastery. The enterprise becomes a test of solidarity, resourcefulness and friendship for the students, while the Lama, head of the monastery, contemplates the challenges of teaching the word of Buddha in a rapidly changing world.
- DirectorAndrzej JakimowskiStarsDamian UlEwelina WalendziakTomasz SaprykSix-year-old Stefek challenges fate. He believes that setting a chain of events in motion will help him get closer to his father who left his mother. His sister helps him bribe fate with small sacrifices. Tricks and coincidences bring his father back but things go wrong and Stefek tries a very risky trick...
- DirectorMichael RadfordMassimo TroisiStarsMassimo TroisiPhilippe NoiretMaria Grazia CucinottaA simple Italian postman learns to love poetry while delivering mail to a famous poet, and then uses this to woo local beauty Beatrice.
- DirectorPaula HernándezStarsErnesto AlterioValeria BertuccelliMatias UmpierrezBuenos Aires. It rains. Alma is in her car, stuck in Buenos Aires' traffic. She has recently broken-up with her boyfriend, and she has been living in her little car since then. Suddenly, Roberto gets into the car. He's wet and hurt, he's tired of the rain, of broken dreams. He has come back after thirty years abroad. In this new city he has nothing and nobody, just a father in coma, whom he has no relationship. He promises to leave the car as soon as the rain ceases. Alma, not knowing exactly why lets him in. That night will be different. And the next few days too. There's something new to find in the depth of their hearts.
- DirectorMajid MajidiStarsHossein AbediniZahra BahramiHossein RahimiIn a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.
- DirectorYesim UstaogluStarsNazmi KirikNewroz BazMizgin KapazanMehmet, a young Turkish man newly migrated from the village Tire, takes a job searching for water leaks below the surface of the streets of Istanbul. Due to a strange set of events, he is mistaken for a Kurd, imprisoned, and brutally beaten.