Production
Cuba, summer of 1994. In the midst of perĂodo especial, one of the greatest crises in the country’s history, thousands of Cuban rafters try to reach the United States illegally, never sure if they’ll make it out alive. With holidays starting, Carlos plunges into a carefree August, wandering around with his friends and falling in love for the first time. Little does he know about the country’s uncertain future, and in this hot summer, the world of Carlos will turn upside down.
In the kingdom of Letonia, the young prince Égon spends his nights playing the drums. During the day, he only has one thing on his mind: finding Sleeping Beauty in the kingdom of Kentz and breaking the spell over her. But his father, the king, doesn’t believe in fairy tales, and is completely opposed to Égon’s dream. It’s Maggie Jerkins, an archeologist from Unesco, who will provide Egon with the opportunity to follow his heart.
"Nueve Sevillas" is a heterodox psycho-geographical profile of the new flamenco in Seville. Nine characters coexist with the great flamenco artists of today.
LĂ©a lives in Le Havre, where she attends college whilst taking care of her elderly grandmother. To make ends meet, she works as a waitress in a night club. Her admittance to the Institute of Political Studies in Paris offers her new opportunities, but at a high price. LĂ©a finds work as a striptease artist, so that each evening she can put into practice the theory of economic liberalism which she learns by day...
Ali, a young Moroccan immigrant, is torn between the conservative environment of his family and his passion for the cabaret where he cross-dresses at night to become Alia.
On an island lost between two worlds, Dai, a young Chinese woman, survives alone in a cave, waiting for the baby that swells her womb day after day. Around the harbour which, every day, flurry with the arrival of hundreds of migrants, she searches tirelessly the face of the man she loves, her husband. One, night her wish is to be fulfilled
Jean is a fireman whose girl friend Albertine died of a horse accident shortly after having left him. He suffers a great pain because he had serious hopes of her coming back home. It’s a double punishment which he attempts to confess to his fellow firemen between two rescue urgencies. His grief and his doubts invade gently the fire station.
New Territories is a journey of initiation through faith and beliefs on the border between life and death. Two women poles apart, two paths: one is a living French businesswoman; the other is a Chinese textile worker. While Li Yu is preparing herself to reach Hong Kong clandestinely in search for a better life, Eve is conquering the Asian market with a new funeral rite.
Two men meet around a camera: the old man recounts a lost love to the young director. To remember this love, the old man reads his texts, one of which alludes to a place that holds special memories: Ostend. The director then summons a third man and in turn creates the pictures of a lost love, in a shift towards fiction.
Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.
A couple search for love but never quite seem to meet.
Nada is going home. Or at least she wants to. When she comes back to Lebanon, she realizes she's a foreigner in her own country. But there's still a place she calls home: an abandoned house in ruins, haunted by the presence of her grandfather who disappeared mysteriously during the civil war. Something happened in this house. Something violent. A young woman searching for the truth and discovering herself.
Antoine returns to his motherland after a very long time to attend his mother’s funeral. His daughter Marie-Ange calls him and asks for a story. He starts telling her a tale he was told as a child…
At a house party, a handsome man wanders around catching up with friends he has not seen for some years. A travel writer now based in Berlin, Andre appears to be living an exciting international life, and yet... something has drawn him back home to Santiago. As the night goes on, we realize that a tragedy binds this group - an event that was also the impetus for Andre's departure from Chile years ago. Moreover, there is someone at the party he goes to great lengths to avoid. But she is the very person he most needs to see.
In the city of Santiago, four characters struggle to reach their goals: a psychologist who wants to help other women and save their lives, a hairdresser who wants to buy a car, a musician who wants to play in a philharmonic orchestra, and a young woman who simply survives in the city, but each of them obtains something unexpected and different from what they wanted.
Every year in northern Canada, polar bears migrate to Hudson Bay to hunt seals. From October to November, while waiting for the ice pack to form, they take up residence on the outskirts of the town of Churchill. Hunted for a long time and now the stars of safaris, the bears have become a tourist attraction and therefore a considerable source of income for Churchill.
Three vignettes about the lives of young Chileans and their passions and frustrations over one of the century's most important rituals: football.
An early 20th-century sultan is introduced to the cinematograph with the help of a former operator for the Lumiere brothers.
