Sunny Land

2010

Applying an experimentalist's eye to the documentary format, German filmmakers Marietta Kesting and Aljoscha Weskott revisit a bizarre chapter in South African history: an apartheid-era casino complex that was open to people of all races. The film blends archival footage with recently shot re-enactments culled from visitors' vivid memories, resulting in a tone that's closer to ridiculous than reverent.

2.8 Average Rating

Crazy Love

1987

Based on sordid tales (are there any other kind?) from Charles Bukowski's &NFi;Love Is a Dog from Hell&NFi_;, this movie deconstructs three crucial nights over the course of 20 years in the life of bumbling antihero Harry Voss as he runs the gamut from love to defeat. In turn, Voss also progresses from childhood to acne-scared teen to alcoholic adult. A nice blend of pathos and black comedy, Crazy Love will probably offend sensitive viewers!

2.8 Average Rating

Sur

2002

Actor-singer Lucky Ali plays Vikramaditya Singh, a charismatic music teacher in a school that attracts young, talented and ambitious musicians who need just the kind of mentoring a gifted teacher can provide. Vikramaditya himself is a renowned singer and has an eagle eye peeled for that one gifted student who stands head and shoulders above the rest -- someone whose talent will surpass even his.

2.8 Average Rating

Adoption

1975

Bestowed the Grand Prize at the 1975 Berlin Film Festival, Márta Mészáros's masterpiece brings together two souls from diametrically opposed points of life: 43-year-old Kata (Katalin Berek), who longs to indulge her maternal longings, and Anna (Gyöngyvér Vigh), a hard-bitten teenager who lives in a shelter and is suspicious of everyone, even those who seem to have nothing more to offer than love. Can the two find common ground?

2.8 Average Rating

El Alquimista Impaciente

2002

When a nuclear power-plant worker turns up dead, it's up to an intrepid pair of detectives from the Spanish Guardia Civil (Ingrid Rubio and Roberto Enriquez) to figure out why someone would want to kill him. But with an "average Joe" victim and no apparent motive to advance their investigation, they've got their work cut out for them. Patricia Ferreira directs this taut mystery-thriller, adapted from the novel by Lorenzo Silva.

2.8 Average Rating

The Color of Olives

2006

Life is anything but ordinary for Palestinian Hani Amer and his family, whose home lies in the path of a long wall being built by Israel to keep suicide bombers out of the country. Armed militia, an electrified fence and locked gates now separate the Amers from their farm, providing a reminder that an age-old battle is clearly not over. Filmmaker Carolina Rivas' pensive documentary relies on natural light to lend peace to a war-torn environment.

2.8 Average Rating

First of All, Felicia

2009

Attempting to return home from a trip to Romania, Felicia (Ozana Oancea) is forced to confront her dysfunctional family relationships and the current state of her life when her flighty sister neglects to show up and drive her to the airport. Filmmakers Melissa de Raaf and Razvan Radulescu set out to show how the simplest gestures -- good or bad -- can have a profound effect on our lives. Ileana Cernat and Vasile Mentzel co-star as Felicia's parents.

2.8 Average Rating

The Blonds

2003

When Argentine director Albertina Carri was just 4 years old, her parents were kidnapped and murdered by the ruling junta on the suspicion that her family members were leftists. In a supreme and heroic act of catharsis, Carri trains her lens on that difficult period in her life and tries to come to terms with the tragedy through this eye-opening documentary.

2.8 Average Rating

Siao Yu

1995

To help her boyfriend, Gang Wei (Chung Hua Tou ), achieve American citizenship, Siao Yu (Rene Liu) moves from China to New York, where she enters into a bogus marriage with an aging Italian named Mario (Daniel Travanti) who used to be a journalist but now spends most of his time gambling. But when Mario's wife (Marj Dusay) -- who left him years ago -- suddenly returns, the oddly matched foursome develops a strangely familiar relationship.

2.8 Average Rating

Goddess of Mercy

2004

Director Ann Hui's film, which opened the 2004 Hong Kong International Film Festival, follows the travails of An Xin (Vicki Zhao), a woman whose work life may be under control, but whose love life is in a shambles. And no wonder: She's juggling two men -- a drug kingpin she meets through work (Nicholas Tse) and her reformed playboy fiancée (Liu Yunlong). Plus, An Xin still hasn't gotten over the death of her husband, Tienjun (Chen Jiabin).

2.8 Average Rating

1:1

2006

When young white xenophobe Per (Jonas Busekist) falls victim to a savage beating in a rough-and-tumble Copenhagen suburb, the lad's sister (Joy K. Petersen) begins to suspect that her Muslim immigrant boyfriend may know who battered her brother into a coma. As Per's life hangs in the balance, the family and neighborhood are plunged into a cauldron of suspicion and hostility. Annette K. Olesen directs this drama that co-stars Mohammed Al-Bakier.

2.8 Average Rating

Ecoute le Temps

2007

An unsettling atmosphere pervades in this French thriller about a sound engineer who uses the tools of her trade to investigate her mother's murder when the local police appear to be making little headway. Traveling to her mother's country home to learn more about her life, Charlotte (Émilie Dequenne) begins using her sound equipment to record events and soon realizes that her tapes are capturing sounds from the past as well as the present.

2.8 Average Rating

Pardon My French

2009

While staying at her mother's (Dominique Valadie) place, eccentric author Célimène (Chiara Mastroianni) wages a losing battle against writer's block, struggles to get her life back on track and forms an unexpected bond with an overeager teenage girl (Agathe Bonitzer) who wants to be in her next book. Written and directed by Sophie Fillières, this quirky French comedy co-stars Mateo Julio Cedron as Célimène's young son.

2.8 Average Rating

C'est le Bouquet

2004

A simple phone call creates a series of misunderstandings for two lovers in Jeanne Labrune's fast-paced romantic comedy. After a friend calls to inquire about some real estate, Catherine (Sandrine Kiberlain) argues with Raphael (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), who then suffers a crisis and loses his job. Nosy neighbors, wayward bouquets and angry playwrights cause further complications, until at last the couple meet at a restaurant to sort things out.

2.8 Average Rating

New York Memories

2010

In this filmic memoir, German director Rosa von Praunheim returns to New York, a city he knew and loved in the woolly 1970s, to see what he might find and also to check in on the colorful protagonists of his 1989 documentary, Überleben in New York. Both a personal journey and a historical survey, New York Memories captures a transformed city by charting the shifting course of gay life, from Warhol Factory figures to the AIDS ravaged, within it.

2.8 Average Rating

Wall

2004

By asking simple questions of those affected by the construction of a concrete wall between Israelis and Palestinians, filmmaker Simone Bitton allows the people to speak for themselves. The result is a portrait of the Palestinian inhabitants, the Israeli settlers and the officials who are fencing them in -- a thoughtful documentary that explores the sweeping emotions behind one of the most enduring struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries.

2.8 Average Rating