A young girl, Jadzia, is sentenced to death for the murder of her child. Shocked by her fate, lawyer Krystyna decides to defend her in the court of second instance. She learns the story of a girl who was seduced by a strange man during a trip. Jadzia is acquitted and tries to start her life anew, but fate is preparing another fatal surprise for her.
This surreal, allegorical short film by Agustí Villaronga follows a young woman by the sea who encounters a mysterious red creature that reveals hidden secrets of the ocean. The encounter transforms her, granting uncanny, almost sorcerous powers. Drawing on Christian symbolism and pagan ritual, the film unfolds as a dreamlike meditation on feminine transformation and elemental forces, heightened by Carl Orff’s music.
In 19th-century Vienna, composer Franz Schubert struggles with poverty and unfulfilled ambitions while finding solace in music and friendship. His bond with a devoted pupil brings warmth and inspiration, though his personal life remains marked by sacrifice and melancholy. The film blends melodrama with musical interludes, offering a romanticized portrait of Schubert’s final years.
“Mutzmag” is an Appalachian variant of a Scottish tale, “Molly Whuppy,” brought to the United States by early immigrants. It is set in the Appalachian baclcwoods, circa 1920. Mutzmag is a 12-year-old girl who lives with her mother and her two abusive half-sisters, Poll and Nance, in a tumble-down shack on the edge of a cabbage patch. After their mother dies, the girls decide to leave the mountain shack and “seek their fortunes” in the city. On the way they encounter a witch and a simple-minded, but brutal giant who plot to kill and eat the girls.
A portrait of Arthur “Peg Leg Sam” Jackson –black harmonica player, singer, and comedian who made his living “busking” on the street and performing in patent-medicine shows touring southern towns. Footage includes excerpts from one of his last medicine shows, videotaped at a county fair in 1972, and material filmed near his home in South Carolina in 1975.
Paul, an irritable and stressed-out hotel manager, begins to gradually develop paranoid delusions about his wife’s infidelity. As he succumbs to green-eyed jealousy, his life starts to crumble. Each step on his downward spiral to madness seems to accelerate, driving him further along the path to a personal hell. Finally, the former shell of his personality cracks completely, with tragic consequences.
A serial killer uses a horror video rental to lure his next victim. What begins as a teen slasher transforms into a disturbing journey through the mind of Max Parry, a mild mannered wedding photographer with a taste for human flesh.
Evoking mixed marriages and their difficulties, the author depicts the journey of a young black husband, an elegant dandy, who has come to Paris to find his young white wife and their little daughter. This social satire is the feature-length directorial debut of Désiré Ecaré, originally from Côte d’Ivoire.
