In the 2010s, cinema opens up. More personal, more global, more daring. New creators rise and small films find big audiences.

Normal

Toying with the boundaries of atmospheric horror, Shults and his brilliant director of photography create a world of immersive imagery; a world in which true fear originates from within and not from the outside.

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Imagine the end of the world. Now imagine something even worse. Skillful director Trey Edward Schults returns with a psychological thriller that follows a young boy in the wake of an unspeakable disaster.

It Comes at Night

The Balkans, who hear stories from the West about gender equality and laugh, are pouncing militantly on the blasphemous Petrunya, who is deemed a scandalous heretic by local tradition. Excellent satire with more than 30 awards internationally and the LUX Prize of the European Parliament.

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In a small town, the consecration of water is one of the most important moments for the community and, against tradition, an unemployed single woman dives into the water and takes up the cross. Furious at being left empty-handed, the men accuse her of disrespect.

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Prize of the Ecumenical Jury | Berlin Film Festival | 2019
European Audience Award | LUX Prize | 2019

God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya

The French Revolution comes to life in an epic production, impressive both in its scale and its intention, that captures the explosive climate of the era. With an undoubtedly exquisite cast that includes Adèle Haenel, Gaspard Ulliel, Denis Lavant and Louis Garrel.

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Paris, 1789. “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” and the takeover of the Bastille change Europe forever. However, while the French Revolution writes history, a young girl who works as laundress and a wondering man with no identity or family, find love in the streets of a city in turmoil.

One Nation, One King

Liu Jian, a painter who took his art a little further, now introduces himself as a pioneer of independent Chinese animation and delivers an extraordinary postmodern noir that, behind its basic plot, reveals a set of inventive symbolisms about his country’s image.

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A suitcase full of money in a southern Chinese city will complicate the lives of strangers with different goals and motives and start a merry-go-round of unexpected events, drawing them into a bloody conflict.

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Official Selection | Berlin International Film Festival | 2017

Have a Nice Day

The director of "Serial Bad Weddings" welcomes those who want to see a hilarious French comedy with a social conscience, which criticizes and, at the same time, plays around with stereotypes about social classes and philanthropy.

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A well-known intellectual leftist advocates the need to offer asylum to those who need it. When the host of a TV show corners him about the existing Roma Gypsy problem, he takes on a challenge: to open his house and play host to a Roma family.

With Open Arms

Τhe centenarian tree and its value and symbolism in a time where everything can be bought, make for an optimistic film, written by Paul Laverty, Ken Loach's long-time screenwriter. It's full of feelings and misunderstandings, the stereotypical cornerstones of the Mediterranean temperament.

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A 20-year-old girl lives in a Spanish village. She has a special fondness for her grandfather, even though he stopped speaking years ago. When he refuses to eat, she believes the only way to help him is to bring back the olive tree his family ripped from the soil and sold 12 years ago. Without a plan or money, she convinces relatives and friends to follow her in her quest for the olive tree that belonged to her family for more than 2 millennia.

Olive Tree

An exemplary biopic about the younger years of Marx, Engels and Jenny Marx. Ethics, philosophy and a journey through 19th century Europe, in a marvellous film by Raoul Peck (Oscar nominee for the documentary "I'm Not Your Negro").

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The 26-year-old Karl Marx, exiled from Germany, leaves with his wife, Jenny. In Paris in 1844, they meet Friedrich Engels, the son of a factory manager who has studied the origins of the proletariat in England. Together against censorship, police raids and political upheavals, they contribute to the birth of the labour movement, a movement that evolved into the most complete and seismic academic and political transformation of the western world after the Renaissance.

The Young Karl Marx

How a dinner can turn into a war of words or a war of classes. Salma Hayek versus John Lithgow ("The Crown") in a recital of performances in Miguel Arteta's delightful black comedy, director of the series "Six Feet Under" and "American Horror Story".

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Beatrice is a hollistic medicine practitioner in Los Angeles who drives to the seaside mansion of one of her clients. When her old Volkswagen breaks down, she receives a friendly invitation from Cathy, the client, to stay for a seemingly innocent business dinner. As guests arrive and wine begins to flow plentifully, Beatrice suddenly finds herself at the centre of a verbal war with a ruthless real estate agent who cares more about money than people.

Beatriz at Dinner

Audience darling Dany Boon never disappoints when you expect a movie that will make you laugh your heart out. Pathological penny-pinching, a condition that lends itself to comedy, is what this openhearted film is about, and Boon is free to make the most (fun) of it.

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A man in his 40s is terribly stingy. Any type of spending makes him panic and his savings are the meaning of his life. The equilibrium of his frugal routine is completely overthrown when he falls in love with a charming woman and also meets his own daughter, whose existence he knew nothing about. Francois decides to hide his obsession with money from the two women and that's when it all turns really funny.

Penny Pincher!

Live every day like it is your last, as people say. But what does that mean for Claire Darling? An outstanding portrait of a deeply flawed, compelling heroine, featuring Catherine Deneuve in one of her greatest contemporary performances, set in the beautiful French countryside.

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In a small village in Northern France, on the first day of summer, Claire Darling wakes up determined to live her final day. She decides to empty out her house as each object resonates something from her tragic, yet passionate life. Until the return of Mary, her daughter whom she has not seen in 20 years.

Claire Darling

Oscar winner Sean Baker's fifth feature film was shot entirely on iPhone 5s, thrilled Sundance and Athens Film Festival, and cemented the director's name as one of the great hopes of independent American cinema with its emotional generosity.

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On Christmas Eve, Sin-Di, a transsexual who has just gotten out of prison, meets her best friend. The latter tells her about the rumor going around that while she was incarcerated, her boyfriend and pimp was cheating on her. Determined not to let the betrayal go unanswered, Sin-Dee will drag her friend through the streets of Los Angeles in search of the man who cheated on her and broke her heart.

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Official Selection - Nest | Sundance Film Festival | 2015
Official Selection - International Competition | London Film Festival | 2015
Independent Camera Award | Karlovy Vary Film Festival | 2015
Best Supporting Actress (Mya Taylor) | Film Independent Spirit Awards | 2016

Tangerine

Harmony Corinne's explosive film that pulled Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens away from their Disney roots and sparked conversation like few others in the past decade with its wild mix of Florida parties, gangsters, Britney Spears songs and The Scarface.

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Four young girls set their sights on Florida for spring break. Quickly, fun collides with illegality, they crash parties and fall in with dangerous mobsters as their trip spirals into the wildest, most reckless extracurricular adventure of their lives.

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Official Selection - Main Competition | Venice Film Festival | 2012

Spring Breakers

"If you want to win the lottery you have to make the money to buy a ticket" says Jake Gyllenhaal, who is prepared to do anything for his lottery ticket. Atmospheric, paranoid thriller about the world of media, nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor and an Oscar for Original Screenplay.

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Louis Bloom is desperately looking for work, until he discovers the underground and ephemeral world of police reporting in Los Angeles. He will work with a TV crew and meet Nina, a veteran of the "sport", who will help him experience success. Frantically searching for hot news that will skyrocket the ratings, he turns into a morally questionable journalist who will do anything for a scoop.

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Nomination for Best Original Screenplay | Oscars | 2015

Nightcrawler

The first film of the important trilogy "Odes to Existence" by Stavros Psyllakis. Starting from childhood and youth memories, experiences and concerns, we follow the author's titanic existential struggle, in a highly penetrating portrait that escapes the narrow biographical boundaries.

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Giorgos Maniatis (1939-2018), legionnaire in Algeria at the age of 18, writer and musician afterwards, defines himself as a "public danger". The film seeks the adventure of his soul, a consciousness on constant alert, incendiary and self-immolating.

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Second Best Film | Chalkida Greek Documentary Film Festival | 2019

FOR NO REASONS meetings with Yorgos Maniatis

German Christian Petzold ("Barbara", "Phoenix") turns one of the most important German anti-Nazism books into a (dis)achronistic dystopian allegory for resistance to (any) fascism.

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While Europe is affected by war, a wanted man is in possession of the last manuscripts of a dead writer. One of them is a letter from his wife asking him to meet her again in Marseille and the other from the Consulate of Mexico offering him a visa and travel documents to leave.

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Official Selection | Berlin International Film Festival | 2018
Best Film | Dublin International Film Festival | 2019

Transit

The holder of two Foreign-Language Oscars, Asghar Farhadi, travels to Spain to portray, in a new cultural context, his reflection on the moral dilemmas within a family circle, with the help of the excellent triad of Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Ricardo Darin.

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A 40-year-old woman arrives from Argentina to her father's house in Spain for her sister's wedding. During the reception however, her teenage daughter will be kidnapped. An agonizing search begins and family secrets and uncomfortable truths will come to light.

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Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 2018

Everybody Knows

A story full of secrets and lies both on an individual and collective level from the beloved Argentinian, Pablo Trapero ("The Clan" and "
"White Elephant"), that flirts with the genres of both melodrama and psychological thriller and enchants the viewer.

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Prompted by her father's illness, a woman returns to her family's mansion near Buenos Aires but the reunion with her mother and sister will lead to the revelation of the dark secrets of their common past during the military dictatorship.

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Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 2018

The Quietude

Best-selling author, psychoanalyst Irvin Yalom takes his own turn on the couch for the purposes of a fascinating documentary. Lessons of concentrated wisdom, prompted by the most important milestones of his life, his relationships with his loved ones and the constant challenges of his profession.

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"Yalom’s cure" is so much more than a typical documentary about someone’s life. It's a wonderful existential journey through the workings and complexities of the human mind. Our co-traveller is the famous psychiatrist, his essential ideas and his wisdom.

Yalom's Cure

Zacharias Mavroeidis manages to look the Greek historical past in the face and open-heartedly, without didacticism, with a modern and refreshing gaze. Audience Award at the Thessaloniki Festival and two unforgettably moving performances by Michalis Sarantis and Thanasis Papageorgiou.

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Aris, a thirty-year-old businessman on the verge of bankruptcy, moves into the house of his late grandfather, Aristides, who was a retired Greek Army officer. He soon reunites with childhood friends and a former colleague of Aristides. Trying to live up to his name, Aris gradually takes on the role of his grandfather.

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Audience Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2019
Youth Jury Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2019
Best Screenplay | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2020

Defunct

Bold, innovative, ambitious, impossible to classify. Athina Tsangari’s prize-winning film (Venice Best Actress Award for Ariane Labed) takes Greek cinema another step further, with this peculiar coming-of-age allegory for awakening sexuality, friendship and loss.

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A young girl grows up with her architect father in a small seaside town. The human race repels her. She observes it tenuously, through the lyrics of Suicide, Sir David Attenborough’s documentaries about mammals and the sex ed lessons taught by her only friend. A stranger arrives in town and challenges her to a duel on foosball, while her father prepares his ritualistic departure from the 20th century.

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Special Jury Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2010
Lina Mangiacapre Award | Venice Film Festival | 2010
Best Actress (Ariane Labed) | Venice Film Festival | 2010

Attenberg

This is the kind of film everyone needs to watch, urgently. Francois Ozon’s detailed story, seen through a perceptive, sober lens, handles true information about pedophilia in the Catholic Church and raises questions of faith and morality.

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A man lives in Lyon with his wife and children. One day he learns by chance that the priest who molested him when he was a boy still works with children. He decides to take action, along with two other victims of the priest. The three of them unite to "lift the veil of silence" around their suffering, but the consequences will be grave for everyone.

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Grand Jury Prize | Berlin International Film Festival | 2019
FIPRESCI Prize | Stockholm Film Festival | 2019

By the Grace of God

Can you really hide from children? They know everything, anyhow. Catherine Deneuve stars in a delightful comedy from Belgium about the value of understanding that you always have a place in society.

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Wael makes a living off of petty crime with his adoptive mother and partner-in-crime, Monique. When this unconventional duo swindles the wrong guy, they have no choice but to become his interim secretary and educator in order to redeem themselves. Facing six willful kids determined to spoil all his efforts, Wael's own personal story and inventive tricks become the key to gaining their trust - and he soon realizes that he too is given a chance to heal his past and find his place in society.

Bad Seeds

Operating in a similarly detached universe as the one of "Dogtooth", Yiorgos Lanthimos adds a bit more pop, to create a mind game with intertextual references and painful truths about dealing with death, and about fortifying oneself behind all sorts of roles.

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A nurse, a paramedic, a gymnastics athlete and her coach have formed a team. They are hired by friends and relatives of dead people, in order to "replace" them. The team is called the Alps and the paramedic is the leader. The members of the group are obliged to operate according to a set of rules that he has created, but the nurse doesn’t cooperate.

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Best Screenplay | Venice Film Festival | 2011
Sydney Film Prize | Sydney Film Festival | 2012
Special Mention | Sofia International Film Festival | 2012

Alps

The impressive alt-history psychoanalytic sci-fi thriller by The Boy imagines Greece’s modern political history in a different way: Through a handmade, crimson universe, somewhere between giallo, erotica and sci-fi, starring Sofia Kokkali in a jaw-dropping one-woman show.

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Niki's devotion to the resistance gives away her inability to respond as a mother. Lefteris, Niki’s son, inherits a past that he himself never dreamed of. Until one day, the thread that connects them, an invisible psychological umbilical cord, is severed. The Mother's struggle for her political beliefs is transformed into psychological chains that imprison the Son, who must ultimately fight for his own freedom and seek his own redemption.

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Iris Award for Best Leading Actress | Hellenic Film Academy | 2017

Thread

The great Ricardo Darin stars in this rousing story of workers' solidarity and collective revenge, which thanks to its endearing characters and witty humour reminds us that when institutions fail us, we have only each other.

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Retired soccer star Fermín seeks to convert some abandoned grain silos into a viable storage facility. He convinces friends to invest in the cooperative, but is railroaded by a conniving bank manager into placing their cash into a savings account just as the banks are about to be frozen by the Argentinian government, rendering their money useless and their plans quashed.

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Best Latin American Film | Goya Awards | 2020
Official Selection - International Competition | San Sebastian Film Festival | 2019