All Recommendations
The Dance of Reality
“Having broken away from my illusory self, I was desperately seeking a path and a meaning to life.” This phrase perfectly sums up Alejandro Jodorowsky’s biographical project: reconstituting the incredible adventure of his life. Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in 1929 in Tocopilla, a coastal town on edge of the Chilean desert, where this film was shot. It was there where he discovered the fundamentals of reality, as he underwent an unhappy and alienated childhood as part of an uprooted family.
The Holy Mountain
The Alchemist assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept's intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.
Illumination
Krzysztof Zanussi's groundbreaking film chronicles a decade in the life of a young physics student whose absolute faith in the primacy of rationality and science is shaken by tragedy and affairs of the heart.
Downhill Racer
An ambitious young skier, determined to break all existing records, is contemptuous of the teamwork advocated by the US coach when they go to Europe for the Olympics.
The White Balloon
Several people try to take advantage of a little girl's innocence to hustle money her mom gave to her to buy a goldfish with.
A Virgin Among the Living Dead
A girl arrives from London to visit her estranged relatives in a remote castle for the reading of her father's will. After a while she discovers that they are all in fact dead and her decision to live with them turns into a nightmare. Unable to leave she's drawn into a macabre underworld through visions of nude satanic rituals and her own impending sacrifice.
Memoirs of a French Whore
Marie is nineteen and bored in her little suburban life with no future. In a café, she meets the charismatic and beautiful Gerard. Blinded by adoration, Mary decides to leave her parents and her clerk job to live with the man she considers as the love of her life. But Gerard is a pimp, who soon forces her into prostitution. From within homes to out on the streets, the young woman gradually discovers a world of decay and violence.
The Human Vapor
A librarian is subject to a scientific experiment which goes wrong and transforms him into 'The Human Vapour'. He uses his new ability to rob banks to fund the career of his girlfriend, a beautiful dancer. The Human Vapour is ruthless in his quest for money and kills anyone who stands in his way, especially police. He soon becomes Tokyo's most wanted criminal. Can he be stopped before he kills again?
Birds Are Singing in Kigali
We meet ornithologist Anna in 1994 just as genocide is raging in Rwanda, perpetrated by the majority Hutus against the Tutsis. Anna manages to save the daughter of a colleague whose family has been murdered, and she takes her to Poland. But the woman returns to Rwanda to visit the graves of her loved ones. The director originally worked on the movie with her husband Krzysztof Krauze (My Nikifor – Crystal Globe, KVIFF 2005), but after his death in 2014 she eventually finished this challenging picture alone.
City of Fear
An escaped convict gets a hold of some radioactive material after his escape. Authorities desperately try to find the man that unknowingly is threating the lives of everyone in the city.
The Girls
Sofía, a young girl, has cancer. Her friend Antonia comes to see her and accompany her in her apartment. Sofía seems to avoid the illness, not wanting to face it, but Antonia is reluctant to let this happen. Between them a strange and ambiguous link emerges, conditioned by the weight of the situation they are facing. However, Sofía hides a secret. When Antonia reveals it, as harsh as it seems, things won't be settled.
Endless Poetry
A portrait of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s young adulthood, set in the 1940s and 50s, in the electric capital city of Santiago. There, he decides to become a poet and is introduced, by destiny, into the foremost bohemian and artistic circle of the time.
Good Vibrations
The story of music legend Terri Hooley, a key figure in Belfast's punk rock scene. Hooley founded the Good Vibrations store from which a record label sprung, representing bands such as The Undertones, Rudi and The Outcasts.
As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Bats
Genetically mutated bats escape and it's up to a bat expert and the local sheriff to stop them.
Love and Anarchy
Set in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of World War II, the story centers on Tunin, a farmer turned anarchist who stays in a brothel while preparing to kill Benito Mussolini.
The Patience Stone
In a war-ridden country, a woman watches over her husband, comatose from a bullet in the neck and abandoned by Jihad companions and brothers. One day, the woman decides to say things to him she could never have done before.
Pickpocket
A small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.
Santa Sangre
A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his mother – the leader of a strange religious cult – and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name.
La Terra Trema
In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.