2018 Festival Lineup
Opening Film
LOVE SONIA, INDIA
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Inspired by real life events, Love Sonia is the story of a young girl's journey to rescue her sister from the dangerous world of international sex trafficking.
Closing Film
IN HARM’S WAY, CHINA
Synopsis: In the 1940s, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor destroyed Americans' morale. The president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, decided to risk it all to bomb Tokyo, raising the public's hopes. B25 aircraft, led by U.S lieutenant colonel Jimmy Doolittle, departed from USS Hornet aircraft carrier ahead of schedule in violently stormy seas. After completing their mission, the pilot and crew had to bail out over the coast near Zhejiang, China due to fuel shortage from taking flack to their right wing. A young pilot, Jack Turner, was saved by a young local widow named Ying, who risked her life as she hid the injured American pilot in her house and helped him escape. Despite not being able to communicate verbally, they fell for each other. She gave her life for him during the escape. He rescued her daughter and brought her safely back to the USA.
Genre: Romance
Centerpiece Film
BURNING, SOUTH KOREA
Synopsis: Deliveryman Jongsu is out on a job when he runs into Haemi, a girl who once lived in his neighbourhood. She asks if he'd mind looking after her cat while she's away on a trip to Africa. On her return, she introduces to Jongsu an enigmatic young man named Ben, who she met during her trip. One day Ben tells Jongsu about his most unusual hobby.
Genre: Drama
Official Selection
Buffalo Boys - Singapore
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: During 19th century Java, in a brutal massacre and murder of Sultan Hamza by Captain Van Trach and his Dutch soldiers, Arana, Jamar, and Suwo(the Sultan’s brother and infant sons) flee the country. They end up halfway around the world, in the American Wild West. After working the railroads and learning the cowboy way of life, Arana tells the boys it’s time to return to their homeland and avenge their father’s death.Back on Indonesian soil, the hunt for their father’s killer begins. Along the way, they meet some villagers including Kiona, the rebellious and beautiful headman’s daughter who Suwo falls for, and soon find out that the treacherous Van Trach still rules the area. Their presence puts the village in danger, quickly turning their quest for revenge into a fight for freedom. With the odds stacked against them, Arana, Jamar, and Suwo use the skills they learned from the wilds of America to face Van Trach and his army in a showdown for justice.
Butterflies -Turkey
Official Golden Globe in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: In a Turkish village, three siblings who neither know each other nor anything about their late father, wait to bury his body. As they start to find out more about their father and each other, they also start to learn more about themselves.
Cake- Pakistan
Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film.
Synopsis: A woman who takes care of her aging parents and their land is joined by her sister when their parents' health worsens.
Synopsis: Çinar is about the life struggle of a disabled child, Riza. Mustafa lives in the Sarikamis district of Kars with his wife Suna and his disabled son Riza. Mustafa, in his mid-30s, makes a living for his family by working as a chauffeur. Mustafa's biggest dream is to see his son Riza running and playing like other children.
Cinar - Turkey
The Elevator - Kazakhstan
Oscar Submission for Best International Feature Film
Synopsis: Two complete strangers are stuck in the elevator of a new, unoccupied building for 3 long days.
Heaven Without People - Lebanon
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Josephine, the matriarch of a sprawling family, is delighted to gather everyone for Easter lunch for the first time in two years. While they all share a joyful meal, an incident ignites underlying tensions between the family members and leads them gradually into chaos.
Ghost Hunting- Palestine
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Director Raed Andoni places a newspaper advertisement in Ramallah. He is looking for former inmates of the Moskobiya interrogation centre in Jerusalem. In his ad he asks that the men should also have experience as craftsmen, architects or actors. After a casting process that almost feels like role play, he arranges for a replica of the centre's interrogation rooms and cells to be built to scale inside a hall - under close supervision from the former inmates and based on their memories. In this realistic setting the men subsequently re-enact their interrogations, discuss details about the prison, and express the humiliation they experienced during their detention. Using techniques that are reminiscent of the so-called 'theatre of the oppressed' they work together to dramatise their real-life experiences. Their reconstruction brings long repressed emotions and undealt with trauma to the fore. Working on the film takes its toll on the men - both physically and mentally. The director also appears in front of the camera; not only is he creating a stage for his protagonists, he is also coming to terms with his own fragmented memories of imprisonment in Moskobiya thirty years previously.
The Great Buddha - Taiwan
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Pickle is a night security guard at a statue factory. His friend, Belly Bottom, works as a recycling collector during the day. Pickle and Belly Bottom spend time together during evening hours in the security room, having late night snacks, flicking through porn magazines and watching dashcam recordings of Pickle's boss. One day they stumble upon a secret.
Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts -France, Indonesia, Malaysia
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: In the deserted hills of an Indonesian island, Marlina, a young widow, is attacked, raped and robbed for her cattle. To defend herself, she kills several men of the gang. Seeking justice, she goes on a journey for empowerment and redemption. But the road is long, especially when the ghost of her headless victim begins to haunt her.
The Journey - France, Iraq, Netherlands, Qatar, UK
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: As Sara stands on the cusp of committing an unthinkable act, an unforeseen and awkward encounter gives her the opportunity to witness the potential consequences of her destructive action. But is this a second chance or an admission of guilt?
The Lord Eagle - Russia
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Yakutia, the 1930s. Old Mikipper and his wife Oppuos live their days in thick taiga. Cows, hunting, fishing make up the simple everyday life of the old people. Once early in the winter an eagle flies into their garden. The old people dare no drive it away because eagles are sacred.
Night Accident - Kyrgyzstan
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: An odd couple of lost souls share an uneasy friendship while riding a motorcycle on a lonely stretch of moonlit highway.
Million Loves in Me - Hong Kong, Malaysia
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: A film about power, love, delusion, confinement delivered through the not-so-ordinary relationship between a mother and daughter.
Namme- Georgia
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: "Sobibor" is based on the history of the Sobibór extermination camp uprising during WWII and Soviet officer Alexander Pechersky. When he was a POW in Sobibor, he managed to do the impossible - to organize a revolt and mass escape of the prisoners. Many of the escapees were later caught and died - the rest led by Pechersky managed to join the partisans. Script based on the book by Ilya Vasiliev: "Alexander Pechersky: Breakthrough to Immortality”.
The Road Not Taken - China
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Ali's family has inherited a mission - taking care of a local healing water and curing sick fellow villagers with it. Three sons are skeptical and only the young daughter Namme stays as the guardian of family traditions. In parallel, a hydro power station is being constructed locally and environmental changes are at stakes. One day the spring water starts to disappear. Father remembers the old tradition: the water will not return unless sacrifice is made.
The River - Kazakhstan
Golden Globe Submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Award
Synopsis: A portrait of five brothers living on a farm on the Kazakh plains, where the sudden intrusion of the modern world brings corruption, temptation and deceit.
No Bed of Roses - Bangladesh
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: A story surrounding a person named Javed Hasan and about his family, love, fallout and reunion.
No Date, No Signature - Iran
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: The forensic pathologist Dr Nariman has a car accident with a motorcyclist and injures his 8-year-old son. He offers to take the child to a clinic nearby, but the father refuses his help and money. The next morning, in the hospital where he works, Dr Nariman finds out that the little boy has been brought for an autopsy after a suspicious death. Dr Nariman is facing a dilemma: is he responsible for the child's death due to the car accident or the child died of food poisoning according to other doctors' diagnosis?
Sobibor- Russia
Official Oscar and Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: In the depths of western China's Gobi Desert, Yong (Wang Xuebing) operates a dilapidated ostrich farm, which is the last throw of the dice for him as he tries to win back his ex-wife and repair his life. One day, Mr. Wu (Wang Xufeng) comes looking for a debt to be repaid. When Yong can't come up with the money, Wu leaves a lonely little boy (Zhu Gengyou) behind, telling Yong to look after him. Suspecting his ex-wife might be considering another marriage, Yong takes the boy along as he looks for her. In three days crossing the Gobi, they meet depressed female trucker Mei (Ma YiLi), and the three lonely people become a pseudo-family. More people join the action, and the relationship between Yong and the boy is constantly tested as it evolves over the journey. In the end, through this series of random encounters, every person embarks on his/her own path of no return.
Panchayat - Nepal
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Based in Nepalese panchayat system.
Tomorrow is Another Day - Hong Kong
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Mrs. Wong knows her husband is carrying on an affair, but for the sake of their marriage and autistic son, she has chosen to silently endure. However, the mistress comes to disturb them, and in the end, Mr. Wong leaves home after a fight. Feeling at a loss and struggling to watch over her son by herself, Mrs. Wong begins to plot ways to take revenge against the mistress, but her plans get discovered by other housewives.
Spitak - Armenia
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Gor is trying to fly to Armenia from Moscow to search for his family stuck at the very epicentre of the earthquake. Once there, Gor rushes through what's left from the town in search of his small house. On his way, he meets various characters, each one of them with his or her personal tragedy and challenge. The locals strive to find their loved ones - alive or dead, where dead is almost as good as alive because it means that people can get a proper burial. Medics try to help those who survived, working day and night despite the shortage of the medicaments and performing surgeries with the materials on hand. Soldiers and volunteers risk their lives to clear the debris. As Gor doesn't give up looking for his family, his wife and small daughter are still alive under the debris. But as long as there is love, there is hope.
Signal Rock - Philippines
Official Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Intoy takes care of his parents when his sister moved out to work overseas. Since he lives in a remote area in Samar, the only way he could contact his sister is by going to strange rock formations on the island.
Village Rockstars - India
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: In a small village in northeast India, 10-year-old Dhunu dreams of having her own rock band. Her vibrant spirit, imagination and self-assurance stand out in a world where girls are expected to be timid and submissive. With her gang of boys and the support of her widowed mother, Dhunu faces the struggles of her daily life and hopes for the day she can finally play on a real guitar.
The Tailor - Vietnam
Official Oscar Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: The re-enactment of the traditional dress (ao dai) era in 1960s, Saigon, thought to be the heyday of traditional Vietnamese costumes. Interwoven into that transformation in fashion and style of the ao dai in modern times which told through the story of the character named Miss Ba (Cô Ba). Audiences will also see somewhere the image of the 60s, 70s full of honest women. An image of Saigon in the past, gentle and steeped in contrast to the rush of a dynamic city will be described by fashion, namely the traditional dress in Vietnam. All of them are cleverly nested in the story between two families, between mothers and daughters, between a tailor and a fabric shop filled with dramatic rage.
Special Screening
1987 : When the Days Come - Republic of Korea
Synopsis: In 1987 Korea, under an oppressive military regime, a college student gets killed during a police interrogation involving torture. Government officials are quick to cover up the death and order the body to be cremated. A prosecutor who is supposed to sign the cremation release, raises questions about a 21-year-old kid dying of a heart attack, and begins looking into the case for the truth. Despite a systematic attempt to silence everyone involved in the case, the truth gets out, causing an eruption of public outrage.
Genre: Documentary
Better Angels - USA
Synopsis: BETTER ANGELS, the feature documentary by director Malcolm Clarke, explores how the world's two largest superpowers are racing towards economic and political conflict, yet find themselves undeniably linked and interdependent by the new reality of global economic rivalries and cultural ties. The film captures the compelling personal stories and ideological challenges of why these two countries have the world's most important relationship.
Genre: Documentary
Dying to Survive - China
Synopsis: A story on how a small drug store owner became the exclusive selling agent of a cheap Indian generic drug against Chronic Granulocytic Leukemia in China.
Genre: Comedy
First Teacher- Kyrgyzstan, Russia
Synopsis: Soviet Union, near the Chinese border, 1923. A stranger has just come in this little country village. He is a teacher, sent by the Communist Party to teach the ignorant masses. But the countrymen are to help him, and even to let their children go and "sleep" at school instead of giving a hand. There is only, Altynai, an orphan, to seem fascinated by the teacher and his knowledge
Genre: Drama
Nobody and Tatami - Japan, Singapore
Synopsis: Tatami: A murder scene writer returns home to attend his father's funeral and begins to experience constant flashbacks of his childhood. He then discovers a secret door in the house that leads to a room that hides a horrifying secret from his family's past. Nobody: A Pontianak, the vengeful spirit of a woman who died during childbirth, is awakened when a foreman and a construction worker attempt to bury the body of a dead girl instead of burning her. A series of unfortunate events begin to occur at the construction site.
Genre: Horror, Drama
The Girl With Red Scarf - Turkey
Synopsis: Story of a dilemma between a woman's love and her logic. Asya, a young girl with a strict mother, meets Ilyas who is a womanizer city man, and they quickly fall in love. They get over the hardships and have a happy marriage. However, after he helps a man one night, Ilyas' life changes forever and he leaves Asya and their son for another woman and doesn't come back.
Genre: Drama
Grain- Turkey
Synopsis: This film was inspired by a chapter from the Noble Quran. It is a post-apocalyptic story set in a world where those that survive, are divided between the remnants of cities and agricultural zones. Both of these factions are ruled by corporations and populated by elites.
Genre: Drama
In the Life of Music - Cambodia
Synopsis: In the Life of Music tells the story of how one song "Champa Battambang," a song made famous by Sinn Sisamouth (the King of Khmer Music), plays a role in the lives of three different generations. It is a feature narrative told in 3 chapters during 3 different decades, depicting the lives of people whose world is inevitably transformed by the emergence of the Khmer Rouge Regime. It is a powerful intergenerational tale that weaves through 37 years of Cambodia's ever-changing landscape.
Genre: Drama
Kokboru: Game of Tough
Synopsis: Malsat, a famous professional Kök Börü player gets expelled from a champion team for refusing to play on an injured horse. Upon returning to his native village, he finds out that his villagers' land is in danger. He decides to assemble a team from non-professional players and participate in the country's most prestigious Kök Börü Championship Cup.
Genre: Sport
The Spy Gone North - Republic of Korea
Synopsis: In 1993, former military officer Suk-young Park is recruited as a spy by South Korea's National Intelligence Service, and given the code name "Black Venus". He is then sent to infiltrate a group of high-ranking North Korean officials based in Beijing, with the ultimate goal of acquiring information on the North's nuclear program. After becoming close to Myong-un Ri, a key power broker, Black Venus succeeds beyond his wildest dreams of gaining the trust of North Korea's leadership. But political machinations on both sides of the border threaten to derail his accomplishments.
Genre: Drama
When Angels Sleep - Kazakhstan
Synopsis: The period of preparation for the wedding turns for Arman and her fiancé Kurman with hell, Arman kidnaps and rapes four drunken majors, while her fiancé, Kurman, trying to save his beloved, runs into serious trouble with law enforcement ...
Genre: Drama
The White Ship - Kyrgyzstan
Synopsis: In a primeval forest cut off from the rest of the world, a seven-year-old boy and six adults are living. The boy is isolated and lonesome. A connoisseur of folk tales, old Maumoon serves as a substitute for his parents. A world of tales and beautiful legends as perceived by the impressionable child prone to fantastic perception of reality, conflicts with the harsh existence of adults engrossed into their own problems.
Genre: Drama