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Dancing Dreams (Tanzträume)

Rainer Hoffmann, Anne Linsel 92’/ 2010/ France, Germany Forty-six boys and girls aged 14 to 18 years from the city of Wuppertal, without any previous experience, agree to participate in Kontakthof, a contemporary play created in 1978 by Pina Bausch. These young people of different backgrounds and religious denominations are able to overcome their teenage inhibitions as they work on this emotionally and physically demanding play.

How to Start a Revolution

Ruaridh Arrow 52’ / UK, Egypt, Serbia and Montenegro, USA / 2011 Half a world away from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, an ageing American intellectual shuffles around his cluttered terrace house in a working-class Boston neighbourhood. His name is Gene Sharp. White-haired and now in his mid-80’s, he grows orchids, and hardly seems like a dangerous man. But for the world’s dictators his ideas can be the catalyst for the end of their regime.

Oligarchy

Πεθαίνοντας για την Αλήθεια

Senna

Asif Kapadia 106’ / 2010/ UK Senna’s remarkable story, charting his physical and spiritual achievements on the track and off, his quest for perfection, and the mythical status he has attained. The film spans the racing legend’s years as an F1 driver, from 1984 to his untimely death a decade later.

Dolphin Boy

Dani Menkin, Yonatan Nir 56’/2011/Israel, France The story of a young man who disconnects himself from reality following a severe trauma, and comes back to life with the help of dolphins, detached from his past. This rehabilitation process has been documented over the past three years.

Marathon Boy

Gemma Atwal 90/2011/UK A coach and a slum boy united by a dream, divided by the world. The story of a four-year-old boy who is plucked from the slums of India by his coach and trained to become India's greatest runner. But what starts as a real Slumdog Millionaire turns into the stuff of film noir: a tale of greed, envy and broken dreams.

Bird on a Wire

Tony Palmer 106/2011/UK Filmed in 1972, the film follows Leonard Cohen as he experiences and suffers the ups and downs of touring: handling mobs of people, unwanted solicitations from women, autographs to sign, dumb interview questions he doesn't feel like answering and must politely decline.

Guilty Pleasures

Julie Moggan 86/2011/UK Every four seconds, a Harlequin novel gets sold somewhere in the world. The formula is simple: man falls for woman, makes it through a variety of obstacles and manages to win her heart. Guilty Pleasures confronts us with the very human need to escape to a world that's somehow better than our own.

Donor Unknown

Jerry Rothwell 78/2011/ UK/France/US JoEllen, now 20, grew up in rural Pennsylvania with two mothers, and a burning curiosity to discover her anonymous donor father. When she discovers a unique online registry, 13 half-siblings emerge across the US… Funny, moving and surprising, the film raises intriguing questions about our understanding of parenthood.

An Appointment with LACAN

Gérard Miller 52/2011/ France Filmmaker Gérard Miller was in school when he first met Lacan. At the age of 20, his elder brother Jacques-Alain Miller became one of Lacan's most loyal pupils. A few years later, he married Lacan's daughter Judith. The filmmaker takes an intimate look at the day-to-day life of one of the world’s most famous and controversial psychoanalysts, through the testimonies of his patients, pupils, friends and family.

Breath of the Gods

A Journey to the Origins of Modern Yoga Jan Schmidt-Garre 100’/2012/Germany Yoga goes back thousands of years, but modern yoga originated in the early 20th century, a creation of Indian savant T. Krishnamacharya. Krishnamacharya’s life and teachings are explored by the director Jan Schmidt-Garre, whose journey leads him from the students and relatives of Krishnamacharya to the source of modern yoga, at the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore.

Catherine Deneuve

Anne Andreu 52/ France/ 2009 Fame made Catherine Deneuve an icon long ago and she occupies a special place in our imagination. If Deneuve’s career covers a half-century of cinema, it also bears witness to the force of a generation that experienced the deepest transformation. This portrait reflects her entirely. The story of a mystery and an adventure.

A Film Unfinished

Yael Hersonski 91’/ Israel, Germany / 2010 At the end of WWII, 60 minutes of raw film, having sat undisturbed in an East German archive, was discovered. Shot by the Nazis in Warsaw in May 1942, and labeled simply “Ghetto,” this footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw Ghetto. However, the later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings of the footage.

Grandma’s Tattoos

Suzanne Khardalian 58’/2011/Sweden Filmmaker Suzanne Khardalian makes a personal journey to investigate the terrible truth behind her grandma's odd tattoos. When the mystery is unveiled, family taboos are broken and Suzanne exposes the bigger story - the fate of the Armenian women driven out of Ottoman Turkey during WWI.

Noma - at Boiling Point

Christian Vorting 58’/2010/Denmark The Noma restaurant, in Copenhagen, is regarded as the best restaurant in the world. The documentary follows for six months head chef Redzepi and the drama in his kitchen, where nothing less than perfect will do.

I Want to Cheer You Up

Kasper Astrup Schröder 80’/2012/Denmark Ryuichi is the CEO of the Japanese firm I Want to Cheer You Up Ltd, a company that rents out family members. But Ryuichi’s family does not know. Will he succeed in maintaining his secret, or will he realize that helping others requires the courage to expose his secret life to his family?

The Day that John Lennon Died

The Day that John Lennon Died Michael Waldman 60/2011/UK On December 8 1980 the news that John Lennon had been shot dead caused shock waves around the world. The film revisits that fateful day, retracing John's steps on the day leading up to his murder through the strikingly vivid recollections of those who came into contact with him.

Not a Man in Sight

Mette Aakerholm Gardell 48’/2011/Sweden, Norway The first open generation of lesbian women is about to disappear. Not a Man In Sight portraits three couples of lesbian women – all at different stages in life, during adolescence, maternity, and old age. In a humorous and self-searching mood, the film poses questions facing all modern couples.

The Snow Ball War

Fridtjof Kjaereng 52’/2011/Norway The small town of Vardoe is located on an island high up in arctic Norway. The Barents Sea surrounding the island is abundant with fish. But no fisheries exist in Vardoe. The inhabitants are declaring a snow ball war to survive.

The Road to Diyarbekir

Zaradasht Ahmed 58’/2011/Norway In Sweden, Ciwan is just another asylum-seeker in the cold landscape. After being blacklisted by the Turkish government for decades, he is finally invited to give a concert in Diyarbekir, Turkey, the symbolic home city for Kurds.

The Commissioner

Pekka Lehto 60’/2012/Finland The European economy is going kaputt. Can EC Commissioner Olli Rehn stabilize it? The film follows Olli Rehn, EC Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, putting out the forest fire of debt that threatens the stability of a united Europe.

Steam of Life

Joonas Berghäll, Mika Hotakainen 80’/2010/Finland From a land of long, dark winters comes a comic and moving study of Finnish men in the sauna. There, they come together to sweat out their grief, hopes, and joys. Beautifully shot, the film provides a surprising glimpse into the lives of Finnish men and their troubled hearts.

The Woman with the Five Elephants

Vadim Jendreyko 93’/2009/Germany, Switzerland When her father ends up in one of Stalin's prison camps, Svetlana learns German in order to survive and gets work as a translator before ending up in a German camp in 1943. 65 years later, she has translated the works of Dostoevsky. For the first time, she returns to Kiev with her granddaughter.

Dreamland

Þorfinnur Guðnason, Andri Snær Magnason 55’/2009/Iceland Dreamland is a film about a nation standing at cross-roads: Iceland, a nation with abundance of choices gradually becomes caught up in a plan to turn its wilderness and beautiful nature into a massive system of hydro-electric and geothermal power plants. The dark side of green energy.

Little Land

Hardships and Beauties

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