Three protagonists, one city, different backgrounds: Nour, India and Marwan pass each other but they never meet, though the effect of one incident will drastically alter their lives. Caught in a moment, their lives fall apart in just a matter of seconds.
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Amid the modern wastelands and toxic factories of Italy, wife and mother Giuliana (Monica Vitti) desperately tries to conceal her tenuous grip on reality from those around her, especially her successful yet neglectful husband, Ugo (Carlo Chionetti). Ugo’s old pal, Corrado (Richard Harris), shows up in town on a business trip and is more sensitive to Giuliana’s anxieties. They begin an affair, but it does little to quell Giuliana’s existential fears, and her mental state rapidly deteriorates.
James, a consummate womanizer, and Randall, a devoted husband, are unlikely best friends. But when Randall becomes a father for the first time and James for the 17th time, they both seek out an unconventional form of counseling to aid them in their relationships. Hilarious events ensue as Randall tries to gain the respect of his wife and James attempts to control his sexual addiction while fending off his baby mamas.
Iris, a woman abroad in Seoul, teaches French and English in an idiosyncratic fashion that allows her to pursue her own philosophical and personal interests. Through four encounters over a single day, Iris probes students and strangers for information about poetry, their own histories, and their relationship to their egos.
The Order of Rights is a pro-life film. The story centers around Emma Stein, a pregnant single girl who has been advised by her mother to have an abortion. Despite the objection of the child’s father, Ethan Carpenter, and his promise to help her, she decides to go ahead with the procedure. When Ethan and his family file a lawsuit on behalf of the child’s right to life, the drama escalates as Emma’s mother, Kerri, contacts a friend in the Associated Press. Before long, the case is mired in media frenzy. The court has to decide whether the child in Emma’s womb is a person or not, and if so, if it is endowed with the unalienable rights as enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. The title, “Order of Rights” refers to the order in which the categories of rights are deliberately listed in the document: Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.
Carmine is a Neapolitan mafioso who isn’t cut out for the criminal life. Under the protection of his boss Pasquale, Carmine is sent north to run a money laundering operation through a restaurant. He simply needs to defrost frozen meals, issue receipts and dinner is served. But everything changes when he meets Consuelo, a chef who always pursues perfection and dreams of winning a Michelin star. Carmine hires her and decides to transform the establishment into a high-end restaurant. Could the love for food and dream of winning a Michelin star give them both a second chance?
A young Chinese Irish woman meets the man of her dreams at a foreign language film club. She discovers the next day through social media that he has died. Piecing together who he was through his online life, she begins to wonder what could have been.
Several members of a platoon of American soldiers not only kill a Japanese general, but also rape and murder the man’s wife. The couple’s son, Kimon, witnesses these ghastly events and vows revenge. Thirty-three years later the platoon get back together in Manila for a reunion. The adult Kimon also shows up to pick off the platoon members who are responsible for butchering his parents.
After his football career, Ben Beck returned to his Virginia small town and joined the family building firm. His family happiness with wife Lorrie and adolescent son Jessie is suddenly tested by the return of Ben’s first high-school love, Ava Andersson, who visits from Chicago, after a failed marriage, to bury her ma. Ava seduces Ben into reliving their courtship, which she traumatically broke off without a goodbye. Jesse reacts furiously, even backseats his own football scholarship bid, rather pa’s projected ambition, in favor of a writing summer course
Nine-year old Reliana witnesses Rossini’s efforts to salvage his seemingly cursed new opera, the Barber of Seville.
The unassuming, nebbishy inventor Sidney Stratton creates a miraculous fabric that will never be dirty or worn out. Clearly he can make a fortune selling clothes made of the material, but may cause a crisis in the process. After all, once someone buys one of his suits they won’t ever have to fix them or buy another one, and the clothing industry will collapse overnight. Nevertheless, Sidney is determined to put his invention on the market, forcing the clothing factory bigwigs to resort to more desperate measures…
The ostensibly simple story of a sympathetic veteran teacher giving Italian lessons to a weekly class of diverse immigrants is given infinitely more depth and complexity by the manner in which director Daniele Gaglianone renders his story. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, truth and artifice, and between documentary and drama, Gaglianone has created a film within a film. You see the apparent artifice of Gaglianone’s crew using professionals, including the noted film actor Valerio Mastandrea as the teacher, interlinked with ‘real’ immigrant protagonists, studying the language to improve their chances of employment and of gaining a permanent residence permit. Thus in the course of the lessons there is simultaneously the painful and upsetting relation of the students’ personal stories but also humour, as they interact and share their humanity, bridging cultural differences, united in their striving to make a better life for themselves. (Source: LFF programme)
