Friday night in Toronto’s lower west end. Chatter from a dinner party in Harry and Carol’s nouveau riche condo drifts through an open balcony door, as two freebase cokeheads, Pretty and Johnny, have a party on their own in the alley below. As the dinner guests leave, the hostess is nowhere to be found. Until, a wet thud and a sharp scream rise up to the balcony. Pretty stares in horror at Carol’s body, splayed on the alley floor, as Harry screams for help from above. The sharp burst of police sirens sends the cokeheads running as Peter, a middle aged police officer, sprints from his cruiser to check Carol’s vitals. Rocket forward three months and these five disparate lives begin to cataclysmically intersect through weaving multi-narrative story arcs that release spurts and geysers of long-suppressed sexuality and aggression. Beautiful things can happen when you hit rock bottom.

Based on the true life experience of Billy Moore who survived his Thai prison ordeal by becoming a Muay Thai boxing champion.

Drama – Hated and betrayed by his brothers, Brady Gray is forced off of the family ranch and must start a new life in Dallas. With a good job and a promising romance, better days seem to lie ahead until Brady is framed for a crime he didn’t commit. – Andrew Cheney, Megan Parker, Akron Watson

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)

Having moved to the city for work, a stressed-out young professional begins to fear that a jealous colleague is framing her as incompetent – but the truth is even more terrifying.

Trained KGB assassin, EDWARD GENN (code name ICARUS), worked years ago as a sleeper agent in America. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, he quickly found himself in a foreign country with no one to trust. Determined to escape his muddled existence, EDWARD tries to start over. He assumes a new identity, starts a family and tries to start his own legitimate business that could potentially pull him out of his world of being a hitman.

Husband and wife, Will and Dawn, are in financial crisis after learning the job Will was counting on to salvage their financial future has disappeared in the midst of a market collapse. They set out to drive home on the winter highway back to their city, and in a moment of altruism, pick up siblings Lee and Cheryl, a pair of hitchhikers on their way to start a new life. In the midst of the night they nearly collide with an old man wandering on the snowy highway, hyperthermic and horrifically frostbitten. While searching for his ID they discover a wad of cash, a hand drawn map with GPS coordinates, and a single gold coin inside his coat. Will and Dawn reluctantly go along with Lee’s plan to report him to the police as a John Doe and pocket the money. In an attempt to save their financial struggles, all four venture off into the snowy wilderness in search of the buried gold.

In 2199, five years after the Gamilons began an invasion of Earth, the planet has been ravaged by the aliens’ bombs. The remnants of humanity have fled underground to escape the irradiated surface. One day, former pilot Susumu Kodai discovers a capsule sent from the planet Iscandar that tells of a device that can remove the radiation from the Earth’s surface. The Earth Defense Force rebuilds the battleship Yamato with a new type of propulsion system to make the 148,000 light year trip to Iscandar in hopes of saving the Earth. Within one year, the radiation will drive the rest of humanity to extinction.

A writer’s career — and entire life — suddenly goes off script when he falls prey to a dangerous web of criminals right before moving to Barcelona.

Set on Christmas Eve, eight days after the war ends, survivor Kate discovers a mysterious radio signal and befriends the voice. As she embarks on a journey to find its origins, Kate encounters the isolation and horror of a nuclear war and the failed hope of those who survived.

An English chef with a chic restaurant on Bondi Beach trying to put his life and his relationship with his son back on track while surrounded by women.

When Astrid Lindgren was very young something happened that affected her profoundly, and this combination of both miracle and calamity came to shape her entire life. It was an event that transformed her into one of the most inspiring women of our age and the storyteller a whole world would come to love. This is the story of when a young Astrid, despite the expectations of her time and religious upbringing, decided to break free from society’s norms and follow her heart.