DARK HORSE tells the larger than life true story of how a barmaid in a former mining village in South Wales bred a racehorse on her allotment that went on to become a champion. Jan had successfully bred dogs and birds and believed she could do the same with a different animal – though she knew nothing about racing and had never been on a horse. Convincing a handful of locals to part with ten pound a week for her scheme, she found a thoroughbred mare with a terrible racing record for £300, a stallion past his best, put them together and – against all the odds – bred a winner. It’s an audacious tale of luck and chance and beating the odds; a story of how a gaggle of working class folk from the Welsh Valleys took on the racing elite, broke through class and financial barriers, and brought hope and pride back to their depressed community.

A documentary portrait chronicling the incredible life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor who became America’s most famous sex therapist. As her 90th birthday approaches, Dr. Ruth revisits her painful past and her career at the forefront of the sexual revolution.

The film intertwines Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s lives with their famed 2008 Wimbledon championship – an epic match so close and so reflective of their competitive balance that, in the end, the true winner was the sport itself.

On the day that underground rapper Hak-soo fails his 7th audition, he receives a call from his hometown that his father is in the hospital. But he finds out that it was his father’s plot to bring him to Byeon-san. To top it all, he is suspected as a phishing scam criminal and locked up in this small, boring suburb.

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)

A hip and happenin’ all girl rock group head to LA to claim lead-singer Kelly’s inheritance and make it (and make it) in LA. Soon the girls fall into a morass of drugs and deceit as their recording success soars. It takes several tragedies to make them stop and think… but is it too late?

Thousands of participants in a San Francisco-based alternate reality game end up getting more than they bargained for. Told from the players’ perspectives, the film looks over the precipice at an emergent new art form where the real world and fictional narratives merge to create unforeseen and often unsettling consequences. Examining counter-culture, new religious movements and street art, this film takes the viewer on a journey into a secret underground world teeming just beneath the surface of everyday life.

Fired from his band and hard up for cash, guitarist and vocalist Dewey Finn finagles his way into a job as a fifth-grade substitute teacher at a private school, where he secretly begins teaching his students the finer points of rock ‘n’ roll. The school’s hard-nosed principal is rightly suspicious of Finn’s activities. But Finn’s roommate remains in the dark about what he’s doing.

Odette Springer is working in the B movie industry as a singer/composer, hating it but needing the work. She begins making this documentary about the low budget sex and slasher flicks and the people who work on them. Along the way, she meets unrepentantly boorish producers, directors arguing the legitimacy of what they’re doing and numerous actresses who feel trapped, with no other way to succeed in Hollywood. The project is eye-opening to the viewer…and to Odette herself.

Chronological look at the fiasco in Iraq, especially decisions made in the spring of 2003 – and the backgrounds of those making decisions – immediately following the overthrow of Saddam: no occupation plan, an inadequate team to run the country, insufficient troops to keep order, and three edicts from the White House announced by Bremmer when he took over.

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Andrea Marr is a bright, straight-A, mature, 18-year-old high school senior on the verge of womanhood who decides to abandon her sheltered, boring lifestyle and her bookish friend Darcy for a look into the local rock and roll scene as a groupie to local rock singer Tod Sparrow and learn more about the life of one who follows a touring band along with her new friends aspiring rock star wannabee Cybil, outgoing fellow groupie Rebecca, and music critic Kevin.