Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?

Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”

Trainspotting

Hilarious but harrowing, the film charts the disintegration of the friendship between Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, Tommy and Begbie as they proceed seemingly towards a psychotic, drug-fuelled self-destruction.

Summer in Berlin

When you read the title ‘Summer on the Balcony’ you probably think it will be a light Berlin summer comedy but it’s not. This film is an intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

Tough Enough

From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.

Once Were Warriors

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

Policewoman

Die Polizistin is a drama by Andreas Dresen about the life of a young police woman who is faced with the difficulties between her responsibilities at work and her personal responsibilities.

Take My Eyes

One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. With her, she takes only a few belongings and her son, Juan. Antonio soon sets out to look for her. He says Pilar is his sunshine, and what's more, "She gave him her eyes"...

Flesh

A heroin junkie works as a prostitute to support his habit and fund an abortion needed by the girlfriend of his lesbian wife. His seedy encounters with delusional and damaged clients, and dates with drag queens and hustlers are heavy on sex, drugs and decadence.

You're Not Alone

Master painter Hans Moll and his wife, the television announcer Ms. Wellinek and her husband, and the German-Russian Jew Yevgenia have many things to live on: food, drink, an apartment. What they do not have is work. They all discover the yearning for a chance to start all over again and bring themselves back to life.

Life as a House

When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.

Rosetta

Young, impulsive Rosetta lives a hard and stressful life as she struggles to support herself and her alcoholic mother. Refusing all charity, she is desperate to maintain a dignified job.

Red Rock West

When a promised job for Texan Michael fails to materialize in Wyoming, Mike is mistaken by Wayne to be the hitman he hired to kill his unfaithful wife, Suzanne. Mike takes full advantage of the situation, collects the money, and runs. During his getaway, things go wrong, and soon get worse when he runs into the real hitman, Lyle.

Factotum

This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of "Factotum" author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don't interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.

The Van

In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.

Renaissance Man

An advertising man is slowly sliding downhill. When he is fired from his job in Detroit, he signs up for unemployment. One day they find him a job: teaching thinking skills to Army recruits. He arrives on base to find that there is no structure set up for the class.

Change of Heart

Catherine and Mack and their close friends Chris and Madge graduate from a West Coast college and fly to New York City to find work.

Pather Panchali

A depiction of the life of an impoverished early twentieth century rural Bengali family.

Lorna's Silence

Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.

Bicycle Thieves

Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.

Velaiyilla Pattathari

Raghuvaran, who is unemployed for years, gets his dream job but a powerful rival is keen to put him down. Can he take on his adversary?

Mi rifaccio vivo

After spending most of his life being defeated by his rival Ottone, meek Biagio tries to commit suicide – but in the hereafter he's offered a chance to come back to life for a week as Dennis, Ottone's trusted business partner.

Solstorm

While in a party promoted by her chief and friend Måns Wenngren, the fiscal attorney, Rebecka Martinsson, receives a call from her former sister-in-law, Sanna Strandgård, telling that her brother and preacher Viktor was murdered, stabbed and with severed hands, and she would be arrested. Rebecka heads to her hometown Kiruna and defends Sanna, but the evidences found by the police in her house prove her guilty and she is arrested. While investigating the crime, Rebecka is haunted by her past and faces the bigoted and fanatic religious dwellers that worship the local church, and is more convinced of the innocence of Sanna.

Le Séminaire Caméra Café

Six employees of the Geugène company travel to Paris to take part in a motivational seminar.

L'Insoumis

Journey of Hope

In a village in eastern Turkey, tales of the economic success of Turks in Switzerland inspire Haydar to convince his wife Meryem that they must go. He sells their livestock and small plot of land in exchange for passage for two. He wants to leave their seven children in the care of the eldest and his parents; his father advises him to take one son to be educated in Europe. Will anyone reach the land of promise?

Paris Follies

Long married 50-somethings Brigitte and Xavier are prize cattle breeders in regional France. Life is good, but the departure of their children from home has thrown Brigitte’s world into flux, as she finds herself locked into routine. She keeps hoping for something else, something more. A party held by students on the adjoining property accelerates this latent crisis and Brigitte impulsively sets off for Paris under the guise of a doctor’s appointment. The city immediately invigorates her, and when she meets a charming Danish gentleman, she impulsively allows herself to be flattered by his attentions…

Interesting Ball

A red ball bounces past a cafe and a couple folks’ houses and then goes to the beach.

At War

After promising 1100 employees that they would protect their jobs, the managers of a factory decide to suddenly close up shop. Laurent takes the lead in a fight against this decision.

PVC-1

Based on the true story of a woman who is turned into a human time bomb in a bizarre act of terrorism.

Roa

Roa is a fictionalized account, based on real facts, about Juan Roa Sierra, the supposed killer of Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, Colombian politician and lawyer, dissident candidate of the Liberal Party for the 1950 Presidential elections, which he had a very high probability of winning.

Return to Ithaca

Sun is setting on Havana. Five friends are gathered to celebrate the return of Amadeo after 16 years of exile in Madrid.

Throw Down

A former Judo champion is given the chance to redeem himself after he befriends a competitor and an aspiring singer.

Adua and Her Friends

When a brothel closes because of new laws, four of the prostitutes decide to go into business running a restaurant. They discover they cannot escape their past.

Behemoth

Under the sun, the heavenly beauty of grasslands will soon be covered by the raging dust of mines. Facing the ashes and noises caused by heavy mining , the herdsmen have no choice but to leave as the meadow areas dwindle. In the moonlight, iron mines are brightly lit throughout the night. Workers who operate the drilling machines must stay awake. The fight is tortuous, against the machine and against themselves. Meanwhile, coal miners are busy filling trucks with coals. Wearing a coal-dust mask, they become ghostlike creatures. An endless line of trucks will transport all the coals and iron ores to the iron works. There traps another crowd of souls, being baked in hell. In the hospital, time hangs heavy on miners' hands. After decades of breathing coal dust, death is just around the corner. They are living the reality of purgatory, but there will be no paradise.

Love Steaks

Clemens works as a masseur, Lara as a cook, but their clientele is the same: the guests of a luxury hotel. As sparks begin to fly between the two, his sensitivity clashes with her more fiery temperament—opposites attract, but harmony is nowhere in sight.

A Few Hours of Spring

Forty-eight-year-old Alain Evrard is obliged to return home to live with his mother. This situation causes all the violence of their past relationship to rise to the surface. Alain then discovers that his mother has a fatal illness. In the last months of her life, will they finally be capable of taking a step toward each other?

All Our Desires

Claire and Stéphane are two Lyon-based judges who could hardly be more different. She is young and enthusiastic, committed to helping those unfortunates who find themselves in debt. He is older, wiser, but disillusioned with his work and his life. Under Claire’s influence, Stéphane discovers a new lease of life and at last finds a cause that is worth fighting for...

French Blood

Marco Lopez, a former Neo-Nazi and skinhead, tries to leave his violent, racist and hateful past behind him.

Conversation Piece

A retired professor of American origin lives a solitary life in a luxurious palazzo in Rome. He is confronted by a vulgar Italian marchesa and her lover, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, and forced to rent to them an apartment on the upper floor of his palazzo. From this point on his quiet routine is turned into chaos by his tenants' machinations, and everybody's life takes an unexpected but inevitable turn.

Heaven Knows What

A young heroin addict roams the streets of New York to panhandle and get her next fix, while her unstable boyfriend drifts in and out of her life at random.