The Mussorgsky suite Pictures at an Exhibition serves as inspiration for this visually arresting stop-motion rendering of the cycles of life, the power of man and beast, and the beauty and horror of labour.
This essential new documentary pays tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty and shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking. Packed with interviews with a "who's who" of top stars and filmmakers, this world premiere screening will be followed by a live, onstage discussion with people who were deeply affected by Dougherty, including some of the participants in the film.
A young woman desperately struggles to keep her family out of poverty in this fiercely moving masterpiece by the great, perennially under-recognized Indian auteur Ritwik Ghatak.
A Greek-Australian photographer uncovers a shocking family secret when he returns to his ancestral homeland in this brutal, unsparing allegory of generational guilt.
In the aftermath of Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s surrender to the U.S., Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Academy Award® winner Tommy Lee Jones) and his adjutant Gen. Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) are faced with a decision of historic importance, in this epically scaled historical drama from director Peter Webber (Girl with a Pearl Earring).
A seventy-year-old veteran of the Algerian War of Independence speaks about his years of struggle as an underground soldier for the National Liberation Front, in this fascinating documentary by first-time filmmaker Damien Ounouri.
As the Cold War meets the sexual revolution in 1960s London, the lifelong friendship of two teenage girls (Elle Fanning, Alice Englert) is shattered by ideological differences and personal betrayals. This new film from director Sally Potter (Orlando) also stars Annette Bening and Christina Hendricks.
Twenty years after peace activist Lim Su-kyung swore that she would cross the border between North and South Korea on foot, Argentine documentary filmmaker José Luis García goes in search of the young woman who was once known as "The Flower of Reunification."
Zézé Gamboa's sardonic historical drama follows a good-hearted, apolitical con man who, on the eve of Angolan independence in the mid-1970s, pulls off a massive swindle at the expense of the Portuguese colonial administration — and soon after finds himself hailed as a hero of the national liberation struggle.
The great Barbara Sukowa stars in Margarethe von Trotta's fascinating biography of the influential philosopher and political theorist, whose reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann led to her famous concept of the "banality of evil."
The directors of the Norwegian WWII epic Max Manus return with this thrilling account of explorer Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 voyage across the Pacific on a fragile wooden raft.
Lu Chuan (City of Life and Death) returns to the Festival with this breathtaking historical epic about the fall of the Qin Dynasty in the second century B.C.
Lebanon's brief flirtation with space travel in the 1960s becomes a poignant metaphor for the Arab world's utopian dreams in this riveting documentary.
With a mix of animation, re-enactments and archival evidence Jeffrey St. Jules assembles a three part 3-D documentary collage that explores his family history, and the consequences of parents who make the difficult decision to give up their children.
Valeria Sarmiento, the widow and frequent collaborator of the great Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz (Mysteries of Lisbon), completes her late husband’s final project with this expansive and inventive historical epic set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.
Director Julien Temple (The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, The Filth and the Fury) surveys the past century of London's tumultuous history in this vibrant documentary.
Left to fend for herself when her SS officer father is captured by the victorious Allies at the end of World War II, a fourteen-year-old German girl (striking newcomer Saskia Rosendahl) must lead her four siblings on a gruelling trek across the war-ravaged countryside — and must put her trust in the very person she was taught to hate.
One of the world's most distinctive film voices, the late, inestimable Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz (Mysteries of Lisbon) casts a longing look back to his childhood memories — while anticipating his own imminent death — in this imaginative cinematic memoir.
Gael Garcia Bernal stars in this gripping historical drama from director Pablo Larraín (Tony Manero), about a savvy young ad exec in 1988 Chile who is recruited to craft the political opposition's publicity campaign when the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet is put to a national plebiscite.
In this fascinating allegorical horror-thriller, a brilliant young neurosurgeon emerges miraculously unharmed from a devastating car crash — only to discover a dark secret about his origins that stretches back to a series of bizarre experiments conducted at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War.
A biography of French surrealist Jean Benoît and an animated plea to free Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi anchor a profoundly cinematic programme of shorts-tied together with incredible art direction, masterful mise-en-scène and imaginative storytelling.
The perennial theme of family is spotlighted in this programme, linking stories of a father seeking to reconnect with his son through antiquated technology, a young Cree girl planning to be a mother, and a 3-D animated documentary about a woman's decision to give up her children.
In Girish Kasaravalli's gently philosophical character piece, a humble, low-level civil servant cast as the lead in a popular TV serial chronicling the life of Gandhi finds uncanny echoes between his own life and that of the legendary leader — and sets out to correct their mutual failings.
Anthony LaPaglia and Rachel Griffiths star alongside newcomer Alex Williams, who plays a young Julian Assange in this biopic about the WikiLeaks founder’s formative years as a teenage hacker.
An impassioned, meticulously researched account of the short life of Algerian freedom fighter Ahmed Zabana, whose execution in 1956 by French colonial authorities ignited the "Battle of Algiers" — and the crucial phase of Algeria's struggle for independence.
An Israeli fighter pilot (Stephen Dorff) is shot down over Lebanon and must make his way across the war-torn country with the aid of an angry young Palestinian boy, in this gritty, moving drama from director Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride).