Pamela, a young Roma, is different from the other girls in her community. A single mother, she lives with her grandmother and her little girl in a small hut where the three of them share a bed. How can she reconcile the needs of her two-year-old daughter and her dream of freedom?
Awards
The lives of four strangers, who live in the same neighbourhood, change dramatically when, on Palm Sunday, the neighborhood’s postbox is blasted by Filipino teenager Ige. Τhis explosion marks the beginning of three parallel stories of survival. Documents of vital importance to all of them – Lena and Manou’s LSD stickers, a letter to Thalia from her abandoned child, and Adia’s birth certificate – have been destroyed. Lena has persuaded Manou to smuggle a large quantity of drugs through the post. Returning from church, Thalia sees the remains of the blast. What she doesn’t know is that, among the burnt items, there is a letter addressed to her, from the child she had to give away for adoption when she was a teenager.
Awards
Set against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding Seoul in 1994, a lonely 14-year-old Eunhee moves through life like a hummingbird searching for a taste of sweetness wherever she may find it. Deprived of attention from her family, she roams the neighbourhood with her best friend, attempts romantic relationships with both girls and boys alike and is sent to the hospital with an unclear diagnosis. When Youngji, a new teacher, arrives, she becomes the first adult Eunhee feels really understands her.
Awards
On the outskirts of Birmingham and the margins of society the Billingham family perform extreme rituals and break social taboos as they muddle through a life decided by factors beyond their control. At times shocking and laced with an unsettling humour, three episodes unfold as a powerful evocation of experience of growing up in a Black Country council flat.
Awards
The film is also participating in the National Competition.
Yiannis’ plans to leave Cyprus are put on hold when his dog, Jimi, runs away and crosses the UN buffer zone that divides the “Greek” from the “Turkish” side of the island. Since animal exchange between the two “sides” is prohibited, Yiannis reluctantly joins forces with a cast of unexpected characters to smuggle him back.
Awards
Τwenty-year-old Sofia lives with her parents in Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco with the greatest tensions among social groups. Suffering from pregnancy denial, she finds herself breaking the law by giving birth to a baby out of wedlock. The hospital gives her 24 hours to provide them with the identification papers, Sofia and her cousin Lena (who belongs to the protected and more “Western” reality of the local bourgeoisie) fight to resist, or even to bring on their own terms the rigid structures of patriarchal society.
Awards
Israel / Palestine, today. Salam, a charming 30-year-old Palestinian living in Jerusalem, works as an intern on a popular Palestinian soap opera, Tel Aviv on Fire, which is produced in Ramallah. Every day Salam must pass through an arduous Israeli checkpoint to reach the television studios. He meets the commander of the check-point, Assi, whose wife is a huge fan of the show. In order to impress her, Assi gets involved in the writing of the show. Salam soon realizes that Assi’s ideas could get him a promotion as a screenwriter. Salam’s creative career catches fire, until Assi and the soap’s financial backers disagree on how the soap opera should end. Squeezed between an Army Officer and the Arab backers, Salam can only solve his problems with a final master stroke.
Awards
During the summer of 1990 in Chile, a small group of families lives in an isolated community right below the Andes, building a new world away from the urban excesses, with the emerging freedom that followed the recent end of the dictatorship. In this time of change and reckoning, 16-year-old Sofía and Lucas, and 10-year-old Clara, neighbours in this dry land, struggle with parents, first loves, and fears, as they prepare a big party for New Year’s Eve. They may live far from the dangers of the city, but not from those of nature.
Awards
Nuria, 12, Fabio, 9, and their mother Amparo arrive in a small island in the middle of Amazonia, at the border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru. They ran away from the Colombian armed conflict in which their father disappeared. One day, he reappears in their new house. The family is haunted by this strange secret and discovers the island is peopled with ghosts.