*Berlinale Spotlight World Cinema Fund*

In the backlands of Minas Gerais, where time seems to pass at the river’s pace, two elderly women keep the whirlwind of life in full swirl. Bastú has just lost her husband and seeks comfort in daily life. Helping her through it is Maria, whose drum pounds with all the joy and power of her [...]

Following a car accident on a lone mountain road, a middle-aged man loses his memory. Drenched in blood, he continues to walk along the deserted path. Further down the road, he encounters people with engine trouble and helps them get their car running again. They are reluctant to leave him stranded, so they take him [...]

The human-traffickers have a well-established route: from Burma into Thailand. Lianqing is one of five illegals who travels this route one summer night in 2013; along the way a fellow migrant called Guo is kind to her, and their fates become entwined. Once in Thailand, Lianqing finds ‘underground’ jobs, saves money and finds out where [...]

“Aswang” follows a group of people whose lives have been caught up in these events: a journalist who tries to make a stand against lawlessness, a coroner, a missionary brother who comforts bereaved family members, and a street kid with parents in prison and friends in the cemetery. The film is a shocking account of [...]

“In the mid-1970s a stranger arrives in a quiet provincial town. At a restaurant, for no apparent reason he starts to assault Claudio, a well-known lawyer. The community supports the lawyer and the stranger is humiliated and gets thrown out. Later, on the way home, Claudio and his wife Susana are intercepted by the stranger, [...]

„Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives” – at a young age Kena learns what is expected of girls and women in her country: to behave and to obey the orders of men. Or she will end up like her single-mother, who finds herself taking the blame for the separation from her husband, who has [...]

“An offbeat Sudanese love story set in a time of civil war. Adnan is a Sudanese war hero whose love for his AK-47 are rivalled only by his feelings for Lina, his long-suffering sweetheart. When Adnan is late to return to his military unit after leave, the army commander launches a “kasha” to round up [...]

“Saeed is a young cinephile trying to teach film rules to other young people in Eastern Ghouta, Syria, but the reality they face is too harsh to respect any rules. Saeed’s friend, Milad, is on the other side of the fence; in Damascus, a city under the control of the Assad regime, finishing his studies [...]

“Boonmee is suffering from kidney disease, and as he goes briskly about his everyday business, accompanied by his sister-in-law, Jen (Jenjira Pongpas), and the young men he has hired as caretakers, it becomes clear that he is saying goodbye. His present life is shadowed by regrets, only some of which are alluded to, like his [...]