Valentin, a 9-year-old boy living with his grandmother in late-1960s Buenos Aires, believes his family has problems that only he can solve. The youngster dreams of being reunited with his mother, who's separated from Valentin's abusive father.
The Spijkerbergs are an absurdly rich family, but they are also richly absurd. The father – a foolish, hotshot financier – collects miniature dioramas of historical atrocities as a hobby. Mother is a has-been prima donna fighting against the vagaries of age and fame. Inheriting their privilege and casual cruelty is daughter Amy, a rebellious if somewhat insular teenager longing to break out of her gilded cage. To gain a semblance of control over her cocooned existence, Amy produces an autobiographical mock-Kabuki performance that parodies her family.
A young woman is awakened to a world of cruelty, shadowy passions and sensuality.
A lonely boy, who lives in Amsterdam with his refugee mother from Kosovo, keeps getting into trouble while yearning for her acceptance. But the traumas caused by the war, which his mother hides away from him, turn his world upside down.
Sixteen-year-old Anne grows up in the isolated Biesbosch area, where spacious fields and power pylons define the landscape. With a group of friends, she spends a sultry summer holiday there trying to make the leap to maturity. But this shared experience turns into a conflict situation when Anna develops feelings for the tough girl Lena. Coming-of-age drama about growing pains, the inevitable end of childhood and choosing your own life - no matter how confusing your environment may find it.
In Holland, a group of Armenian terrorists have swung into action, murdering a Turkish intelligence agent and holding his son for ransom. As the battle of wits between the terrorists and the Dutch police plays itself out, an author from Armenia living in Rotterdam finds himself following the events as he thinks back on his life in his homeland, indulging in fantasies about his past, his future, and his obsessions.
Helena is a talented singer in Buenos Aires. Just as she and her band get a residency at a prestigious theater in the city, the boyfriend she's mad about coldly announces that he doesn't love her any more. The film is punctuated by intense bursts of tango. Every song moves the story along, providing an insight into the characters and access to the protagonist's feelings: nostalgia, passion, sadness, and joy in turn. The lyrical and musical wealth of tango, brilliantly performed by Eugenia Ramírez Miori, unites the two stories, past and present. 'La cantante de tango' is a poignant auteur film about a woman trying to get back on her feet after a devastating break-up.
Bettina and Marcus, a passionate couple, live in a canteen in the middle of a vast field with endless lines of pylons. Marcus, trying to set up his own business, works as a foreman in the maintenance of these power-lines. Bettina, bored and longing for a better life, runs the canteen for the workingmen. Their 9-years-old daughter Tessa, wanders the industrial area, looking for bits and pieces to occupy her mind, skipping school whenever she can. When Marcus hires a Hungarian engineer, Szabolcs, to become part of his company, their unconventional way of living takes a new turn. A tragic accident although will shatter everyones pursuit of happiness.
Set on the tiny inhabited island of Muck, off Scotland’s west coast, Cindy Jansen’s cinematic and haunting documentary explores how difficult it is to change the habits of a lifetime.
Beaten and hardened by life in a Nigerian ghetto, Charity leaves for Europe to work as an illegal prostitute, in pursuit of her dream of becoming rich.
An impressionistic experimental drama. A woman walks a fine line between sanity and madness in a world of constant twilight. She works at a filling station and lives a life of emotional isolation. No one seems to pay attention to her, and she lives in a run-down flat that looks as if it's decaying before our eyes. As the woman wrestles with the demons that are taking hold within her mind, she frequently confronts herself in the mirror, often while naked.
Following her mother's death, an 11-year-old indigenous Australian girl named Shay moves with her father and brother to Belgium. Shay finds that her grief is readily accepted in her new town, which still bears scars from World War I.
In his contribution, Garin Nugroho wants to show the importance of the new and the old harbour of Jakarta. In the harbour districts Keroncong Tugu (the old district) and Tanjung Priok (the present harbour district), multicultural communities have emerged that have opened up Jakarta society towards Europe and Asia. Nugroho uses archive footage to show that the heritage of the Portuguese who exploited Indonesia before the Dutch is for instance still visible in the existence of a Portuguese community with its own music culture. The development of the harbours is important for the future, but their history also has sad stories. For instance, Nugroho points out that many wars were started about who controls a port. (Rotterdam International Film Festival)
