ANGEL
Director: Colin Nutley
Cinematographer: Jens Fischer
Running time: 104 min.
Country: Sweden
Year: 2008

Having been a celebrated rock star in the 80s, fame has slipped away from Angelica “Angel" Holst. Now the time has come to step back into the limelight - but in order to get there you have to create a media hype… What is Angel willing to go through and what price is she prepared to pay to get to the top again?




BEST OF ME, THE (Lo mejor de mí)
Director: Roser Aguilar
Cinematographer: Isaac Vila
Running time: 85 min.
Country: Spain
Year: 2007

Though they haven't been together long, Raquel and Tomás are the perfect couple. When Raquel was a little girl she could not understand why everyone talked constantly about love on the radio, on television, on Saturday afternoon films and especially in songs. She always wondered what would happen if she didn't find anyone who would love her. And suddenly, fate plays a nasty joke on them: Tomás has a liver condition and is in need for a transplant. It is quite easy to love when the wind blows in favour, but what about when it blows against?




BLACK ICE (Musta jää)
Director: Petri Kotwica
Cinematographer: Harri Räty
Running time: 110 min.
Country: Finland, Germany
Year: 2007

Saara is a gynaecologist in Helsinki. She is elegant, friendly, liberal-minded and madly jealous. She has recently discovered that her husband is having an affair with a young student, Tuuli, who works part-time as a martial arts trainer. When Saara tries to find out more about her rival, she ends up with her unintentionally joining her husband’s lover’s self-defence group. The two develop a complicated relationship which soon spins out of Sarah’s control.




BORDER, THE (Raja 1918)
Director: Lauri Törhönen
Cinematographer: Esa Vuorinen
Running time: 120 min.
Country: Finland
Year: 2007

In the spring of 1918, after the end of the Finnish Civil War, Captain von Munck is sent to a small town at the newly established border between Finland and Russia. There he falls in love with a local teacher who is secretly engaged to a fugitive Finnish Red Army revolutionary. The border is driven to chaos when the village is flooded with hundreds of people fleeing from Russian purges. Von Munck has to decide who is allowed to cross the border.




CAPTIVE (Plennyj)
Director: Alexey Uchitel
Running time: 80 min.
Country: Russia, Bulgaria
Year: 2008

A convoy of Russian soldiers finds itself trapped in the mountainous Chechen landscape, lost in unfamiliar hostile territory. The commander of the garrison sends out the seasoned Rubakhin and the young rifleman Vovka to take captive a local who knows the mountain trails and could lead the men to safety. They succeed, but an unexpected bond develops between Rubakha and his young Chechen prisoner.




CARMO
Director: Murilo Pasta
Cinematographer: Robbie Ryan
Running time: 100 min.
Country: Spain, Brazil, Poland
Year: 2008

Marco is a lonely handicapped Spanish smuggler, driving through Brazil to sell out his cheap goods. When two bandits assault him and steal his load he is miraculously saved by Carmo, a beautiful local girl who would rather die than spend another day in the hellhole where she lives. Carmo and Marco will start a lawless, reckless journey, and an intense romance through a breathtaking South American border landscape.




CLASS, THE (Entre les murs)
Director: Laurent Cantet
Cinematographer: Pierre Milon
Running time: 128 min.
Country: France
Year: 2008

François teaches at a Parisian high school in a tough neighborhood. Cultures and attitudes often clash in the classroom, a microcosm of contemporary France. François addresses his students as near equals. But his classroom ethics are put to the test when his students begin to challenge his methods...




FADOS
Director: Carlos Saura
Cinematographer: José Luis López-Linares, Eduardo Serra
Running time: 90 min.
Country: Portugal, Spain
Year: 2007

Fado, called sometimes “the Portuguese blues", is a song of passion, sorrow and remembrance born from the slums of 19th-century Lisbon. With a series of vignettes and use of mirrors, lights, coloured screens and shadow play, the film presents a broad panorama of fado styles, from the strictly traditional to some rather unexpected variations.




HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
Director: Mike Leigh
Cinematographer: Dick Pope
Running time: 118 min.
Country: UK
Year: 2008

Poppy is a teacher from north London whose life, at first glance, seems to be full of complications. We watch her struggle with everyday life, which she approaches rather unconventionally. Poppy will not let anyone or anything get her down. She is a free spirit - open and generous, funny, and she never ever loses her sense of humour.




HELLO GOODBYE
Director: Stefan Jäger
Cinematographer: Piotr Jaxa
Running time: 86 min.
Country: Switzerland
Year: 2007

Melina is young and full of illusions. She has just fallen in love and is now ready to stand on her own two feet. She fosters a profound and loving relationship with her father who, nevertheless, confronts her with an outrageous demand. Together, father and daughter must face their fears and discover just how much courage it takes to let go of a loved one. The film takes the viewer on a roller-coaster ride of emotions, evoking laughter and tears, hope and suffering alike.




HOME OF DARK BUTTERFILES, THE (Tummien perhosten koti)
Director: Dome Karukoski
Cinematographer: Pini Hellstedt
Running time: 105 min.
Country: Finland
Year: 2008

Juhani is a troubled teen with a tragic past by the time he lands in a home for boys known as the Island. A world unto itself, the Island is run by Mr. Harjula, a strict disciplinarian intent on shaping the boys into confident young men and earning their respect in turn. A romance begins to blossom between Juhani and Mr. Harjula's daughter, and Juhani discovers the Island offers him something he has never had: a home. As the boy's haunting childhood slowly comes to light, he is forced to confront his demons, risk vulnerability and learn to forgive himself.




I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A GANGSTER (J'ai toujours revé d'etre un gangster)
Director: Samuel Benchetrit
Cinematographer: Pierre Aim
Running time: 113 min.
Country: France
Year: 2007

Four stories of inept attempts by a motley assortment of characters to turn to crime. All set in Paris and linked by a very particular cafeteria. A place rich in the bittersweet memories of the characters’ pasts, and a place where - for some - the future is born.




INNOCENCE (Unschuld)
Director: Andreas Morell
Cinematographer: Felix Cramer
Running time: 95 min.
Country: Germany
Year: 2007

Berlin. A bus driver, a policewoman, a photographer, a young Turkish girl, a politician, a prostitute - their nights and days are inextricably linked. Particular film episodes create a cinematic mosaic of longing for innocence, a need of love and understanding that the characters lack.





JOHNNY MAD DOG
Director: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
Cinematographer: Marc Koninckx
Running time: 93 min.
Country: France, Belgium, Liberia
Year: 2008

Contemporary Africa. 15-year-old Johnny is a teenage soldier who with his small commando robs, pillages, and slays everything in his path. Laokolé, who pushes her disabled father around in a rickety wheelbarrow, strives to flee her city occupied by the militia. Childhoods cut short, an Africa ravaged by absurd wars, a people who are trying, in spite of it all, to survive and to save their humanity.




LORNA SILENCE (Le Silence de Lorna)
Director: Jean-Pierre, Luc Dardenne
Cinematographer: Alain Marcoen
Running time: 105 min.
Country: Belgium, France, Italy, Germany
Year: 2008

In order to become the owner of a snack bar with her boyfriend, Lorna, a young Albanian woman living in Belgium, becomes an accomplice to a diabolical plan devised by mobster Fabio. Fabio has orchestrated a sham marriage between her and Claudy. The marriage allows her to obtain Belgian citizenship and then marry a Russian Mafioso willing to pay a lot of money to acquire the same quickly. However, for this second marriage to be possible, Fabio has planned to kill Claudy. Will Lorna keep silent?




MISTER FOE (Hallam Foe)
Director: David Mackenzie
Cinematographer: Giles Nuttgens
Running time: 95 min.
Country: UK
Year: 2007

Hallam Foe's talent for spying on people reveals his darkest fears - and his most peculiar desires. Driven to expose the true cause of his mother's death, he instead finds himself searching the rooftops of the city of Edinburgh for love.





MOSCOW BELGIUM (Aanrijding in Moscou)
Director: Christophe van Rompaey
Cinematographer: Ruben Impens
Running time: 102 min.
Country: Belgium
Year: 2008

A romantic comedy set against the backdrop of a working class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Ghent. It tells the story of Matty forty-one year-old mother of three recently dumped by her husband, who bumps her car into a truck on the parking lot of a supermarket. The accident results in a row with arrogant truck driver Johnny, a man more than 10 years her junior, with whom Matty soon falls in love.




REVENGE
Director: Anton Megerdichev
Cinematographers: Anton Antonov, Cory Clay
Running time: 124 min.
Country: Russia
Year: 2007

The fight is far from over. Young boxer Artem Kolchin has made a come-back despite all odds, and is ready for a rematch. But in the wilds of America, the boxing ring is the last of Artem’s worries. Artem and his opponent will have to test their strength and bravery against a real enemy before they can go head to head in the championship.




SILENT LIGHT (Luz Silenciosa)
Director: Carlos Reygadas
Cinematographer: Alexis Zabé
Running time: 142 min.
Country: Mexico, France, the Netherlands, Germany
Year: 2007

Johan lives with his family in an isolated Mennonite community in northern Mexico. Against the law of God and man, Johan falls in love with another woman. He talks openly of his dilemma with family and friends. It is this honesty which leads to the tragic main event of the film.





TEARS OF APRIL (Käsky)
Director: Aku Louhimies
Cinematographer: Rane Ronkainen
Running time: 115 min.
Country: Finland, Germany, Greece
Year: 2008

Set in 1918 during the Finnish civil war, the red socialists are fighting against white bourgeois. An intelligent and strong woman, red army fighter Miina manages to escape from capture by the whites. White soldier Aaro catches her again, but unlike other soldiers, he does not want to kill her - he wants to take her to a fair trial. The meeting of Aaro and Miina binds two strong human stories together and sparks an edgy love story in the midst of the horrors of civil war.




THREE MONKEYS (Üç maymun)
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Cinematographer: Gökhan Tiryaki
Running time: 105 min.
Country: Turkey, France, Italy
Year: 2008

A family dislocated when small failings blow up into extravagant lies battles against the odds to stay together by covering up the truth... In order to avoid hardship and responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth, not to see, hear or talk about it. But does playing “Three Monkeys" invalidate the truth of its existence?




YELLA
Director: Christian Petzold
Cinematographer: Hans Fromm
Running time: 89 min.
Country: Germany
Year: 2007

Yella decides to leave behind a failed marriage and broken dreams for a new life on the other side of the Elbe. In Hanover, she meets Philipp, a young executive at an equity firm, who hires her as his assistant. Although she has no knowledge of the world of venture capital, Yella discovers she has a knack with ruthless businessmen and sees a potential future with Philipp. She could finally get everything she has ever wanted. But strange voices and sounds are plaguing Yella - truths from her past coming back to haunt her.