Nature

Clara, 40, is believed to have a special connection to God. As a "healer", she sustains a family and a village in need of hope, while she finds solace in her relationship with the natural world. After years of being controlled by her mother’s repressive care, Clara’s sexual desires are stirred by her attraction to her niece’s new boyfriend. This newly awakened force takes Clara to unexplored territory, allowing her to cross boundaries, both physical and mystical. More

The hamlet of Condor lies in the Puna grasslands of the northern highlands of Argentina, at some four thousand metres above sea level, close to the border with Bolivia. Here, a lama herder lives with his family. He and his son sell lama meat and wool in the closest city, which is still a long trip on foot and by bus. When the herd is threatened by a puma, the herder goes in search of the predator. According to local custom, he has to make an offering to the beast. An honest, respectful portrait of a culture that is inextricably and organically bound to nature. More

Struggling with his profession as a teacher, Ugyen is sent to Lunana in northern Bhutan for his final year of training. With a warm welcome, the local children try to win him over but they do not have much time.BONUS5 questions pour Pawo Choyning Dorji (Braunschweig Festival) More

25-year-old Sibel lives with her father and sister in a secluded village in the mountains of Turkey’s Black Sea region. Sibel is a mute, but she communicates by using the ancestral whistled language of the area. Rejected by her fellow villagers, she relentlessly hunts down a wolf that is said to be prowling in the neighbouring forest, sparking off fears and fantasies among the village women. There she crosses path with a fugitive. Injured, threatening and vulnerable, he is the first one to take a fresh look at her. More

A woman visits her home on an island in the Tigre Delta in an attempt to reconnect with her son, but finds that returning and reconciliation are never easy, in this atmospheric family drama from Silvina Schnicer and Ulises Porra Guardiola. More

María, a 17-year-old Kaqchikel Maya, lives with her parents on a coffee plantation at the foot of an active volcano. She is set to be married to the farm’s foreman. But María longs to discover the world on the other side of the mountain, a place she cannot even imagine. And so she seduces a coffee-harvester who wants to escape to the USA. When this man leaves her behind, María discovers her own world and culture anew. Director Jayro Bustamante grew up in the region of the Kaqchikel Maya in Guatemala and returned there to make his film. More

Embrace of the Serpent tells the epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes. More

A nomadic family lives with their horses in the intoxicating nature of Kyrgyzstan. Schaiyr's husband drowned in the nearby river years ago. A new love is on the horizon as meteorologist Jermek sets up his measuring station next to Schaiyr's home. Told in the gentle rhythm of the nomadic life, director Mirlan Abdykalykow takes us on a journey through time into the easily vulnerable heart of a family and into the dreamlike nature. More

In a traditional tribal society in the South Pacific, a young girl, Wawa, falls in love with her chief’s grandson, Dain. When an intertribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, refusing her arranged fate. They must choose between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for individual freedom. More

When backpackers visit a small village in remote northern Laos in search of a traditional experience, the inhabitants of the village discover the attractions of the West. Two worlds meet at the crossroads of their respective desire; the one longing for authenticity, the other for modernity. In this micro-cosmos, their encounter leaves no one unchanged and tells a poetic story of friendship and how we relate to each other in a rapidly changing world. More

Told through captivating imagery and visuals this long-awaited movie from a renowned Georgian filmmaker is an unusual psychological drama that demonstrates just how unnecessary dialogue can be for creating maximum audience effect. An old peasant and his innocent 16-year-old granddaughter sow corn on an island in the middle of the Inguri River dividing Georgia from Abkhazia. The intense bond between nature and the two individuals is disturbed, however, by the arrival of the border police. More

Nabat and her husband Iskender, an old and sick ex-forestry worker, live in a small isolated house far from the village. War has been raging for some time and their son has been killed at the front. Their sole means of survival is the sale of milk from their only cow that Nabat takes to the village every couple of days. As the shadow of war envelopes the region the village is slowly deserted by its inhabitants. Following Iskender’s death Nabat has to survive in a now abandoned village under the regard of a she-wolf. More

A group of students decides to camp on a desolate Caspian region which runs a competition of kite flying during the winter solstice. Not far from the camp, live Babak and Saeed, two grim cooks. Armed with sharp knives, they roam the forest in search of meat to serve the decrepit restaurant they run nearby. More

A man wanders through the 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the stricken nuclear reactors at Fukushima. The cherry trees are in bloom and the natural surroundings make an idyllic impression. Radiation is invisible, yet a gaping emptiness looms where the tsunami engulfed streets and houses. The man is wearing normal clothing, just like the people still toughing it out here, for the time being at least. He occa- sionally encounters white “ghosts” in protective clothing, performing strange tasks. More

«If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live», Einstein is said to have noted. All over the world bees have been dying for the past three years. Although the causes for this are still a mystery, one thing is already clear: there is more at stake than simply a few dead insects, and a great deal more than just honey. More

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The Asuka region is the birthplace of Japan. Here, in ancient times, there were those who fulfilled their lives in the midst of waiting. Modern people, apparently having lost this sense of waiting, seem unable to feel grateful for the present, and cling to the illusion that all things will move constantly forward according to one’s own plan. In ancient times, there were three small mountains that people believed were inhabited by gods. They were Mt. Unebi, Mt. Miminashi, and Mt. Kagu, and they still stand. More

Six-year-old Yusuf has just begun attending primary school where he is learning how to read and write. His father, Yakup, is a beekeeper. He goes about his trade deep inside the woods where he hangs up his bee hives in the treetops of the highest trees. The mountain forest is a place of deep mystery to Yusuf and he derives great pleasure from accompanying his father there. One morning Yusuf tells his father about a dream he had the night before. Yakup turns on him curtly telling him never to share his dreams with others. The same day, Yusuf is asked to read out a text in front of the class. More

Suffering from acute kidney failure, Uncle Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave -- the birthplace of his first life... From the director of SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY, TROPICAL MALADY and BLISSFULLY YOURS. More

Carla duda. Tiene 37 años, está casada, posiblemente embarazada y debería estar feliz mientras viaja hacia las vacaciones de verano con su marido y una moto de agua enganchada al auto. Pero quizás no quiere estar ahí. Quizás preferiría estar en la carretera con algún mochilero noruego, yendo a un hermoso parque nacional donde podría caminar entre grandes árboles y hablar sobre pájaros y viejas canciones pop con el guardaparques. Sí, quizás eso sería mejor. More

The mountain massif of Cutucú in the south of the Amazon region in Ecuador was a kind of defense against the environmental destruction for the native population but in the same time an obstacle. The people had no access to the modern world outside. The road through the Cutucú now allows mobility in order to exploit the fossil resurces but it grants the natives a way to reach the so called civilized world. The process happens in an unspectacular way. More

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Birdwatchers (La terra degli uomini rossi) is a film set in Brazil, in the Matto Grosso do Sul. It depicts the breakdown of a community of Guarani-Kaiowa native Indians whilst attempting to reclaim their ancestral land from a local farmer. More

Carla and Luciano are a happy couple, exuding the joys of love. One morning, Luciano, a geologist, sets off on a work trip, and then seems to disappear into thin air. . . His worried wife, unable to find any trace of him, sets off to find him in the tiny village in Patagonia he was supposed to be going to. There she meets Luis, who looks just like Luciano, an estate agent married to another woman. Convinced this man could be her husband, Carla tries all kinds of strategies to get closer to him. But the man does not recognise her. More

When Beijing journalist Ga Yu arrives at the mystical camp of the Kekexili Mountain Patrol, he witnesses a Tibetan funeral and a village in mourning. Ga Yu is determined to uncover the real story behind the mysterious disappearance of patrol volunteers, the killing of rare Tibetan antelopes and the rumor that the Mountain Patrol collaborates with the poachers. Ga Yu joins a patrol headed out into 40,000 square kilometers of wilderness. More

Under the encouragement of the Chinese government, the traditional way of life of the nomads of the Mongolian plains change. Once a culture with a great emphasis on raising horses on the grassy plains, they are encouraged to move into the cities to work as industrial workers. However, one family tries to resist this change, trying to raise money to send their child to school by selling yogurt. Unfortunately, this is hardly sufficient and they are forced to sell their beloved horses. More

The centre stage of this story there is a boy who is ill-famed as the child of a wolf and is said to be frosty, along with his seductive mother and a hunter and shaman. After the boy has made an attack, he starts for an initiation journey, together with his mother and the hunter, who's also her lover. During the trip, which is nestled in the nature of the Kazakh mountain scenery, the hunter tries to inseminate his vitality and his insights to the boy by bringing him near the beauty of nature and letting him discover friendship and death. More

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A Japanese man searches the internet looking for his dream car, a 1967 Citroen DS (in French: Déesse, or "Goddess") . He locates one in Australia and travels there to buy it. Upon his arrival he finds the seller dead. A 17 year-old blind girl tells him she can take him to find the real owner. Together they embark on a strange and erotic journey into the arid Australian desert, populated by abandoned mining towns - a desolate land and a dark haunting past. More

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In the early morning of 26 april 1986 the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl exploded. Before this catastrophe, the land in this part of Belarus was fertile and under cultivation. Right after the explosion a strong wind blew the radioactivity through the whole area and transformed the ground into contaminated and dead land. Almost all of the three hundred families living there were forced to leave their homes. Only six of them were left behind. They refused to move to another part of the country and were from then on called "Samosyol" (egoists). More

There is an old Indian tradition according to which the parents teach their children the songs of wisdom, in order to enable them to bear their fate and their lives with more calmness. Pallavi - acted by India's most successful TV-star Kitu Gidwani - is a young, successful singer who has learnt her art with the help of her mother. She's convinced that she'd still had to learn a lot of her, whereas the mother thinks her already talented enough to keep the tradition of making music and oral deliverance alive herself. More

This film, in the style of an African folk tale, is set in the forest village of Amanha Lundju, a place where the birth of children is celebrated by the planting of a tree. The trees are considered spiritual twins. But for every tree planted, the rapacious state destroys many more for firewood and lumber. The tale begins as the wanderer Dou returns to the village. He discovers that Hami, his twin brother just died for no apparent reason. According to the tradition Dou takes on his late brother's wife and children, something that displeases Saly, his betrothed. More

Yumiko is a young woman from Osako, whose life is defined by the death of her loved ones. She lost her grandmother at the age of twelve, and her husband Ikuo, who is the reincarnation of her grandmother to her, commits suicide some months after the birth of their child. Once more Yumiko loses a person she had really loved. Five years later she marries Tamio, a man who lives by the sea together with his eight-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Her pain has ceased until the day she returns to her place of birth and gets caught up by her memories. More

Don‘t Die without Telling Me Where You‘re Going is an extraordinary film by a remarkable director, Eliseo Subiela (Man Looking Southeast, Dark Side of the Heart).This is masterful filmmaking that brings to life an invisible dimension of our world: auras, souls, spirits. William and Rachel have loved each other in various lives. In the life this movie depicts, William is Leopoldo, lives in Buenos Aires, and is working on an invention: a dream collector. While testing his invention, he finds Rachel, who in this life is a soul. More

Les Gens de la rizière tells the story of Yong Poeuw, his wife Yim Om and their seven daughters. The land is scarce, the family members are many, the children are growing up, the balance has become fragile. Yong Poeuw and Yim Om suspect that a rupture is coming. More

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Together with his young son a father heads off for an inimitable quest: By car they drive through the nightmarish chaos of the erathquake catastrophe from 1990. The destruction demanded over 50'000 deaths, entire villages were razed to the ground. People report how they were suddenly faced with the catastrophe, standing in front of nothing, having lost their entire families with over thirty relatives. But still the film is not a report of terror. More

Dat and his sister live with their eternally drunk father in a small village in the Vietnamese mountains. One day a travelling circus appears. Dat makes friends with the girl from the circus: He hopes to get behind the trick with which the jugglers suddenly conjure up rice for everyone from an empty basket. Could Dat and his sister, could all the starving people from now on have enough to eat through this incredible miracle? Dat is bitterly disappointed: everything was just dizziness and lazy magic. More

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«A Place in the World» by Adolfo Aristarain, looks at people who, having fought for a better world, are in the aftermath of defeat. Federico Luppi plays the main character as a teacher who is back from along exile he shared with his doctor wife, Cecilia Roth. Both are living with their teenaged son, Batyi, in a San Luis valley seven hundred miles away from Buenos Aires. While baking bread for his poor pupils, Luppi inspires and leads a community effort aimed at getting fair prices for the farmers' output, sidestepping ruthless landowner Rodolfo Ranm. More

Ta dona is the story about a young forest ranger and his life in the African country of Mali in the 1990s. He's a young Bambara man, an employee in Mali's Ministry of Rivers and Forests, searching for an ancient herbal remedy for childbirth, a plant with mythical healing powers. The secret knowledge he is trying to achieve, he wants to use for the people's good. He sees that his work holds the key to the future of his country (through reforestation) and he dislikes the short-sighted, money-grubbing ways of his superiors. More

A blind master wanders through a mythic landscape of a terrific beauty to play his songs and sing his ballads. His whole life he's had one hope, one dream of another world: According to a prophecy he shall be able to see, if he has broken 1000 of his banjo strings. His blind disciple, on the contrary, doesn't want to rely on one hope. He longs for a woman's love. Does sight await the saint when the 1000th string breaks? Can the disciple's strength of character overcome provincial prejudice to win the hand of his love and a place in the village? More

The fairy tale "the dove's lost necklace" by Nacer Khemir tells the story of Hassan, a young man who is taught calligraphy by his master. One day he runs across a portion of an old text which convinces him that it holds the secrets to love. With the help of an impudent young boy and the boy's monkey (whom the boy thinks is an enchanted prince), Hassan sets out to find the rest of the manuscript. What he finds instead is the beauteous Aziz. Despite their being separated by war, they are soon reunited. This film takes us in the midst of a time when djinns and visions were still, real. More

Takuji’s been in a coma for quite some time after an accident in the mountains, where he often wandered wistfully. His family and friends have been coping rather well with his condition, and he lies in bed at home where everyone can visit him. More

Three people live in a remote Buddhist monastery near Mount Chonan: Hyegok, the old master; Yong Nan, a young man who has left his extended family in the city to seek enlightenment, and an orphan lad Haejin, whom Hyegok has brought to the monastery to raise as a monk. The story is mostly Yong Nan's, told in flashbacks: how he came to the monastery, his brief return to the city, his vacillation between the turbulence of the world and his hope to overcome passions and escape the idea of self. More

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An ageing father waits, in vain, at the bus stop for his son Raghu, a student at the University of Trivandrum, who is supposed to be coming home for the holidays. The elderly Chakyar’s eager happiness slowly turns to disappointment and then anxiety. After several days with no news of Raghu, his family learn that the police have arrested him for singing revolutionary songs at the university’s annual fête. Chakyar goes to the capital, hoping to find support from the Minister of Internal Affairs, and is soon joined by his daughter, who does not, however, share his optimism. More

Shin, a nobleman, had been trying to conceive a male heir to pass his family name. Unable to provide a male heir, Shin's wife gives her husband permission to search for a surrogate wife to bear a male heir. On the way to finding a surrogate wife, Shin runs into a 17 year old girl, Ok-nyo (Kang Soo-yeon). She was a poor feisty girl who stated she would do anything for money. More

In Offret, the last film by Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky, an apocalyptic catastrophe breaks out over an actor's birthday party. Former actor Alexander (Erland Josephson) celebrates his birthday with his family and some friends in his house on the coast. It's a beautiful day until the radio announces a catastrophe that threatens the whole world. In order to keep everything as it was the day before, Alexander wants to make a sacrifice, but will that help? More

Norbu is a nomad who lives with his wife and his child in the mountainous highland of tibet as a shepherd. He belongs to an ethnic minority and from time to time he sees himself compelled to act as a horse thief in order to provide his family with food. But the day Norbu tries to steal some treasures of a temple the community excludes and banishes him. Living in exile, he loses his son. After his last theft of a horse he sacrifices himself in order to save his wife and his second child. More

It is in a village lost at the bottom of the desert, a young teacher was named, to teach, but there is no school. Through the yant glance foudro of a girl, our teacher is aspired by another world to the suspended time where côtoient Thousand and One Nights. Coordinate all the hidden force of an underground memory. One of the most beautiful desert movies, in which storyteller and painter Nacer Khemir tells us the journey of a young teacher that arrives in a desert village. More

A fisherman, Kishore, marries a young girl accidentally when he visits a nearby village. After their wedding night, Kishore's young bride is kidnapped on the river. On losing his wife, Kishore becomes mad. Meanwhile, his young bride fights with the bandits, jumps into the river and is saved by some villagers. Unfortunately, the young bride knows nothing about her husband, she doesn't even know her husband's name. The only thing she remembers is the name of the village Kishore belongs to. Ten years later, she attempts to find Kishore with their son. More

The film tells the story of Nita, a beautiful young woman who lives with her family, refugees from East Pakistan, in the suburbs of Calcutta. Nita is a self-sacrificing person who is constantly exploited by everyone around her, even her own family, who take her goodness for granted. Her life is ridden with personal tragedy: she loses first her fiancé, then her job and finally her health by contracting tuberculosis. It is only when she collapses that her family begins to realize what they have done to her. More