Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 

Everyone is an artist... A sober comedy about a nurse who finds an unexpected and lucrative source of subsistence and fame in his autistic patient.

A metaphoric, but emotionally intense movie about homosexuality and all those who want to fly. This open and intimate film, which took the FIPRESCI prize at the Rotterdam IFF, will especially interest fans of Taiwanese bad boy Tsai Ming-Liang and the minimalist humor of Roy Andersson.

An Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan is surrounded by wire fencing and lookout towers. The life of a border settlement is determined by the cycle of nature and tradition as we follow the existence of a community of people in a war-torn landscape through the eyes and instincts of a wild buffalo. The director filters the documentary rawness of his testimony through empathic reflection.

This screenwriting and directorial debut, awarded at Rotterdam, focuses on a debt collector, for whom violence and vulgarity are ordinary forms of communication, even towards those closest to him. The subdued narrative neutrally lays out a series of situations which are spontaneously cheerful, drastically physical, and also painfully tragic.

A drama about the fate of Slovak Jew Martin Friedmann during the Second World War, based on real events. The episodic structure of the film captures all the major crossroads of Martin’s war period and concentrates, in particular, on the fundamental storyline reflecting his compulsion to survive.

A stylized biopic of the notoriously violent and celebrated British prisoner who changed his name to Charles Bronson. Many at this year’s Sundance festival considered this gripping movie, by the maker of the cult film Pusher, the hands-down most significant film experience of the fest.

A debut feature, this South Korean anti-romantic comedy presents an unostentatiously cheerful ode to outsiderism and egocentrism. The film was produced and the screenplay fine-tuned by Park Chan-wook, creator of the international hits Oldboy (2003) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chinjeolhan Geum-ja ssi, 2005).

Daniel, a young gardener, gets to know his colleague Jana, however, she starts to suspect that there’s something not quite right about him… A disturbing and oppressive portrait of a mass murderer which is ostensibly as cold and restrained as its hero. It follows events with neutral detachment, sober and minimalist in style, even so, it leaves behind an unpleasant aftertaste.

On 21 August 1968 Prague awoke to find itself occupied by Soviet forces. Director Jan Němec took it upon himself to walk the streets documenting the invasion. He then travelled with the priceless footage to Austria under bizarre circumstances, which involved a beautiful but unattainable girl called Jana. Němec again conceives his work as an integral association of intimate chronicles and major historical events.

Ali and Merdad have promised to accompany their two young cousins from Iran to be with their parents in Austria. While the refugees wait in the Turkish city of Ankara for Austrian visas, they share the fate of other illegal immigrants. This tragicomic mosaic about people searching for a better life is an autobiographical work from debuting feature director Arash T. Riahi.

Two attractive adolescent girls, Maria and Raakel, are bound by the rules of a rigid religious community. Alcohol and premarital sex are prohibited although Maria would, to say the least, like to dabble in both. Will her hunger for forbidden fruit bring disaster or liberation?

Loner Mario makes a living training cocks to fight. One day he meets the elderly Julia who lives immersed in her religion and her losses... A story of two solitary people lost in their own confusion, the fateful clash of two taciturn, disparately-aged individuals who succumb to their instincts.

The film takes place in Winston-Salem, South Carolina. Senegalese taxi driver Solo is hired by 70-year-old William for an usual job. He asks Solo to take him to Blowing Rock mountain in two weeks time. During that time, a bond is formed between Solo and William which might lead to friendship.