Directed by: Kira Muratova
USSR, 1989, 153 min

Sergei Loznitsa presents

Two stories depicting the disintegration of the personality amid an oppressive reality that transforms a normal person into a flawed individual. This bleak fresco on the state of Soviet society at a time when perestroika was thriving won the Special Jury Prize at the Berlinale (1990). An uncontested masterpiece of world cinema.

Directed by: Chris Noonan
Australia, USA, 1995, 89 min

Sion Sono presents

Cows give milk, cats primp and preen, dogs guard sheep. But what are pigs good for? Quite simply, people raise them for the dinner table. But one sweetheart of a little pig defied his fate. The now classic family comedy reminds us that decency will take you far and that sheep may not be as stupid as they at first seem.

Directed by: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Iran, France, 1996, 78 min

Mark Cousins presents

At the age of seventeen Mohsen attended a protest rally and stabbed a policeman in self-defence. Twenty years later, now a well-known director, he holds an open casting for a film and his long-standing adversary turns up for the auditions as well. With the man’s help, Mohsen decides to reconstruct what happened in his new work and, in so doing, he endeavours to answer the questions which had weighed him down all this time.

Directed by: Lee Chang-dong
South Korea, 2010, 139 min

Kim Ki-duk presents

No longer young, Mi-ja still likes to dress nicely and her eccentric hats correspond to her fondness for beauty and poetry. Her interest in writing verse leads her to sign up for a poetry course. If not for an unpleasant incident involving her grandson, Mi-ja would continue living her modest satisfied life. The writer-director took Best Screenplay at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Directed by: Jules Dassin
France, 1955, 122 min

Michaël R.Roskam presents

Soon after his release from prison, Tony hooks up with some friends and an Italian safecracker to rob a high-rent jewelry store. Although the plan is technically perfect, as usually happens, one of the perpetrators makes a fatal mistake. The suspenseful, dusky film noir atmosphere is thick enough to cut with a knife.…

Directed by: Orson Welles
USA, 1958, 108 min

Luis Miñarro presents

In this suspenseful drama set on the American-Mexican border, every character is gradually pulled into a vortex of evil and moral ruin. Welles’ captivates with intercut long shots, the kind made famous in Citizen Kane (1941), and this time around he latched onto film noir with an approach reflected in the warped characters and the evocative play of light and shadow.