Nature's Way (2006)

Algerian filmmaker Tariq Teguia wrote and directed this impressionistic look at a man whose life takes an unexpected turn far away from home. Malek (Abdelkader Affak) is a surveyor from Algeria who is semi-retired, but at the urging of a friend he takes an assignment in Oran. The region in question was the site of frequent battles during Oran's civil war, and an earlier survey that would make it possible to bring electrical utilities to the area was cut short by the fighting. While the zone is still unstable, Malek sets out to complete charting the area, and finds the locals regard him with suspicion and hostility. However, not everyone is disrespectful, and he discovers a young woman (Ines Rose Djakou) who is attracted to him, which leads him to consider abandoning his old life to run away with her. Inland was an official selection at the 2008 Venice Film Festival.

Four nights in Caracas. A documentary essay about chaos and civilization.

Following a brawl, Captain Ignat, who is traumatised by the death of his daughter, is ordered together with a regular soldier to find a deserter and bring him back via Moscow to stand before a military court. Although they locate the young soldier, their journey across the wintry moloch that is Moscow is slow and tortuous. Before long, the unlikely trio find themselves drawn into a chaotic maelstrom of violence, corruption, criminality, degradation and squalidness. In the face of the monstrous malaise and everyday horror of life in Russia, the gradual breakdown of the film’s anti-hero becomes a metaphor for Russian society.

10 minutes in the life of several deaf-and-dumb boarding school inmates are reconstructed in real time.

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

The story of a young girl who escapes her reality by immersing herself in a watery version of the world.

Created and produced as a sample of the proposed (never realized) animated feature. "It was like a 30's musical in which Anita left the alligator farm to pursue her dream of opening the ultimate tropical nightclub. I had a script and storyboard [...] Nightclub of the future with live alligators and a tipsy train that serves drinks." -SC

What does a baby's cry have in common with the echo of a mountain yodler, and what connects the head tone of a Tuvin nomad with the stage show of a vocal artist? The answer is: THE VOICE. Against a background of powerful alpine vistas and modern city landscapes, "heimatklänge" enters the wondrous sonic world of three exceptional Swiss vocal artists. Their universe of sound extends far beyond what we would describe as singing. In their engagement with local and foreign traditions, the powerful mountain landscape becomes a stage as do the landscapes and sonic backdrops of modern life.

The film takes place away from the glittering strip of mega casinos, but the greed of Sin City is just as pervasive on the desert outskirts. This is where a happy family learns of a forgotten fortune that may be buried beneath their home. Their lives are turned upside down. A sophisticated study of just how far people are able and willing to go if faced with the tempting prospect of easily acquired wealth.

Drama film about different lifes of twin brothers.

Bor, in eastern Serbia, was once home to the largest copper mine in Europe. Now it’s just the biggest hole. This astutely observed coming-of-age film captures the pitfalls of the adult world, where idealism no longer seems to have a place, as two teens come to realize they have no choice but to grow up.

A political allegory on four middle-class guys who pile into their car for a ski weekend. A brief stop at a picturesque vista leads to their chance discovery of a prominent rock formation it seems would be oh so easy to tip over, but...

A man plays fetch with his dog, only to have both him and his dog mired in a series of optical illusions.

Based on a satirical short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky concerning the escapades of a Russian civil servant.

Valentin and Valentina love each other and want to marry. But their mothers are strongly against this marriage. So strong is their hate that they can use any possible means.

The life of Marcela, an ordinary Czech woman is explored throughout several decades of her life. We are engaged to struggle and fight back with Marcela as her tragic life unfolds before our eyes especially when dealing with her daughter’s unexpected death, which almost drives her to suicide. The film was initially part of a series about the fate of six married couples, but the events that happened throughout Marcela’s life were the reason why the director decided to focus solely on a documentary about her.

On Christmas Eve, Léa and Juliette, a couple, want to rob a supermarket that Juliette knows is empty of surveillance on this festive evening. But, as much for each of them as for Eric, the vigil who is there after all, nothing will happen as planned. Besides, shortly before leaving him alone, the store manager gave Eric a gun, just in case.

A young teacher is sent to a remote province, separating her from her lover, and sets about the difficult task of building a school there.

A provincial Soviet town. Factory worker Victor Belov is beaten up by two teenagers in the park. One of them, Vladimir Belikov, goes to a correction labor settlement for two years, the other is put on probation. Belov goes on with his life and work. Life is simple and unambiguous: the factory, the wife, regular factory sports competitions. But the memories of the trial keep coming back. Everything was not done as properly as it had seemed then. He wants to change the fate of the accused, goes to the labor camp, obtains the right to visit him there and advocates his early release…

The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, which is very faithful to the 1907 novel The Mother by the celebrated Marxist writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). In the story, "the mother" (Inna Tchourikova) has no other recourse than to watch her decent, kindly husband turn into an animalistic, drunken brute as a result of working in the inhuman conditions of a steel mill in the town of Sormovo. When he begins to express his suppressed rage by beating her, she is defended by her teenaged son Pavel (depicted Viktor Rakov as an adult, Sacha Chichonok as a boy). After his father's death, Pavel is forced to go to work in the same factory. However, Pavel and his friends begin investigating Marxism and socialist thought, and work to organize their fellow workers.