Julia Kent

The Mediterranean has always played a central role in our world. It is crossed, made use of, enjoyed, feared and loved every day, every night. Stories from the Sea portrays women aboard three vessels who experience the Mediterranean Sea as a place of longing, a place of work, or a scene of human encounters. The all-encompassing waters, unceasing waves and distant horizons are elements that link the protagonists, regardless of their motivation to go out to sea.

Footwear company Togo was a family business that thrived reaching the point of owning more than 30 stores in the wider Turin area. All that is left today is a couple of struggling stores, enormous suffocating debt, and the desperation of uncertainty as bankruptcy is looming in. Director Gianluca Mattarese has been living in Paris for the last 18 years meticulously fencing himself off from the harsh reality of a family breakdown. Like a prodigal son, he eventually returns to his roots with the task of recording a routine of malaise framed by financial collapse. A bittersweet tale of family bonds, reuniting, and atonement.

Buried Seeds, a film by Andrei Severny, is a timeless story of human passion, willpower, and resolve in the face of adversity. The film follows Michelin Star Chef Vikas Khanna's on his journey as an immigrant. Born with clubbed feet in Amritsar, Vikas is bullied by his classmates. Khanna takes refuge in his grandmothers kitchen and discovers his passion for the vivid traditions of Indian cuisine. At the age of 29, Vikas moves to New York with nothing in his pocket and ends up in a homeless shelter. Through years of struggle and hard work Vikas opens his first Indian restaurant in Manhattan. Over time Vikas Khanna grows to become one of the most influential chefs in the world and a cultural ambassador of his nation. While wealth and glory may be transient, what truly defines him is the will to create himself every single day.

Already at a young age Lindy became aware that he didn't fit in. He was thin, girly, and from a family which already was exposed by the society. To survive, he fled into a fantasy world where he was the super hero Little Light - a boy who could spread light across the world. He was dreaming of becoming someone else - an actor. Today he's acclaimed and loved for his interpretations. But when he gets asked by The Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin to get up on stage as himself, everything is put at stake. Can he tell his story without harming his loved ones?

A story, set in a country house, that narrates the crisis in the relationship of a young couple.

In a historical vegetable garden on a Dutch estate, the 85 year-old pruning master and the gardener tend to the espaliers. As they prune, the men chat about food, the weather, the world and they share their knowledge of horticulture. Fifteen years they have spent working on the pear arbour. Will it finally close over this year?