
Dave Hempel
7.0Single dad Richard meets Christine, a starving artist who moonlights as a cabbie. They awkwardly attempt to start a romance, but Richard’s divorce has left him emotionally damaged. Meanwhile, Richard’s sons—one a teenager, the other 6-years-old—take part in clumsy experiments with the opposite sex.
6.8After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
5.8Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR
7.2One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. With her, she takes only a few belongings and her son, Juan. Antonio soon sets out to look for her. He says Pilar is his sunshine, and what's more, "She gave him her eyes"...
7.1A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents.
7.0A year in the life of a turn-of-the-century middle class family, leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
4.2Danny Warren is a former minor-league shortstop that becomes a narc to uncover drug dealing in this situation comedy. Investigating at a high-school adult-education class, he falls for the tempting teacher. He joins a colorful group of characters that includes ex-cons, illegal aliens, and brain-dead baby boomers that cause more trouble than their younger counterparts. Swimming classes and wine tastings serve as background for a series of comic catastrophes.
7.0Four years after the end of the German Democratic Republic, Katarina Witt, two-time Olympic champion, is planning her comeback to prove to herself and to a united Germany that she still has what it takes. To do this, she has to team up with her former coach Jutta Müller and complete the toughest training of her life.
7.1Devoted teacher Anne Sullivan leads deaf, blind and mute Helen Keller out of solitude and helps integrate her into the world.
6.5Quirky and rebellious April Burns lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites the clan to her place for Thanksgiving. While her father struggles to drive her family into the city, April -- an inexperienced cook -- runs into kitchen trouble and must ask a neighbor for help.
7.1Two women, one American and one British, swap homes at Christmastime following bad breakups. Each woman finds romance with a local man but realizes that the imminent return home may end the relationship.
5.2Reluctantly, a sulky adolescent returns to her parents' house for yet another boring summer vacation, dabbling in desire and the art of desirability, eventually mixing reality with vision, caged fantasies with the fierce female sexuality.
6.1Life for a single mom in Los Angeles takes an unexpected turn when she allows three young guys to move in with her.
3.0Career-driven investment banker Elle has given up on love until she meets Wesley, who invites her to his hometown in South Carolina, where she rediscovers the spirit of Christmas.
7.1Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.
5.2The story of three couples, one of which just broke up, one that seems to be about to, and one perfectly okay. They are all friends, and from time to time, they gather to talk about everything. One time, they gather for dinner at the second couple's "mansion“— the husband became rich with his business. We see each couple as they prepare themselves for the party and learn a lot about their relationships. At the dinner, they get to talking about recognizing each other's peer with closed eyes and decide to try it, naked.
5.5Ben Holmes, a professional book-jacket blurbologist, is trying to get to Savannah for his wedding. He just barely catches the last plane, but a seagull flies into the engine as the plane is taking off. All later flights are cancelled because of an approaching hurricane, so he is forced to hitch a ride in a Geo Metro with an attractive but eccentric woman named Sara.
4.4Humans use technology to improve their lives, to forge connections, to create time that doesn’t exist, to replace real interactions. When we devise a second version of ourselves on social media, do we lose a piece of our true selves in the process? Do our digital connections threaten our real life relationships? What happens if the filtered characters we’ve imagined take on a life of their own?
7.1The lives of a motherless young man, who's just starting to find interest in women, and his physically abused, poverty stricken friend, are mixed with more or less innocent childhood experiences and challenges most their age experience.
6.0Kristin has just had to close her small Manhattan clothing boutique to return to her Ohio home town and live in her parents' former home. It's an adjustment for Kristin and her young daughter— especially when she runs into her former high school rival. Kristen and Emily struggle to find their new normal with the help of the hunky local music teacher.
6.7Teddy Duncan's middle-class family embarks on a road trip from their home in Denver to visit Mrs. Duncans Parents, the Blankenhoopers, in Palm Springs. When they find themselves stranded between Denver and Utah, they try to hitch a ride to Las Vegas with a seemingly normal older couple in a station wagon from Roswell, New Mexico. It turns out that the couple believes they are the victims of alien abduction. The Duncan's must resort to purchasing a clunker Yugo to get to Utah, have their luggage stolen in Las Vegas, and survive a zany Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma Blankenhooper.
6.4When an ambitious event planner gets an opportunity she can’t refuse, she goes undercover as her boss and returns to her rural hometown. With the help of her family and the man she left behind, she pulls off the perfect spring retreat, but will she discover home is where her heart is?
6.5When Lindsey travels to Ireland to acquire land that is perfect for a resort, she decides to enter the town's matchmaking festival to prove her investment—and win over a handsome local.
7.0Potential Northwestern fellow Tess Harper lasers through her best friend's wedding planning like the star doctor she hopes to soon become. In fact, Tess puzzles through any problem - provided it's not her own. When she meets divorce lawyer and groom's best friend, Michael, Tess maneuvers around him like a gurney in the emergency room until she discovers this best man has a few moves of his own.
5.9When a driven HR exec loses her high-powered job, she travels to Puerto Rico in an attempt to save her career at a business conference. But as the trip quickly becomes a disaster and a hurricane shuts down the whole island, she meets a handsome world traveler who gives her a new perspective on finding passion in life and love.
6.1Two longtime rivals and elementary school teachers duke it out during the holidays in a Christmas cookie bake-off, but their real feud ignites over a shared interest in a handsome single dad. With both determined to win the prize and the romance, their competitiveness could jeopardize what matters most this Christmas season.
5.9A fussy celebrity caterer, a blind woman, a tour-bus guide and an inexperienced wedding planner search for love.
6.3When a reporter encounters the eldest son of a famous political family at a mountain retreat, she winds up pretending to be his girlfriend over Christmas so he can save face with his family. Should she secretly expose newsworthy scoops about the famous family in order to save her job, or trust that she's falling in love for real? Stars Patricia Richardson and Katrina Law.
6.4A young widow and her nine year-old son spend a week at her family’s pear farm in Washington state, where they both fall in love with small town farm life, and she falls for the guy who has been managing the farm.
7.0Fired from her job as a reality TV host, Natalie returns home for Valentine's Day, only to find herself running the town festival's auction with her ex-fiancé thanks to two scheming mothers.
6.4With his carefree lifestyle on the line, a wealthy charmer poses as a ranch hand to get a hardworking farmer to sell her family’s land before Christmas.
5.9When an engaged couple can’t agree on anything, the mother of the groom hires a wedding planner and an event planner to help put together the wedding of their dreams. The two planners are as different as night and day, but as they too learn to compromise, they discover opposites do indeed attract and can combine to produce incredible results!
6.9Claire’s life as a nurse in a busy hospital is complicated by a supervisor who is intent on making her miserable with tedious and extra tasks. Claire’s only relief is the patients she treats, and even that is not always a picnic. On a rare night off, she attends a dance performance and gets trapped in an elevator with a charming man. There is an instant connection between them, but as they are “rescued” from the elevator, they are pulled away from each other before they can exchange names and numbers.
6.4The story of a young businesswoman who tries to convince her uptight parents to accept her current boyfriend and instead finds herself falling for an old high school flame.
6.1Jamie owns a sightseeing and tour company in the small town of Cooperville, New York. Navigating the holidays with enthusiasm is trickier for Jamie since her husband Matt passed. Matt loved Christmas and found unparalleled joy in giving to others. While reminiscing with family, Jamie realizes the town desperately needs someone with Matt’s genius for thinking of the small gestures that bring genuine happiness to the holidays.
6.1Looking for a fresh angle to her book on relationships, Merry heads to snow-covered Vermont. She finds a new perspective and Christmas cheer with charismatic aid worker Chris.
6.2At a crossroads after her divorce, a schoolteacher ventures toward a fresh start in life — and love — when she signs up for a grueling group hiking trip.
5.9Thirty-something Isabelle spends her time going from her tiny, solitary West Side apartment to that of her grandmother on the Lower East Side. While her grandmother plots to find her a romantic match, Isabelle is courted by a married, worldly author, Anton, yet can't seem to shake the down-to-earth appeal of Sam, a pickle vendor.
6.9A newly wed couple, Tacy and Nicky, travel in a trailer for their honeymoon. The journey is a humorous one that could end up destroying their marriage.