Germany

Plays with Night Fishing.

Based on a German bestseller about a literary lie of mammoth proportions, Alain Gsponer’s most recent film is a deft, playful romantic comedy with comparisons to Morvern Callar and Priceless. Featuring internationally known German star Daniel Bruhl (Inglorious Basterds, Goodbye Lenin!) and the much-touted Hannah Herzsprung (Four Minutes) as his love interest, the film is an ingenious farce about trying to have your cake and eat it, too.

From “old pro” Czech director Juraj Herz comes this powerful and moving WWII story from the oft-forgotten Czech/German border region of Sudetenland. 

German mill owner August Habermann tries his best to remain silent when his hometown becomes occupied by Nazi Germany, but an intrusive SS officer soon questions his loyalties to the Fatherland.  Things fall apart quickly for the apolitical Habermann when it's discovered that his wife is half Jewish and dozens of his Czech employees are mounting a resistance against the occupation. 

A lush costume drama chronicling the early formative years of Germany’s most famous literary genius.   

US Premiere

Award-winning filmmaker Hajo Schomerus (known internationally for his remarkable short films) presents his new documentary spotlighting a different kind of religious strife in the Holy Land.  

Based on a true story, a Holocaust survivor who plays accordion in a tango bar and lives among Nazis-in-hiding in 1950s Argentina, is unaware of his neighbors’ dark past. He will eventually make a discovery that leads to one of the most famous war crimes trials in history. 

What does it take to become the next world-class opera star? Watch as 500 young international talents audition for the prestigious Opera Studio, a master class at the world-renowned Bavarian State Opera, with General Music Director Kent Nagano.

Bibliotheque Pascal is not a library – it’s a licentious brothel located in Liverpool, where the patrons can project and enter each other’s dreams and, dressed as literary characters, can enact their bookish sexual fantasies. Having left her daughter with her fortune-telling aunt, young and beautiful Mona is tricked into embarking on a trek from Transylvania to Germany for life-saving surgery. Instead, she finds herself on a harrowing journey into the shadowy world of sexual slavery.

Austrian documentarian Elisabeth Scharang makes the difficult transition to fiction filmmaking look easy as she tackles the already challenging subject of the closing days of World War II.