After being taken back from Talia, Viola once again falls under Elva’s control. Previously treated like an infant, she is now forced to live as a “pet cat,” just as Elva once made her do. In Elva’s new home, Viola is confined, made to sleep inside the bathroom, and fed cat food as her daily meals, completely different from the baby-like routine she endured under Talia. Yet even as Elva dominates her life once more, Viola remains haunted by the memories of her time with Talia.
Bearing the scars of abuse from a past relationship, Izadora joins a yoga group with her friend Brena. Gradually, Izadora realizes that something evil resides in that place.
In a secluded Lebanese village, Amal and Naeem, married for 50 years, find their peaceful life marked by the absence of their children, who left during the war more than three decades ago. Feeling a profound void, Amal seeks to rekindle their connection and rediscover meaning by asking Naeem to write their life story. He reluctantly agrees, and they embark on an intimate journey through forgotten memories and unspoken truths. As they revisit their past, they confront the love they've built and the questions that have shaped their lives.
If trauma is left untreated for a long time, it will cause one to lose love and other functions. The fowl that does not dance has other difficulties, too. University drop-out Souma saw her peer Marina catching a man who groped a girl. Later, he encounters Marina again and musters the courage to help her when she is being harrassed. The two begin to talk about everything, doing yoga to understand their bodies before Soma finally confides his dark past to Marina. SHIRAMOTO Ayana, the rising star from The Box Man (2024), and new actor SUWA Shuri breathe life into this chance encounter. With MIYAKE Sho and TOMINAGA Masanori collaborator TSUKINAGA Yûta as cinematographer, the film’s simple yet moving images gently lead the audience into the state of a contemplative ‘sleeping swan’.
Family pains and abdominal cramps—anyone can allow their body to endure the turbulent intrusion alone. After living in Norway for years, Ling brings her foreign boyfriend home to Hong Kong. The family reunion is seemingly harmonious yet unspoken rifts and resentment will be revealed through family therapy. Will it end in reconciliation or a split-up? Bobby YU Shuk-pui, winner of Best Director at the 17th Fresh Wave, brings her family’s story to the silver screen. With real-life family members appearing on screen, the film examines intergenerational conflict through the lens of the young. With scenes of conversational therapy shot like direct cinema and shifting between fiction and reality through switching aspect ratios, the film faithfully and naturally presents the emotional vortex among family members.
If a goddess has come down to earth, could she bring back lost time for man? Ning takes a substitute teaching position at a rural school, hoping to find inspiration for her novel from nature. One day after class, students Richard and LAM Mak-noeng, a mysteriously masked girl who shares the same name as the Empress of Heaven, come to her for help. It turns out that Mak-noeng is about to disappear. Faced with such an ethereal problem, Ning takes on the responsibility of a storyteller and seeks a happy ending for this heavenly romance. The director, who has always been interested in urban issues, has continued to mix historical and fantastical elements like he has done with Interview with Lo-Ting: An Oral History Project (2022). A modern love story with celestial inspiration, the film gently caresses the remnants of our city and the melancholy of lonely souls.
Love is a long road with moments of separation and reunion. Even an experienced driver must remember safety first and keep the clutch in check to avoid repeating the same mistakes in love. CHAN, a middle-aged man with several different types of driver’s license, is dissatisfied with young hearse driver Zi-ling’s driving skills, so he takes over the position. Two people who lost their better halves embark on a journey of life and death, healing, guilt, and letting go. The film depicts this road trip romance through a series of analogies related to modes of transportation, filling the screen with scenery on the roads of Hong Kong. The film, with its ambitious production scale, also charts the social changes of Hong Kong since the turn of the century.
In sleepless Manila, where dreaming is outsourced to call centres, a fallen star appears on the eve of a woman’s departure to help her and her mother say goodbye.
Blue decides to keep the settings of his transmasculine avatar and is challenged in his routine by the provocations of his everyday life, until a positive piece of news seems to break his bluish reality.
The movie follows middle-aged former scriptwriting star, Roman Novotny, who unwillingly accepts the only job left at his disposal, and that is to be a scriptwriter in a writing department at role playing hotel resort.
Shust and his friends engage in petty scams and profiteer at every turn. A meeting with former USSR shot put champion Ulyanov and his daughter changes Shust's view of life. But under pressure from his gang, Shust uses Ulyanov to plan a robbery of a Buryat commune dealing in jade.
A group of Chinese refugees and straggler soldiers, led by a machinist, defend their mountain town, "Gezhi," against a surprise attack by Japanese reconnaissance troops in a desperate fight using civilian ingenuity against a trained military force.
A daughter tries to end her relationship with her volatile mother, but their goodbye unravels into a painfully honest conversation neither expected. In the quiet space between anger and affection, they find a fragile connection worth holding onto.