Office drone Maria Barbizan leads what looks like a meaningless life. She’s lonely, and she doesn’t really exist, at her job or within her family. One day, she does everything we’ve all dreamed of – she throws her purse and old life in the trash, and joins an enigmatic contest to win... a car. Locked in a room with four strangers, each more eccentric than the next, she must go through a series of challenges – a “competition to probe the very essence of mind-body articulation”, lead by Homunculus, an intriguing and curious host.
Brainy scientist Sarah, a doctoral student at Columbia University, is weeks away from following her very married boyfriend to Ohio when her mother dies suddenly, leaving Sarah the owner of a small but beloved Christian bookstore in the Bronx. Tasked with planning a culturally respectful funeral befitting the family matriarch, Sarah must juggle the expectations of her loving yet demanding family while navigating the reappearance of her estranged father all while grappling with what to do with the bookstore. Aided by an only-in-New York ensemble of Eastern European neighbors, feisty African aunties and a no-nonsense ex-con co-worker, Sarah faces her new responsibilities while figuring out how to remain true to herself.
A sex-cult settles in the Catskills to build community and spread knowledge, led by their mystical female founder. Their mission is to prioritize pleasure through a ritual called Jilling Off, which they believe will heal Mother Earth.
When a disgruntled elf takes over the North Pole, she turns time backwards and Santa Claus begins getting younger fast. It's up to a loyal elf, a little girl with a magic key, and the now-teenage Santa to save the future of Christmas.
Flirting, romance, sex... is it mission impossible for autistic people? Chris has invented a little man who, like a computer processor, helps him to survive in the social jungle.
Akira Kurosawa is a nerdy movie buff who works on low budget romantic comedies while dreaming of becoming a horror master. After being abused by his mentor, “the master” he finally decides he’s had enough and opens a door allowing an evil spirit to wreak revenge on those who have been cruel to him. But much like the movies he loves, once a spirit is unleashed – it can’t be controlled and starts to kill everyone!
Silje wants to leave her boyfriend, but when she finds him in a half-hearted attempt to hang himself she has to reconsider, in fear of acting reckless.
Over the course of one afternoon, in six different parts of Los Angeles, six couples connect, reconnect, or fall apart. Marked by nimble shifts in tone (the six stories range from romping farce to emotionally gutting drama) and a potent combination of innovative cinematic storytelling and evergreen themes of the difficulties and ultimate resiliency of love in all its many forms.
A comedy about Yossi, a charismatic Kosher butcher who loses his job, cannot find work at other Kosher butchers, and decides to pretend to be Muslim in order to get work at a Halal butchers.
Adam is a Christian Arab living in Nazareth - member of a vanishing minority within a minority in the Holy Land and the Middle East. His wife Lamia is a strong, beautiful and progressive Arab woman, who runs a foundation for women's rights.
After meeting her old school friend Sandra Delaney, who now works as a stripper, pub owner Maureen Hardcastle decides to spice up her flagging business by turning it into a male stripper club, with the help of untrustworthy businessman Billy Bowman.
An odd and intense middle aged Korean American man flirts with the idea of suicide because he believes he's failed his immigrant parents. He's disturbed by his increasingly vivid hallucinations of what his life could have been. So he pursues spirituality to calm himself, and in the process encounters others who are struggling in their own ways.
Despite the fact that production manager Kruse doesn't have the actors or the crew for the job, he recklessly boasts that he could direct a revue film. To prevent him losing face, Kruse brings together four people - a dramaturg, a composer, a writer and an architect - and gives them the thankless task of turning his idea into a film. Except for the relatively unknown composer Alexander Ritter, who is enthusiastically committed to the project, the other members of the team find themselves stuck in this mess.
Nat Silver has been engaged 7 times already. This time, his 8th, he's really going to get married. But a visitor shows up, Shirley's old boyfriend. With a gun ! He'll kill himself unless he can have Shirley back, and Nat graciously gives in. According to Nat's mother, his Uncle Shya was unlucky at love but lucky as a matchmaker, and Nat is just like Shya. Nat tells his family he's going to Italy. But he remains in New York and sets himself up with a new name and new business, Nat Gold, Advisor in Human Relations...
Ete and Ali are discharged from the army. Since Ete knows that his wife is having an affair, he doesn't want to go home. Ali tries to persuade his friend to stand up for himself and to kick the other man out. But since Ete obviously lacks courage, Ali himself goes into action and gets rid of the rival lover. At first, Mary and Ete seem to reconcile, but repairing their marriage won't work.
Raj is a down-on-his-luck dancer who is fighting to hold his life together. After starting up a dance class, he finds new hope with his students but soon must choose between them and a chance of a lifetime.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the author of Werther, the romantic novel that was transformed into a play during Goethe's lifetime and which initiated the whole German romantic movement. The book's story tells of young love and suicide. In this East German film, based on a book by Thomas Mann, Lotte (Lilli Palmer) was the woman who served as the model for the heroine in the novel Werther. She comes to Goethe's hometown for a visit, and her experiences there eerily re-create episodes from the book. Goethe comes across as a pompous old bore, and his friends as pandering sycophants, in this very proper communist party-sponsored, anti-heroic movie.