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80 Million
Poland, 2011, 102 min.
An exciting political thriller about the struggle against Communism in Poland 1981, full of suspense, humor and surprising twists and turns as five young union leaders empty the Solidarity bank account just days before the declaration of martial law.... more
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Barbara
Germany, 2012, 105 min.
A suspenseful, enigmatic, rigorously controlled film from leading German filmmaker Christian Petzold, focussed on the arrival of an inscrutable, evidently sophisticated Berlin doctor (Nina Hoss) in a provincial hospital in Cold War East Germany. Winner, Best Director, Berlin Film Festival... more
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Breakaway
Philippines, 2012, 88 min.
This powerful drama is all about the love of a father for his young son and his heart-wrenching desperation when the child is lost to human traffickers in the backstreets of Manila.... more
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Call Girl
Sweden, 2012, 140 min.
Inspired by the 1976 prostitution scandal that led straight to the heart of the Swedish government, Call Girl is a meaty, never sensationalistic political thriller reminiscent of American 70s classics like All the President’s Men. Discovery Prize-winner, Toronto Film Festival.... more
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Clandestine Childhood
Argentina, 2012, 110 min.
The 12-year-old son of political dissidents fighting the brutal military junta in 1970s Argentina, Juan goes to school under an assumed name and gets his first crush on a girl. But when his parents suddenly need to pack up and run his life is changed forever.... more
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The Color of the Chameleon
Bulgaria, 2012, 114 min.
This ultra-stylish spy movie pastiche follows a charismatic schemer in an authoritarian police state, who, fired from his job as a secret police informant, conjures up his own imaginary spy network that he turns against his former masters.... more
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Dormant Beauty
Italy, 2012, 115 min.
Isabelle Huppert and Toni Servillo (Il Divo) are superb in this caustic political critique and keenly observed social drama centering on the hot-button issue of euthanasia. Directed by Italian master Marco Bellocchio (Vincere; Good Morning, Night).... more
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The Fruit Hunters
Canada, 2012, 95 min.
Environmental docs come in all shapes and sizes, but you won’t have seen any as appetizing as this sensual, seductive tribute to nature’s sweetest bounty. Join Bill Pullman and the fruit detectives in their quest for a wider world of taste sensation.... more
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Ginger & Rosa
United Kingdom, 2012, 89 min.
Growing up in Great Britain in the sixties, best friends Ginger (Elle Fanning) and Rosa (Alice Englert) are on the cutting edge of the sexual revolution. But the new freedoms come with a heavy price in this salutary tale from writer-director Sally Potter.... more
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Inch’ Allah
Canada, 2012, 101 min.
Every day young Canadian obstetrician Chloe crosses the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, fraternizing with locals on both sides of the border but increasingly pushed towards taking a stand of her own. A thoughtful, humane take on the Israel/Palestine divide.... more
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Informant
USA, 2012, 82 min.
Possibly the year’s best thinking man’s who-done-it, Jamie Meltzer’s brilliant political thriller doc has a twist: we know who done it. The question is: what makes a man go from militant leftwing activist to FBI informant?... more
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Just the Wind
Hungary, 2012, 87 min.
The Romany community in an isolated Hungarian village struggles to continue their simple daily routine after a spate of hate crimes in this gritty naturalistic drama. Winner: Silver Bear, Amnesty International Film Prize and Peace Film Prize, Berlin Film Festival.... more
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Koch
USA, 2012, 95 min.
Love him or hate him, Ed Koch personifies the image of New York and the big city mayor. Granted unprecedented access, filmmaker Neil Barsky engages the still feisty 87-year-old Koch in a probing assessment of his life, career, and legacy.... more
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La Source
USA, 2012, 71 min.
When Princeton students learn that their custodian Josue Lajeunesse has a lifelong dream to build an aqueduct in Haiti to bring clean water to his home village of La Source, they rally to his support. Then, the 2010 earthquake hits…... more
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Midnight’s Children
Canada, 2012, 148 min.
Salman Rushdie adapts his own monumental novel – a picaresque that doubles as a history of modern India – into a rich, sprawling, unruly movie, full of romance, satire, magic and anger.... more
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Mold
Turkey, 2012, 94 min.
In Anatolia, a lonely father petitions authorities for information on the son who disappeared 18 years earlier. This prime example of Turkish art-house cinema won the Lion of the Future for Best First Film, Venice Film Festival.... more
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Out of the Clear Blue Sky
USA, 2012, 107 min.
The riveting, never-before-told inside story of Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm headquartered on the top of the World Trade Center that suffered the largest number of casualties of any organization on 9/11, and of its remarkable and controversial CEO Howard Lutnick.... more
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The Passion of Michelangelo
Chile, 2012, 99 min.
As street protests increased in 1983, Pinochet’s regime in Chile was only too happy to promote the story of a 14-year-old Miguel Angel’s sighting of the Virgin Mary atop a hill in Peñablanca. Esteban Larraín’s drama tells Angel’s ultimately tragic tale.... more
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The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology
United Kingdom, 2012, 134 min.
Courtesy of director Sophie Fiennes, this follow-up to her instant classic The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, once again stars sly frontman and philosophical provocateur Slavoj Zizek; it’s the fun philosophy course you wish you could have taken in college - loaded with clips from classic films.... more
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Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy
Italy, 2012, 129 min.
Marco Tullio Giordana’s (The Best of Youth) meticulous and engrossing conspiracy thriller dissects the real-life 1969 bombing of a bank in Milan’s Piazza Fontana that killed 17 people. The excellent Valerio Mastandrea is a cop whose investigation leads down the corridors of power.... more
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A Place at the Table
USA, 2012, 84 min.
49 million people in the U.S.—one in four children—don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Looking at three cases in close up, this stirring and important documetary makes a simple but eloquent argument that our nation must solve this problem for everyone’s benefit.... more
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The Repentant
Algeria, 2012, 87 min.
A young Algerian Jihadist takes advantage of a national amnesty to leave the mountains and rejoin civil society. But the past is not so easily put aside. A beautifully made, deeply emotional drama from veteran Allouache.... more
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Shores of Hope
Germany, 2012, 116 min.
Reminiscent of Lives of Others, this compelling drama follows two young dockworkers Conny and Andreas whose quest to escape East Germany in the early 80s runs foul of the Stasi.... more
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The Sleeping Voice
Spain, 2011, 128 min.
In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Pepita, a naïve young woman, comes to Madrid to be near her pregnant sister, a political prisoner facing execution. Pepita gradually gets drawn into the underground struggle while working in a Nationalist household. Winner: Best Actress, San Sebastian FF... more
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Stolen Seas
Somalia, 2011, 92 min.
Presenting the inside story of Somali piracy — the filmmakers spent three years in some of the world's most dangerous places, talking to pirates, hostages, hostages' relatives, and the shipping company executives caught up in this deadly culture clash — this is truly an eye-(and mind)-opening doc..... more
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Two Lives
Germany, 2012, 97 min.
An East German spy in Norway has built a life around a fake identity. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, her happy existence is threatened in this story of trauma, intrigue and espionage.... more
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United in Anger: A History of Act Up
USA, 2012, 93 min.
A riveting tear through the tumultuous history of Act Up, arguably one of the most effective political action movements of the past half-century, United in Anger traces the origins, outrageous (to some) exploits and achievements of this seminal group... more
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When I Saw You
Palestine, 2012, 93 min.
This compassionate film about an intrepid Palestinian lad’s adventures in the wake of the Six Day War wraps the tragedy of being unable to return to ancestral lands in an extremely sympathetic package. Best Director, Abu Dhabi Film Festival.... more
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A Whisper To A Roar
USA, 2012, 95 min.
Inspired by the work of Stanford’s Center for Democracy, Ben Moses set to chronicle the accomplishments of five democracy activists, in Egypt, Malaysia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. “By turns shocking and inspiring.” - New York Times.... more
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White Elephant
Argentina, 2012, 110 min.
Ricardo Darin and Jérémie Renier play activist priests in a Buenos Ares slum in this palpably authentic and powerful social realist melodrama from the director of Carancho and Lion’s Den.... more
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A World Not Ours
United Kingdom, 2012, 93 min.
A remarkably intimate glimpse inside the Ain El-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon. “A passionate, ironic, bittersweet documentary that flips storytelling and Mideast-Arab cliches on their heads while weaving an irresistible mood of amused melancholy.” Variety. Best Documentary, Abu Dhabi Film Fe... more
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Yema
Algeria, 2012, 93 min.
A Greek tragedy by way of Algeria, the film tells the tale of two brothers set at odds by their different religious and political convictions, and the mother who mourns both a real and a symbolic loss when tensions explode.... more
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