Ordinary Man
Director: Vincent Lanoo
Belgium, France
2005
George is an furniture salesman, a good father, a nice husband, a best friend and a professional handyman. But one night he blunders. On a road, George snaps and kills a person in a wild rage. Shocked by his own violence, he's confronted with a big dilemma: should he spare the girlfriend of his victim, witness of his crime, and let her live? There is no way back. His life takes a new turn: he must adapt his everyday habits in order to hide his captive. But George remains the good father, gentle husband, faithful friend and, especially, good handyman as he attempts to get out of his predicament and the terrible chain of problems that it entails.
L'audition
Director: Luc Picard
Canada
2005
Louis, 40 years old, is a bit of a braggart who has long nurtured a childhood dream: to become an actor. Thanks to a cousin of his, he is asked to audition for a somewhat unusual part: a father videotaping a final message for his son. Louis rehearses the scene in secret, and doesn't even tell his girlfriend Suzie what he's up to. Suzie also has a secret of her own: she is pregnant with Louis' child. However, given his lifestyle, Suzie isn't really sure she wants to raise her child with Louis. In the end, everything works out for the best: Louis passes the audition, and Suzie decides to stay with him and start a family. However, Louis's past is about to catch up with him...
Josh's Trees
Director: Peter Entell
Switzerland
2005
Josh was the director's best friend, ever since they met in school, hitchhiked around Europe and realized they both wanted to be filmmakers. Josh made them in California and Peter Entell in Switzerland. Then, newly-married, his wife pregnant, Josh was diagnosed with cancer... "Knowing that he didn't have long to live, my friend asked me to pay attention to his son. Marshall is now five years old and just beginning to ask questions about who his father was. This film is a tribute to that promise... the story of a filmmaker's loss of his friend and a son's discovery of who his father was. It is the story of love and death, of friendship and the transmission of memory." - Peter Entell
Su-Ki-Da
Director: Hiroshi Ishikawa
Japan
2005
Su-ki can mean both "I love you" or "I like you" in Japanese. When da is added at the end, the expressed emotion becomes clearer, a kind of declaration to the person being addressed. Why is it so hard to say? Yu and Yosuke are two 17-year-olds who demonstrate this failure. They are unable to say su-ki-da to each other. Yu hums the phrase while Yosuke plays on the guitar. That is all they can manage; their feelings cannot overcome this formidable emotional barrier. Their hearts grow closer, becomes entangles, miss each other, and become attracted to each other again. But when tragedy strikes, their ties are severed. Seventeen years later, Yosuke and Yu meet up again in Tokyo...
Quo Vadis, Baby ?
Director: Gabriele Salvatores
Italy
2005
Fortyish Giorgia, an unkempt, unglamorous, short-tempered but quick-witted investigator who works in her father's private detective agency in Bologna, spends most of her time trailing cheating spouses with telephoto cameras. One day she receives a box of video diaries of her younger sister Ada, sixteen years after she had committed suicide. The tapes show a happy, extroverted girl fully involved in her future - struggling to start an acting career and keeping an affair secret from her boyfriend. This isn't the portrait of a suicidal young woman. Giorgia begins to suspect that Ada's death was something more sinister. As she negotiates the twists and turns of the mystery, Giorgia finds herself descending deeper and deeper into the black hole of her family's past.
Little Brother
Original title Ahnnyeong Hyeong-An
Director: Im Tai-hyung
South Korea
2005
Nine-year-old Hani is a terrible troublemaker. His schoolmates are all his underlings, and even his family members are subject to his whims. Especially his older brother Han-byul, who he believes is malingering to get out of a tutorial session. When it turns out that Han-byul hasn't been faking and is hospitalized with cancer, Hani turns his bullying attentions to the kid in the neighbouring bed, Wook, a cheerful boy from the country with a bald head just like his brother. Hani at first resents Wook's favoured-patient status in the cancer ward but comes to enjoy his sense of adventure, and when Han-byul's condition worsens he realizes that Wook's "mystic water" from the mountains might just come in handy.
Tattooed
Original title Tatuado
Director: Eduardo Raspo
Argentina
2005
Paco is a teenager with a big chip on his shoulder. His life with his father Alvaro, now happily married to his second wife Viviana, is rife with alienation and resentment. His biological mother disappeared from his life abruptly when he was still a child, leaving Paco with a tattoo of a mongoose on his forearm and a huge mystery. Alvaro, who has never been able to establish a meaningful relationship with his son, agrees willingly when Paco, accompanied also by his runaway girlfriend Tero, sets off in quest of his mother's roots. In the hope of a less discordant future together, the trio undertake an excursion into a past fraught with often painful truths.
Polumgla
Director: Artem Antonov
Russia, Germany
2005
During World War II, a young Soviet lieutenant who was wounded at the front, is sent to the Arkhangelsk region in northern Russia to supervise the construction of the strategic military radio tower. Moments before he departs, he learns that the tower will be built by German POWs. He has just a couple of days - the length of the train journey to his destination - to overcome his hatred and contempt for the POWs. When he arrives in the village, the locals - mainly women whose fathers, husbands and sons have gone to war - are strongly hostile to the Germans and the officer faces the challenging task of becoming a fair and unbiased arbiter between the two sides.
I Don't Care If Tomorrow Never Comes
Original title Ça m'est égal si demain n'arrive pas
Director: Guillaume Malandrin
Belgium
2005
Jacques, 40, has just been released from prison and renews contact with his 10-year-old boy, a son he doesn't really know. Jacques would like to go on a vacation trip to the south. The foster parents of the adopted boy are reticent about the idea. A few days before their departure, Jacques finds Anne, the boy's mother, who is also a stranger to the child. Jacques gets her to sign on to this strange project of a "family" vacation. Three people who don't know each other, who seek to like each other.