Country: Italy
Language: Italian (English Subtitles)
Year: 2008
Length: 9 min
Director: stefano quaglia

Have you ever tried to look for a flat? Ever had dealings with an estate agent? Ever experienced an irrepressible sense of impotence at the sight of extremely bright basement flats and unrepeatable bargains that will force you to leave the mortgage to your heirs? If you’ve decided not to give in, welcome to the club.

Country: Spain
Language: Spanish (English Subtitles)
Year: 2009
Length: 11 min
Director: Almudena Verdes

Elena loses a glove on her way home. A group of teenagers on the access stairs of a building get aware. Elena, friendly asks the guys about her lost glove. They abuse her trust. Only one deal may resolve the conflict.

Country: Denmark
Language: Danish (English Subtitles)
Year: 2007
Length: 18 min
Director: Mads Matthiesen
Cast: Kim Kold, Elsebeth Steentoft, Lykke Sand Michelsen

When Dennis a big muscular bodybuilder invites one of the local girls out on a date his mother gets hurt and disappointed. Despite the pressure she puts on him to cancel the date Dennis leaves out into a night he will never forget

Country: Spain
Language: Spanish
Year: 2008
Length: 12 min
Director: MARIO SAN EMETERIO

Pablo and Sara visit an apartment up for rent. When Paula, the girl from the real estate agency, arrives the situation becomes uncomfortable. Strangely enough, Pablo and her seem to be hiding something.

Country: USA
Language:
Year: 2009
Length: 9 min
Director: Mikael Kreuzrigler
Cast: Eva Swan, Lisa Dodson

An uneventful evening takes a frightening turn when a woman discovers a horrific truth.

Country: Denmark
Language: Danish (English subs)
Year: 2009
Length: 22 min
Director: Kristoffer Kioerboe

The meeting of a father and his two twin sons which he hasn’t seen for the first 21 years of their lives. In an attempt to make up for the lost years, the three men set out for several days walk in the wilderness with their backpacks loaded with personal expectations. These expectations are soon to be shattered though, but while the landscapes around them changes in colors, light and flora, their inner landscapes also slowly changes as they get to know each other and to understand the causes of the father’s lack of presence in his sons’ lives.

Country: Ireland
Language: English
Year: 2008
Length: 15 min
Director: David Cooke
Writer : Pol Mag Uidhir

Ireland, 1942. While the adults are off fighting in the War, two children are forced to walk a fine line between responsibility and childhood fantasy. In the dripping taps and ticking clocks of their home they discover hidden Morse Code messages, but while the young boy is all too keen to accept them as real, his elder sister struggles with the rationale of her increasingly adult mind. Moreover, she understands something of the consequences of the messages, for if they are real, who sent them?

Country: UK
Language: English
Year: 2008
Length: 16 min
Director: Adam Wimpenny

A socially awkward Londoner is lonely at Christmas. When a cold city girl rejects his gesture of goodwill, he takes drastic action. Roar is a smart and subversive short film that will haunt you for months.

Country: Germany
Language: German
Year: 2008
Length: 12 min
Director / Writer: Fred Breinersdorfer

the dramatic story of Bruno Hansen, a bridge guard of a huge lift bridge in Hamburg. As his 7-year old death-mute son climbs down into the restricted area of the lifting equipment while a train is approaching, he has to decide whether to sacrifice his son or to let the fully occupied train drown in the river.

Country: Spain
Language:Spanish ( English Subtitles)
Year: 2008
Length: 9mins 20 secs
Director: LUIS FERNÁNDEZ RENEO

www.promofest.org/films/una-vida-mejor

Based on a true story, A Better Life is the faithful account of 3 Mexican children who got lost in the Sonoran desert while trying to cross the U.S. border. A history that repeats itself every week in the border towns of Mexico, feeding one of the most profitable illegal businesses: Immigrant smuggling.

Country: Switzerland
Language: no dialogue
Year: 2009
Length: 6 min
Director: Julien Ezri

A long time ago, terror, loathing and power reigned over the Wild Wild North. The foolishness of the inhabitants led them to battle for anything, even… For a Fistful of Snow.

Country: UK
Language: no dialogue
Year: 2009
Length: 3 min
Director: Doug Wilson

Trailer

A dog/cat conjoined odd-couple who’s love hate relationship drives them to adventure and intrigue in a surrealist landscape.

Country: USA
Language: no dialogue
Year: 2008
Length: 9 min
Director: Jim Capobianco

Leonardo da Vinci and his dream of flight. An allegory for the creative muse.

Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2008
Length: 10 min
Director: Jennifer Jordan Day

http://jenniferjordanday.com/

A lonely woman finds a magical shop where she can craft an ideal mate.

Country: UK
Language: no dialogue
Year: 2008
Length: 10 min
Director: Adam Smith, Charlotte Boulay-Goldsmith

Trailer

The Girl With Liquid Eyes is a rhyming tale about love and loss.

Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2009
Length: 52 min
Director: Pat Buckley, Andrew Swant, Bobby Ciraldo

William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet chronicles the quest to create a new ballet based upon Mr. Shatner’s critically acclaimed album, ‘Has Been’, which was produced by Ben Folds. The ballet was created by famed choreographer Margo Sappington.

Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2009
Length: 50 min
Director: Logan Futej

All We Had paints the self-portrait of an American family, defying the boundaries of “the system”. They were radicals, they were criminals, but they were always a family first. Told through the eyes of the mother and daughter we see the impact and tragedies that come with a lifestyle without restraint.

Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2009
Length: 50 min
Director: Sebastian Doggart
Cast: Condoleezza Rice

A hard-hitting portrait of one of the chief players in the Bush Administration.

Country: Spain
Language: Spanish
Year: 2008
Length: 50 min
Director: IÑAKI IBISATE

http://www.inthedarkproductions.co.uk/

The story of the 120 Spanish kids evacuated to Denmark during the Spanish Civil War, and the story of their reunion 70 years afterwards.

Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2008
Length: 95 min
Director: Robert Dunlap

A documentary about one of the world’s most important sexual icons and the woman behind the legend who became the most famous madam of all time. Interviews with Larry King and commentary from America’s foremost sexologists explore Xaviera’s rise and fall as a madam, her deportation from the United States and her political significance to the Feminist Movement and Sexual Revolution of the 1970’s

Country: Australia
Language: English
Year: 2008
Length: 56 min
Director: scott wurth

On Good Friday in the Philippines every year, penitents are nailed to the cross in a bloody re-enactment of the passion of Jesus Christ over 2,000 years earlier.
Who are these men? Why do they indulge in such extreme behaviour?

Scott Wurths film PANATA goes behind the clichés and, for the first time, allows the men to speak for themselves and to explain their panatas; the pledges to God they make to atone for past sins, to give thanks for favours, or to pray for help.

[image height=”150″ width=”150″ align=”left”]/images/stories/2009/documentary/Tira%20Bakal_Striking%20metal.jpg”>

Country: Ireland
Language: English
Year: 2008
Length: 56 min
Director: Gabrel Murray

The story of Mitchell Hedges who found the Crystal Skull that the Indian Jones movie is based on. Featuring also the Mayan prophecys of 21 Dec 2012 and the new Discovery of the Cuban Atlantis.

[image height=”150″ width=”150″ align=”left”]/images/stories/2009/documentary/the_lost_world_of_the_crystal_skull.jpg”>

Country: Japan
Language: Japanese (English subs)
Year: 2007
Length: 83 min
Director: Hiroshi Toda
Cast: Yukako Meguro / Shyoji Yamada / Yayoi Yamamoto / Masako Iguchi

www.skeletonfilms.com

An old man lives in an abandoned house on a mountain with his wife who has dementia. He is interested in sculpting Noh-Masks and helping women who hesitate about their life…..

Country: UK
Language: English
Year: 2008
Director: Jan Dunn

Country: Russia
Year: 2008
Director: Anton Barshhvsky

Adaptation of Anatoli Rybakov’s literary. Dancing one’s heart away to Hava Nagila is part of the fun Jews, Christians … everyone could enjoy. That a fine looking young aspiring Swiss medical student should abandon his religion and apparent enviable status to follow his heart to a Ukrainian village cannot but endear us. Our hearts follow his beloved as she humbles herself to beg a favour off a lawyer she had snubbed. The lawyer’s resulting success defending our hero in an apparent no-hoper political trial is magnificent. Justice obtained in vain? Sadly so. A fatal suicide pact and our hero’s subsequent betrayal of his origins for the sake of love and justice reminds us that we are merely dust … or heavy sand.

Country: Canada / France
Year: 2008
Length: 105 min
Director: Jean-marc Piché
Cast: Yannick Bisson

Leo has been trapped in his appartment for over five years, living with a secret that continues to torture him. Carly, the woman he loves and with whom he lives, tries to help and reach out to Leo, while unaware that the true reason he can’t face the outside world has everything to do with her own past. A complex and dramatic lover story full of emotion and betrayal.

Country: Israel
Language:
Year: 2008
Length: 86 min
Director: Keren Abitan
Cast: Danny Steg, Liron Levo, Luci Dubinchik

During the days of the Israeli withdrawal from the settlements in the Gaza strip, when the residents of the Katif bloc are uniting to fight for its existence, Ruth, a young teenager from the settlement, is searching for excitement. When Ruth meets Erez, a photojournalist sent to cover the events of the disengagement, she realizes that she doesn’t belong anywhere.

[image height=”150″ width=”150″ align=”left”]/images/stories/2009/feature/ruth.jpg”>

Country: Japanese
Language: Japanese ( English subs)
Year: 2007
Length: 83 min
Director: Hiroshi Toda
Cast: Shinichi Okayama / Shyoji Yamada / Takahiro Yoshida / Ami Ishikawa

We all need good fortunes sometimes. A Japanese man who lost track of his life searches for it with the help of a young punk and an old fortune-teller.
“Zenko” is an old, street fortune-teller. He has only one dream?that everyone is protected by the amulets he has made. Once in a while people stop at his stall to ask for help finding things or his advice. Some memorable customers are a strange, camera loving girl, couples in love and a sweethearted young punk named “Yabuta,” who is engaged as a loan shark. At the end of each visit, “Zenko” gives them his amulet, wishing them good luck. And there comes “Nagaoka,” an old man whose life is devastated by the recent loss of his wife. He seeks and finds the aid of “Zenko” and “Yabuta” to solve his financial woes. Now he comes here again to ask for Zenko’s help in finding something precious…

Country: Russian Federation
Language:
Year: 2009
Length: 100 min
Director: Vadim Shmelev
Script writer:
Cast: Anfisa Chekhova

On TV new reality show is started. Following the results of a casting, five young men and five girls, led by young TV presenter Alisa Ten, go to the thrown pioneer camp of a Soviet period.
By rules, every week someone from participants should leave show and come back home. Last who remains on the project, will win the main prize. But suddenly game rules vary: the invisible observer declares that now not money, and its own life will be the award for the winner.

The afflicted maniac hiding the face behind a mask of a horse, leaves on bloody hunting for participants of reality show. Children’s horror stories which he once listened in camp, revive and become a plot of its own murders …

Country: Japan
Language: Japanese (English Subtitles)
Year: 2008
Length: 72 min
Director: Hiroshi Toda
Cast: Shinichi Okayama / Shyoji Yamada

www.skeletonfilms.com

Hirata and Kageyama are old friends from childhood. Now in their old age they have retired from the job, and they made their mind up to hit the road for a change, leaving all cares behind.
On the road they’re taking their time to relax. They’re talking about old days, just joking around or laughing. However, there is one big problem: the food is poor, for they’re camping out along the way. Things seemed to get better dramatically when they happened to find Soba restaurant in some remote place. Of course they didn’t know at the time that it’s just the beginning of their strange, dream-like experience that would follow.

Year: 2008
Length: 68 min
Director: Todd Norwood
Cast: Scott Elrod, Elika Portnoy, Vincent Pastore, Natasha Lyonne

Trailer

Rex, a fashion photographer is challenged by his rival to accept a bet that he can transform any girl into a fashion-model. Rex teaches Dessi, a down and out young woman who works at a fish market, all the tricks of a beautiful woman. Of course, Rex did not expect to fall in love with Dessi, and Dessi never expected that she was the object of a bet.