Forgotten soap-star and self-appointed Mother of the Year, Ronnie Lipsick is living the life she never asked for. An acting career derailed due to an untimely pregnancy 18 years earlier, dreams of stardom replaced with a suburban performing arts school. A husband, Cormack, who’s lust and love for life has gone as limp as his manhood. Youngest daughter, Norah, who appears to have no use for her and finally, the ungrateful eldest, Audrey, who Ronnie has given the best part of her parenting time to mould into the success she always wanted to be. But when an accident lands Audrey in a coma, Ronnie gets her second chance at the life she actually wanted by taking on her daughter's identity.
In this suspense drama, three men – Alex, Greger and Henrik – spend an extended weekend in a remote cabin, intending to hunt deep in the Swedish woods. Their plan is to go duck hunting on a lake and stalk deer in the woods. An initial spell of hunting success sharpens their instincts and stirs a sense of rivalry. But one day all animals vanish without a trace and the forest turns eerily quiet. Yet the men are determined to continue the hunt.
Following her mother’s death, manga artist Soriya travels to her ancestral home in Phnom Penh, with hopes of reconnecting with her distant family and using the visit as inspiration for her work. All goes well initially. Renting an apartment in Metta, a rundown Khmer Rouge-era housing complex, her visit to her maternal relatives finds her welcomed with open arms. But Soriya’s waking hours in the apartment and its surroundings are punctuated by terrifying, bloody visions, almost as though she were a conduit for horrors of the past wanting to seep into the present. Inrasothythep Neth and Sokyou Chea’s blood-chilling psychological horror explores a personal and political past through the present, transforming a characterful space into an insidious environment. Surrounded by modern high-rises, this decrepit structure, with its brutalist architecture and peeling surfaces, is a relic from a dark period in history whose painful memories it has absorbed. In tracing Soriya’s ominous journey back to her roots, Tenement hints at a necessary reckoning with Cambodia’s political past without overplaying its historical dimension. It’s an impressive work from a woefully underrepresented national cinema.
A boy is haunted by terrifying nightmares where a monster lurks inside the closet. To his relief, his father appears in the middle of the night helping him to face his fears. But the boy will begin to question the true nature of these apparitions, having to face the truth about his father's destiny and the evil force that threatens to consume him.
Director John Raftopoulos co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Paterson (2067) based on the true love story between himself and his current wife. Take My Hand follows vibrant young Australian woman Laura, who forges a successful banking career in London and seemingly has the perfect marriage. Her world is turned upside down when she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and her husband starts to show his true colors. When a tragic accident leaves her a widowed mother with three sons, she returns home to Australia, and is reunited with Michael, a high school friend and a divorcee with one daughter, who has loved Laura since they were teenagers.
Pablo’s life is ruled by drugs and by the intense and oppressive relationship he has with his mother, a former cocaine mule who escaped from Colombia and with whom he shares a small house in the outskirts of Rome. After her death, following her relapse into drug addiction caused by his emotional involvement with a young Colombian girl mixed up in the smuggling ring, Pablo’s guilt pushes him to try and bring her ashes back to Colombia. When the embassy denies his request on the basis of the fake identity and passport of his mother, the protagonist will be forced to tackle the journey by ingesting ovules containing ashes instead of drugs and he will find himself in his home country for the first time, desperately looking for redemption and his mother’s house on the Madgalena river.
Oliviero is a burned-out writer, living at his estate near Venice, his dead mother dominating his imagination. He is also a degenerate: sleeps with his maid and his ex-student, hosts Bacchanalia for local hippies, and humiliates his wife Irina in front of strangers. She lives in terror. When a young woman is murdered, police suspect Oliviero. Things get complicated when his young, beautiful, and self-confident niece, Floriana, pays an unexpected visit. A silver-haired stranger observes. More women die, and thoughts of harming Irina give Oliviero new inspiration. What's Floriana's game and who's the observant stranger? Watching all is a black cat named Satan.