Renpei Tsukamoto
2019 | 106 minutes

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Based on a true story, Bento Harassment is the tale of a mother-daughter relationship navigating its way through stormy emotional waters in unusual, entertaining, and occasionally delicious ways. Middle-aged Kaori is a widow who lives with her two daughters. Her youngest, Futaba, is in high school and their relationship is far from perfect. Rebellious Futaba ignores her mother as much as she can. Eventually, in order to try to get Futaba to change her attitude, her mother decides to make boxed bento lunches for her everyday. As the parent-child conflict persists, Kaori also starts including sweet and loving messages as part of the boxes, much to Futaba’s teenaged irritation. Where Futaba’s bento boxes become popular with her classmates, though, she just might begin to see her mother in a different light. Or will she?

English sub-titles.

Junichi Ishikawa
2017 | 119 minutes

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Tamako has spent her life trying to flee from the pressures of becoming a professional table tennis athlete. Dubbing Tamako a prodigy from birth, her relentless, driven mother never allows her to skip a day of training. But after her mother passes away, Tamako eases into a normal life – she picks up new hobbies, finishes school, and even joins the workforce. Now all she needs to do is find a husband! She’s 28 and her boyfriend, Ejima, is the hottest athlete in the table tennis world, so things are looking good. Hiding her accomplished table tennis past from Ejima, she instead embraces the role of the supportive girlfriend. Instead of celebrating their wedding engagement, however, Ejima cheats on her with another athlete. What’s an ex-table tennis prodigy to do? Well, for one thing she’ll assemble her own team of ace players and defeat Ejima’s team at the National Table Tennis Championships. Game on!

English sub-titles.

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2019 | 105 minutes

João Maia

This entertaining and popular (it was one of the best attended films in Portugal upon its release) musical biopic explores the life and art of António Variações, a famous Portuguese pop-rock singer from the ‘80s who died from AIDS-related complications in 1984. The eccentric rock star is a queer icon few have heard of, but whose influence in Portuguese music lives on. Like his stage name Variações (or ‘variations’), he wove together his many different inspirations and in doing so revolutionized contemporary music in his homeland of Portugal. Maia’s film examines Antonio’s eccentric, turbulent personality as well as his artistic journey in creating his unique, genre-defying sound. Very much in the tradition of the recent musical biopics Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, Guardian Angel is a dramatic portrait of an artist who transformed himself and popular music against considerable odds.

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2020 | 77 minutes

Quentin Dupieux

And now for something completely different! Mandibles is an absurdist comedy that revolves around the rather simple-minded friends, Jean-Gab and Manu. After stealing a creaky old Mercedes in order to deliver a mysterious briefcase to some unknown recipient, the pair discovers more than they bargained for – from inside the trunk they hear a peculiar buzzing and strange thumping noises. When they open it, they find a gigantic fly trapped inside. Yes, a fly, large and very crafty! Manu and Jean-Gab decide to forgo their current job and instead focus on training this oddly talented fly to execute robberies for them, in the hope of making mountains of cash. In his latest cinematic funhouse, cult director Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Wrong Cops, Deerskin) serves up an eccentric and hilarious combination of buddy comedy, road movie, and kinetic sci-fi weirdness. Mandibles is a wild and surreal film about friendship, big dreams, and, for these two, even bigger disasters. Vive la différence!

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2021 | 89 minutes
Laura Samani

Set in 1900 in northeastern Italy, Laura Samani’s impressive debut feature film takes us on an odyssey of grief, faith, and determination revolving around a young woman who endures hazardous terrain and deeply restrictive gender codes to give a name to her recently stillborn child. While Agata was sleeping, her daughter was taken from her and buried in a nearby wood by superstitious locals. The village priest informs her that according to religious doctrine, stillborn children cannot be named or baptized and are destined to wander in limbo forever. There are rumours, however, of a distant church where such innocents are miraculously resurrected long enough to take a single breath — long enough to be admitted into heaven. Desperate, Agata exhumes her daughter, leaves her husband and her island home, and heads north, alone and without much guidance; that is, until she encounters Lynx, a street-smart thief who knows where Agata’s is headed. On the road together, they must contend with bandits and many other dangers to get to this mysterious destination.

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2020 | 112 minutes

Emer Reynolds

Before U2, Irish rock was Thin Lizzy. Telling the story of a Black, working-class boy who comes of age in 1960s Dublin, this feature documentary offers an affectionate, detailed portrait of one of Ireland’s greatest rock legends, Phil Lynott. As lead singer of Thin Lizzy, Lynott was a front man, composer, wild-eyed dreamer, and occasional rock-and-roll bad boy. The film explores Lynott and his music through his own words and with a stunning array of interviews with admirers, friends, and family. It is a remarkable portrait – crafted with warmth, authority, and humour – about this groundbreaking musician’s public and private life, a life that ended prematurely at age 36. In addition to lots of period music and concert footage, Songs features appearances by such fellow rock stars as Midge Ure, James Hetfield, and, arguably Lynott’s successor, U2 bassist Adam Clayton.

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2020 | 116 minutes

Jan Holoubek

Jan Holoubek’s debut film is a moving crime thriller based on an absurd and horrifying true-life story. The life of Tomek Komenda was destroyed forever one awful night when he was arrested, accused of committing a brutal murder, convicted, and thrown into prison for decades. Despite years of humiliation, violence, and injustice, Komenda kept his hope and humanity and always maintained his innocence despite the evidence presented to him. This intense drama depicts unflinchingly the superhuman struggle of Komenda and his mother to preserve their humanity in this dire situation that saw Komenda languish in prison for almost two decades. A striking first feature film, The Case of Tomek Komenda is a sobering and dramatic reminder of how justice systems anywhere can make mistakes and change, utterly, the lives of innocent people.

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2019 | 108 minutes

Rain Rannu

This highly entertaining, semi-satirical narrative feature revolves around a determined woman entrepreneur trying to make it in a male-dominated tech world, from Europe to Silicon Valley. Based on real-life stories of European start-ups, Chasing Unicorns follows Õie, a young bookkeeper from a small town, who by accident stumbles into the emerging tech scene of her home-country, Estonia. She is soon joined by serial failure Tõnu, who has gone bankrupt with each one of his companies but is nevertheless always trying again. Inspired by all the Musks, Bezoses, and Zuckerbergs of the world, and convinced they can make it big, too, the duo embarks on a bold (and just a wee bit quixotic?) journey to take on Silicon Valley.

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2021 | 117 minutes

Sarah Blaßkiewitz

Sarah Blaßkiewitz’s engaging film addresses the current and always thorny topic of racism through its winning combination of incredible acting and clever humor. Afro-German Ivie, whom her friends call ‘Schoko (means ‘Chocolate’), lives in Leipzig. She works at a solarium run by her ex-boyfriend while she looks for steady employment as a teacher. One day, her half-sister from Berlin shows up at her door. She tells Schoko of the death of their father and his upcoming funeral in Senegal. Neither sister knew him, nor did they know each other until now, and thus they find it difficult to imagine getting to know his side of their family. As the sisters from two very different cities grow closer, Ivie starts to question not only her nickname, but also her culture and her self-image. And so an amazing journey begins.

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2020 | 84 minutes

Marinos Kartikkis

Theocharis, a lonely elderly man, goes to the local hospital every night. He sleeps on the benches and chairs of the outpatient clinics because he is afraid of staying alone in his own home. Every morning he returns home, where his only companions are his cat and his memories. One night a nurse, Eugenia, encounters him and tries to find out more about him. At first, Theocharis is cautious and refuses to give her any information. Soon enough, however, a relationship of trust begins to develop between them, and Eugenia pledges to try to help him with life’s challenges. A touching, gently humorous film about loneliness and, more importantly, compassion, Senior Citizen is a quiet, absorbing drama.

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2019 | 110 minutes

Niki Iliev

It’s exactly 25 years after the Summer of ‘94, the memorable month of Bulgaria’s participation at the FIFA World Cup. Three old friends who bonded in ’94 (Boyko, Orlin and Sasho) return home to Plovdiv to help their childhood friend Alex save his family home. Alex must persuade his cousin Branimir to respect the will of their grandfather by preserving the house and forgoing a plan to build an office building. It seems the only way to prevent the demolition is for the four childhood friends to band together again and win the city marathon against Branimir’s professional team. This won’t be easy, and friendships will be put to the test. Meanwhile, the four friends also encounter people from their past in unexpected and even romantic ways. Indeed, in the few weeks they spend in Plovdiv, they rekindle old flames, find new ones, and discover unsuspected truths about themselves and each other.

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2020 | 84 minutes

Giedrė Žickytė

This extraordinary documentary about the Cold War begins on Thanksgiving Day, 1970, on the Atlantic Ocean. A US patrol boat meets a Soviet fishing vessel. Suddenly and unexpectedly, a sailor from the Soviet boat, a Lithuanian man named Simas Kudirka, jumps across the icy water onto the American boat in a frantic bid for freedom. To his horror, and to the outcry of the world media, the Americans return him to the Soviets, who swiftly try him for treason. This incident sets off a series of protests throughout the United States and marks the beginning of a long political battle to save him from Siberian labour camps. Through rare archival footage and a dramatic, first-person re-enactment by the would-be defector, the now 86-year-old Kudirka, we relive a remarkable moment in the curious, dangerous history of the Cold War. Winner of multiple awards at documentary film festivals around the world.

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2020 | 87 minutes

Eché Janga

On the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao, certain strange otherworldly spirits animate the lonely life of 11-year-old Kenza. She plays hooky from school and tries to sell lizards in her spare time. Ostracized by her classmates and dealing with the loss of her mother, Kenza is caught between her strict police-officer father’s world weariness and her grandfather’s magical, mysterious shamanic ways, rooted in the local slave traditions. Somehow, she must choose a path between them. With its immersive soundtrack, startling colours, and breathtaking cinematography, Eché Janga’s Buladó is a tough and tender coming-of-age tale about an incredibly resilient young protagonist. The film conveys a sense of wonder that has drawn favourable comparisons with BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD. It took top prize at the Netherlands Film Festival, and was the Dutch entry for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards.

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2021 | 92 minutes

František A. Brabec

Based on the bestselling 2019 book about the mistreatment of dogs, Gump: The Dog That Taught People How to Live is imaginatively adapted here as a film, telling Gump’s and other dogs’ stories from a canine perspective. Tossed in the garbage by a thoughtless owner, Gump is rescued by a kindly street person, Bedrich, who takes care of him, raising him from a puppy in his ramshackle trailer. Separated when Gump becomes an adult dog, both Bedrich and Gump search for one another to reunite. On his journey homeward, Gump encounters many other dogs as well as other dog owners, good and bad. Told in Gump’s voice (here played by acclaimed Czech actor, Ivan Trojan), this is an impressive and entertaining tale of, yes, dogged determination.

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2020 | 94 minutes

Amanda Kernell

After a particularly messy and acrimonious divorce, Alice hasn't been able to see her children in two months as she awaits a custody verdict. Her bitter ex-husband has been keeping the children away from her. When a panicked, late-night call from her young son, Vincent, is abruptly disconnected before she can ascertain what’s gone wrong, Alice rushes north from her home in Stockholm to check on the boy and his sister. She is distressed to realize the extent to which her ex-husband has barred her from the children’s lives. Frantic, Alice takes the children away on an illicit trip to the Canary Islands, determined to reconnect with them and re-assert her role as mother. Her increasingly dangerous ex-husband has other ideas. An official selection at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020, Charter was also selected as the Swedish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards.

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2019 | 104 minutes

Johanna Moder

As the old saying goes, ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’ In an engaging variation on this theme, Johanna Moder’s drama revolves around two couples trying to do the right thing. Helene and Jakob, and friends Tina and Volker, are hip Viennese thirtysomethings enjoying a privileged, well-ordered lifestyle in Vienna. Things change when they find out that Pavel, a Russian classmate from their student days, needs help to escape from Russia where his dissident activities have stirred up trouble. Seeing the urgency of him having to emigrate to Austria, they decide to seize the opportunity and throw their support behind him. But what they initially perceive to be an altruistic adventure soon shakes the foundations of their lives and friendships. With the arrival of Pavel and his family, the disparities between the couples’ ideals and the way they actually lead their lives is revealed.

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2019 | 127 minutes

May el-Toukhy

High-powered lawyer Anne shares with her Swedish husband Peter, a prominent doctor, a comfortable lifestyle in Copenhagen raising twin girls. All seems fine, but their relationship is brittle, cushioned by privilege but fragile somehow. Things change utterly when Gustav, Peter’s troubled teenaged son from his first marriage, moves in. He’s been expelled from both his school and his mother’s home in Sweden and is a bit lost in life. While his father remains distant, Anne, whose law practice specializes in youth in crisis cases, decides she will actively engage with Gustav and help him rebuild his life and his confidence. This well-intentioned gesture leads both Anne and Gustav into dangerous, uncharted territory which will soon threaten the entire household. Powerful. Provocative.

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2020 | 100 minutes

Sonia Liza Kenterman

Middle-aged Nikos lives in the attic of the family’s tailor shop. He has inherited this fine-suit business from his father, who owes the bank money and is in failing health. Once his father is in the hospital, Nikos is forced to take his business on the road, offering his bespoke services at a street market. In taking this wondrously strange tailor shop on wheels, he reinvents himself while bringing style and confidence to his new clients with his fine eye for detail and his sartorial taste. There are challenges, however, as the off-the-rack clothing world seems more in keeping with the tough economic times. Lucky for Nikos, he has amazing tailoring skills and a few tricks up his well-made sleeves to keep the family business alive. With its deft directorial touch and droll take on the recent economic and social challenges in Greece, Tailor is an appealing, sweet reminder that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself.

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2021 | 95 minutes

Davis Simanis Jr.

It’s 1913 and the world is on the edge of a radical, catastrophic transformation. Soon, millions of men will be marching and singing into the trenches and battlefields of World War I. At this moment of feverish anticipation, Peter from Latvia – who claims his name is Hans – is an eccentric character wandering around Europe. He starts out as a simple doorman in Riga, but soon becomes embroiled in the revolutionary plans of communists, anarchists, and nationalists of all stripes. His odyssey through Europe leads him to the 'Lebensreform' community at Monte Verità in Switzerland, and on to imperial Vienna. He is shot at, forced to commit murder, has a romance with a famous spy, and is even psychoanalysed by none other than Sigmund Freud himself. Acclaimed director Davis Simanis (The Mover, Exiled) delivers a gripping historical thriller with surrealist touches and an atmospheric exploration of a critical (and curiously creative) moment in the history of the troubled 20th century.

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2019 | 101 minutes

Ivan-Goran Vitez

Angered at not being granted permission to be with his daughter on her ninth birthday, Drago, a middle-aged, recently divorced father, decides to take matters into his own hands. Defying the authorities, he arrives at his daughter’s school and barges into her classroom with a gift, a birthday cake, and – ominously – a rifle. As Drago refuses to leave the classroom, the rather corrupt town mayor meanwhile decides to use the ensuing hostage crisis to his advantage. What will happen next is anyone’s guess, Drago included. Featured at the 2019 Palm Springs and Chicago International Film Festivals, Extracurricular was also Croatia’s official entry for Best International Feature at the 93rd edition of the Oscars.

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2019 | 94 minutes

Julian Galea

When Vincent, a New York based filmmaker, attends the Maltese premiere of his new film at a festival in Valetta, he is surprised at the screening by Annalisa, his Spanish ex-lover who walked out on him five years earlier. Reconnecting for a day, they confront their tangled past, present, and possible future. While things go well initially, both Vincent and Annalisa realize that they are entering dangerous emotional territory once again, encountering the same complications that tore them apart in the first place. Set against the stunning cityscapes and seascapes of Malta, Made in Malta is part existential drama, part valentine to loves lost and, perhaps, loves regained. In English.

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2018 | 108 minutes

Karel Janák

Zuzana is an up-and-coming sculptor living and working in Bratislava. Her husband, Andrej, is a computer programmer who has created a prototype for a Smart House. Andrej’s Smart House offers residents a whole new living experience where everything is perfect and, supposedly, nothing can go wrong. The couple move into the prototype so that Andrej can fully test the product which is programmed to cater to Zuzana’s every whim and keep her safe at all costs. Isolated and alone in the Slovakian countryside, however, Zuzana soon feels uncomfortable with this ‘smart’ house watching. Andrej dismisses her concerns, but events quickly turn sinister. Highly stylized and suspenseful, Intimate Enemy asks some unsettling questions about our increasing dependence on technology.

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2020 | 86 minutes

Radu Ciorniciuc

This absorbing and intimate documentary is set in the Vacaresti Nature Park near Bucharest, which for decades has stood idle, neglected by bureaucrats. It has become one of the largest urban wilderness areas in all of Europe. It’s also the ‘home’ of a man named Gica Enache, who, with his wife and nine children (along with chickens, dogs, cats, and pigs), has lived there for almost two decades, tucked away from the modern world in a kind of idyllic, but dirt poor, existence off the grid. Shot over three years, Radu Ciorniciuc’s film follows Gica and his family as their existence is interrupted and intruded upon by modernity. Acasă seamlessly blends lyricism with a clear-eyed honesty about this unusual family’s life challenges. In its observational documentary style, the film affords us glimpses into nights with this family living on top of each other in their tiny, crowded home, as well as them playing in the fields and streams, exploring and fooling around. But is the family’s lifestyle sustainable? What does the future hold?

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2019 | 90 minutes

Vero Cratzborn

Talented newcomer Vero Cratzborn’s feature film debut is a sincere, moving coming-of-age tale of a teenage girl becoming aware of her father’s serious mental illness. Fifteen-year-old Gina is growing up in a loving family. She admires her father Jimmy, an unpredictable man whose odd excesses she’s quick to forgive. That is, until Jimmy’s erratic behaviour goes over the edge and the family balance is shattered. Confused and angry, Gina allies herself with Nico, an adolescent from her neighbourhood, with a view to saving Gina’s father, who seems to be slipping further and further into madness. As the family struggles with Jimmy’s decline, Gina’s mother, facing financial hardship, is forced to make a difficult decision. In this tumultuous family drama, Gina finds herself leaving childhood behind much sooner than expected.

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2021 | 75 minutes

Jean-Louis Schuller

This moody drama of identity revolves around the troubled character of Luc, a divorced man and father of a seven-year-old girl. Luc is in the process of setting up his apartment so his daughter can live with him. On a whim, however, he suddenly decides to travel to faraway Svalbard, an archipelago near the North Pole, to rethink his life. After a drunken night, Luc stumbles upon Mike, a stranger who lives in an isolated cabin out in the Arctic desert. The two men start talking, but the enigmatic Mike leaves Luc in mid-conversation. Intrigued, Luc goes searching for him. Along the way, he meets Ingrid, a charming Norwegian teacher. After missing his flight home, Luc resolves to stay with Ingrid and to start a new life on the island. But he is haunted by the encounter with the elusive Mike. As the mystery deepens, Luc seems to be hunting a shadow, possibly his own.

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2020 | 92 minutes

Pamela Tola

At age 75, Inkeri has had enough. Her husband of 50 years, Tapio, who has been forever nagging and belittling, finds himself being hit on the head with a frying pan. Thinking he is dead (she even plans to bury him in their garden), Inkeri suddenly realizes that she’ll be spending the rest of her life in prison. Time to get out of town! So, for a one last road trip, Inkeri takes her sisters Sylvi and Raili on a wild ride to Koli National Park. Their travels through Finland involve a charming young hitchhiker, car troubles, and some sinful, sexy dancing at a club. When Inkeri comes across her old university writings and finds Eino, a lover from her youth, she is reminded of her dreams that were dashed by her unhappy marriage. But will Eino still remember Inkeri? Will Inkeri re-emerge as that fun-loving, free woman she used to be? The real question will be asked, though, when Tapio suddenly and unexpectedly reappears, and he’s alive! Now Inkeri has to make the biggest choice. This comic road movie offers up a unique (and hilarious) take on the coming-of-age film. Buckle up.

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2020 | 90 minutes

Nóra Lakos

The love of Dora’s life broke up with her and, even worse, promptly married another woman. Wounded but resilient, Dora starts up a pastry shop where she tries to make unfulfilled love a little sweeter by selling pastries named after famous unrequited love couples from film history. When her shop begins to falter in the face of economic challenges, Dora seizes the chance to receive major funding through a program offering several thousand euros to support a family-run business. Trouble is, she’s single! Not to worry, though, as Dora is soon recruiting a dentist-cum-DJ wannabe, Adam, and the neighbour’s son, Lacika, to act as her ‘family.’ But will the scheme work? And will Dora ever find real love again? As sweet and as tart as one of Dora’s pastries, Cream is a charming romantic comedy.

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2021 | 106 minutes

Darko Sinko

Boris Robič is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life. One day after supper, however, somebody fires a shot at him through his study window while he is reading. The police arrive to investigate. It seems Boris does not have enemies or any disputes with anyone. There are no suspects, as the meek, nondescript Boris appears to be someone totally unlikely to be targeted for assassination. Was the event a coincidence of some sort, or a random shooting? With no leads, the police stop investigating. Boris cannot come to terms with this, so he starts his own investigation. While he looks for potential perpetrators, Boris discovers that he is disliked by more people than he could ever have imagined, and that his perceptions of his own life might be merely illusions. Tautly constructed and merging elements of thriller, black comedy, and Kafkaesque paranoiac narratives, Inventory is brilliant debut feature film by Darko Sinko.

2020 | 77 minutes | USA, Canada
Director: Emma Seligman
Writer: Emma Seligman
Language: English

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Shohei is a retired school principal dealing with dementia whose escapades wreak havoc on his family. Despite their own individual agonies, his two daughters Mari and Fumi return home to take care of their father together with their mother Yoko as he faces Alzheimer’s disease. As Shohei's memory gradually deteriorates, the family learns about an unexpected "recollection" that lives within him. In a long goodbye to their father, fond memories and forgotten hopes flow back into their lives.

A Long Goodbye is the film adaptation of Naoki Prize-winning author NAKAJIMA Kyoko's same-named novel with NAKANO Ryota (Her Love Boils Bathwater, 2016) serving as director and screenplay writer. The film delivers a touching, and humorous depiction of seven years in the lives of a father diagnosed with dementia.

The screening includes a discussion about dementia with Kiyoshi Dembo of the Momiji Health Care Society (Toronto) with CFI Executive Director Tom McSorley and Program Officer at The Japan Foundation, Nobi Nakamura.

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