Kiss of Life

The Belt

April 1989 •Italian

Vittorio, an American novelist teaching in Rome, meets the beautiful but damaged Bianca and they rapidly fall into an urgent, tempestuous affair. He's hesitant over their relationship since she seems to thrive on conflict and is constantly baiting him into physical altercation. Bianca gives Vittorio an exquisite leather belt as a gift; he knows immediately that she wants him to whip her with it. Driven by his craving for her, Vittorio complies to Bianca's desire. Their relationship escalates into a dark realm of S&M which becomes more and more self-destructive.

Party Girl

August 2014 •French

Angélique is a 60-year-old bar hostess. She still likes to party, she still likes men. At night, she makes them drink, in a cabaret by the French-German border. As time goes by, clients become rare. But Michel, her regular client, is still in love with her. One day, he asks Angélique to marry him.

Import

May 2016 •Dutch

In 1994, a young family of Bosnian refugees find themselves in a little Dutch village after receiving their residence permit. Absurd situations occur as they attempt to turn this new world into their home.

Bruising for Besos

June 2016 •English

A charismatic Xicana lesbian seduces an alluring Puerto Rican woman and finds herself recreating her tumultuous past.

Ortolan

April 2023 •English

On the night of their mother’s wake, three estranged sisters divide their childhood home over a pot of magic mushroom tea while a family secret boils to the surface. A story about the tenuousness of memory, buried trauma, food... and psychedelics.

In Still Waters

May 2011 •Spanish

Ana is running away from her hometown while Mar, an old acquaintance of hers, is coming back after a long absence. They find each other in the middle of the road and through the night, they make a journey amongst their fears to find out that still waters run deep.

Siren

May 2016 •English

A story of lust and desire, of identity and sexuality. A young woman’s mundane life is turned upside down when she meets a sensuous older Spanish woman, who is passing through the sleepy English coastal town she lives in.

Now and Ever

October 2019 •Burmese

Thiha is married to Wutt Hmone, who because of her traumatic past is suffering from psychosis. As a good husband, Thiha takes care of Wutt Hmone with much kindness. But in the later years of their marriage she starts to suspect Thiha might be cheating on her. She blames only herself and rumination worsens her condition. But could what she saw have an alternative truth? Or, has Thiha fallen out of love?

Jugni

January 2016 •Hindi

Jugni (Firefly) is the beat of the soul, the free-flying spirit. Jugni is Vibhavari (Vibs). Vibs is a music director, working on her first big break in the Hindi film industry. When work and home affairs, with her live-in boyfriend Sid hit a high tide, Vibs hits the road with a glint of hope; to find music. The journey takes her to a village in Punjab in the search of a Bibi Saroop, whose voice holds the promise that Vibs is searching for. But as the twist of fate would have it, Mastana, Bibi's son and a proficient singer himself, is the voice and man who winds his way into Vibs' heart. From here on, Jugni is about striking balances, making tough decisions while trying to soften the blows and dealing with the studied dramatic turns and unpredictabilities of life and finding the place which one can call home; home of the heart, where the firefly is at her brightest.

All the Beauty

June 2016 •Norwegian

Sarah (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen) and David (Magnus Crepper) meet for the first time in ten years when she arrives at his summer residence. David needs help finishing a play, which turns out to be a dramatization of their long, troublesome relationship. The film presents three love stories about seemingly different couples; all named Sarah and David, but played by different actors in respectively their 20s, 30s and 40s.

The Mayoress

October 2022 •German

Claudia Voss, honorary mayoress, is presented with a fait accompli when her Southern German district decides to build a refugee centre in her town. Some of the population are fuming and resistance grows, but there are equal amounts of willingness to help and empathy. Unexpectedly, the committed wife and mother attracts the attention of right-wing circles and faces attempts to intimidate her. The more Claudia Voss tries to mediate, the stronger the hostility becomes. A gripping contemporary thriller which paints a nuanced picture of the challenges brought by an increasingly polarized political reality. No exception, but instead a widespread, alarming phenomenon in today’s democratic societies.

Ellas Entscheidung

May 2016 •German

Ella and Marcus Herlinger desperately want to have a child. But Ella is a carrier of the incurable hereditary disease Duchenne, which her twelve-year-old nephew Lennart already has. Without the knowledge of her older sister Johanna, Ella tries to get pregnant with the help of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. However, to cover the high costs, Ella needs Johanna's consent to take out a mortgage on the jointly inherited parental farm. Johanna finally agrees to the mortgage without knowing the real reason for her sister's money worries. But the marriage between Ella and Marcus is put to the test by the medical treatment.

Friday Night Shirt

January 2005 •English

Stacey is a young mother trapped in a violent marriage who wants to see her daughter as Cinderella in the school play but must first escape the nightmare of her own Prince Charming.

Submariners

November 1983 •English

Play by Tom McClenaghan, about a routine patrol in the submarine HMS Superior. Strange, near-farcical take on tensions, eccentricities and sexuality among the crew of a Polaris submarine, on a six-week tour of duty off the coast of Faslane in Scotland. Among their number, Neil Pearson is the wily, mascara-wearing, cross-dressing messhand AB Seaman ‘Cock’ Roach, using his Bilko-esque charm to scale the naval pecking order and positively thrive in this tiny, cloistered world

Rehab

March 2003 •English

TV drama - following Adam Bishop, a petty criminal, as he leaves prison for a drugs rehabilitation programme in order to turn his life around.

Anna Wunder

September 2002 •German

The Beguiled

June 2017 •English

During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.

Hairpin Bender

December 2016 •English

When stand-up and improvisor Michelle Marcus is over the rat race of Los Angeles, her fellow comedian friends band together and have one last night out on the town. The ladies talk life, career struggles and chasing their dreams.

Dogstar

May 2003 •English

We’re grading on the curve here, for this entry in Laemmle’s indie series was made on not so much as a shoestring, but more of a frayed thread: $10,000. Still, first-time writer-director Sophie Pegrum has done remarkably well, getting far more than her money’s worth in style and skill onto the screen, abetted by Jaime Reynoso’s photography, amazing for the price. Charles Britton – RAVE Magazine

The Nightingale

September 2018 •English

In 1825, Clare, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.