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Eyal Halfon, Israel/Germany/Portugal, 2016, 90 min, in Hebrew, Arabic, English, Portuguese, with English Subtitles Sunday, 5 November 2017, 8:00 PM What if the fate of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict decided through a soccer match??!! After years of bloodshed, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about to be resolved. A moment before another round of violence, the ideal solution...
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Etienne Comar, 2017, France, 117min, French with English Subtitles Nominated for Golden Bear, Berlin FF 2017 Friday, 3 November 2017, 7:00 PM, Toronto Premiere 1943, occupied Paris. Django Reinhardt is at the pinnacle of his art. The brilliant and carefree jazz guitarist, king of ethereal swing, plays to standing-room- only crowds in the capital’s...
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Conor McDermottroe, Irland/Germany, 2017, 100 min, in English Saturday, 4 November 2017, 5:00 PM, North American Premiere Partly based on true events, this warm-hearted comedy about Ireland’s first Halal meat factory tells the story of young Muslim Raghdan Aziz trying to find his place in the world of small town Sligo. While managing a rundown...
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Anahita Ghazvinizadeh, US, 2017, 80 min Nominated, Camera d’Or, Queer Palm, Cannes FF 2017 Friday, 3 November 2017, 9:10 PM, Toronto Premiere Fourteen-year- old J goes by the pronoun ‘They’ and lives with their parents in the suburbs of Chicago. J is exploring their gender identity while taking hormone blockers to postpone puberty. After two...
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Elina Psykou, France/Greece/Bulgaria, 2017, 111min, in Russian and Greek with English Subtitles Winner, Jury Award, Tribeca FF 2017, Special Award, Sarajevo FF 2017 Sunday, 5 November 2017, 6:00 PM, Canadian Premiere Athens, 2004 summer Olympic Games. 11-year- old Misha arrives from Russia to live with his mother, Sofia. What he doesn’t know is that there...
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Chad Hartigan, Germany, 2016, 91 min, in German/USA and English with English Subtitles Winner, Special Jury Award, Sundance FF 2016; Named Top Ten Independent Film by National Board of Review USA, 2016 Sunday, 5 November 2017, 4:00 PM, Toronto Premiere Morris, a 13-year- old African-American moves to Heidelberg with his dad, a professional soccer coach....
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Marc Waltman, The Netherlands, 2017, 100 min, in Dutch with English Subtitles Sunday, 5 November 2017, 2:00 PM, Canadian Premiere The grass is greener on the other side… Axel is a Boeroe, a white Surinamer, who has been living in The Netherlands for 20 years. When his mom Gladys calls the family back for Christmas,...
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Visar Morina, Germany/Kosovo, 2015, 104min, In German, Albanian, Serbian, English, with English Subtitles Winner, Best Director, Label Europa Cinema, Karlovy Vary FF 2015; One Feature Prize, Young German Cinema Award, Munich FF 2015 Saturday, 4 November 2017, 9:15 PM, Canadian Premiere Ten-year- old Nori (Val Maloku) and his father Gezim (Astrit Kabashi) roam the streets...
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Mitra Tabrizian, UK, 2017, 94 min, in Farsi and English with English Subtitles With Shahab Hosseini, winner of Best Actor, Cannes Film Festival 2016 Saturday, 4 November 2017, 7:00 PM, Toronto Premiere Gholam is an enigmatic quiet Iranian cab driver with two jobs and no apparent interest in the money. Every day, he eats at...
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Ori Sivan, Israel, 2016, 98 min, in Hebrew and Arabic with English Subtitles Winner, Best Cinematography, Jerusalem FF 2016; Nominated for four Israeli Film Academy 2016 Saturday, 4 November 2017, 3:00 PM, Canadian Premiere Harmonia is a modern adaptation of the mythological triangle between the childless Abraham and Sarah and young Hagar. Sarah is the...
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Mahsa Mortazavi, Canada, 2017, 12 min, World premiere The Iranian filmmaker, Mahsa Mortazavi courageously captures both her and her mother’s dramatic story of love, separation, survival and the long lasting effects of the 1979 revolution.
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Hawa Aliou N’diaye, Senegal/France, 2016, 8 min, Canadian Premiere My father moved away from the family. His absence ruined my childhood. Today, I have the impression that his spirit haunts me wherever I go. I see him in every old man I meet.
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Jordan Bond and Lachlan Ryan, Australia, 2016, 9 min, Canadian Premiere Vijay, a lonely taxi driver who recently moved to Melbourne, picks up a stray drunk, Chris. Vijay’s distrust is slowly broken down as Chris befriends him. Over the course of the night Chris experiences some of Vijay's nightly troubles, and Vijay learns to see...
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Mariana Luiza, Brezil, 2017, 12min, Canadian Premiere Maria, a young black woman entered college through the system of racial quotas and now lives abroad. Francisca, her mother, still works on a sugarcane plantation. Both exchange letters that revive memories and reflects the end of an economic-social era.
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Ahmad Saleh, Jordan/Palestine/Germany, 2016, 10 min While venturing outside to collect scrap metal to buy a music instrument, two boys get trapped in a deadly danger. The strength they inherited from their mother keeps them standing.
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Nathalie Attallah, Canada, 2017, 7 min, Toronto Premire In Water on Sand, the filmmaker’s brother and grandmother reflect on their feelings and experiences as members of the Lebanese diaspora, giving rise to an inter-generational narrative about immigration and cultural displacement.
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Onur Yagiz, France, 2017, 11 Min, Canadian Premiere Toprak, 8, translates for his parents who can’t speak French. Today, he goes to the hospital with them for his mother’s second trimester examination. He will be the first one to know if the twin babies are brothers or sisters.
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Farid Zarrinbal and Harald Sandø, Sweden/Norway, 2017, 15 min, North American Premiere A young asylum seeker searches for his serenity with a few obstacle to overcome.
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Griselda San Martin, Spain, 2017, 6 min, Canadian Premiere Jose Marquez, a musician deported from the US, and his daughter Susanna have been separated for almost 15 years but meet every month on either side of the US-Mexico border wall.
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Shahin Parhami, Canada/Iran/South Korea, 2015, 129 min, In Farsi with English Subtitles Toronto Premiere Official Selection, Busan International Film Festival 2015; Fribourg International Film Festival 2016; Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival 2015; Montreal World Film Festival 2016; San Francisco Iranian Film Festival 2016; In Competition: Asia Pacific Screen Award. Shahrzaad’s Tale is a story of...
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Rafi Pitts, USA, 2016, 120 min, in English and Spanish with English Subtitles Toronto Premiere Winner, Bucharest FF 2016: Festival Prize; Nominated, Berlin FF 2016: Golden Bear, Amnesty International Nero is a 19-year-old deported Mexican. After several attempts he finally manages to return to his hometown, Los Angeles, to find his older brother Jesus. When...
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Mahsa Razavi, Canada, 2016, 18 min, in Kurdish with English Subtitles North American Premiere Rojin, a Kurdish- Canadian girl battles both her mother and her mother tongue, as she grieves the recent death of her father, killed in a battle in the Shingal Mountains, Iraqi Kurdistan.
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Udi Aloni, Israel/Germany, 95 min, 2016, in Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles Canadian Premiere Winner, Berlin FF 2016: Audience Award; Tribeca FF 2016: Jury Award; Israeli Film Academy: Best Music, Best Sound, Best Actor; Art Film Slovakia: Best Film, Best Actor Kareem, a young Palestinian musician, spends his days wandering aimlessly between casual office...
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Neelesha Barthel, Germany, 2015, 94 min, in German, English, Hindi, Turkish with English Subtitles Canadian Premiere A culture clash comedy Kissy, a German-Indian woman in her late twenties, happily living with her seven-year-old daughter Meena in Berlin, oversees a building of rented apartments in Berlin-Kreuzberg, which has seen better days but not lost any of...
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Sonia Chamkhi, Tunisia, 2016, 90 min, in Arabic and French with English Subtitles North American Premiere Hind, a young thirty-year-old actress, plays in a play directed by her husband Taoufik. The play is based upon the tragic real-life experience of Hind and that of her younger brother Mehdi, a famous gay singer. While Mehdi is...
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David Lambert, Belgium/Canada, 102 min, 2014, in English, French, and Spanish with English subtitles Toronto Premiere Winner, Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2014, Best Actor; Milan Lesbian and Gay Film Festival 2015: Best Film; Queer Lisbon Film Festival 2015: Best Actor. Young Argentine Lucas arrives in a small Belgian town to visit gay bakery owner Henry,...
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Heddy Honigmann, The Netherlands, 2015, 95 min, in Dutch and English with English Subtitles Toronto Premiere Opening film, International Diaspora Film Festival 2016 To celebrate its 125th anniversary Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra tours the whole world: 50 concerts spread over 6 continents. Unbounded passion and love for music brings musicians and concert goers together. Documentary...
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Charlotte Rolfes, Germany, 2015, 8 min, no dialogue Winner, First Prize, Shortfilms Against Racism Festival, Madrid, Spain. North American Premiere An Iranian family mourns for the loss of the father who was murdered by right winged extremists. Ali, his son, flees into hatred and revenge phantasies, instead of taking care of his mother and siblings....
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Salar Pashtoonyar, Canada, 2016, 9 min, in Arabic with English Subtitles After escaping for his life and living in exile for years in Canada, Karim finally convinces his estranged son Mahmoud to visit him from Iraq. Upon Mahmoud’s arrival nothing goes as planned and things take a turn for the worse when ISIS attacks Iraq...
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Aisha Jamal, Canada, 2016, 7 min, in English and Pashtun with English Subtitles Toronto Premiere Influenced by their love of the gardens of Afghanistan, the Jamals have turned the backyard of their Canadian home into a vibrant link to their past. Through their love for gardening and nostalgia for their homeland they create a beautiful oasis,...
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Babak Anvari, UK/Iran, 84 min, 2016, in Farsi with English Subtitles Winner, Athens FF: Best Screenplay; Sundance Film Festival: World Premiere; Official British entry for the Oscars. Tehran, 1988: the Iran-Iraq war rumbles into its eighth year. The bombing campaigns focused on the city, coupled with the country’s bloody revolution, slowly tear a mother and...
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Rokhsareh Ghaem-Maghami, Iran/Germany, 90 min, 2015, in Farsi and English with English subtitles Winner, Sundance Film Festival 2016: Grand Jury Prize, Audience Award; Sarasota Doc Film Festival 2016: Audience Award; Portland International Film Festival 2016: Audience Award; Montclair Film Festival 2016: Special Jury Prize, Audience Award; East End Film Festival 2016: Best Documentary; Amsterdam International...
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Aron Lehmann, Germany, 2015, 89 min, in German and Greek with English Subtitles North American Premiere Winner, Pusan International Film Festival 2015: Busan Bank Award. The Germans are coming! To snoop around and control the Greeks; because they are – as always – under suspicion of lying and cheating. With good reason! Joerg Geissner, employee...
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Goran Radovanovic, Germany/Serbia, 2015, 92min, in German, Serbian, and Albanian with English Subtitles Toronto Premiere Winner, Moscow International Film Festival 2016: Audience Award; International Independent Film Award 2016: Best Feature Ten years after the war in Kosovo: 10-year-old Nenad lives together with his father and his sick grandfather in a small Serbian enclave. Every day,...
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Sofia Olins, UK/Spain, 2015, 31 min, in Spanish with English Subtitles Canadian Premiere Despite living in the Dominican Republic all their lives, Dominicans of Haitian Descent face daily discrimination, sometimes violent. Because their parents or grandparents were born in next door Haiti, but mainly because they are black. A recent controversial law paved the road...
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Schedule 2016
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4 to 7 November 2016 Toronto, Canada
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Igor Drljiaca, Canada, 2015, 92 min, in English and Bosnian, with English Subtitles Nominated for Golden Leopard, Locarno Film Festival 2015 Jasmin, once a successful actor in former Yugoslavia, now lives in Toronto with his second wife and young son. While juggling a construction job and a busy audition schedule, he dreams of re-launching an...
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Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Georgia/ France/ UK / Germany, 2014, 115 min, Georgian with English Subtitles Canadian Premiere The President tells the story of a dictator who is forced to personally confront the many people tortured by his regime after his government is overthrown. The President and his family rule the land with a draconian fist, enjoying a...
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Joost van Ginkel, The Netherlands, 2015, 122 min, in English, French, Bosnian, Swedish, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Dutch, with English subtitles Sexual content and nudity. 18 Years and over. For the beautiful young Bulgarian Jenya, her trip to Amsterdam turns out to be the opposite of what she hoped for. Her gruelling captivity makes the angel-like...
