Film-of-the-Month Club

In this perfect blend of satire and sincerity, a dysfunctional family gets turned on its head when the 'perfect' exchange student moves in. Every member of the van End family is preoccupied with his or her own peculiar fixation - be it father Evert's constantly ignored suggestions and memos, or mother Etty's relentless tirades against her dope-dealing youngest son or praises for her eldest son about to marry. Trapped in the middle is the youngest, 15 year-old Eva, struggling for any attention or affection at all. When Veit, the Adonis German exchange student Eva invited, moves in, the family is shocked and each of them must confront his or her own doubts, insecurities, fears and desires. During Veit's two week stay, all five family members begin to reinvent themselves, led by former wallflower Eva, who embarks on the most dramatic transformation of all.

Unemployed 35 year old Sakurai aspired to become an actor, but failed miserably. He decides to end his own life, but first he goes to purify himself at a public bathhouse. At the bathhouse, he meets the very prosperous Kondo who subsequently suffers a fall, erasing his memory. On a whim, Sakurai switches locker keys, steals the man's belongings and decides to pass himself off as Kondo. What Sakurai does not know is that Kondo runs an illegal business which brings him into contact with ornery yakuza members. Meanwhile, Kondo has been convinced that he is actually the failed actor Sakurai and he faces the dismal reality of that life with increasing bewilderment. Fortunately, at the hospital, he meets the lovely Kanae who, while yearning for marriage, goes out of her way to help "Sakurai" pull himself together. Eventually Kondo regains his memory, but before he can make a new life with Kanae, he has to solve the many problems caused by his identity theft.

Adam is a Catholic priest who discovered his calling as a servant of God at the relatively late age of 21. He now lives in a village in rural Poland where he works with teenagers with behavioral problems who fight and yell abuse. He declines the advances of a young blonde named Ewa, saying he is already spoken for. However, celibacy is not the only reason for his rejection. Adam knows that he desires men and that his embrace of the priesthood has been a flight from his own sexuality. When he meets Lukasz, the strange and taciturn son of a simple rural family, Adam's self-imposed abstinence becomes a heavy burden.

Haunted by a tragic incident, Nihat isolated himself by becoming a fire warden in a remote observation tower far out in the wilderness. Seher lives in a makeshift room at a rural bus station, and she has taken a job as a bus hostess to escape her own traumatic past. Destined to come to a crossroads, they go about their solitary lives until their fates collide. Beginning at first as muted antagonism, their relationship quickly turns into tender domesticity as they settle together at Nihat's mountain-side watchtower. Yet the weight of the past presses on the silence between them, serving as the ultimate catalyst in their impassioned relationship with each other, and with higher powers that guide their spiritual lives.

In this madcap and lighthearted comedic romp, introverted optometrist Weichung begins to question his marriage with his wife Feng, upon learning of her desire to have another baby. At his sister's engagement party, Weichung bumps into an old friend, Stephen, a wedding photographer who, though also married, is living the high life of a younger, single gay man. When Stephen teases Weichung for his newly straightlaced lifestyle, dormant emotions are awakened in Weichung, setting him off on a quest for true romance and desire.

Leo is a plumber who struggles daily to raise his two adolescent children, Elia and Maddalena, dividing himself between his job and home duties. Meanwhile the ghost of his extravagant and lovely wife, Teresa, appears to him every night. Diana is a penniless artist who, while waiting for the chance of her life, has a hard time paying the rent. Her landlord is Amanzio, an eccentric man who has left his job for a new lifestyle, and who, in one of his crusades, meets Elia, with whom he embarks on a bizarre friendship. All these characters' paths intertwine, giving each other hope for a different future, in a city emblematic of our times.

The Jewish Cardinal tells the amazing true story of Jean-Marie Lustiger, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, who maintained his cultural identity as a Jew even after converting to Catholicism at a young age, and later joining the priesthood. Quickly rising within the ranks of the Church, Lustiger was appointed Archbishop of Paris by Pope Jean Paul II - and found a new platform to celebrate his dual identity as a Catholic Jew, earning him both friends and enemies from either group. When Carmelite nuns settle down to build a convent within the cursed walls of Auschwitz, Lustiger finds himself a mediator between the two communities - and may be forced at last to choose his side.

What could be worse than being 14 and on vacation with your father, stuck indoors during a seemingly endless rainstorm? Since his divorce, Alberto spends little time with his children, Lucía and Federico. On a stormy morning, the three of them set off for a hot springs resort. It's going to be a short vacation, so Alberto wants to make the most of it, and refuses to allow anything to ruin his plans. But the springs are closed until further notice due to the heavy rain, and Lucía's adolescent rebellion clashes against her father's enthusiastic efforts for family quality time. Cooped up in a small cabin, and being forced to spend time together, the three of them will eventually manage to find common ground despite the emotional and metereological impediments.

When American basketball player Kevin Sheppard accepts a job to play in one of the world's most feared countries - Iran - he expects the worst. But what he finds is a country brimming with generosity, acceptance, and sensuality. With a charismatic personality that charms everyone he meets, Kevin forms an unlikely friendship with three outspoken Iranian women who share with him their strong opinions on everything, from politics to religion to gender roles. Kevin's season in Iran eventually culminates in something much bigger than basketball: the uprising and subsequent suppression of Iran's reformist Green Movement - a powerful prelude to the sweeping changes currently unfolding across the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Al, a young man from a modest background, is ten days away from marrying the daughter of his boss, along with succeeding him as the head of the car dealership where Al has been working for most of his life. One night, while coming back drunk from his bachelor party, Al commits a hit-and-run when he hits a man by accident and is urged to leave the scene of the crime by his two childhood friends who are with him in the car. The next day, gnawed by guilt, he decides to go to the hospital to inquire anonymously about his victim. What he does not know is that the entire accident was witnessed from a balcony by a young woman, Juliette, who is going through her own emotional upheavals. Juliette not only called 911, but also helped to contact the victim's wife, Véra, a Moldavian illegal immigrant whom she decides to help and keep company at the hospital. But when Juliette recognizes Al as the reckless driver in the hospital corridor, for some reason she is unable to denounce him. Gradually they get to know each other better through more frequent meetings and phone calls, and Juliette becomes a mediator between Al and the unsuspecting Véra. However, things get complicated when romantic feelings between Juliette and Al start to arise, and Véra finally finds out about their secret relationship.

Alicia is helpless. War memories invade her mind like threatening thunder. Uprooted by the armed conflict, she tries to reshape her life in La Sirga, a dilapidated hostel on the shores of a great lake in the highlands of the Andes. There, on a swampy and murky beach, she will try to settle down until her fears and the threat of war resurface again.

Alex, 27, lives in a working-class Paris neighborhood and sells drugs for a living, continuously paying off the debts of his brother Isaac (played by French auteur Cedric Kahn), who's becoming a real burden. When his cousin, who has just returned from completing his military service in Israel, tells him he's opening a restaurant in Tel Aviv, Alex thinks that joining him might be the life-changing opportunity he was waiting for. But in order to leave, Alex must quickly find enough money and accomplish his "aliyah" (the term for Jews emigrating to Israel) which involves, among other things, Hebrew lessons and connecting with his Jewish roots. He also has to leave behind his beloved city of Paris, his former lover Esther, his lifelong friend Mathias, and Jeanne, a woman whom he's just met but has the potential of becoming someone important in his life. Torn between making his aliyah, his drug selling, his complicated love life and a destructive brother, Alex will have to find his own way and make a final decision.

How could a recently orphaned, 10-year old homeless South African boy ever be called Lucky? Over the grave of his dead mother, Lucky makes a promise to make something of himself. Leaving the security of his remote Zulu village for the big city with the hope of going to school, he arrives on the doorstep of an uncle who has no use for him. Lucky then falls in with Padma, an elderly Indian woman with an inherent fear of Africans, who takes him in as she would a stray dog. Together, unable to speak each other's language, they develop an unlikely bond. Through an odyssey marked by greed, violence, and, ultimately, belonging, Lucky shows how a child's spirit can bring out decency, humility and even love in adults struggling to survive in the new South Africa.

The summer holidays have just begun and 11 year-old Skunk's afternoons are full of day dreams and curious wanderings around her neighborhood - with the exception that she must regularly give herself injections to combat her type 1 diabetes. When, one day, Skunk (Eloise Laurence) discovers her bitter and angry older neighbor, Mr. Oswald (Rory Kinnear), savagely beating Rick, a psychologically-troubled boy from the neighborhood whom Mr. Oswald's daughter has callously and fictitiously accused of rape, Skunk's innocence begins to vanish. Trying to find solace with her loving nanny (Zana Marjanovic) and father (Tim Roth), with whom she is very close, Skunk is unwittingly drawn into her neighbors' unfolding melodrama involving violence, sex, and life-shattering illness. Her home, her neighborhood and her school all become treacherous environments where the happy certainties of childhood give way to a fear-filled doubt, and the promise of a complex, broken future. Overwhelmed by her experiences, Skunk herself is drawn into an ethereal chaos from which she may only return through the intense love of those closest to her.

Argentina, 1979. After years of exile, Juan (12) and his family come back to Argentina under fake identities. Juan's parents and his uncle Beto are members of the Montoneros Organization, which is fighting against the Military Junta that rules the country. Because of their political activities they are being tracked down relentlessly, and the threat of capture and even death is constant. However, Juan's daily life is also full of warmth and humor, and he quickly and easily integrates into his new environment. His friends at school and the girl he has a gigantic crush on, Maria, know him as Ernesto, a name he must not forget, since his family's survival is at stake. Juan accepts this and follows all of his parents' rules until one day he is told that they need to move again immediately, and leave his friends and Maria behind without an explanation. This is a story about militancy, undercover life, and love. The story of a clandestine childhood.

Shun Li works in a textile factory near Rome, slowly paying off the broker that brought her from China to Italy, while saving money so she can bring her young son to join her. She is suddenly transferred to work as a bartender at a pub in a small town along the Venetian Lagoon. The pub is the hangout of the local fishermen, including Bepi, a handsome old Slav immigrant nicknamed "The Poet." A tender, delicate friendship grows between Shun Li and Bepi. But gossip soon threatens their innocent relationship, a bond that had once transcended two very different, yet not at all distant cultures.

All fourteen-year-old Robbie Hendrick ever wanted was a family. Yet, as another Mississippi Summer begins, his wayward mother has run off again fearing a breakdown, and he's left to burn the days caring for his half brother, Fess. As the deep days and nights pass without her return, and with older brother Lucas dangerously in their lives again, Robbie must face the fact that his dreams may never come true. With social services looming over them, Robbie may even lose Fess, the only family he's ever really had.

After years of living apart from her dad, Libby, an introverted yet sharp-witted teenager, is sent to live with him is Israel. Her arrival coincides with the outbreak of the second Lebanon war. Libby quickly discovers that her dad, Shaul, is an infantile eccentric, and that he is 'in-between apartments' (in other words, homeless). Shaul comes up with a creative plan to put a roof over their heads - they pose as refugees from the bombarded northern region of Israel, and are taken in by a well-off family in Jerusalem. Finally in a 'normal' household, Shaul and Libby begin to build their father-daughter relationship, but their false identities can't last forever, especially as Libby unleashes teenage fury at the lies permeating her life; those she must tell now, and those she's been fed since childhood.