François Ozon
François Ozon, winner of last year's Golden Shell with Dans la maison (In the House), competed at the last Festival de Cannes with this portrayal of a 17-year-old girl in four seasons and four songs.
Calin Peter Netzer
A Romanian production, winner of the Golden Bear at the last Berlin Festival. The film stars Cornelia, a 60-year-old woman who puts all her skills, contacts and money into preventing her son, involved in a tragic accident, from going to prison. But where is the thin line that separates a mother's love from self-centered manipulation?
Hirokazu Koreeda
Two years after presenting Kiseki / IWish at the Festival, Hirozaku Kore-eda returns to San Sebastian with his latest film, winner of the Jury Award at the last Festival de Cannes. This time Kore-eda tells the story of a man who must make a life-changing decision and choose between his natural son and the son he believed was his after spending 6 years together.
Jia Zhang-ke
The Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke won the Best Screenplay Award at the last Festival de Cannes thanks to this chronicle of four people and four provinces. A reflection on contemporary China: that of an economic giant slowly being eroded by violence.
Opening Film (In competition)
Arie Posin
Robin Williams, Ed Harris, Annette Bening y Amy Brenneman star in this film presented at the Toronto Festival. Five years after losing the love of her life, Nikki falls head over heels for a new beau: Tom is the man of her dreams, an attractive art teacher with a big heart, a friendly smile and heaps of energy.
Albert Dupontel
A comedy directed by and starring Albert Dupontel about Ariane Felder, a judge of strict morals who discovers she's pregnant by Bob Nolan, a criminal wanted for murder. Ariane can't remember a thing and tries to find out what could possibly have happened.
Richard Curtis
This comedy directed by Richard Curtis, helmer of films like Love Actually and the screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones's Diary, was presented at the Locarno Film Festival. At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time. His father tells him that all of the men in his family have had the same gift.
Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu
The new film from the Larrieu brothers takes place in an area of mountains and lakes somewhere between Switzerland and France. Marc, in his forties, is a professor of literature at the University of Lausanne. He has one love affair after another with his students. Still single, he lives with his sister Marianne. Winter has almost ended, when one of his most brilliant students, Barbara, disappears. Two days later, he meets Anna, Barbara´s mother, who wants to find out more about her vanished daughter.
Jean-Marc Vallée
The Canadian Jean-Marc Vallée made an international name for himself with his prizewinning film C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) and has since directed The Young Victoria (2009) and Café de Flore (2011). In the fact-based drama, Spirit Award winner Matthew McConaughey portrays real-life Texas electrician Ron Woodroof, an ordinary man who found himself in a life-or-death battle with the medical establishment and pharmaceutical companies. In 1985, Ron was blindsided by being diagnosed as HIV-positive and given 30 days to live. With the U.S. still internally divided over how to combat the virus and restricting medications, Ron grabbed hold of non-toxic alternative treatments from all over the world by means both legal and illegal. Seeking to avoid government sanctions against selling non-approved medicines and supplements, he established a "buyers club", which fellow HIV-positive people could join for access to his supplies.
Ryan Coogler
The story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at Sundance Festival and the Avenir Award at Cannes' Un Certain Regard.
Sebastián Lelio
Winner of the Films in Progress Award at San Sebastian last year and of the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the last Berlin Festival, this Spain-Chile co-production directed by Sebastián Lelio paints the portrait of the spirited and attractive 58-year-old Gloria as she sets about tackling a new stage in her life.
Alfonso Cuarón
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney star in this electrifying thriller taking us into deepest, darkest space. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Academy Award nominee for Children of Men, the movie narrates the odyssey of Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. Opening film of the next Venice Festival.
Rithy Panh
Winning documentary of the Un Certain Regard Award at the last Festival de Cannes. In the word of its director, Rithy Pahn: "For many years, I have been looking for the missing picture: a photograph taken between 1975 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge when they ruled over Cambodia... I searched for it vainly. Today I know: this image must be missing. So I created it."
Hayao Miyazaki
In his new film, to be presented in the Official Selection at the Venice Festival, the master of animation Hayao Miyazaki brings together the engineer Jiro Horikoshi and the author Tatsuo Hori, who lived during the time of the story of The Wind Rises, to create Jiro, a fictional character at the centre of an epic tale of love, perseverance, and the challenges of living and making choices in a turbulent world.
Shaul Schwarz
A documentary feature by award-winning photojournalist Shaul Schwarz on the explosive narco culture, a phenomenon blurring the lines between war and entertainment. To a growing number of Mexicans and Latinos in the Americas, the narco traffickers represent the only models of fame and success, the only way out of the ghetto.
Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam will present his new futuristic fantasy in competition at the Venice Festival. An eccentric and reclusive computer genius plagued with existential angst works on a mysterious project aimed at discovering the purpose of existence—or the lack thereof—once and for all. However, it is only once he experiences the power of love and desire that he is able to understand his very reason for being.