To Be Pretty

The year is 1955, and a great flood is coming to Northfork, Montana. A new hydroelectric dam is about to be installed in the mountains above the town, ready to submerge the valley in the name of progress. It is the responsibility of a six-man Evacuation Committee to relocate the townsfolk to higher ground. Most have duly departed, but a few stubborn stragglers remain – among them a priest caring for a sickly orphan, a boy whose fevered visions are leading him to believe he is a member of a roaming band of lost angels desperately searching for a way home.

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

A significantly deformed but highly intelligent teenage boy and his biker gang mother attempt to live as normal a life as possible under the circumstances.

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

Samantha Kingston has everything. Then, everything changes. After one fateful night, she wakes up with no future at all. Trapped into reliving the same day over and over, she begins to question just how perfect her life really was.

A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

A woman watches time pass beside the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn't understand that his master has abandoned him.

A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.

After the tragic death of star volleyball player Caroline "Line" Found, a team of dispirited high school girls must band together under the guidance of their tough-love coach in hopes of winning the state championship!

An ex-felon returns home from prison and must confront the demons of his past.

Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.

A famous pianist at the twilight of his career meets a free-spirited music critic who soon becomes his rock as his mental state deteriorates.

Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.

A dying 15-year-old boy draws stories of an invincible superhero as he struggles with his mortality.

Bruce Springsteen, a young musician on the cusp of global superstardom, struggles to reconcile the pressures of success with the ghosts of his past.

While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.

In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.

A documentarist is convinced by her son to travel to Brazil's Northeast so she can throw his dad ashes at São Francisco river.

A nervous and unsettling young boy takes a mysterious old suitcase across London... to a twisted and surreal conclusion.

In a village near a deadly mountain ascent the people repeatedly have to help climbers in danger who didn't make it to the top, in fact nobody made it yet up there. Hansi Knoteck can't stand anymore the danger after a member of the rescue party dies and demands from Attila Hörbiger that he steps back from participating in his rescue efforts. Finally he relents but the villagers ostracize them. In the meantime Winnie Markus tries to seduce Richard Häußler who makes the life for his wife Viktoria von Ballasko a hell through his infidelities.

A short film focusing on a man pushing a tired women over the edge due to his messy eating

The 43rd edition screens Neighbors, with five segments about the theme “neighbors”: not only about physical proximity, but also about relationships. In Brazil, Olga is a 90-year-old black woman who lost her husband one year ago; her neighbors, who come from different parts of the world, interrupt her grief. In Russia, an employee tries so hard to please his boss that he becomes inconvenient. An Indian woman, with the help of her male friend, decides to learn how to drive, an uncommon practice for women in the country. In China, an elderly, owner of an old and decadent barbershop, argues with his son, who wants to change the business. In South Africa, a group of homeless fights for the right to housing.

In a society on the brink of collapse due to climate change, a woman grapples with the psychological effects of an unnatural existence. Cut off from her loved ones, she seeks refuge in various forms of escapism, desperate to outrun an ever-looming sense of doom.

Hélène, a woman living alone in a suburban house in 1976, is confronted by her past when her husband suddenly reappears after going away for a year and a half to write a novel.

A short indie film

When a high school wrestling coach recruits outsider Noah, a student with autism, for his tram, Noah has to confront his overprotective single father and overcome his biggest fear.

A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.

Five domestic stories, five characters, and their families. Small stories that magnify their small ambitions, pettiness, hope, and discouragement, which for each of them are moving, definitive and tragic.

When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.

During a happy hour rush, Benny, the backbone of a struggling bar, is passed over for a promotion. As tensions rise with a new manager and new hire, she hits a breaking point and chooses to leave, reclaiming her freedom and future.

"Holding Echoes" follows Tyler and Jess, two lifelong friends from a small town who spend Jess' last day together before leaving for a bigger city. As they revisit familiar places, laughter and nostalgia mask the unspoken fears of what comes next. As the day ends, Jess embraces the future while Tyler struggles to let go-until he finally does.

After awakening from a recurring nightmare, Luanda, a Black woman and single mother, finds her day pierced by painful memories that insist on resurfacing. A seemingly simple, intimate unease draws her back into recollections of a past shaped by poverty and sorrow. As she confronts these ghosts, Luanda revisits the experiences that forged her path and reveal the strength of the woman she has become.