A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.
A 6th-century Scandinavian warrior named Beowulf embarks on a mission to slay the man-like ogre, Grendel.
A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.
A recently-widowed science fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially-rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.
Four independent stories set in modern China about random acts of violence.
A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.
A true story of shocking violence catapults a picturesque little town into history. The close sibling relationship between the two maids takes on a new dimension as their overbearing employer discovers a sexual fever between the two sisters.
In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman (Jessica Lundberg) remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.
In the immense city of Tokyo, the darkness of the afterlife lurks some of its inhabitants who are desperately trying to escape the sadness and isolation of the modern world.
A rebellious student embarks on an affair with the mother of his best friend, leading to disastrous consequences.
David, a struggling comedy writer fresh off from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves from New York City to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and much-younger sisters for the first time in ten years, he feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother’s health declines, David frantically tries to extract meaning from this horrible experience and convince everyone (including himself) that he's "doing okay.”
Twenty-something Freddy is becalmed in a podunk French village where the only sign of life is the local amateur brass band and youth aimlessly roaming around the countryside on scooters. He has an intense sexual connection with his girlfriend but has no joy or passion to give her. When she falls for a handsome Arab youth a tragedy unfolds.
A deeply disturbed and epileptic young man benignly decides to murder other members of his dysfunctional family for altruistic reasons.
Louise is dissatisfied with her mundane life in a bleak Parisian new-town. She rents a pied-à-terre in the city so she can experience independence.
With input from actor and writer Jan Hlobil, director and cinematographer Rene Smaal presents a film in the true surrealist tradition, in the sense that only 'found' elements were used, and that it defies interpretation based on ordinary cause-and-effect time sequence.
Two 17-year-old boys mark the new year by doing twelve dangerous but exciting tasks set for them by their friends.
This is the story of three characters (brothers Tomek and Jacek and their neighbor Magda), each of them is in their own way lonely and alienated. The title character makes herself secluded. Tomek's alienation results from his neurological disease, and Jacek contacts the world mainly via the Internet. This is also a film about love. Love of one brother to the other and of one alienated human being to the other. All together it creates a very universal picture with a Polish entourage.
A disaffected media executive spends his days watching violent programming on the television screens in his office and his evenings neglecting his frustrated wife at home. The monotonicity is disturbed when he is contacted by an old friend who confides in him he is being threatened by mysterious assassins.
Burned-out B-movie actress Maria, depressed and frustrated with her loveless marriage to an ambitious film director, Carter Lang, who would rather work on his career than on his relationship with her, numbs herself with drugs and sex with strangers. Only her friendship with a sensitive gay movie producer, B.Z., offers a semblance of solace. But even that relationship proves to be fleeting amidst the empty decadence of Hollywood.
A married, middle-aged professor meets a mysterious woman in the woods and has an affair with her.