An antic parable of a "war of the sexes" provoked by an acute lack of water in a desert village between Europe and Asia. Set against the backdrop of this conflict is the tragicomic story of a couple who would like to be able to enjoy their first night of passion.

Contemporary New Delhi, impoverished slums and luxurious mansions, street traffic, thousands of people coursing through the metropolitan labyrinth. Three of them, a poor young rickshaw driver, a little thief and a peculiar millionaire, are brought together by chance, fate and the noble fairy-tale tenet that virtue has to be rewarded.

There are a lot of "ladyboys" to be found on the streets of Philippine Manila who entice the most aggressive of men - it is the only way they can feel like women in spite of their bodies. Raquela however is trying to escape the spiral of prostitution. This semi-documentary film about one of the many ways to find one's freedom was awarded at this year's Berlinale.

As young James is scaring off a flock of birds in a vast field, the taciturn Lawrence tries to shoot himself. Without success. What will the trip home be like? The film was in competition at the Berlinale and at Sundance where it received the award for Best Director.

After fourteen years Eric Wilson leaves the juvenile detention centre to begin a new life under a new name. Plunging into the world of adulthood with hope and a willingness to meet everyone's expectations, will he be able to navigate its pitfalls and defy the shadows of his past? This impressive, down-to-earth drama received the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin IFF. Andrew Garfield's performance won him a BAFTA Award.

The youngest daughter of the celebrated Makhmalbaf family of Iranian filmmakers shows the journey a little Afghan girl takes to get an education. Evocatively set in the hamlet of Bamyan, above which gapes the hole in the rock face left by the pulverised statue of a gigantic Buddha, the film offers a realistic and metaphorical illustration of the current situation in Afghanistan.

The film's unnamed hero is released from prison and finds himself on the streets with nowhere to go. What crime did he commit? And why does he wander about near the stadium during a football match between Greece and Turkey? A universal story set in contemporary Athens, awarded Best Screenplay at the festival in Thessaloniki.

It's been twenty-five years since the day a socially disgruntled youth hijacked a bus full of children. Daniel, a reporter fed up with hosting a television show for motorists, and beset by problems with his partner, decides to stage a re-enactment of the hijacking using both the abductees and the abductor.

Agnes has her work and family life in perfect order. It is only after repeatedly visiting a stranger's flat that she realises just how monotonous her life is. "To me it was less a matter of rationally understanding Agnes than of empathising with a growing feeling that proves irresistible. And then how this woman controls her loss of control," says the debuting director and screenwriter of her protagonist.

A labyrinth of stories in an urban microcosm of Barcelona, where human fates intermingle at their neuralgic points in a strange bookshop which draws together the threads of love and aging, loneliness, necessity and futility...

An action drama awarded with a Rotterdam Tiger, about the age-old fratricidal enmity between Sunnis and Shiites, which takes place in a reclusive Muslim community in Copenhagen. Jamil, an immigrant, avenges the murder of his mother and thus instigates an endless spiral of senseless vendettas from which he desperately tries to save his little boy.

Twelve-year-old Latino orphan Alejandro works hard in an auto-body shop in the New York borough of Queens and tries to save up for a better future for himself and his sixteen-year-old sister. Does he have any chance of success? An unemotional, unsentimental look at the lives of outsiders on the outskirts of society that won the Independent Spirit Award in 2008.

A young man, an obsession and a city, three protagonists in "one of the most silent films in history", as characterised by the filmmaker himself, even though he spent most of his time working on the audio track. Screened at the Venice Film Festival, the film represents a return to the roots of cinema and was also hailed as "something completely new".

A piece from the experimental film genus which succumbs entirely to the vivid imagination of its authors. Through the hermetic world of rituals, it mediates the experiences of a family terrorised by the whims of the adult son, who has suffered from illness since his childhood. The film also reawakens the charm of the forgotten culture of the Galician region.

Frightening, bloody and grim, but at the same time poetic and full of beauty - such is this unconventional Swedish horror movie about adolescence, love and friendship between two peculiar children, one of whom is a vampire. The story plays out in a Swedish suburb and is the work of the creator of Four Shades of Brown, screened at the KVIFF in 2004.

With a Girl of Black Soil | Geomen tangyi sonyeo oi
Director: Jeon Soo-il
South Korea, France, 2007, 90 min

A social drama crowned with two awards at the 2007 IFF in Venice which paints an intense picture of the absurdity of the social welfare situation in a South Korean mining town. A father of two is no longer able to make a living as a miner due to black lung, but he is also ineligible to claim retirement as he does not have sufficient medical complications.

In a fusion of comic hyperbole and Balkan charm, this film describes the eventful life of Alex, whose parents decide the family should emigrate. Tragedy strikes years later when his parents are killed in a car accident and he suffers from memory loss. He is taken back to his native Bulgaria by his eccentric grandfather Vasil, who not only restores in him a sense of identity but also an awareness that he is a true cosmopolitan.