A riotous comedy romance from Serbian maverick Emir Kusturica (Black Cat, White Cat).  When the Bosnian War breaks out, mild-mannered Serbian station-master Luka gets caught up in smuggling, his wife runs off with a musician and his son is captured and falls in love with a Muslim.  With marauding bears, flying beds and the world’s strangest football match, it’s a life-affirming satire of Balkan mayhem, bursting with invention, music and anarchic energy.

A lyrical and sensuous cinematic treatment from one of the world’s greatest film-makers, of stories from The Thousand and One Nights, filmed in Yemen, Ethiopia, Iran and Nepal.  Pasolini focuses on the book’s more erotic tales, framed by the story of a young man’s quest to reconnect with his beloved slave girl.  Full of lustrous sets, costumes and stunning location photography, Arabian Nights is a fierce and joyous exploration of human sexuality.  Engrossing, mysterious, profound and liberating. NB: Sexual content.

Exquisitely drawn and profoundly moving animated film from the acclaimed Studio Ghibli, concerning a young boy and his little sister’s struggle to survive in Japan at the end of World War II.  Parentless and homeless, they are forced to wander the countryside, beset by hunger, American bombings and the self-serving indifference of adults.  One of the great anti-war films.

Gripping drama from modern Russia.  When a sudden illness and an unexpected reunion threaten dutiful housewife Elena’s potential inheritance, she must hatch a desperate plan.  A sharp, bitterly comic story of crystalline clarity about the moral and spiritual coruption of present-day Russia.

Modern black and white silent film (think The Artist).  Set in southern Spain in the 1920s, the multi-award winning Blancanieves is a tribute to silent films.  The story of Snow White set in the world of bullfighting in this wonderfully eerie and erotic silent film treat.

In 1994 the disappearance of 13-year old Nicholas Barclay rocked his Texan town to the core.  Without any clue to his whereabouts, the ensuing search looked like a lost cause.  However three years later he was found living on the streets in Spain, leading to the most unlikely and emotional of reunions.  But all was not as it seemed.  He looked and sounded decidedly different and, stranger still, his family seemed not to notice these glaring inconsistencies.  Only when an investigator started asking questions does this astounding true story take an even more extraordinary turn.

A modern version of the Robinson Crusoe story – a highly original exploration of the experience of solitude and survival.  A woman inexplicably finds herself cut off from all human contact when an invisible, unyielding wall suddenly surrounds the countryside.  Accompanied by her loyal dog Lynx, she becomes immersed in a world untouched by civilization and ruled by the laws of nature.  Based on the hugely popular allegorical German novel, the film stars Martina Gedeck in a performance of rare and vivid intensity.

Visually superb widescreen Western.  Living in Bolivia, Butch Cassidy has changed his name to James Blackthorn and ekes out his days as a rancher.  But when he is bushwhacked by a young thief, he is forced to return to his former life.  Re-imagining the last days of the Western outlaw’s life, Mateo Gil’s engrossing drama is bolstered by Sam Shepard’s fantastic performance.

Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for his penetrating portrayal of Lucas, a former school teacher who has been forced to start over having overcome a tough divorce and the loss of his job.  Just as things are starting to go his way, his life is shattered when an untruthful remark about sexual abuse throws his small community into a collective state of hysteria. As the lie spreads, Lucas is forced into a lonely fight for his life and dignity.

Set around the Pont-Neuf in Paris, the film depicts a love story between two young vagrants Alex (Denis Lavant) and Michèle (Juliette Binoche). Alex is a drug-addicted street performer and Michèle a painter driven to a life on the streets because of a failed relationship and a disease which is slowly destroying her sight. The film portrays their harsh existence living on the bridge while Michèle, with her vision deteriorating, becoming increasingly dependent on Alex. When a possible treatment becomes available, Michèle’s family use street posters and radio appeals to trace her. Fearing that she will leave him if she receives the treatment, Alex tries to keep Michèle from becoming aware of her family’s attempts to find her. The streets, skies and waterways of Paris are used as a backdrop for the story in a series of set-pieces set during the French Bicentennial celebrations in 1989.