79TH Non-English Language Film Submissions

Based on the book of the same name by Olavi Ruitlane (who also serves as screenwriter), the story of On the Water revolves around the adventures and misfortunes of Andres (Rasmus Ermel), a shy teen growing up under the guidance of his caring grandmother (Maria Klenskaja) and his cynical and grumpy grandfather (Kalju Orro) because his father disappeared in Russia and his mother fled to Sweden. Andres lives in Vörud County, in Soviet-occupied Estonia in 1982, at the end of Leonid Brezhnev´s rule.

In Jurgis Matulevičius’ noir tale Isaac, violence has no beginning or end. In line with The Painted Bird (2019) or this year’s Captain Volkonogov Escaped, the film meanders through the obscure halls of reciprocal crime, guilt, regret.

France, 1963. 20-year-old promising literary student Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei, in a compellingly intense performance), unexpectedly gets pregnant.

In his most autobiographical film to date, The Hand of God, Golden Globe winner (in 2014 for The Great Beauty) Paolo Sorrentino returns to his hometown, Naples, where 20 years ago he shot his first movie, One Man Up (L’uomo in piu’).  In The Hand of God, produced and distributed by Netflix, Fabietto (talented newcomer Filippo Scotti) is an adolescent surrounded by an eccentric family, with a voluptuous aunt who is the object of sexual desire for all the young men around, an adoring mother (Teresa Saponangelo) and father (Toni Servillo, protagonist of many of Sorrentino’s films, including The Great Beauty and Il Divo), a loved older brother and a mysterious sister, who remains locked up in the bathroom until the very end of the film.

Tereza, 37, has been married for 10 years and has suffered from numerous miscarriages. The film starts with her making yet another visit to her gynecologist, a woman with an unusual sense of humor.

One could say, this film opens with a bang. A couple records themselves having sex, quite explicitly.

A film within a film, a story about a story, the meta thriller Holy Beasts follows an aging former movie star turned director (Geraldine Chaplin) who gets together with a group of fellow artists in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, to complete the unfinished project of their friend, the real-life B-movie filmmaker Jean-Louis Jorge, who was murdered by three teenagers in 2000 at the age of 53.     Written and directed by Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán (Cochochi, Sand Dollars), with a running time of 90 minutes and acted in Spanish and English, the film was shot at the island's Pinewood Dominican Republic Studios and on the plush Casa de Campo Resort.

It’s 1986 Chile and Augusto Pinochet is losing control of the country. In one of Santiago’s poor neighborhoods, we meet the ‘Queen of Corner’ (Loca del Frente, played by Alfredo Castro), a lonely, romantic, aging and proud cross-dresser who listens to ‘boleros’ incessantly to drown out the gunshots coming from the streets while embroidering tablecloths for military wives.

Commitment Hasan is the second film in the ’Commitment Trilogy’, from director Semih Kaplanoglu. The first film of the trilogy was, Commitment Asli, which was Turkey’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards in 2019.

The psychological thriller Knocking is Swedish director Frida Kempff’s first feature film. The script is written by Emma Broström and is based on a novel by Johan Theorin.