Best Foreign Films

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.

A bureaucrat in a dystopic society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.

A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.

When an open-minded Jewish waiter and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.

In 1944 Spain, a girl is sent to live with her ruthless stepfather. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks.

A knight returning to Sweden after the Crusades seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.

A care-free girl is sold to a traveling entertainer, consequently enduring physical and emotional pain along the way.

Bamako. Melé is a bar singer, her husband Chaka is out of work and the couple is on the verge of breaking up... In the courtyard of the house they share with other families, a trial court has been set up. African civil society spokesmen have taken proceedings against the World Bank and the IMF whom they blame for Africa's woes... Amidst the pleas and the testimonies, life goes on in the courtyard. Chaka does not seem to be concerned by this novel Africa's desire to fight for its rights...

The story of Salif Keïta, first "Ballon d'or d'Afrique" (African Golden Ball).

A young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.

Crime, drugs, HIV/AIDS, poor education, inferiority complex, low expectation, poverty, corruption, poor health, and underdevelopment plagues people of African descent globally - Why? 500 years later from the onset of Slavery and subsequent Colonialism, Africans are still struggling for basic freedom-Why? Filmed in five continents, and over twenty countries, 500 Years Later engages the authentic retrospective voice, told from the African vantage-point of those whom history has sought to silence by examining the collective atrocities that uprooted Africans from their culture and homeland. 500 Years Later is a timeless compelling journey, infused with the spirit and music of liberation that chronicles the struggle of a people who have fought and continue to fight for the most essential human right - freedom.

Jackson travels to remote villages in the war zones of the Congo to meet rape survivors, providing a piercing, intimate look into the struggle of their lives.

Dramaan is the most popular man in Colobane, but when a woman from his past, now exorbitantly wealthy, returns to the town, things begin to change.

Kourou comes from a village to Kinshasa, Zaire's capital and the center of World Beat; music is in his heart and he has big dreams. Right away he gets a job as a domestic for Mamou, the loud wife of a club owner, and he falls in love with Kabibi, a virginal young woman who wants to be a secretary. Meanwhile, Nvouandou, the club owner, childless after twenty years of marriage, wants a second wife and determines to marry Kabibi. Mamou pretends to approve of the match, but behind her husband's back, she pushes Kabibi into the arms of Kourou. Can Kourou win Kabibi's hand and fulfill his dreams of being a singer; can Mamou recapture the affections of Nvouandou?

The true story of controversial leader of independent Congo Patrice Lumumba.

Documents these ceremonies and the crisis that develops when a chieftain's daughter who has lived in the city for some years, returns to participate in the ritual but then refuses to complete them.

When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.

A self-absorbed Black American fashion model on a photo shoot in Africa is spiritually transported back to a plantation in the West Indies where she experiences first-hand the physical and psychic horrors of chattel slavery, and eventually the redemptive power of community and rebellion as she becomes a member of a freedom-seeking Maroon colony.

Six days in the violent life of a young Johannesburg gang leader.

A group of children, fleeing the war, is taken to Luanda accompanied by a nun. When they reach the airplane, 11-year-old N'dala decides to leave the group and to explore the city. The nun then starts her unceasing quest for the missing boy. N'dala, carrying only a textile bag and a toy car made of wire, walks through the busy streets filled with people and traffic. Later he finds the tranquility of the beach, where he meets the old fisherman Antonio, with whom he becomes friends. Not much later, he meets the lively, whimsical Zé, who is a little older than he is. N'dala starts to experience the city and its inhabitants as increasingly forbidding and he would most like to return to his countryside. Then he meets Joka, a fringe figure who persuades him to help with a robbery in exchange for money. With this film, Maria Joao Ganga wanted to provide a realistic sketch of the bitter political situation in Angola. One of her most important motivations for making In the Empty City was to provide a picture of an African city without awakening feelings of a patronizing sympathy or associations with the sensationalism of war.

The epic tale of King Asoka's life is recounted.

Two documentary filmmakers chronicle their time in Sonagchi, Calcutta and the relationships they developed with children of prostitutes who work the city's notorious red light district.

A selfless young woman (Supriya Choudhury) sacrifices her own happiness for her unappreciative family.

The life of the lawyer who became the famed leader of the Indian revolts against the British rule through his philosophy of nonviolent protest.

A man (Abhi Bhattacharya) opposes the love between his sister and the orphan (Satindra Bhattacharya) they adopted years earlier.