A Place Called Home

"The Hours" is the story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

Clara and Hans are left-wing terrorists who have been sought by police for almost fifteen years. Their increasingly rebellious daughter Jeanne begins to pose a threat to their security when she falls in love with a boy she meets on the beach.

Lichter is an episodic tale from Hans-Christian Schmid about the life on the border between Germany and Poland. The film sheds light on the everyday stories of escape and desperateness.

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

Iqbal never prays nor reads the Qu’ran. Finally he repents after he feels guilty for hurting his mother. He decides to attend the Kyai Siddiq religious school in Tegal Jadin. But for two months, he is only told to get water from a pond. Out of frustration, he vents his anger at the pond. Then he meets Aisyah, daughter of Kyai Subadar and granddaughter of Kyai Siddiq. Afraid that the Kyai will be angry with him, Iqbal runs away aimlessly. Then, he meets Pricilia, a kind Christian girl, who helps him find a place to stay. But Iqbal finally decides to stay at the house of Ms. Jamilah, a beggar living with her two children, Fatimah and Irsyad. In his journey to study Islam, Iqbal faces many challenges.

María, a young student of Fine Arts, decides to spend a weekend with Julio, her partner, in the house of her parents' town. Once there, the young woman will have to face a reality already forgotten. The solid mentality of her family means that practically nothing has changed in the life of his brother Hugo and his father, Arturo

Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.

Paul (Macfadyen), a prize-winning war journalist, returns to his remote New Zealand hometown due to the death of his father, battle-scarred and world-weary. For the discontented sixteen-year-old Celia (Barclay) he opens up a world she has only dreamed of. She actively pursues a friendship with him, fascinated by his cynicism and experience of the world beyond her small-town existence. But many, including the members of both their families (Otto, Moy), frown upon the friendship and when Celia goes missing, Paul becomes the increasingly loathed and persecuted prime suspect in her disappearance. As the violent and urgent truth gradually emerges, Paul is forced to confront the family tragedy and betrayal that he ran from as a youth, and to face the grievous consequences of silence and secrecy that has surrounded his entire adult life.

Ertan Ongun is German-Turkish, a child of migrants. He likes to refer to himself as Kanake. His buddies Mehdi and Kemal are of the same ilk. They do “business” on the street together, but because of their recklessness and sometimes great stupidity, they repeatedly offend both other criminals and the police. No problem for Ertan, because his motto is loyalty, quick money, and being a kanake. “Fuck and be fucked, that’s life!” … and that’s what he lives by one hundred percent.

When a shooting star falls to earth, it longs to find a way back home to the sky.

MARIAN is an 80 year old resident of Meadow Park Rest Home. During a difficult visit, her daughter PHILLIPA is forced out and accidentally leaves something important behind. Wandering out of the rest home, the outside world proves challenging, as Marian battles her mind in an attempt to return her daughter’s beloved possession.