Operation Mad Ball

After the impressive Gulistan, Land of Roses (VdR 2016), the Kurdish filmmaker Zaynê Akyol returns with these conversations with imprisoned members of the Islamic State, alternating their words with aerial views of the countryside. An unexpected look at a far-reaching current political issue and a film whose subject matter and rhythm create an impressive cinematic object.

Set in modern upper-crust Manhattan, an exploration of love and commitment as seen through the eyes of a charming perpetual bachelor questioning his single state and his enthusiastically married, slightly envious friends.

On Christmas Eve, 1944, in Nazi-occupied Slovakia, the Kubiš family grapples with survival amidst brutal reprisals. Marián collaborates as a fascist guard leader, while his sister Angela has an affair with their Nazi lodger, Major Brecker. The situation escalates when their younger son, Juraj, a former partisan fighter, returns home wounded. As Germans search homes for escapees, Juraj hides in the attic, while an unsettling Christmas dinner unfolds below with Major Brecker present.

Carny con artist and snake-oil salesman Eustace McGargle tries to stay one step ahead of the sheriff but is completely devoted to his beloved daughter Poppy.

In this fast-paced remake of the Maurice Chevalier vehicle Folies Bergère, talented Danny Kaye plays both a performer and a heroic French military pilot.

Mismatched travellers are stranded overnight at a lonely rural railway station. They soon learn of local superstition about a phantom train which is said to travel these parts at dead of night, carrying ghosts from a long-ago train wreck in the area.