Cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters, Amanda Seyfried
Cinematography: Haris Zambarloukos
Editing: Lesley Walker
Music: Benny Andersson (Score)
Art Direction: Dean Clegg, Rebecca Holmes, Nick Palmer
Screenplay: Catherine Johnson
Producers: Judy Craymer, Gary Goetzman
Directed by: Phyllida Lloyd

SYNOPSIS
Built around the music of ‘70s’ Swedish supergroup Abba, the story revolves around 20-year-old Sophie who lives with her mother Donna on a picturesque Greek island where Donna runs a hotel called Villa Donna. Sophie is planning to marry her fiancé Sky and wants her father to be present to “give her away,” but does not know who he is. After reading Donna’s diary from 20 years ago, she concludes he is one of three men, so without telling her mother and fiancé, Sophie mails invitations to all three and hopes to find out which is her father. A musical treat.

THE FILMMAKER
Born in 1957, Phyllida Lloyd is a leading British theatre director, particularly praised for her work in opera. “Mamma Mia” is her feature directorial debut.

Cast : Riccardo Scamarcio, Elio Germano, Angela Finocchiaro, Massimo Poplizio, Luca Zingaretti
Cinematography: Claudio Collepiccolo
Editing: Mirco Garrone
Music: Franco Piersanti
Art Direction: Francesco Frigeri
Screenplay: Antonio Pennacchi (novel), Stefano Rulli, Sandro Petraglia, Daniele Luchetti
Producers: Riccardo Tozzi, Marco Chimenz, Giovanni Stabilini
Directed by: Daniele Luchetti

SYNOPSIS
Accio and Manrico are brothers forced to confront their choices, indeed their own lives, in suburban Italy during the political ferment of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Their paths are as separate as can be – elder brother Manrico is a charismatic communist organizer while younger and more unsure Accio flirts with the fascists. Matters become even more complicated when Accio falls for his brother’s girlfriend. A series of wild and passionate adventures test the brothers’ relationship to its limit. Winner of four David di Donatello awards in Italy and selected for the 2007 Cannes film festival.

THE FILMMAKER
Actor, writer and director Daniele Luchetti was born in Rome, Italy in 1960. He made his first film as a director in 1985. Since then, he has directed 12 features and written eight of them. He has been nominated for the Golden Leopard at Locarno (for “Domani Accadra”, 1988), the Golden Seashell at San Sebastian (for “La Settimana della Sfinge”, 1990), Golden Palm in Cannes (for “Il Portaborse”, 1991), and the Golden Lion at Venice (for “Piccoli Maestri”, 1998). He has also won the David di Donatello – Italian industry – awards for Best New Director (1998), and twice for Best Screenplay (1991 and 2007).

SYNOPSIS
Thithi, a young girl who comes from a lower-middle class family, takes up a job as a call girl to support her family. In the course of time, the economic condition of her family improves. But the strain of a double life tells on Thithi. She slowly becomes aloof and indifferent to everything and takes refuge in solitude. Winner of the special jury award at the International Film Festival of India, 2006.

THE FILMMAKER
Abu Sayeed is a product of Bangladesh’s short film movement of the 1980s which introduced several new independent filmmakers. He began his career by directing the short “Abortion.” Since then he has directed three feature films, two shorts and a number of television productions. His feature directorial debut was with “Kittonkhola” in 2000. All the films made by Abu Sayeed have been exhibited at various international film festivals and he has won six national and three international awards for his work.

Cast: Vincenzo Amato, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Francesco Casisa, Aurora Quattrocchi, Filippo Pucillo
Cinematography: Agnes Godard
Editing: Maryline Monthieux
Music: Antonio Castrignano
Art Direction: Carlos Conti
Producers: Fabrizio Mosca, Alexandre Mallet-Guy
Directed by: Emanuele Crialese

SYNOPSIS
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 claims to be a British lady who, for unknown reasons, wants to marry someone before arriving at Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive on 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 immigration officers.

THE FILMMAKER
Born in Rome in 1965, Emmanuele Crialese has Sicilian roots, to which he pays tribute in his films. In 1991 he left Italy to study film direction at New York University. After making several shorts, he directed his first feature, “Once We Were Strangers”, in 1997. The film was nominated for Sundance’s grand jury prize in 1998. He decided to return to his homeland and met international success with his first Italian work “Respiro” (2002). The film won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize and the Young Critics’ Award at Cannes. “The Golden Door” is his third feature and won the Silver Lion at Venice in 2006.

Cast: Fazal Hussain, Navaid Jabbar, Rashid Farooqui, Nandita Das, Maria Wasti, Noman Ijaz
Cinematography: Sofian Khan
Editing: Aseem Sinha, Mehreen Jabbar
Sound: Jesse James Mailings
Music: Debajyoti Mishra
Screenplay: Mohammad Ahmed
Producer: Javed Jabbar
Directed by: Mehreen Jabbar

SYNOPSIS
Based on actual events, the story revolves around a Pakistani Hindu boy and his father who accidentally cross the border into India from their Thari village in Pakistan at a time of extreme tension between the two countries. They end up spending five years in an Indian prison while the boy’s mother left behind in Pakistan wonders what has happened to them.

THE FILMMAKER
Mehreen Jabbar is one of Pakistan’s foremost television directors and is well known for her subtle and nuanced relationship dramas, usually involving women protagonists. Her short film “Beauty Parlour” (1st KaraFilm Festival) has been screened at film festivals worldwide, while her short feature “Marhoom Colonel Ki Betiyaan” (Daughters of the Late Colonel) won her the Best Director award at the 1st KaraFilm Festival. “Ramchand Pakistani” is her feature directorial debut and has won the FIPRESCI award at the Osian Cinefan Film Festival in Delhi (2008) as well as an honourable mention for the Satyajit Ray Award at the London Film Festival.

Cast: Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio
Cinematography: Roger Deakins
Editing: Tariq Anwar
Music: Thomas Newman
Art Direction: Teresa Carriker-Thayer, John Kasarda, Nicholas Lundy
Screenplay: Justin Haythe, Richard Yates (novel)
Producers: Bobby Cohen, John Hart, Sam Mendes, Scott Rudin, Karen Gehres
Directed by: Sam Mendes

SYNOPSIS
April and Frank Wheeler are a young couple living with their two children in a Connecticut suburb in the mid-1950s. Their self-assured exterior masks a creeping frustration at their inability to feel fulfilled in their relationships or careers. Frank is mired in a boring office job, and April is a housewife still mourning the demise of her acting career. Determined to identify themselves as superior to the mediocre sprawl of suburbanites who surround them, they decide to move to France where they will be better able to develop their true artistic sensibilities, free of the consumerist demands of capitalist America. As their relationship deteriorates into an endless cycle of squabbling, jealousy and recriminations, their dreams of self-fulfillment are thrown into jeopardy. Based on a novel by Richard Yates.

THE FILMMAKER
Samuel Alexander Mendes, born in 1965 in Reading, England, was educated at Cambridge University. He began a career in theatre and became a critically praised director at, among others, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Donmar Warehouse. In 1999 he got the chance to direct his first feature film, “American Beauty” which went on to win five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Mendes. He followed up with “The Road to Perdition” with Tom Hanks in the lead role.

Cast: Marianne Hoppe, Paul Dahlke, Ferdinand Marian, Siegfried Breuer
Cinematography: Georg Bruckbauer
Editing: Anneliese Sponholz
Music: Lothar Brühne, Werner Eisbrenner
Screenplay: Willy Clever, Helmut Käutner
Producer: Hermann Grund
Directed by: Helmut Käutner

SYNOPSIS
Based on Guy de Maupassant’s short story ‘Les bijoux’, the film is the story of a husband who discovers that his wife has somehow acquired a very valuable pearl necklace. Hailed as a German masterpiece of the time, the film, while made during Nazi Germany, is remarkably free of any Nazi propaganda.

THE FILMMAKER
Helmut Käutner is one of Germany’s – and world cinema’s - most unsung master filmmakers who made over 35 feature films. Born in 1908 in Dusseldorf, he studied poster design, graphics, and interior design in Munich and originally worked in theatre as an actor and director. He began his film work as a scriptwriter before producing his controversial directorial debut “Kitty and the World Conference” (1939), which was withdrawn by the Nazi government due to its “pro-English tendencies.” Although active in the German film industry during the Third Reich, Käutner’s work was noted for its more humanistic depiction of daily life than his contemporaries. Although he died in 1980, his work is only now being re-discovered.

Cast: Sania Saeed, Gulab Chandio, Farhan Agha, Sajid Shah
Cinematography: Shahzad Kashmiri
Editing: Pervaiz Hassan
Screenplay: Noor-ul-Huda Shah
Producer: Mehroz Karim
Directed by: Farooq Rind

SYNOPSIS
Faizan Baloch is a local thug in impoverished Lyari and makes his living by black marketing cinema tickets. When he falls in love with the strong willed Saran, he gives up his wayward ways to go on the straight and narrow. But poverty and unemployment begin to take a toll on him and his spirits. As despondency takes over, he turns to the comfort of drugs, all too easily available in the community. Saran must find the strength to help him fight the ultimate battle.

THE FILMMAKER
Farooq Rind began his career as an editor and currently works for Hum TV. His film “Daani” won the award for Best Pakistani Film Made for Television at the 6th KaraFilm Festival.

Cast: Monica Bellucci, Luca Zingaretti, Alessio Boni
Cinematography: Roberto Forza
Editing: Roberto Missiroli
Music: Franco Piersanti
Art Direction: Giancarlo Basili
Screenplay: Marco Tullio Giordana, Leone Colonna, Enzo Ungari
Producers: Angelo Barbagallo, Eric Heumann, Fabrizio Zappi (RAI)
Directed by: Marco Tullio Giordana

SYNOPSIS
This is the story of Osvaldo Valenti and Luisa Ferida, stars of the “white telephone” 1930s’ Italian cinema endorsed by the fascists, who wanted cinema to distract, amuse and uphold the consensus. Idolised by the public, they were shot without a trial by the partisans once Mussolini’s government fell, accused of a number of charges ranging from collaborating with the Germans to depravity. However, although Valenti and Ferida had lent their glamour to the fascist regime, the story beneath their public story was an infinitely more humane one.

THE FILMMAKER
Marco Tullio Giordana is one of Italy’s most acclaimed directors. Born in 1950, he made his directorial debut in 1980 with “Maledetti vi amerò” which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno. His 1995 film “Pasolini, un delitto italiano” (Pasolini, An Italian Crime) was nominated for the Golden Lion at Venice, as was his film 2000 “I Cento Passi” (100 Steps, 5th KaraFilm Festival). His 2003 magnum opus, the six-hour-long “La Meglio gioventù” (The Best of Youth) went on to win 19 awards including the Un Certain Regard award for Giordana from Cannes. His last film “Once You’re Born You Can No Longer Hide” (2005) was also nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes.

Cast: Bahram Radan, Golshifte Farahani, Kianoosh Gerami
Cinematography: Touraj Mansouri
Editing: Mehdi Hosseinivand
Sound: Iraj Shahzadi
Music: Ardavan Kamkar
Screenplay: Darioush Mehrjui, Vahidea Mohammadi
Producers: Faramarz Farazmand, Darioush Mehrjui
Directed by: Darioush Mehrjui

SYNOPSIS
Ali, a gifted young santouri player with rock star good looks, has been disinherited by his rich family for becoming a professional musician, while the government’s hostility to contemporary music has robbed him of his income and self-respect. He meets the spirited Hanieh and after a heady courtship, they get informally married. Their happy alternative lifestyle has a sour note, however: Ali’s increasing addiction to heroin and his bitterness about a country “that turns people into addicts.”

THE FILMMAKER
Mehrjui is an icon of the Iranian New Wave. Born in Tehran in 1939, he moved to the US and enrolled at the Department of Cinema at UCLA. He switched his major to philosophy and graduated in 1964. He made his directorial debut in 1966 with “Diamond 33.” His second film, “Cow” (1969), brought him national and international recognition. Mehrjui’s most acclaimed film, “The Cycle” was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture but encountered opposition from the Iranian medical establishment and was banned from release until 1977. The film won the international critics’ association FIPRESCI’s prize at Berlin in 1978. Outside of festivals and a career-spanning retrospective by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in late 1998, his films remain largely unseen outside Iran.