Tómas Lemarquis

German actress Maria Schrader subsequently became well-known as the director of the prize-winning 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox. But in this 2016 feature film her considerable directing talents are already on clear display as she portrays Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s years of exile after 1936, moving between Buenos Aires, New York, and Brazil in search of a new home.

Zweig, whose writings inspired the film The Grand Budapest Hotel, was one of the most prominent Jewish intellectuals in Europe between the wars. Schrader shows him struggling with life as a nomad and with his separation from the homeland whose language had always nourished him. Though in despair at the collapse of European civilisation, Zweig hesitates to publicly denounce the Nazi regime…Read More »

Together, a filmmaker and her characters venture into a personal research project about intimacy. On the fluid border between reality and fiction, Touch Me Not follows the emotional journeys of Laura, Tómas and Christian, offering a deeply empathic insight into their lives.Read More »

“Emotionally and artistically, this is a definite highlight of the competition…” ~TiFF Romania

Synopsis:
Lara doesn’t know what she wants. At twenty-five, she’s about to finish her degree in architecture, but it doesn’t interest her anymore. She spends her nights going out late with her friend Nora, but hasn’t enjoyed that for a while either. She wants to change her life, but she doesn’t know how. After a wild night out dancing, Lara finds herself pregnant. Confused and hesitant at first, she throws herself into the adventure: becoming a mother. But the experience takes a painful turn. Lara miscarries in her sixth month. Fearing the loss of her newfound feeling of purpose, Lara continues to carry the baby and acts as if she is still pregnant…Read More »

In her long-gestating first feature, Adina Pintilie uses bodies of all types to explore the boundaries of intimacy and challenge notions of beauty, which clearly wouldn’t be possible without a significant display of naked flesh. Whether she’s achieved that goal, however, will very much depend on the individual, as “Touch” is a divisive film that aims to address more issues than it can persuasively handle. Seamlessly blending fiction with reality, Pintilie invents a story about an Englishwoman grappling with intimacy issues and weaves in real people guiding her toward being comfortable with her body and the bodies of others.Read More »

The 25-year-old Lara (Aylin Tezel) takes her studies in architecture not very seriously and spends her free time with her best friend Nora (Henrike of Kuick) in Techno clubs. She is surprised when she becomes pregnant from a one-night stand. Initially full of doubt, the young woman decides ultimately to get the child and draws new strength from it. But soon Lara’s fate takes a cruel twist.Read More »