Based on the Short Stories of Etgar Keret, and adapted for the screen by Etgar Keret and Director Tatia Rosenthal, $9.99 is a stop motion animated feature which offers slightly less than $10 worth about the meaning of life. Have you ever wondered "What is the meaning of life? Why do we exist?" The answer to this vexing question is now within your reach! You'll find it in a small yet amazing booklet, which will explain, in easy to follow, simple terms your reason for being! The booklet, printed on the finest paper, contains illuminating, exquisite colour pictures, and could be yours for a mere $9.99. This is the ad that alters the life of the unemployed 28 year old who still lives at home, Dave Peck. In his struggle to share his find with the world, Dave¡¦s surreal path crosses with those of his unusual neighbours: an old man and his disgruntled guardian angel, a magician in debt, a bewitching woman who likes her men extra smooth, a broken hearted man who befriends a group of hard partying two inch tall students, and a little boy who sets his piggy bank free. Their stories are woven together, examining the post-modern meaning of hope.

Director Yair Hochner gives us a wacky comedy that ignores politics altogether while focusing on its characters' domestic and romantic problems. And no one has more problems than gay siblings Shirley and Omer. Omer is almost thirty and still hasn't found himself -- or the man of his dreams. A series of disastrous blind dates hasn't helped. Shirley is a little younger and has already nabbed her dream woman, Michal, owner of the hippest café in town (and Shirley's boss). But the thought of settling down scares Shirley, who wonders if she's ready to give up her long-held plan of traveling to Antarctica. As the siblings sort through their feelings and prepare for adulthood, friends and relatives chime in with their advice and problems of their own.

Smart, handsome, twenty-three-year-old Jon (Jesse Rosen) has just moved to Los Angeles from New York, ostensibly "taking a break" from his longtime girlfriend. He moves in with college friend, whose pals incessantly do that kind of "That is so gay" banter that's essentially harmless -- unless you're the only gay guy in the room. Jon's new job as bottom-rung gofer at a major ad agency is fraught with sexual tension as his boss barrages him with thinly veiled come-ons. Infamous among his buddies as a womanizer, Jon is more surprised than anyone when he ultimately falls for the seductive charms of his boss, which sends him spiraling into a world of sexual confusion. Meanwhile, his friend Madelaine has recently chosen to become a lesbian. She falls for the affections of a man....until his wandering eye and casual maltreatment cause her to remember why she gave up men in the first place. Ultimately, each of the friends discovers that acceptance in modern American society is not as difficult as they thought, that social mores no longer dictate who we are and that each decision you make has a direct affect on your identity.

A witty and humorous repartee on the struggle of artistic pursuit. Through the rollercoaster relationship between two screenwriters, this second-time filmmaker nails the need for validation that drives many Hollywood strivers. Money and fame offer allure, but the confirmation of self-worth keeps some of the least successful toiling away for years. For David and Sam, maintaining a friendship proves equally difficult.

Eric (Tom Cavanagh) lives for all things hockey. Now in his thirties, he's managed to turn his stint as an ex- Toronto Maple Leaf into a full-time gig as commentator for sports TV. He's living the dream! But when Eric's boyfriend Sam (Ben Shenkman) announces that they're to become temporary guardians of a young boy, Eric's comfortable world shatters. Enter Scot (Noah Bernett) -- a recently orphaned, budding queen of an 11 year old -- and Erics mirror opposite. Freaked out by Scot's 'joie de vivre', Eric and Sam gently nudge Scot away from scented hand cream and all things pink, towards a more 'acceptable' pastime  hockey. But after Scot's disastrous first game, Eric begins to rethink the compromises hes made in his own life in order to be 'accepted'.

A man dies very unexpectedly and leaves behind two men: Jeff, his best friend and Andrea, an Italian hes been corresponding with online. Jeff informs Andrea of Marks passing; Andrea writes back to express his shock and sympathies. On a whim, they continue their correspondence and a rapport grows between them. They eventually meet, where they extend their e-mail exchanges into more personal and intimate conversations. They talk about their respective countries, their jobs, their families, their lives. Mostly, they talk about Mark. What began as a tragedy that linked two strangers from different ends of the world becomes a deeply realized friendship that may change their lives forever.

Academy Award® Winner, Best Foreign Language Film.  From Japan, Departures follows Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and who is suddenly left without a job. Daigo decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled "Departures" thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency only to discover that the job is actually for a "Nokanshi" or "encoffineer," a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art of Nokanshi, acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed. The film follows his profound and sometimes comical journey with death as he uncovers the wonder, joy and meaning of life and living.

Based upon the final confession of Adolf Eichmann, made before his execution in Israel as he accounts to Captain Avner Less, a young Israeli Police Officer, of his past as the architect of Hitler's plan for the "final solution." Captured by intelligence operatives in Argentina, 15 years after World War II, Eichmann (Kretschmann), the World's most wanted man, must be broken down and the truth unveiled. As the world waits, two men must confront each other in a battle of wills- the result of which will change a nation forever.

Tala, a London-based Jordanian of Palestinian origin prepares for an elaborate wedding with her Jordanian fiancé, when she encounters Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend Ali. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other but the attraction is immediate. Talas feisty nature provokes Leyla out of her shell and soon both women reveal their feelings for each other. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made and escapes back to Jordan where her chain-smoking high-brow mother finishes preparations for an ostentatious wedding.

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Inept Salman (Scott Prendergast) comes to help his sister-in-law (Lisa Kudrow) tend to her homicidal toddlers while Salman's brother is off fighting in Iraq. Salman must take a humiliating job as a giant blue corporate mascot to help make ends meet and hold the family together. Packed with a parade of delightful comedy character actors, KABLUEY is a hilarious, unique and heartfelt comedy.

In the midst of the repression and political unrest of pre-Spanish Civil War, eccentric artist Salvador Dalí and renowned poet and revolutionary Federico García Lorca find their artistic and sexual freedom in each other. The two form a bond challenged by their fierce ambitions, the struggle between a love for Spain and a love for each other.

Goran and Sven are the perfect gay couple; they have a beautiful house in the suburbs, a solid relationship, a home full of love and warmth. Newly approved for adoption, they believe that baby Patrik, age 1.5, is on his way. One tiny decimal mistake later, they find themselves saddled with a 15-year-old homophobe&.who may have a criminal past.

Directed by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, this drama chronicles the story of a naive but street smart Filipina transsexual prostitute named Raquela who decides to travel in order to find her prince charming. Like many Transsexuals (often known as "Ladyboys") in the Philippines, Raquela dreams of marrying a heterosexual man from the West. She spends much of her time on the internet looking for men who can come and rescue her. They promise to come, but time after time Raquela gets stood up at the airport.

Her life changes when, by luck, she lands a job as a webcam host on a transsexual porn site. The owner of the website, Michael, a "Ladyboy specialist" who runs his business from New York, promises to help Raquela. Through her friends in the internet world, Raquela eventually gets the opportunity to travel far away on her quest to find the straight man of her dreams.

Three years in the making, Saving Marriage is on the scene as one state grapples with a simple question: Should gay and lesbian couples have the right to marry?

You'll hear the personal stories of people that are shaping history. Career politicians who stand up to their constituents and follow their hearts. Seasoned lobbyists who see the holy grail of the gay rights movement suddenly within reach. And regular people thrust suddenly into the world of politics by an issue that could change their lives.

Cast:
The People of Massachusetts

Written and Directed by:
Mike Roth, John Henning


Producers:
Mike Roth
John Henning

Music By:
Jamie Forsyth

The Pineda family operates and lives in a run-down movie house which shows dated sexy double-feature films. As the rest of the members go about their daily activities, we get a glimpse of how they suffer and deal with each others sins and vices. Preoccupied with their personal demons, the family is unmindful that inside the movie theater, another kind of business is going on between hustlers and patrons.

Maybe it took somebody with no investment in the sexual-culture wars of the 1980s, like 24-year-old filmmaker Daryl Wein, to rediscover a lightning-rod figure like safe-sex pioneer Richard Berkowitz and present him without prejudice. A one-time S/M hustler, Berkowitz and his friend Michael Callen, supported by controversial AIDS researcher Joseph Sonnabend, began urging gay men to avoid unprotected anal sex as early as 1982 -- and were treated as pariahs by the mainstream gay community. Berkowitz is a fascinating, prickly, decidedly unsaintly character, and Wein's film provides a fascinating and crucial slice of traumatic sexual history that's all but invisible to younger generations.

Director Roger Spottiswoode brings a very special film realization of the acclaimed best-seller by General Roméo Dallaire to the screen in Shake Hands with the Devil, the story of a Canadian commander torn between his duty and his conscience when he finds himself eyewitness to hell on earth.

In 1993, the United Nations dispatches Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire (Roy Dupuis) to far off Rwanda to oversee a fragile cease-fire. A brilliant, workaholic officer and charismatic commander, Dallaire encounters the shabby reality of a typical UN peacekeeping operation: under-funded, overbureaucratic, and cobbled together from military units from dozens of countries, each with a slightly different agenda. Meanwhile the peace agreement between the rebels, led by the minority Tutsi ethnic group, and the French-supported government dominated by the Hutu majority group, turns out to rest on shaky ground. When an unknown group shoots down the Rwandan President's plane, the storm breaks and a secret but long-planned genocidal campaign against the Tutsi minority begins with a night of terror in Kigali. A reporter (Deborah Unger) remains in-country and follows General Dellaire is forced to deal with far-away superiors and by the studied indifference of the world's great powers while trying to take decisive action to stop the genocide of over 800,000 innocent civilians.

Karim works at an ostrich farm outside of Tehran, Iran. He leads a simple and contented life with his family in his small house, until one day when one of the ostriches runs away. Karim is blamed for the loss and is fired from the farm. Soon after, he travels to the city in order to repair his elder daughters hearing aid but finds himself mistaken for a motorcycle taxi driver. Thus begins his new profession: ferrying people and goods through heavy traffic. But the people and material goods that he deals with daily starts to transform Karims generous and honest nature, much to the distress of his wife and daughters. It is up to those closest to him to restore the values that he had once cherished.

Grammy-nommed composer and musician Hossein Alizadeh, a master tar and setar player, provides the haunting score.

Cast:
Reza Naji
Maryam Akbari
Kamran Dehghan
Hamed Aghazi
Shabnam Akhlaghi

Director:
Majid Majidi

Writer:
Majid Majidi, Mehran Kashani

Producers:
Majid Majidi
Javad Norouzbeigi (exec)

Music By:
Hossein Alizadeh

TAXIDERMIA contains three generational stories, about a grandfather, a father, and a son, linked together by recurring motifs. The dim grandfather, an orderly during World War Two, lives in his bizarre fantasies; he desires love. The huge father seeks success as a top athlete - a speed eater - in the post-war pro-Soviet era. The grandson, a meek, small-boned taxidermist, yearns for something greater: immortality. He wants to create the most perfect work of art of all time by stuffing his own torso.

Historical facts and surrealism become intertwined as magical realism, like in the works of Gabriel García Marquez or the Hungarian writer Lajos Parti Nagy; the script is based on two of the latter's stories. Palfi added the third story, that of the grandson the taxidermist.

TOKYO SONATA is a portrait of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. The father who abruptly loses his job conceals the truth from his family; the eldest son in college hardly returns home; the youngest son furtively takes piano lessons without telling his parents; and the mother, who knows deep down that her role is to keep the family together, cannot find the will to do so. From the exterior, all is normal and the same. But somehow, a single, unforeseeable chasm has appeared within the family, only to spread ever so quietly and quickly to disintegrate them.

Sixteen-year-old Tru is uprooted by her lesbian moms from her comfortable gay-friendly home in San Francisco and moved to a conservative, suburban community in Southern California.

Trus only friend is a closeted football player, and even that friendship is jeopardized when she starts the schools first Gay-Straight Alliance.

In 1950s South Africa, apartheid is just beginning. Free-spirited Amina (Sheetal Sheth) has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a café with Jacob, her 'colored' business partner. When she meets Miriam (Lisa Ray), a young traditional wife and mother, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her. As Amina helps Miriams sister-in-law to hide from the police, a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever.

In a system that divides white from black and women from men, what chance is there for an unexpected love to survive?

From overcoming oppression to finding personal freedom, from the hardships of a loveless marriage to the hesitant joy of an unexpected love affair, "The World Unseen" transports the viewer to a vibrant, colorful world that is universal in its themes.

Cast:
Lisa Ray
Sheetal Sheth
Parvin Dabas
Nandana Sen
Grethe Fox, David Dennis

Director:
Shamim Sarif

Writer:
Shamim Sarif

Producers:
Hanan Kattan
Katherine Priestley (exec)
Lisa Tchenquiz-Imerman (exec)

Music By:
Richard Blackford