Foster Child

Fake Me A Happy New Year

Anita and her children, Santa and Kristaps, live in an apartment in Riga. Every year, they celebrate New Year’s Eve with grandma, uncle Peter and a feast fit for kings…

Indochine

In colonial Vietnam, dashing French naval captain Jean-Baptiste, wealthy plantation owner Éliane Devries, and her adopted Vietnamese daughter Camillevare the three points of a cross-cultural romantic triangle. As the struggle against European imperialism sweeps Indochina, Jean-Baptiste and Camille have to choose sides and Éliane faces the emotionally difficult challenge of raising the child of her daughter and ex-lover.

Artifice: Loose Fellowship and Partners

Immersed in the underbelly of Brooklyn, NY, a bargain between two gangsters gets cuckoo when one of the gangsters hires a voodoo worker to overthrow his rival.

Men in Her Life

A wealthy ex-bootlegger comes to the rescue of a formerly rich society girl after her gold-digging fiancé leaves her stranded when he finds out she's broke. The bootlegger proposes a deal: he will settle her debts if she teaches him how to be "a gentleman".

Over the Hill

In their farm house in a New York village, Ma Shelby prepares breakfast for her four children, Isaac, Tommy, Johnny and Susan, and then awakens them. The racket the boys make as they play and fight awakens their father, who spanks the eldest, Isaac. When a visitor chides Pa for not working, Ma sticks up for her husband, saying that he has a weak back and that he is waiting for a promised government job.

Husband Father Killer: The Alyssa Pladl Story

As a young teen, Alyssa has a relationship with abusive 21-year-old Steven, but their path takes a dark turn after she has his child, so she gives her up for adoption. Years later, their now 17-year-old daughter, seeks them out, and Steven manipulates her into an affair, neglecting his family.

Siew Lup

Mia, an ex-prostitute, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the abusive Quan (Sunny Pang, who also stars in Headshot in this year’s Festival lineup), a butcher who runs a roast meat shop. When she meets sensitive funeral director Wu, their passion for one another escalates into an affair. But the path to true love is fraught with jealousy, forcing someone to make a deadly move.

Garantía personal

Baby Brokers

A woman (Cybill Shepherd) financially supports the natural parents in hope of adopting their newborn, but she discovers she is the victim of a scam.

I Am Sam

Sam, a neurodivergent man, has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandons them when they leave the hospital, leaving Sam to raise Lucy on his own. But as Lucy grows up, Sam's limitations as a parent start to become a problem and the authorities take her away. Sam convinces high-priced lawyer Rita to take his case pro bono and in turn teaches her the value of love and family.

White Oleander

A teenager journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison for committing a crime of passion.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

Years after his father disowns his adopted brother for marrying a woman of lower social standing, a young man goes on a mission to reunite his family.

December Boys

For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.

Snipers Valley

Young Bundeswehr soldiers Tom and Charly are stationed in Kosovo with the KFOR peacekeeping force. Their mission is to secure peace. Although the brutal war between the enemy Serbs and Albanians is officially over, the hatred between people continues to smoulder. When Tom and Charly rescue the young Serbian Mirjana from the fatal shot of the young sniper Durcan, they get caught between all fronts. They lose their professional distance due to the resulting closeness to Mirjana - who has to learn that her father was a war criminal - but also to Durcan - whose entire family was wiped out. Soon they are entangled in a conflict about guilt, manipulation, love and revenge...

Perfectionist

Professor Louis Delage is a kidney transplant specialist. He is so good in his field that his peers nickname him the "great man". But one day, one of his patients die during surgery and Delage starts doubting. Is he actually such a great man? To fight desperation he decides to take in the deceased child while devoting more time to Florence, his hitherto neglected wife.

Mondkalb

After her release from prison Alex, who has lost her faith in love, tries to reclaim her psychic balance through a retreat into loneliness. A man and a child interrupt her plan and force her to reengage. Alex dares to emerge from her shell and learns again how thin the ice is and how fragile happiness is, small though it may be.

His Dog

Peter Olsen, a young social outcast who lives alone on a rundown farm and raises vegetables for a living, finds his only consolation in liquor, though Dorcas Chatham, daughter of the general store owner, begs him to forego this indulgence. Returning from town, he finds a dog by the roadside, apparently injured by a car, and takes it home. Later, on a drunken spree, Peter is attacked by robbers, but the dog comes to his rescue and frightens the assailants away. Stirred by the unselfish devotion of his dog, Peter gradually regains his self-respect, and Dorcas falls in love with him and accepts his proposal, though she fears the dog. When Peter enters the dog in a show, another exhibitor proves to be its owner, and Peter is first parted from, then reunited with, "his" dog. Dorcas overcomes her fear and is united with Peter.