1997 Foreign Language Films

A judge falls from the roof of the Federal Courthouse. A woman is murdered. Between them and the three sons of the judge there is a connection that will be investigated by a woman judge who is determined to discover the truth.

Sophie "inherits" her uncle's preserved whale and finds out that whoever sleeps in the whale's belly with her will be granted one wish. That causes chaos and hatred in the village.

Ludovic is an innocent seven-year-old child who provokes horror in his community when he dresses in girls clothes and insists he's a girl.

Brazillian urban guerrilla fighters kidnap the American Ambassador. Now, the diplomat's life hangs in the balance - helplessly caught between a government unwilling to cooperate - and his fear of the captors themselves.

Immigrant cabbie connects nervous filmmaker, lawyer, mystery man, possibly HIV+ gay man. Comedy and tragedy mingle, awash in philosophy.

A usurer nicknamed The Turk is killed. Mysteriously, everyone in the village had problems with him and anyone could have been his killer.

Mike goes out from prison and joins his brother in his wanderings through Bamako, being with their friends in bars and gyms. By other side, their mother feels lonely and became alcoholic.

Fed up with the harsh treatment his master has given him, a brave little mouse (and later his dog, Brewster) sets off on an adventure.

The architecture student Estela (Silvia Aguila) makes a suicide attempt after her plans for solving Havana's housing shortage are rejected. This brings her into contact with earthy, cynical hospital nurse Ernesto (Jorge Perugorria). Estela invites him home for dinner, and he succeeds in offending everyone present. Unable to find a quiet spot to be alone, they finally find a squatters' tenement, where their sexual frenzy causes a ceiling to collapse. They next try vertical love in a stalled elevator, trapping people in the modern building minus stairs. Fleeing responsibilities, they stage a romantic rendezvous alongside a country river, but once again they are interrupted as Cuban commissars arrive with papers and forms because the couple constructs a hut beneath a bridge. Amid the misadventures, lust turns to love

Father Holy, a village priest, battles against the state and religious bureaucracies of 1980s Czechoslovakia in his fight to raise money for a new church roof. Permeated by his love for the villagers, his encounters are marked by his good humor. In his losing battle against Church and State, Holy is ordered to be transferred away from his parish and his allies. The Czech-American, Milena Jelinek, adapted this moving story from the the novel The Forgotten Light, by the 1930s Czech writer/poet and Catholic priest Jakub Deml. (1934)

Young vicar Mr. Paul arrives at the Faroe Islands to take up a benefice, and meets the young Barbara, twice married to vicars, and with both husbands laid cold in the grave. Despite the warnings of the surrounding community and his own religious scruples, he falls victim to Barbara's at once innocent and sinful charm. The appearance of the charming and gallant Andreas Heide in Thorshavn puts their love to the severest of tests.

The story is set in the 12th century in Arab-ruled Spanish province Andalusia, where famed philosopher Averroes is appointed grand judge by the caliph and his liberal court judgments are not liked by everyone. The caliph's political rivals, centered around the leader of a fanatical Islamic sect, force the caliph to send Averroes into exile, but his ideas keep on living thanks to his students.

Eevi's life isn't going the way she would want it to, so she runs away, leaving destruction in her wake. No one will ever say no to her again.

Catalonian Paco is a traveling rep for a shoe manufacturer. When he stops to pick up Russian emigree hitchhiker Nino, Paco soon finds himself on the side of the road with everything stolen out from under him. Local gift shop owner Marinette gives the Spaniard a lift. Their mutual attraction manifests itself quickly, and Paco, who was fired over the stolen-car episode, hangs around. When he happens to spot Nino in the same town, he beats up the scrawny Russian, who lands in the hospital. Oddly enough, this marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Paco and Nino soon take the trip down the road together.

Since the earliest days in her childhood Lara has had a difficult but important task. Both her parents are deaf-mute and Lara has to translate from sign-language to the spoken word and vice versa when her parents want to communicate with other people. Getting older and more mature she becomes interested in music and starts to play clarinet very successfully. However her parents are deaf, they cannot share Lara's musical career. The day comes when Lara has to decide between her parents and her own ambitions.

Longing for a better life, Evagoras and Onisilios decide to emigrate to the Persian Gulf to earn enough money to start their own business. When they return home, the pair open a night club. However, their past catches up with them.

Turn-of-the-century Hungary. Two young brothers, neglected by their cold and uncaring mother, descend deeper and deeper into psychosis, with tragic consequences.

Stella, a beauteous 19-year-old, accompanies the stoned Robbi and his more dangerous mate Ulfur when they invade a Reykjavik apartment one night.

A villager, Gurukant Desai, arrives in Bombay 1958, and rises from its streets to become the GURU, the biggest tycoon in Indian history.

When an old couple washes their gabbeh - a type of Persian rug - a young woman magically appears and tells them her life story.

David is a garage electrician, who dreamt all of his life of becoming a magician, but had no luck in it. His girlfriend Batya wants an ordinary life, but David is still looking for his dream, so he links up with Romanian immigrant Shimon, who is an expert magician.

Incredibly, the bride at the altar falls in love with the best man on first sight, and even though he makes efforts to avoid her infatuation with him, she is determined to annul her marriage and marry the best man. And although she is able to dissolve her marriage, because she has never consummated it, the best man leaves... only to return to her many months later.

On a journey to find the cure for a Tatarigami's curse, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a war between the forest gods and Tatara, a mining colony. In this quest he also meets San, the Mononoke Hime.

Five women, all near the wrong side of forty, face life's ups and downs together with laughter, tears, and sometimes irony. Their only imperative: live, love and live some more.

In a Macedonian gypsy village local man meets an Indian UNPROFOR physician whom he sees as solution to all his troubles.