Needing to boil their contaminated drinking water to stave off illness, women in Kenya’s Western Province sacrifice everything—including education and personal safety—to scrounge for firewood. Evan Abramson and Carmen Elsa Lopez highlight the inspired solution that’s been found for this environmental crisis. Plays with: Into the Gyre

A daily planner contains an obsessive tabulation of words and numbers: its keeper’s greatest love.

In eight episodes, Paul Agusta traces the life story of Peter, a gay man in Jakarta, from his first pre-pubescent crush to his middle-aged itches, via the stresses and strains of maintaining long-term relationships. Peter is played by eight different actors (including the great Joko Anwar in one episode) and his story is typical—but fabulous.

Entering his autumn years, Abu is determined to make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and is willing to sacrifice everything to do so. Salim Ahamed’s celebrated debut "balances measured investigation of the Islamic faith with broader concerns of mortality and community."—Variety. Winner, Best Film, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Music, Indian National Film Awards 2011.

Yousseff, a once-affluent taxi driver, endures a litany of indignities. The latest? Needing to scrounge cash for imminent surgery. In writer-director Yahya Alabdallah’s sophisticated and eye-catching debut "the absurdities and complexities of life in contemporary Amman are presented with pleasingly understated humor…"—Variety. Winner, Special Jury Prize, Best Actor, Best Composer, Dubai 2011.

It all started with a poem. An unbearably ironic poem, a pompous English teacher, and a classroom full of would-be intellectuals.

A history-in-reverse: the receding life of a man, coloured by a tsunami which hit four-and-a-bit years ago.

Will is searching everywhere for a piece of tape, but keeps getting distracted along the way.

Abandoning the infinite promise of the city for the hardscrabble reality of rural Chile, Daniel and Alejandra find their relationship threatened by illness and ill fortune. In turn, this beautifully observed film sees writer-director Alejandro Fernández Almendras displaying a remarkable gift for "unearthing the transcendental hidden within the everyday."—Variety

In the 18th-century Holy Roman Empire, a woman tells of her calamitous past and the fateful decision she felt compelled by circumstance to make.

Looking for indie sensibility that cuts deep? Rick Alverson’s The Comedy is a must-see. Its finger on the pulse of wearying hipster humour, it’s "transgressively brilliant… an itchy critique of entitlement."—Village Voice. Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, James Murphy and Gregg Turkington star in this "epic display of the over-privileged, eternally adolescent white American male behaving badly… Alverson is onto something culturally significant."—Hollywood Reporter

Parents aren’t always the best at talking about sex. Based on a true story, a mother’s plan backfires, and opens up an uneasy conversation. (YouthCO, Reel Youth)

Smokes cost more than you may realize. (Templeton Secondary School)

Thom Andersen (Los Angeles Plays Itself) portrays 17 buildings and unrealized projects by 2011 Pritzker Prize-winning Portuguese "starchitect" Eduardo Souto Moura. Political engagement vies with a fair amount of Andersen’s dry humour as Souto Moura’s reconverted ruins and Andersen’s visual style come together in a Vertovian dialectic.

When their mother ends up in hospital from a failed suicide attempt, two sisters must deal with a strained personal relationship and differing ideas of familial commitment.

Mads Mikkelsen and Alicia Vikander play the romantically entwined royal physician and the queen of 17th-century Denmark in this sumptuous period drama. "A gripping chapter of European history is recounted with elegance, intelligence and clarity in Danish director Nikolaj Arcel’s… meaty tale of romance, tragedy and court intrigue."—Hollywood Reporter. Winner, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Berlin Competition 2012.

Perhaps no film in Sundance gained the kind of impassioned following that Rodney Ascher’s Room 237 managed… Built on the arguments of a wide swathe of thinkers, writers and maybe a few crackpots about their working theories of meanings in Kubrick’s The Shining, Ascher’s project becomes a giddy funhouse of possibilities, an Overlook Hotel of cinema readings.—Film Comment

Homayoun Assadian gives us a film that speaks with deep knowledge of the long, ineradicable scars of war, of Iran today, and of loss and friendship. Two elderly women, friends and neighbours for decades, both had their sons go MIA in the Iran-Irag War many years ago. Now, the authorities have purportedly found the remains of one… How will this affect their friendship?

After the mammoth artistic triumph that was Carlos, Olivier Assayas switches gears to tell the loosely autobiographical story of Gilles (newcomer Clément Metayer), a high-school student in early 70s Paris who is torn between his artistic inclinations and the political activism favoured by his friends, especially the volatile Christine (Lola Créton).

Like-minded Ernest, a busking bear, and Célestine, a boho mouse, forge an interspecies friendship and instantly become a cause célèbre. Teaming with Benjamin Renner, A Town Called Panic’s Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier curb their anarchic tendencies and delicately craft "a cautionary fable where friendship tries to stand the test of bigotry and intolerance."—Hollywood Reporter. To be classified so all ages can attend! This film has been classified so that those under 18 may attend. Classification: G—no advisory. Special price for children 12yrs or under at the matinee screening: $8.