Baraka
96 mins, CD
Director: Ron Fricke
From Nepal to Kenya, Australia to Brazil, people try to cope with the changes that have altered their landscape, crowding them together and speeding up daily life. The film shows us these alienated people, but also images of traditions -- whirling dervishes and Tibetan monks -- that offer different, peaceful ways of existence

La Jetee
126 mins, CD
Director: Chris Marker
After a global holocaust, humanity's hopes for survival hinge on time-travel experiments conducted on a man whose dreams recall a defining moment in his childhood when he witnessed a murder. The narrative is revealed through a montage of stills and inspired the American film 12 Monkeys

No Man's Land
98 mins, CD
Director: Danis Tanovic
Danis Tanovic's debut film about the futility of the Bosnian War stars Branko Duric as Ciki, a Bosnian soldier with really bad luck. When he and a few other relief soldiers try to join their Bosnian comrades on the Front, they get lost in the fog, fall asleep and are awakened at dawn by Serbian gunfire. His comrades are all blown away, but Ciki saves himself by diving into an abandoned trench in no man's land. Nino (Rene Bitorajac), a Serbian soldier, sneaks into the trench and finds Ciki. Though both men are armed and dangerous, they are nonetheless unable to escape the trench without getting shot at by either side. Bleak and darkly humorous, No Man's Land vividly illustrates the absurdity of war

Dogville
178 mins, VCD
Director: Lars Von Trier
The beautiful fugitive, Grace, arrives in the isolated township of Dogville on the run from a team of gangsters. With some encouragement from Tom, the self-appointed town spokesman, the little community agrees to hide her and, in return, Grace agrees to work for them. However, when a search sets in the people of Dogville demand a better deal in exchange for the risk of harbouring Grace

Ararat
115 mins, VCD
Director: Atom Egoyan
The film is a non-linear fictional reconstruction of the Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 whose history, unfortunately, is little known. The narrative is heavily multi-layered and told through fictional accounts, myth (even lies) to substantiate the genocide which Turkey denies even today

Children of Heaven
86 mins, VCD
Director: Majid Majidi
Children of Heaven follows the relationship between an impoverished brother and sister, Ali and Zahra, who are thrust into difficult circumstances revolving around a pair of sneakers. How they choose to solve their problem themselves, without telling their parents, is what makes the story so heart-warming and unique

Colour of Paradise
90 mins VCD
Director: Majid Majidi
Colour of Paradise is a fable about a child's innocence and a complex look at faith and humanity. Visually magnificent and extremely moving, the film tells the story of a boy whose inability to see the world only enhances his ability to feel its powerful forces

Fitzccaraldo
167 mins, VCD
Director: Werner Herzog
The late Klaus Kinski plays the title character in this much-heralded film about Fitzcarraldo's obsession with opera, which he is determined to bring to his remote village in the jungles of Peru. An obsession that leads him into an adventure in the treacherous headwaters of the Amazon Osama 83 mins, VCD Director: Siddiq Barmak The first film to be made by an Afghan, after the fall of the Taliban, Osama tells the story of a desperately poor mother who decides to dress her pre-pubescent girl as a boy in order for her to be able to get a job and earn them money enough to live. Osama's combination of timeliness, political impact and dramatic power made it one of the most talked about films at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
106 mins, VCD
Directors: Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta
When Katharina Blum spends the night with an alleged terrorist, her quiet, ordered life falls into ruin. Suddenly a suspect, Katharina is subject to a vicious smear campaign by the police and a ruthless tabloid journalist, testing the limits of her dignity and her sanity. Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta's powerful adaptation of Heinrich B " ll's novel is a stinging commentary on state power, individual freedom and media manipulation

Z
125 mins, VCD
Director: Costa Gavras
Z is one of the most politically insightful films ever made, exposing government hypocrisy and cover-up in the wake of a political assassination. Zei (Yves Montand) is a scientist scheduled to give a speech against the use of the atomic bomb. En route to the event, he is attacked by a group of right-wing extremists with political ties to the government, while the police stand by and do nothing. He recovers long enough to make the speech but later dies from injuries sustained in the attack. . Costa Gavras uses actual trial transcripts of the investigation into the May 22, 1963, assassination of Greek pacifist leader Gregoris Lambrakis, which proved a government conspiracy in his death. The letter Z in the Greek alphabet means ‘he is alive'

Birth of a Nation
70 mins, VCD
Director: D W Griffith
Silent filmmaker D W Griffith's landmark film was the first movie blockbuster. However, it is also a horribly racist version of American history. The first part of the film chronicles the Civil War as seen through the eyes of two families: the Stonemans from the north and the Camerons in the south. Lifelong friends, they become divided by the Mason-Dixon line, with tragic results. The second half of the film chronicles the Reconstruction, as Congressman Austin Stoneman (Ralph Lewis) puts evil Silas Lynch (George Siegmann) in charge of the liberated slaves at the Cameron hometown of Piedmont

Throne of Blood
110 mins, VCD
Director: Akira Kurosawa
One of Shakespeare's most celebrated screen adaptations, Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood places Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring Kurosawa's longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells the tale of a valiant warrior's savage rise to power and his ignominious fall

Nanook of the North
79 mins, VCD
Director: Robert Flaherty
This classic film tells the story of Inuit hunter Nanook as he struggles to survive in the harsh conditions of Canada's Hudson Bay region. Enormously popular when released in 1922, Nanook of the North is a cinematic milestone that continues to enchant audiences

Rashomon
86 mins, VCD
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Set in feudal Japan, this highly acclaimed film presents an intriguing tale of violent crime in the woods, as told from the perspective of four different characters -- a bandit (Toshiro Mifune), a woman (Machiko Kyo), her husband (Masayuki Mori) and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura). Only two things about the incident seem clear -- a woman was raped and her husband is now dead. The other elements radically differ as the four participants and/or witnesses tell their own stories

Mon Oncle
126 mins, VCD
Director: Jacques Tati
Slapstick prevails when Jacques Tati's eccentric hero Monsieur Hulot is let loose in the ultramodern home of his brother-in-law, and in an antiseptic factory that manufactures plastic hose. Tati directs and stars in the second entry of the Hulot series -- a delightful satire on mechanised living

Circle
90 mins, VCD
Director: Jafar Panhai
Banned in Iran, this film is set almost entirely on the busy streets of Tehran -- a place where women are restricted by numerous laws, including the repressive dress code, and can only travel accompanied by a man. The film starts with two women, Arezou (Mariam Palvin Almani) and Nargess (Nargess Mamizadeh), who have been granted temporary release from prison and have no intension of returning. They attempt to flee to Nargess' hometown, which she claims, is as beautiful as a Van Gogh painting

Cinema Paradiso
170 mins, VCD
Director: Guiseppe Tornatore
A famous Italian film director returns home to a Sicilian village after nearly 30 years. He re-connects with the life and people he once knew and revisits his poignant childhood memories. The homecoming makes him reflect on the highlights and tragedies that shaped his life and inspired him to pursue his dream. The film received a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award

Close-Up
97 mins, VCD
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
With his use of non-actors and loose use of documentary rules, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's films can often be characterised by asking whether what the viewer is seeing is reality or fiction. Close-Up is a film that best exemplifies this. Ostensibly a documentary about an impostor of Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Kiarostami tells the story by asking questions off-screen to those involved in the legal case, then having the participants play themselves in a re-enactment of the events that actually took place. A master work, considered by many to be Kiarostami's best

Taste of Cherry
99 mins, VCD
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Emerging out of an Iranian cinema renaissance, this film is seen by many to be its crowning achievement. The story of somber yet intense Mr Badii and his journey through Tehran, Taste of Cherry emerges as a sort of spiritual road movie. Intent on getting assistance for his planned suicide, Badii encounters citizens from every walk of life, all of whom refuse to help him

Grand Illusion
114 mins, VCD
Director: Jean Renoir
Two French officers are captured during World War I. Captain De Boeldieu is an aristocrat, while Lieutenant Marechal was a mechanic in civilian life. They meet other prisoners from various backgrounds, like Rosenthal the son of a wealthy Jewish banker. They are separated from Rosenthal before managing to escape. A few months later, they meet again in a fortress commanded by the aristocrat Van Rauffenstein. De Boeldieu strikes up a friendship with him but Marechal and Rosenthal still want to escape

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
109 mins, VCD
Director: Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog approaches the true story of famous wild child Kaspar Hauser as a metaphor, continuing his cinematic investigations into human consciousness and civilisation. In 1828, Kaspar was found in the town square of Nuremberg, Germany, barely able to speak or walk, having been kept in solitary confinement by unknown forces throughout his life. As Kaspar is taken in by the locals, his integration into society and the curiosity posed by his mysterious, possibly dangerous, origins start to pull at the carefully kept seams of civilisation

Two Women
99 mins, VCD
Director: Vittorio DeSica
Sophia Loren won an Academy Award for her portrayal of an Italian widow ravaged by war, as she and her 13-year-old daughter become the focus of attack by retreating Allied Moroccan soldiers during World War II.
Dubbed in English

City of God
124 mins VCD
Director: Fernando Meirelles
This hard-hitting drama is about youth gangs in Rio de Janeiro. A narrator called Rocket (Alexandre Rodriques) recounts his experiences in a Rio slum called Cidade de Deus (City of God) during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. It's an unsettling tale of poverty, guns and drugs.
Subtitles - English

400 Blows
95 mins, VCD
Director: Francois Truffaut
Francois Truffaut's first feature film is a landmark in French cinema. Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is a 13-year-old boy who can't seem to do anything right. His parents yell at him and then bribe him for his love and his promises to work harder at school. Meanwhile, his schoolteacher is out to get him and blames Antoine for everything -- turning him into the class clown. Antoine runs away from school and his difficult family to live out on the streets of Paris

Amores Perros
147 mins, VCD
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Octavio is a young aimless loser who lives in a barrio and has an obsessive crush on his sister-in-law, Susana, who is married to Ramiro, an abusive hoodlum. Meanwhile, Daniel, a successful editor, has ditched his wife and children to live in a dream apartment with Valeria, a shallow, neurotic supermodel. Meanwhile, El Chivo, a bitter ex-con-turned hitman, haunts a pretty young girl with whom he has a secret relationship and receives a commission to kill a wealthy philandering businessman

Ran
160 mins, VCD
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Ran is Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's reinterpretation of William Shakespeare's King Lear . The Lear counterpart is an elderly 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai) who announces that he's about to divide his kingdom equally among his three sons. In his dotage, the warlord falls prey to the false flattery of his treacherous sons (Akira Terao and Jinpachi Nezu), while banishing his youngest son (Daisuke Ryu), the only member of the family who loves him enough to tell him the truth.

Kurosawa's first film in five years, Ran was in the planning stage for twice that time. Kurosawa storyboarded the project with a series of vivid colour paintings that have since been published in book form in England. The battle scenes are staged with such brutal vigour that it's hard to imagine that the director was 75 years old at the time