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A top Russian scientist is critically wounded
after defecting to the West. The only hope
of saving him lies in miniaturising a surgical
team and injecting them into his bloodstream
to operate on his blood clot. A classic of 60s
pop cinema.

Stars of This is England, Kill List, Skins and
Fresh Meat bring a fresh and talented slant to
the coming-of-age genre. England, 1990, and
Thatcher has just resigned; meanwhile three
friends embark on a night out, and like the
characters in all good teen movies, their lives
are changed forever. With a hilarious script,
a knockout soundtrack and an excellent
ensemble cast, this energetic comedy is
refreshing, timely and guaranteed to make
you laugh out loud.

At an elite boarding school, the murder of a top student adds fuel to the rivalry and suspicion among his class. One of the suspects, a boy who has so far failed to break into the coveted ranks of the top ten students, uncovers a frightening conspiracy among his classmates. The poisonous atmosphere at the school erupts in further violence and leads to a hostage situation. A spellbinding thriller.
This film is featured in both the Focus on Korea & Not Another Teen Movie strand.

In this absurdist satire on state surveillance
and bureaucracy in Eastern Europe in the
late Communist era, young Batko (Ruscen
Vidinliev) is recruited by the secret police to
keep tabs on an underground group of ‘New
Thinkers.’ When he’s unfairly dismissed from
his post, Batko sets about plotting his revenge
by recruiting his own secret service to gather
information that will enable him to undermine
the regime. A coolly stylish and blackly
humourous statement on paranoia.

Leaving her parents’ tofu restaurant behind,
aspiring dancer Fleur enters university and
promptly joins the hip-hop dance club. Her
idiosyncratic moves are too advanced for the
other dancers, but she finds approval from the
chairman of the Tai Chi club, who encourages
her to make contact with her inner martialartist.
An infectious hip-hop dance film.

A sensuous, observant and nuanced portrait
of life in a remote fishing village in southern
Philippines. Weaving staged scenes with
documentary footage, the filmmaker captures
the predicament of a people deeply rooted in
traditional beliefs and practices, but forced
by poverty to abandon their community
to search for a precarious living, while
constantly menaced by impending war.

EIFF’s Young Programmer group have selected
the freshest, boldest international shorts
about young people. Adolescence is a subject
all filmmakers love but few manage to be as
funny, moving, honest and original as these
snapshots of teenage life. All the joy and
pain of first love/lust are explored in We
Were Wolves and Cherries. The realisation
of sudden adult responsibility is brilliantly
tackled in Rainbow Connection and Joyride;
while See the Dirt is a brilliant, tender
documentary about a very strange passion.

With his trademark deadpan wit, Aki
Kaurismäki kicks off this four-part study
of Guimarães, Portugal, with a dialoguefree
chronicle of the life of a barman.
Pedro Costa’s contribution revisits the 1974
revolution in a strange ghost story. In Victor
Erice’s moving entry, veteran workers of
a now-shut textile factory recount their
memories. A wry joke about tourism from the
great Manoel de Oliveira closes this rich and
thought-provoking omnibus.

An obese man uses his deaf, attractive adult
son as bait in a con scheme to entrap and
blackmail random women in the streets of
Tehran. At home, the son devotedly ministers
to his ailing father, who responds with
tyranny and abuse. A young woman comes
between them...
Don’t worry about plot; instead, just go with
the surreal images and absurdist situations of
a dreamlike allegory on patriarchy.

A brilliant account of a case that rocked the
United States in the early 20th century: the
real-life triangle of famous architect Sanford
White; his teenage mistress, Evelyn Nesbit;
and her rich, unstable husband, Harry Klaw.
One of Fleischer’s best films, with a masterly
use of CinemaScope.