The film's heart is Magdiel and the modest dreams that get him through the day but may also be the death of him.

A down–under fable with a sweet country-music twang.

Raised in Mumbai, classically trained actor-turned-writer-director Khanna addresses the volatile issue of women's rights within Islamic households, and if his sensationalistic debut feature makes its point with a heavy hand, it's also starkly effective.

But in the end it all comes to naught: Tantalyzing though the leads are, the paintings remain elusive.

Mitevska telescopes centuries of conflict between nations into an intimate story of siblings whose hopes for the future are being slowly poisoned by the sins of the past.

Sardonic and steeped in the tumultuous history of the former Yugoslavia, this absurdist comedy of contemporary mores can be appreciated even without intimate knowledge of its specific cultural context.

The larger message remains clear: Unified communities have more power than they realize, and the most vicious enemy of progress is learned helplessness.

First and foremost a celebration of Cuban dance and music.

Both a biographical portrait and an exploration of the tradition of Jewish liturgical music in America.

Togman, an associate professor in political science at Seton Hall University, paints a clear-eyed and unsentimental picture of Sheree's efforts, and there are no happy endings for her or for Mary, who's quietly battling breast cancer as she helps Sheree line up paperwork and negotiate with creditors. The film leaves them both where they started: struggling.

An impressive parade of scientists, meteorologists and grassroots activists assert that humanity is capable of adapting to a changing climate, building sustainable communities without sacrificing modern-day comforts and even reversing some of the damage already done.

Only Rejtman's sharp eye for absurd detail and the bleakly subtle joke separates comedy from tragedy in this story of listless Bonaerenses chasing their own tails through successive drab rings of urban hell.

Solomonoff cuts back and forth between 1984 and 1976, gradually revealing the truth of what happened, but the mystery is less important than the complex relationship between Natalia and Elena, which was sorely tested by events beyond their control.

It's an impressionistic experience rather than a linear one, and the process of surrendering to the images and rhythms of lives lived in simultaneous harmony with the physical and the spiritual is greatly helped by the chants that dominate much of the soundtrack.

Unlike most mainstream filmmakers, Ratnam doesn't try to include something for everyone, but he does deliver several handsome production numbers.

Opening with the Mohandas Gandhi epigram "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," it humanizes the bombers without excusing their actions.

The twists and turns continue until the very end of Choi's mesmerizing, high-energy romp, whose 139 minutes zip by like a round of speed poker.

Resnais cuts constantly between the various narrative threads, signaling each change of scene with a superimposed shower of snowflakes; it's a highly artificial device, and a deceptively lovely one that reinforces the sense that all Ayckbourn's characters are slowly succumbing to an emotional chill.

Deraspe's film begins as a mystery and becomes a razor-sharp dissection of the self-promotion, pretension and deeply cynical inner workings of the art world. But her greatest achievement is painting the business of art as venal, corrupt, mendacious and built on false surfaces without suggesting that art itself is a form of glorious deception.

Clever, fast-paced and surprisingly moving.

Lafosse's razor sharp dissection of relationships strained to the breaking point is hypnotic in a road-accident kind of way.

Veers regularly into disease-of-the-week territory but is rescued by the powerhouse performances of Ken Watanabe (who was instrumental in getting the film made) and Kanako Higuchi.

The film's climax, which cuts back and forth between the 16-year-old Dongo (Silas Radies, whose younger brother plays Dongo as a ten year old) making his dangerous debut with the fly-by-night Aurora Circus and the 2002 competition that takes him back to Hungary for the first time in years is nothing short of riveting.

A small slice of a suspended life, intimate and filled with the mundane details most people forget when the waiting is over and their real lives begin.

Charging Albert's film with looking too much like an American chick flick is to give it short shrift: For all the drinking, dancing and group hugs, by the end of their 36-hour trip down memory lane, the women's problems remain unresolved and poisonous secrets are still leaking out.

The devil is in the degrees. Pineyro and Ferrer have a fine old time teasing the viewer with the ongoing search for the corporate mole.

Urzua's unsentimental story of shattered idealism is specific to Cuba, but anyone whose path to adulthood was paved with disillusionment, -- whether they were betrayed by faith, family or institutions – will understand her melancholy nostalgia.

Wright's haunting performance is the anchor that keeps Ruscio's film from vanishing down a rabbit hole.