The Crab

In a temper, Meg, a cynical, overworked TV executive, rants about how the movies she produces lie, making you think dreams can come true, and tries to smash her favorite snow globe. Instead, it hits her on the head and knocks her out. When she comes to, she finds herself magically transported to a perfect snow-covered town like the one in her globe, married to a handsome woodworker and mother to two young children.

When successful New York marketing executive Katherine discovers her workaholic ways are taking a toll on her eight-year-old son, Zac, she decides to spend Christmas with him and her mother, Lilly in her home town on the bayou. When Caleb tries to rekindle a childhood romance and convince her to move back home, Katherine is torn between the bright lights of the big city and the quiet, gentler rhythms of her Southern roots. Only a Christmas miracle orchestrated by Papa Noel can steer her heart to her true home.

Trapped in the misery of an oppressive marriage, a middle-aged woman finds refuge in a fantasy world of vindictive violence. Soon, reality and fantasy start to blur.

‘Still Point’ serves as Barbara Hammer’s definitive reassessment of 70’s cultural feminism. She literally places side-by-side the romantic image of her companion walking and stretching under the sun in a landscape and the gritty realism of a methodical garbage picker on the street of New York city, pushing a shopping cart and moving on to the next waste container. Our world view must encompass both realities, the film indicates. Privilege can’t obscure vision.

In “Vital Signs” (1991), Barbara Hammer demonstratively transforms the horror of death into its opposite. She tenderly cares for a human skeleton, feeding it, dressing and caressing it, taking it for walks in the dark cabaret of an intimate relationship beyond death. She confronts pain and fear rather than repressing them.

The National Ballet of Portugal is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Since its foundation, it has aimed to present the great classics, as well as to always welcome contemporary creations. Day-to-day life is demanding for dancers, choreographers, musicians, répétiteurs, seamstresses, light technicians, sound technicians, and other elements of a large staff that make it possible for dance to travel through the rehearsal rooms and linger in the hallways before making it onto the stage. This film follows not only the company’s creations and premieres, but mainly each dancer’s silent and structural work.

For Pastor Judith Ehrmann, her job as an emergency counselor is more than just part of her job: giving people assistance is a vocation for them. But when a classmate of her son dies in a car accident, that's unusual. Judith begins to doubt: herself, her job - but also her family. For all at once everything seems to indicate that her own husband and son were involved in the accident and now want to cover this up. The emotionally intense drama of award-winning director Aelrun Goette raises fundamental themes without giving easy answers.

A documentary about film noir films made in Los Angeles.

A self-absorbed young man is challenged to grow a conscience and change his ways in order to receive an inheritance.

Two tree-creatures hibernating underneath the bark of their trees wake up by the quakes produced by a snowfall outside. After going out, they become friends and delight at playing with the snow.

A shooting star falls down over the Arctic island of Svalbard and The Global Seed Vault gets an unexpected visitor.