'Perviy Otryad' (First Squad: The Moment of Truth) Russian Federation / Japan / Canada
Produced by Eiko Tanaka, Misha Sprits and Aljosha Klimov
It is 1942. The Red Army is putting up a violent and effective resistance against the German invaders. Fourteen-year-old Nadya is a medium. In a deadly air raid the girl is shell-shocked. Recovering from her concussion, Nadya discovers her new gift - the ability to foresee the ‘Moments of Truth’ - the most critical moments of future combat encounters, in which one person’s actions will decide the outcome one way or the other. Nadya’s ability is indispensable for the classified 6th Division of the Russian Military Intelligence, who are waging a secret war against the ‘Ahnenerbe’ - an occult order within the German SS. The Ahnenerbe summons from the realm of the dead the powerful prince of darkness, Baron von Wolff. With him on their side, they hope to change the course of history and achieve world domination. To oppose the Baron, Nadya decides to enlist the support of her old friends from the beyond – the Pioneers of the First Squad. Only the dead can fight the dead.
'Mary and Max' Australia
Produced by Melanie Coombs
Mary and Max is a claymated feature film from the creators of the Academy Award winning short animation Harvie Krumpet. It is a simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horovitz, a 44-year-old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger’s Syndrome living in the chaos of New York. Spanning 20 years and two continents, Mary and Max's friendship survives much more than the average diet of life's ups and downs. Like Harvie Krumpet, Mary and Max is innocent but not naïve, as it takes us on a journey that explores friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, sexual difference, trust, copulating dogs, religious difference, agoraphobia and much much more.
'Sukai Kurora' (The Sky Crawlers) Japan
Produced by Tomohiko Ishii
Based on the series of novels by Hiroshi Mori, The Sky Crawlers is set in an alternate history where, although the world is at peace, private corporations contract fighter pilots to stage combat operations against each other for show in order to ease the tension of a populace accustomed to war and aggression. The film introduces a mystery involving characters called Kildren, humanoids genetically designed to live eternally in adolescence until shot down in air battles presented commercially for entertainment, after which they are reproduced. We see life through the eyes of Kannami, a fresh faced teen who quickly establishes himself as the ace pilot of the unit, shooting down two enemy planes on his very first mission. As the relationship develops between Kannami and his beautiful Commander, it becomes clear that all is not what it seems.
'Samâ Wôzu' (Summer Wars) Japan
Produced by Nozomu Takahashi, Takuya Ito and Takashi Watanabe, Co-Produced by Yuichiro Saito
Due to the creation of the virtual city of Oz, anyone can access the Internet at any time, for information, to pay bills or play games online. In his spare time, Japanese high-school student Kenji works as a maintenance computer programmer for Oz. When Natsuki, the girl with whom he is secretly in love, invites him to go to Nagano for a few days for a family party, he promptly accepts. When he gets there Natsuki asks him to pretend to be her fiancé to please her grandmother, who is celebrating her ninetieth birthday. Despite his shyness, Kenji is soon accepted by the family and gets to know them. The night after the banquet, Kenji has gone to bed when he receives a strange email on his mobile phone that contains numbers and the following message: «Decode me!» Piqued by this challenge to his mathematical abilities, although still half asleep, he tries to work out the puzzle and solves it. Next morning he learns that his avatar - the personification of an individual in the virtual world - is causing trouble in Oz and that he is wanted by the authorities. Can Kenji count on the help of his stepfamily, with their wealth of resources? Will they manage to stop the destruction of both Oz and the physical world?
‘Pro Fedota-Streltsa, Udalogo Molodtsa’ (The Tale of Soldier Fedot, The Daring Fellow) Russian Federation
Produced by Alexander Boyarsky and Sergey Selyanov
The Tale of Soldier Fedot, the Daring Fellow, is a poetic re-telling of a renowned poem by Russian writer and actor, Leonid Filatov. Fedot is a soldier who dutifully serves his King as a hunter. One day, he finds a magical bird in the woods who pleads with him not to kill her. When he spares her life, the bird turns into a beautiful woman who becomes Fedot’s wife. In a wicked plot to claim Fedot’s wife as his Queen, the King orders Fedot to undertake a series of impossible missions with the threat of execution if he fails. With the help of the magical bird, Fedot begins to tackle the mighty quest ahead of him. Based on characters and stories from Russian folklore, The Tale of Soldier Fedot, the Daring Fellow, is a social and political satire on contemporary realities of life in Russia.