TribeCa Film Festival 2019 - International Lineup

An ex-felon returns home from prison and must confront the demons of his past.

Antoine Besson, Miriam's divorced husband, is a nice man. In charge of security in a hospital, he is esteemed both by his superiors and his fellow colleagues. Moreover he is a good father who, willing to be closer to his eleven-year-old son Julien, has chosen to be transferred to the town where the boy lives with his mother and his older sister Joséphine, soon to be of age. That is the very reason why Antoine, the caring father, is asking for joint custody of Julien. Well, all that would be fine provided Antoine actually was the man he claims to be. The trouble is that his wife and his two children see him in a very different light. For in the past, Antoine was far from an angel. On the contrary, he had a knack for creating an atmosphere of permanent fear at home, going as far as to occasionally beat his wife under his children's eyes. And he got away with it all the more easily as Miriam, wishing to avoid even more problems, never lodged a complaint against him - a fact that eventually turns against her. Which is why, despite the fact that Julien does not want to see his father any more, the family court judge complies with Antoine's request.

60-year-old Walter Scholl is a mover for forced evictions. The former weightlifter is the best and most loyal hauler that Walter's boss Roland Grone employs at his house moving company. Walter ignores the increasing pain caused by his back-breaking job just as he refuses to see the agony of the people whose sphere of privacy he violates every day. Grone is planning a risky real estate deal with the help of a dubious family clan. A pre-2nd-World-War apartment house in one of the best neighborhoods is supposed to be rid of all tenants and re-sold with a huge profit. The problem: One remaining tenant refuses to leave his apartment despite a court order. Walter believes to recognize the stubborn young tenant as the son he abandoned decades before and hasn't seen since. Instead of revealing himself as his long lost father, Walter tries to get close to his adult son Jan and Jan's family. Once he gradually realizes how unpredictable the men Grone has gotten mixed up with really are, Walter increasingly gets caught in the middle.

25-year-old Sibel lives with her father and sister in a secluded village in the mountains of Turkey's Black Sea region. Sibel is a mute, but she communicates by using the ancestral whistled language of the area. Rejected by her fellow villagers, she relentlessly hunts down a wolf that is said to be prowling in the neighbouring forest, sparking off fears and fantasies among the village women. There she crosses path with a fugitive. Injured, threatening and vulnerable, he is the first one to take a fresh look at her.

More and more, Ahmed, a timid, vulnerable thirteen-year-old Muslim boy living in a small Belgian town, finds himself attracted to dangerous ideologies. Suddenly, while under the influence of the radical teachings of Youssouf, the local imam, Ahmed has stopped acting his age, increasingly alienating himself from his mum, his sister, and his friends. But, the troubled teenager has something in mind, and now, there is no turning back. Is young Ahmed prepared for the painful and destructive consequences of hatred?

Teenage commandos perform military training exercises by day and indulge in youthful hedonism by night, an unconventional family bound together under a shadowy force know only as The Organization. After an ambush drives the squadron into the jungle, both the mission and the intricate bonds between the group begin to disintegrate.

Driss and Manuel are two childhood friends who end up taking opposite paths: Manuel chose to embrace the thug life, while Driss becomes a cop. When Manuel's biggest deal goes terribly wrong, the two men meet again and come to realize they both need each other to survive in their worlds.

Early one summer morning a young man, with a secret stashed away in a duffel bag, emerges from the forest. In a nearby village he asks around for work, but the farmers, suspicious to the point of hostility, are not very forthcoming. Only when Lucy, the mayor's unruly daughter, takes a liking to him, does the village change its attitude: he is promptly offered a job as a farmhand and a caravan to live in. As time passes and he is gradually integrated into the community, it emerges that he's not the only one with a past to hide. Something sinister is lurking under the immaculate surface of this picturesque little world - and it is slowly drawing him in.

In a country plunging into armed conflict, a doctor tries to do his duty against all odds, until the day his destiny is turned upside down.

"Styx" depicts the transformation of a strong woman torn from her contented world during a sailing trip. When she becomes the only person to come to the aid of a group of refugees shipwrecked on the high seas, she is shown the limits of her importance and of the empathy of her cultural milieu. She is left slipping impotently from one nightmare to the next, and by the end she is forced to recognize that there is no way to counter the cruelties of real life. Only chance can save her.

Halla is a fifty-year-old independent woman. But behind the scenes of a quiet routine, she leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist. Known to others only by her alias "The Woman of the Mountain," Halla secretly wages a one-woman-war on the local aluminum industry. As Halla's actions grow bolder, from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage, she succeeds in pausing the negotiations between the Icelandic government and the corporation building a new aluminum smelter in the mountains. But right as she begins planning her biggest and boldest operation yet, she receives an unexpected letter that changes everything. Her application to adopt a child has finally been accepted and there is a little girl waiting for her in Ukraine. As Halla prepares to abandon her role as saboteur and savior of the Highlands to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, she decides to plot one final attack to deal the aluminum industry a crippling blow.

Ricky and his family have been fighting an uphill struggle against debt since the 2008 financial crash. An opportunity to wrestle back some independence appears with a shiny new van and the chance to run a franchise as a self employed delivery driver. It's hard work, and his wife's job as a carer is no easier. The family unit is strong but when both are pulled in different directions everything comes to breaking point.

Clara and Hans are left-wing terrorists who have been sought by police for almost fifteen years. Their increasingly rebellious daughter Jeanne begins to pose a threat to their security when she falls in love with a boy she meets on the beach.

Herbert lived well from his giant body for years, as a boxer since the GDR, nicknamed 'Pride of Leipzig', and now as bouncer and debt collector, while training promising boxers, especially gentle Eddy, who got a shot at the title in a much lower weight class. After ignoring symptoms for months, collapsing Herbert is diagnosed with the incurable muscular disease ALS, and is bluntly dropped from all his jobs and the gym. Seeking to set straight what went wrong is his life, he mends as good as he can with his daughter -neglected since age six- and deals with girl friend Marlene. Herbert is lucky with great home assistant Steffen, even gets to cheer protege Eddy to his title as last sportive achievement.

Isabelle (Julie Delpy) is a geneticist recovering from a toxic marriage and is raising her only daughter Zoe in conjunction with her ex-husband. Zoe means everything to her mother, but when tragedy strikes the fractured family, Isabelle takes matters into her own hands.

After a 13-year-old student disappears without a trace for a week and suddenly reappears, his mother and teachers are confronted with existential questions that change their whole view of life.

The dishonorably discharged Afghanistan veteran Thomas returns to his home village of Jerichow. Ali, a local Turkish-German businessman, owner of a snack-bar chain, hires him as a driver. That's when Thomas meets Laura, his Turkish boss's young and attractive wife. A classic love triangle is born, unfolding in desolate northeast Germany, where thick forests suddenly end on cliffs overlooking the Baltic Sea. Caught between guilt and freedom, between passion and reason, the protagonists have no hopes for fulfillment of their dreams.

Ricky Nasser is a young Australian whose peaceful suburban life turns into hell when sister Ameena, a Slam poet; disappears without a trace.