Screening Schedule

Summer of 1922. Photographer Norman Harris and Niki are sailing to America aboard the same ship. Norman in first class and Niki in third, together with some 700 other brides.They all carry the photograph of a bridegroom they have never met in their little trunks as well as their bridal gown. Norman is touched when he sees the brides in third class. Niki is the one who makes the greatest impression on him. Gradually, they get to know each other and fall in love.The transatlantic liner "SS King Alexander" sails into New York harbor. On deck, the epilogue of the Niki-Norman relationship is played out. Brides is a story about strong emotions, about dilemmas, about conscience, about a responsible attitude. It is about the little moments, the glances, the touches, the "yeses" and the "nos" that count in life.

Empress Elizabeth of Austria is idolized for her beauty and renowned for inspiring fashion trends. But in 1877, Sissi’ celebrates her 40th birthday and must fight to maintain her public image by lacing her corset tighter and tighter. While Elizabeth’s role has been reduced against her wishes to purely performative, her hunger for knowledge and zest for life makes her more and more restless in Vienna. She travels to England and Bavaria, visiting former lovers and old friends, seeking the excitement and purpose of her youth. With a future of strictly ceremonial duties laid out in front of her, Elizabeth rebels against the hyperbolised image of herself and comes up with a plan to protect her legacy.

Time is essential in both cinema and farming according to director Li Ruijun, who returns to his familiar hometown in rural China to tell the story of Ma and Cao, two lonely middle-aged people who are pushed into an arranged marriage. Faced with the adversity of nature and farm life, the couple seeks to understand the Earth’s cycles and find harmony in the ever-changing challenges of the farming process, as their own bond begins to blossom. Ruijun brings to the screen the virtues and simple pleasures of a traditional way of rural life, in a graceful, subtle, and soulful film that poetically underscores the bond between humans and the land in a fast-changing China.

Steven Spielberg’s most personal film yet is based on the director’s reflection on the experiences that made him the filmmaker we know and love, in a story based on his childhood in Arizona. Instead of chasing sharks or running from giant boulders, Spielberg has Sammy navigating the interpersonal landmines of home and school life, in what may be the most emotionally expansive film of his career. Starting with gunslingers and war stories, the way any Boy Scout in the late 1950s might, Sammy/Spielberg shows us not only what sparked Spielberg’s love for cinema, but also how empathy and human relationships have sneaked their way into the work of this master filmmaker.