Germany

This year’s programme is designed for the entertainment pleasure of audiences aged 7-10.

Andy Wolff’s doco separately interrogates the captain of a hijacked German container ship and one of the Somali pirates who held him and his crew hostage for four months. Startling account of the strange bond that grew between them.

A young woman on holiday in Nice tries to befriend her absent lover’s haughty teenage kids in this crisply observed drama. “A cerebral snapshot of the moneyed, cultured, multilingual bourgeoisie at play.” — Hollywood Reporter

Former leaders of Israel’s Shin Bet secret service agency talk frankly about terrorism, torture, war and Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this Oscar-nominated documentary. “Exemplary enterprise journalism.” — Wall St Journal

Barbara Sukowa is superb as the brilliant German-Jewish philosopher whose landmark coverage of the 1960 trial of Nazi war criminal Thomas Eichmann, A Report on the Banality of Evil, unleashed a hornet’s nest of controversy.

The violence and brutality of a Kazakh high school explored in this daunting first feature penetrate far beyond the classroom. “Stark and surreal, strange and beautiful; it’s entirely riveting.” — Hollywood Reporter

Mexican Amat Escalante’s controversial, terrifying picture of innocents drawn into an inferno of drug-gang violence won him the Best Director laurel at Cannes. “Winningly provocative and always compelling.” — Time Out

A loving tribute to small-scale farming. “A keenly observed, beautifully filmed documentary about a Sussex farmer struggling to survive in a world of big supermarkets and oppressive health and safety regulations.” — Evening Standard

A disillusioned city cop finds romance and trouble in an Iraqi-Turkish border town in this black comic Kurdish Western. “Over the top from start to finish, a delightful, poker-faced take-off on the cowboy movie.” — Hollywood Reporter

Debut director Jan Ole Gerster’s funny, jazz-inflected account of a bad day in the life of an über-cool young Berliner (Tom Schilling) trounced all comers to carry off a load of Lolas at this year’s German Film Awards.

Direct from Cannes, the latest entry from Jim Jarmusch, past master of punk cool. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are Adam and Eve, blood-sipping lovers since time began. “Passionate and consummately chic.” — Screendaily

Abrasive lampoon of one woman’s hysterical love of Jesus. “I laughed uproariously throughout this horrifying portrait of a religious fanatic, and if there’s something the matter with you, you will, too.” — John Waters

A sardonically observed but compassionate tale of a 13-year-old girl’s diet camp crush on a much older doctor. “A bracing antidote to all the manufactured triumphalism of weight-loss reality shows.” — Hollywood Reporter

An Austrian woman in Kenya plays 'Sugar Mama’ to assorted beach boys in this provocative take on exotic romance.

A visually ravishing, palpably sensual autobiographical feature from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas (Japon, Silent Light), winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2012. “A perverse, dreamlike masterpiece.” — Salon.com

This deft, lightly surreal comedy observes a family going about their domestic business. “There’s a strange music to this light-on-its-toes, rhythmic, and ultimately mesmerizing chamber piece.” — San Francisco Bay Guardian

A threatened species in a tourist Mecca, intrepid native Venetians battle to keep the beleaguered city functioning and habitable. “An elegy to the last Venetians, their humour and their hearts.” — Berlin Film Festival 2013.