The Strangers

A series of auditions is taking place in a museum-like living room. Various men improvise or deliver prepared lines, rehearse gestures and slogans, aim guns, and collapse as if mortally wounded. The theme of revolution is repeatedly invoked. In between, there are scenes of a desert landscape. Three men seeking to join the Mexican Revolution at the beginning of the last century have lost their way. Conflicts smolder among them, water is running low, and mutual mistrust is beginning to take hold. Placing the reenactment of a possible historical event alongside the preparations for it serves to underline the theatricality of every cinematic account of history. Moreover, on a kind of playful meta-meta-level, the scenes in which the actors feel their way through set pieces from a Beatles song or standard battle slogans allow the viewer to witness the simultaneous construction and deconstruction of a collective myth of revolution.

In Russia, in 1907, a rich lenient husband of a loose unfaithful woman is brutally murdered. She and her two lovers are suspects, but what about the stranger she met just before the murder? With no friends left, she and the stranger bond.

Riku Kambayashi was a university student, who wanted to become a novel writer. Minami Maezono was a university student, who wanted to become a singer. They fell in love at first sight and married while they were university students. Now, Riku has achieved his dream of becoming a bestselling writer, but Minami hasn’t achieved her dream of becoming a singer. Minami somehow feels disconnected from her husband, who is busy with his work. One day, a comment by Riku triggers a big argument between them. When Riku wakes up the next morning, he finds that Minami is nowhere to be found. He goes to the publisher for a meeting, but he figures out that he now works as an editor of a literary magazine. More surprisingly, Minami is active as a popular singer-songwriter. Riku is confused by everything that has changed, but he gets busy to get his life back.

On the Pacific coast of Los Angeles, Ali and Yaffa struggle to remember the Arab Mediterranean cities they have left behind.

Ghasem after getting released from the prison goes after his friend Abbas in the south. He there first has a fight with a guy who caused him to be jailed and then meets a girl Zari. But he knows that her father who is rich will not agree with him to marry her so with the help of his friend Abbas takes the girl and escapes to Tehran. This causes many troubles for him.

The psychotic son of a film producer becomes obsessed with a beautiful blonde starlet while in Cannes, lures her to his hotel room and strangles her. His mother finds out, but can she keep her mouth shut to protect her son? Meanwhile, the young killer meets another pretty blonde...

Strangers on a train. Late in 1916, a brave and idealistic Russian officer in his 20s comes to his superiors' attention when he stands up to Rasputin at a nightclub. He's asked to carry important papers from Petersburg to Stockholm by train in the dead of winter, a dangerous mission. The first-class carriage may be full of spies, and soon after the train embarks, the man in the next compartment searches Obozow's luggage. A beautiful stranger approaches him, a woman older than he, on a concert tour; a game of cat and mouse ensues with patriotism and emotion sometimes on opposite sides. Can Obozow consummate the affair, reach Stockholm, and maintain his ideals?

Ben satisfies his longing for closeness and love with strange men and sex dates. But every time he feels empty. How can he break that circle?

The life of a seven-member commune living in an old theatre building changes one morning with the sudden appearance of a mysterious stranger. When a vote is cast, the majority agrees to accept the Stranger into the commune. Yet, this strange man soon arouses the suspicions of certain members. The commune setup begins to unravel as a gulf opens up between its members. Meanwhile, the Stranger’s failure to fit in makes him feel increasingly isolated and he starts to become a threat to the building. The person who comes closest to understanding him ends up being the commune’s youngest member, Girl.

It's a movie about a subject that captivates me. And I can see that it also captivates the world and people and has done it at all times. It is the meeting with the stranger. Why is it so difficult to relate to those who's not like ourselves? We constantly divide the world into 'us against them'. Each time we meet a new person, we define ourselves in contrast to the other. We do not look at what connects us, but what separates us. It seems like something that is pervasive - not just for Denmark, Europe and the US, but in every possible society and culture in the world at all times. It is a common human condition that we have endless difficulty in dealing with the stranger. With this movie, I want to ask a single question that sets the world on fire. It is an exploration of my own wonder why the encounter with the stranger is so explosive and can make seemingly sensible people like myself and others mad.

The love of two adolescents for the same girl, in 1944, which is disrupted by the demands of war. From the novel by Titus Popovici.

The film tells the story of Lei Xiaojun, a telecommunications scammer, who tries to restart his operations after his base is destroyed, but his business does not go well. His attempts to collaborate with other criminal groups are also unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the anti-telecom fraud team repeatedly fails to capture Lei Xiaojun during their operations. In the end, they take advantage of his greedy nature to finally apprehend him.

A Taiwanese girl Yuwen comes to a village of Fukushima to study abroad. She thinks falling-in-love is a stupid thing and the land is unusually dry as Yuwen’s heart because of no rains. Yuwen struggles to speak Japanese but learns Japan culture and relationships from her host family and neighbors. As she opens her heart little by little, rain falls on the small village after a long time.

Every person we know, love and live with carries a stranger in their head. And they know we do too.

An overworked woman encounters a pair of armed robbers on the subway home. When one of them is killed, apparently as he divulges the location of some stashed money to her- police place her in protective custody, only she is uncertain what the man told her prior to being shot as she was wearing a pair of headphone as the time. She meets up with a disgruntled cop (Richard Dean Anderson) who decides to join her in searching for the money. A strange twist makes their hunt possible.

Arthur is a single dad, struggling with the care for his seven-year-old son Max and the combination of his secret life as a drag queen.

A synchronized swimming team has disappeared in the swimming pool during a performance. A patient of a water-therapy clinic has disappeared while taking a bath. How are these cases connected and how does a doll with real hair relate to it? An inspector with no unsolved cases will have to investigate that. She will also have to find out who she really is.

Six fresh short films on the topic "Own and Stranger" from even more fresh Estonian directors.