BY MATTHEW ENG |

14 Can't-Miss Foreign Language Films at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival

Our 2015 Festival lineup is filled with imaginative, innovative feature-length filmmaking from all over the world. Not sure where to begin? Here are fifteen must-see titles that are worth taking a chance on!

14 Can't-Miss Foreign Language Films at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival


Aferim!

A police officer and his son travel across Wallachia in 1835, hunting down a runaway gypsy slave. In their journey across the countryside, they encounter people of different religions and nationalities, each with their own prejudices and opinions on the state of the country. Shot in black-and-white, Radu Jude's Aferim! is a gripping look into the political and religious landscape of nineteenth-century Romania. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Being 14

Adopting an observational style, Being 14 captures all the secrets, trials, and anguish of adolescence, as experienced by best friends Sarah, Louise, and Jade in their final year of middle school. The narrative plays like a documentary in each true-to-life scene; the camera is witness to their lives unfolding, as it unobtrusively records the moments of a year, after which everything will change. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Crocodile Gennadiy

Crocodile Gennadiy is a real-life, self-appointed savior who works tirelessly to rescue homeless, drug-addicted youth from the streets of Mariupol, Ukraine. At the same time, he challenges dealers and abusers. Despite criticism, Gennadiy is determined to continue his work. Sundance Award-winning director Steve Hoover’s second feature is a bold portrait of a man on a mission. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Lucifer

An angel falling from heaven to hell unexpectedly lands in a Mexican village where his presence affects the villagers in surprising ways. Inspired by the biblical story, Lucifer is a mesmerizing, moving, and unique exercise in form, presented in the director’s own format, Tondoscope. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Necktie Youth

Jabz and September are two twenty-something suburbanites drifting through a day of drugs, sex, and philosophizing in their privileged Johannesburg neighborhood, ill-equipped to handle a tragedy that has interrupted the hollowness of their daily lives. Using rich black and white photography, Sibs Shongwe-La Mer paints a raw, unique portrait of self-obsessed youth facing adulthood in an increasingly divided city. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Stranded in Canton

Lebrun is an entrepreneur from The Democratic Republic of Congo who goes to China intent on making a fortune selling political T-shirts. When things don’t go as planned Lebrun spends more time in karaoke bars and falling in love than he does on business. Somewhere between documentary and fiction, this fascinating story explores new trade routes and their impact in two separate continents. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Sunrise

Social Service officer Lakshman Joshi is led on a chase through the dark gutters and rain-soaked back alleys of Mumbai by a shadowy figure. His pursuit leads him to Paradise, a seedy nightclub seemingly at the center of the kidnapping ring he is investigating. Joshi's hunt brings back memories of his own kidnapped daughter, as his past and current reality converge. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Sworn Virgin

Alba Rohrwacher (Hungry Hearts, The Wonders) delivers a careful and charismatic performance as Hana/Mark, a transgender Albanian man considering reversion into womanhood, in this intimately involving character study/familial drama from writer-director Laura Bispuri that boldly delves into the intersecting complexities of family, gender, and individuality. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Toto and His Sisters

Shot over a period of 15 months, this intimate documentary follows three siblings living together in a Bucharest slum. With their mother in jail, Toto and his two sisters, Ana and Andreea, live in what appears to be a communal drug den. As Ana drifts further and further away with frequent drug use, Toto and Andreea must stick together in an orphanage while they await their mother’s return. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Viaje

After meeting at a party, Luciana and Pedro spark up a spontaneous rendezvous when Luciana accompanies Pedro to a national forest on a work trip. Eschewing the fraudulent nature of traditional relationships, the pair explores the beauty in the nature that surrounds them as they indulge in the passions of their encounter and navigate the various meanings of commitment. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Virgin Mountain

Fúsi is a mammoth of a man who at 43-years-old is still living at home with his mother. Shy and awkward, he hasn’t quite learned how to socialize with others, leaving him as an untouchable inexperienced virgin. That is until his family pushes him to join a dance class, where he meets the equally innocent but playful Sjöfn. See showtimes and buy tickets!


We Are Young. We Are Strong.

A group of disillusioned teenagers wander about in the restless hours leading up to an anti-immigrant riot that took place in Rostock, Germany, in August of 1992. The impending incident is seen through the experiences of three individuals: a Vietnamese factory worker, a local politician, and the politician's teenage son, Stefan. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Wednesday 4:45

A life's work becomes a prison for jazz club owner Stelios when a shady Romanian gangster calls in his debts. This gripping, underworld drama is a parable on the perils of accumulated debt, and a depiction of the descent of a mostly decent man. Director Alexis Alexiou perfectly balances the complex emotions that drive a man to take the most drastic measures available. See showtimes and buy tickets!


Wondrous Boccaccio

Set against the backdrop of a black plague-stricken Florence, ten young men and women escape to a country estate where they spend their days telling different stories of love, fate, and resurrection. From legendary Italian directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Wondrous Boccaccio is a tribute to the stories that emerged from one of the darkest periods in Italian history, and the imaginations that quietly fueled them. See showtimes and buy tickets!

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