Yvonne Nguyen, a French-Vietnamese actress, dreams of a successful career in musicals, to the great displeasure of her mother, who would like her to pursue a more serious path. When she has no choice but to move back to her mother’s, both women are strangers to each other. But in the intimacy of the Vietnamese family restaurant’s kitchen, they grow closer. Meanwhile, Yvonne is still after her dreams and finally gets the chance to audition for a big show.
NAIMA – a heroine abroad
After many years working in the low-paid sector, the charming Naima, originally from Venezuela, has finally landed a job as an apprentice nurse. … But her happiness comes up against harsh reality: the patients love her empathetic humour, but her colleagues criticise her professional distance. When Naima fails her placement, her world collapses. But then she embarks on her toughest battle yet: standing up for herself.
We look behind a façade of prejudice and show a fighter who is looking for the right path to integration for herself and for many others. Naima should give courage not only to migrants, but also to all those fighting for their place in society.
Naima is a heroine of such strength and vitality that you fall in love with her charm from the very first moment. Dok Leipzig, Vika Leshchenko
In the media, migrants often appear as a threatening group, but we rarely learn who they really are. NAIMA shows the struggles and untapped potential that many still carry with them, even after years in their new country. NAIMA reflects the individual fates of many migrants who, unlike ‘expatriates’, go abroad with completely different circumstances. Unrecognised qualifications and difficult access to training often prevent them from developing their potential and finding their place in society. This often results in health problems, particularly psychological ones, which constitute a vicious circle for their professional and family lives.
In einem Massagesalon in Flushing, Queens, kämpfen Amy und Didi um Romantik, Glück und die Verpflichtungen ihrer Familie, die Tausende von Kilometern von zu Hause entfernt ist. Trotz der körperlichen und emotionalen Belastung, die ihre Arbeit mit sich bringt, haben die beiden Frauen eine undurchdringliche Schwesternschaft aufgebaut, die tragischerweise zusammenbricht, als am Mondneujahrstag eine Katastrophe eintritt.
On a small Japanese island, life revolves around the changing seasons. Winter is time for ice hockey at school, but Takuya isn’t too thrilled about it. His real interest lies in Sakura, a figure skating rising star from Tokyo, for whom he starts to develop a genuine fascination. Coach and former champion Arakawa, spots potential in Takuya, and decides to mentor him to form a duo with Sakura for an upcoming competition. As winter persists, feelings grow, and the two children form an harmonious bond. But even the first snow eventually melts away.
A touching and simple story
Variety
Okuyama constructs a quiet narrative carried by charm.
The Hollywood Reporter
Renuka flees from a brothel in Delhi in the middle of the night after stabbing a police officer. She takes on the name of a Hindu goddess and is forced to go into hiding in a community of prostitutes in a small town in northern India. There she meets Devika, a young woman who dreams of becoming a rapper but is condemned by her caste to a life as a devadasi sex worker.
Renuka has long since broken away from the patriarchal mindset of Indian society, even if she earns her money there to make ends meet. Devika is forced to live within these structures and to submit.
A forbidden romance develops between Renuka and Devika, leading to conflict.
Can the two women break out together? Can they break free from the violent forms of male control and social reality? And where will their journey take them?
In Konstantin Bonjanov’s thriller, the heroines are deeply disillusioned with the opposite sex, freeing themselves from its presence in their lives and allowing themselves to be shameless women who take no account of anyone or anything, even killing those who, as shameless rulers, leave them no other choice.