Echec & Mat

A troubled engineer faces pressure at work and problems at home with his moody wife. American expat Chuck, rescues him from the brink of despair and becomes an unlikely mentor.

Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by a prominent art photographer but how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?

With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.

Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.

Aurora's high school reunion turns deadly when a body is found in the hotel pool. Aurora and her Real Murders Club help investigate which classmate was most likely to kill.

On Christmas Eve, a fighter pilot on his way home becomes lost while flying over water and needs a miracle to land safely.

Commissioner Maigret rushes to the Quai d’Orsay with Lieutenant Janvier. There, they find Mademoiselle Larrieu in a state of shock. That very morning, she discovered the bullet-riddled body of Mr. Berthier-Lagès, a renowned former ambassador whom she had served as a housekeeper for 46 years. While searching the victim's apartment, Maigret and Janvier uncover hundreds of letters. The diplomat had maintained a fifty-year-long love correspondence with a certain Princess of Vuynes, whose husband - by a strange coincidence - had died just a few days earlier. As he confronts the various members of the two families and the suspicious silence of Mademoiselle Larrieu, Maigret finds himself faced with surprise after surprise, watching his certainties crumble - until the solution to the mystery finally hits him in the face at the very last moment...

After a carnival troupe saves his life, a man agrees to help its immortal leader collect five souls and win a bet with the devil.

A mysterious woman comes in to town and inhabits the local haunted mansion, making everyone wonder if she's a witch or "The Grey Lady".

Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves home with the intent to track down, charm and kill five men who do not know her. What is her goal? What is her purpose?

Four women are murdered, each knifed and, despite torn garments, remain virtuous. As famed police inspector Jules Maigret pieces the clues together, he comes to realise that for the elusive man that he suspects to be unmasked, he has to set a trap.

Down-on-his-luck Hollywood producer Barry 'Dutch' Detweiler attempts to lure Fedora, a famous but reclusive film actress, out of retirement, only to discover the horrifying truth behind her success.

When a sudden tragedy uproots the lives of two women and their families, they begin to question the relationships they once held so dear.

When a teenaged girl moves to England, with her brothers and parents into the ancient Canterville Hall, she's not at all happy. Especially as there's a ghost and a mysterious re-appearing bloodstain on the hearth. She campaigns to go back home, and her dad, believing the ghost's pranks are Ginny's, is ready to send her back. But then Ginny actually meets the elusive 17th-century Sir Simon de Canterville (not to mention the cute teenaged duke next door), and she sets her hand to the task of freeing Sir Simon from his curse.

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

Elaine "Ellie" Harrison has just moved from Minnesota to Annapolis, Maryland while her parents take a year-long sabbatical to continue their medieval studies in nearby Washington D.C. Her new high school, Avalon High, seems like a typical high school with the stereotypical students: Lance the jock, Jennifer the cheerleader, Marco, the bad boy/desperado, and Will, the senior class president, quarterback, and all around good guy. But not everyone at Avalon High is who they appear to be, not even Ellie herself. Eventually, it becomes apparent that Avalon High is a situation where the ancient Arthurian legend is repeating itself.

When Jenn's old pal Sandra becomes the prime suspect in a murder case, it'll be up to her to discover who done it before time runs out.

Mr. K, a traveling magician, finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of his hotel. His attempts to get out only pull him deeper, entangling him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.

A wealthy New Orleans businessman becomes obsessed with a young woman who resembles his late wife.

Samantha Kingston has everything. Then, everything changes. After one fateful night, she wakes up with no future at all. Trapped into reliving the same day over and over, she begins to question just how perfect her life really was.

The Metaphor That Became a Room is a psychological drama exploring identity, communication, and the struggle for self-understanding. Divided into two parts, the film first delves into the protagonist’s frustration with the urge to persuade others, realizing that over-explaining only distorts meaning. A note from the past echoes a hard truth: “Someone’s unwillingness to understand will always outweigh your effort.” In A Symphony of Unfinished Selves, the narrative shifts inward, revealing the protagonist’s fractured identity. Trapped in a metaphorical room built from illusions and contradictions, he reflects on his dual persona—the social facade and the hidden, lost self. The film questions how we see ourselves versus how others see us and whether true self-recognition is possible. Through minimalist dialogue and layered symbolism, the film captures the silent tension between who we are, who we appear to be, and who we long to become.

On a dark, rainy night an old, white man is visited by a young, black stranger asking to use the telephone. After making his call, the young man insists on waiting in the warm, dry house. Initially, the old man's fear and prejudice keep them apart, but they soon discover a moment of fleeting friendship

Miti, an old worker, and Sokol, a young driver, undertake a long journey to transport a huge metallic tower from the Durrës harbor to an important plant.

A tense game of chess between two calculated rivals. Who will come out on top?

Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.

A lonely old man neglected by his family stumbles upon a teenage girl who thinks he may need help. A warm friendship they develop makes his last days the best he ever had.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

On a cold Monday morning, a group of counselors clock in at an old-fashioned social services office. Their task is to interview the recently deceased, record their personal details, then, over the course of the week, assist them in choosing a single memory to keep for eternity.

Panic attacks and memory loss signal the plight of a writer whose body is inexplicably being taken over by another woman.

Sailors want to remain in their small world, which is warm and cozy and full of lies, but their routine life turns upside down when one of them gets mugged and badly beaten.

Nineteen-year-old Laura is stressed by her first year at college when money worries distract her from her studies and so, desperate for cash, she answers an online advertisement for intimate companionship that leads her down a dangerous path.

After drifting apart from his best friend Elijah, a lonely high school student named Jonas begins spending his days with Charlie, a strange cartoon 2D Animated figure only he can see. But as Charlie’s influence over Jonas grows stronger, Jonas realizes the voice in his head may be the very thing holding him back.

An elderly artist thinks he has become too stale and is past his prime. His friend (and agent) persuades him to go to an offshore island to try once more. On the island he re-discovers his muse in the form of a young girl.

What happens when an earth-splitting disaster destroys the home world of a lone living skeleton? As long as he has his most valuable treasure, he doesn't worry about anything else. But can he hold onto his treasure in such a cataclysm?

An old shepherd lives his last days in a quiet medieval village perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of Italy. He herds goats under skies that most villagers have deserted long ago. He is sick, and believes to find his medicine in the dust he collects on the church floor, which he drinks in his water every day.

In France, before WWI. As every Sunday, an old painter living in the country is visited by his son Gonzague, coming with his wife and his three children. Then his daugther Irene arrives. She is always in a hurry, she lives alone and does not come so often... An intimist chronicle in which what is not shown, what is guessed, is more important than how it looks, dealing with what each character expects of life.

In a curious-looking old hospital, an elderly couple, Carlo and Clara, is waiting for their turn tenderly holding hands. There is a choice to be made, and the woman begins to hesitate. Only the words of the loving Carlo will be able to transform fear into courage. At one point the setting makes way for animation, suggested and overlapped by the words of Clara. It leads the listener to a deep reflection on life. The brief evocation of the magic of existence is imprinted in the deeply moved smile of the woman, certain that life on Earth is nothing but a stage of eternity.

Clemente, a moneylender of few words, is a new hope for Sofía, his single neighbor, devoted to the October worship of Our Lord of the Miracles. They're brought together over a new-born baby, fruit of Clemente's relationship with a prostitute who's nowhere to be found. While Clemente is looking for the girl's mother, Sofía cares for the baby and looks after the moneylender's house. With the arrival of these beings in his life, Clemente has the opportunity to reconsider his emotional relations with people

Emilio is a lifelong farmer in his eighties who lives alone on his abandoned farm. Everyone close is gone. One animal is all there is left. Today is the day he decides to sell it.

Two brothers in their seventies, Pa and Moe, have lived together all their lives in a little house in the country, the only interruption being when Pa made a weekend trip to Småland on his moped during the second World War. The past returns when his adult son dating from his Swedish visit, Konrad, comes to live with them after his mother has fallen ill. Soon Moe is about to discover that three is indeed a crowd...