101 hidden gems: the greatest films you’ve never seen

Three stories of the supernatural are recounted in this anthology. Rick, an Aboriginal boy living near a swamp on Bribie Island, is haunted by an American solider who drowned in quicksand. Ruby and her family live in a house near long-abandoned train tracks, which still carry ghostly apparitions. A landlord has trouble evicting the tenants of an old warehouse: a couple that's been dead for years

Mary was a good girl until she decides to kill all the "sexist pigs". She of course encounters many of which, and enjoys killing them.

Sudanese filmmaker Ibrahim Shaddad provides a dramatic and powerful account of the trials and tribulations of a Sudanese villager in a large alien city. Shot entirely without dialogue, the film's innovative use of sound helps tell the story of a shepherd who leaves his wife and herd to settle in a nearby town. Since its premiere at the Alexandria Film Festival, Human Being (إنسان / Insan) has been shown in a number of festivals in the Middle East and Europe. This film is a prime example of experimental Arab cinema.

An outer suburb of Paris, 1972. Gilles and Christine, both sixteen, are classmates and lovers who have become frustrated with the aloofness of their families and the general monotony of their lives. When the pair are caught shoplifting, Christine's father ships her off to a home for emotionally disturbed children, temporarily putting space between her and Gilles. Luckily for them, though, she escapes and the couple contemplate running away together.

In 1925 Romania, young Marie-Therese Von Debretsy refuses the flirtatious advances of her husband's commanding officer. As a result, the cosmopolitan family is reassigned to a brutally bleak and dangerous outpost on the Bulgarian/Romanian frontier where both their relationship and humanity are severely tested.

An experimental short film based on repetitive movement. The main intention was to create a film much in the same way as you would create a piece of music; themes that build and develop rather than a traditional narrative.

Assistant police inspector Aida is assigned to investigate the murder of a former gang member. When a justice ministry official is killed days later in a similar manner, he begins to suspect that something bigger is going on...

Depicts a community of pensioners living in near isolation outside of St. Petersberg as it enacts the weekly ritual of bringing a delivery of bread—left at a rail junction two hours away—into the village for distribution.

The film was based on an interview with the late dramatist Saadallah Wannous a few months before he died of cancer. Wannous narrates his somber and relentless reflections – an adieu to a generation for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the source of all disillusion. The playwright recounts, with some regret for the lost opportunities that resulted, how the Palestinian struggle became a central part of intellectual life for an entire generation

The film is based on A. P. Chekhov’s play “Tatiana Repina” and short story “Difficult People”. At his wedding, the groom is horrified to see among the church crowd his former mistress who had recently committed suicide.

Two students from the Czech Film Academy commission a leading advertising agency to organize a huge campaign for the opening of a new supermarket named Czech Dream. The supermarket however does not exist and is not meant to. The advertising campaign includes radio and television ads, posters, flyers with photos of fake Czech Dream products, a promotional song, an internet site, and ads in newspapers and magazines. Will people believe in it and show up for the grand opening?

Interviews with three Syrian women who live in exile.

The narrative voice of the director, through his own memories, retraces his first experience as a cinema spectator: at the age of 5, accompanied by his sister to the cinema Gran Kursaal, he watches the projection of the film The Scarlet Claw (1944) by Roy William Neill, with Basil Rathbone in the part of Sherlock Holmes. An event that together with the historical events of Spain and of the Francoism, will mark forever his imagination and will influence his future experiences as a director. This short film was specifically done by Víctor Erice to be shown at the exhibition 'Erice - Kiarostami. Correspondences', held at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona from 9 February to 21 May 2006.

An entire city has lost its voice. Mr. TV, the owner of the city's only television channel, is carrying out a sinister plan to control all of the city's inhabitants.

2010 film directed by Djo Tunda Wa Munga

In Echigo, Japan, the snow often lies several feet deep well into May, covering landscapes and villages. Over the centuries, the inhabitants have organised their lives accordingly. In order to record their very distinctive forms of everyday life, their festivals, and religious rituals, Ulrike Ottinger journeyed to the mythical snow country – accompanied by two Kabuki performers. Taking the parts of the students Takeo and Mako, they follow in the footsteps of Bokushi Suzuki, who in the mid-19th century wrote his remarkable book “Snow Country Tales”.

In the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a journalist arrives in Nagaoka, a city decimated during a WWII air raid and by the 2004 Chūetsu earthquakes, to report on the disaster; there, she learns about the experiences of its inhabitants and stumbles upon a stage play written by an enigmatic student of her ex-boyfriend.

Eight Māori female directors have each contributed a sequence to this powerful and challenging feature which unfolds around the tangi of a small boy who died at the hands of his caregiver.

A man is trapped in a mine shaft by his vengeful brother while his daughter embarks on a magical journey to rescue him.