Ismael (Karra Elejalde, Timecrimes) breaks into the house of a fine art restorer and shoots the homeowner dead, leaving her daughter orphaned and traumatized for life. Years later Ismael is working in a bar where he sees the daughter again. Paranoid that she has recognised him and will report him, he kidnaps her and holds her hostage, demanding that her hospital pay a ransom for her release. A gothic thriller with pitch-black humour that recalls the Coen brothers, Juanma Bajo Ulloa's sophomore feature won a host of prestigious international awards and was a precursor to the Spanish genre explosion.

Within that bizarre flower lies a huge enigma,” muses Nick Carter, America’s Greatest Detective, called to Prague to investigate the case of a missing dog and instead winding up in the jaws of a giant carnivorous plant controlled by his old nemesis, The Gardener, in Czech director Oldřich Lipský’s beloved cult hit. Inspired by the Nick Carter dime novel detective stories created by John R. Coryell, ADELA is an irresistible slapstick combination of 19th century James Bond gadgetry, Little Shop of Horrors, Blake Edwards circa The Pink Panther Strikes Again and Louis Feuillade silent serials like Fantomas. In other words, a sheer delight.

Finnish director Risto Jarva’s fascinating, futuristic sci-fi mystery is set in a dystopian, Pop Art-designed world of gleaming white towers, Sony video monitors and inflatable furniture, where the beautiful inhabitants all dress as Edie Sedgwick-like pixie sprites or medieval page boys out of LOGAN’S RUN. A historian of late 20th century culture - “before class boundaries were abolished” – named Raimo (Arto Tuominen) is researching the death many years earlier of a free-spirited erotic model named Saara (Ritva Vepsä) who died under mysterious circumstances. Raimo finds Saara’s identical double – an earthy, uninhibited engineer named Kisse (also played by Vepsä) -- and tries to convince her to re-enact Saara’s life and death for TV.

Swiss director Jean-Louis Roy’s long-lost mid-1960s Cold War super-spy thriller is a marvelous and surreal hall of mirrors, part-DR. Strangelove, part-Alphaville, with sly nods to British TV shows like “The Avengers.” The film stars a Who’s Who of great Sixties character actors starting with the unforgettable Daniel Emilfork as crazed scientist Herbert Von Krantz, who’s invented a device to sterilize all nuclear weapons. A mad herd of rival spies are desperate to get their hands on the device, including legendary French singer Serge Gainsbourg as the leader of a sect of bald, turtleneck-wearing assassins, and Jess Franco vet Howard Vernon (The Awful Dr. Orlof). Gainsbourg’s deranged jazz-lounge song, “Bye Bye Mr. Spy” – performed by him on a funeral parlor organ, no less – is arguably the film’s high point. “An accomplished spy is at the same time psychologist, artist, funambulist, conjurer,” to quote one of the characters – and the same could be said of Roy’s exotic camera obscura of B&W Cold War paranoia.

From the producer of "Easy Rider," Dennis Hopper stars as Sgt. Jack Fallen in this Cannes Official Selection. Returning home from the Vietnam War to accompany a friends body across the country via train, Fallen enters a hallucinatory reality of memory, war, and desire. Also starring Dean Stockwell and Taryn Power.

In the vein of horror anthologies like Bava's BLACK SABBATH, the long-unseen PRAGUE NIGHTS is a gorgeous and supernatural vision of ancient and modern Prague: caught between Mod Sixties fashions and nightmarish Medieval catacombs, and filled with Qabbalistic magic, occult rituals, clockwork automatons and satanic visitors. In the first tale, director Jiří Brdečka's stunning "The Last Golem," a young rabbi (Jan Klusák) struggles to fashion a massive, silent giant out of living clay - until he's distracted by a mute servant girl (Lucie Novotná). In the second episode, "Bread Slippers," an 18th-century countess (Teresa Tuszyńska) indulges her passion for sweet cakes, adulterous affairs, and secret kisses with pretty maids - until a mysterious visitor (Josef Somr) whisks her away to an abandoned mansion, where Fate has a different kind of dance in store for her. In the final story, "Poisoned Poisoner," a ravishing murderess in the Middle Ages dispatches lecherous merchants to the tune of upbeat 60s Czech Pop songs (scored by the renowned Zdeněk Liška).

Director Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake is both a love story and a ghost story. During a lakeside vacation, a shy teenager experiences the joy and pain of first love when he forms a bond with an older girl. Falcon Lake was a selection of the 2022 Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

Although Hal Ashby directed a remarkable string of acclaimed, widely admired classics throughout the 1970s—Harold and Maude, Being There, Shampoo—he is often overlooked amid the crowd of luminaries from his generation. Amy Scott’s exuberant portrait explores that curious oversight, using rare archival materials, interviews, personal letters, and audio recordings to reveal a passionate, obsessive artist. Ashby was a Hollywood director who constantly clashed with Hollywood, but also a unique soul with an unprecedented insight into the human condition and an unmatched capacity for good.