Expat Cinema Rotterdam

The latest film from Carla Simón, who previously won the Golden Bear at Berlinale in 2022 for her film 'Alcarràs' which you may remember watching at expat cinema back then? 😃

► ABOUT THE FILM
Marina lost her parents at a young age to addiction and illness. When, as an aspiring filmmaker, she sets out one summer to her roots in Spain’s northwestern coastal region, she finds herself entangled in a web of conflicting memories and heartbreaking discoveries. Award-winning Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón drew on her own experiences for this wistful, sun-drenched portrait.

Does a shared bloodline automatically make you family? Marina was orphaned early in life. At 18, armed with a camcorder, she travels to sunny Vigo, a city on Spain’s Atlantic coast, where she will finally meet her father’s family—whose signature she needs for a scholarship application.

There, she encounters a whole host of uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. The family is warm and welcoming, yet also irritable and evasive, affluent yet distant. As Marina pieces together fragments of the past and tries to form a picture of her parents, she is confronted with conflicting recollections and painful new truths.

🎮 Based on the game!

► ABOUT THE FILM
When a man tries to leave a subway station, he discovers that the only way out is to find Exit 8. What begins as a simple search quickly turns into a suffocating, endless loop of identical corridors. The rules seem clear: if he notices an anomaly, he must turn back; if everything appears normal, he should keep going. But one mistake—one missed detail—and he is forced to start over.

As he obsessively scans for subtle changes, the line between reality and imagination begins to blur.
His journey proves to be not only physical, but psychological—as if there is a reason he cannot escape.

"It’s a true original, one of those cinematic events that, once seen, will not be easily forgotten." - RogerEbert.com

► ABOUT THE FILM
At the heart of a botanical garden in a medieval university town in Germany stands a ginkgo tree. This silent witness has observed the passage of many human lives for over a century.

In 1908, Grete becomes the first female student at her German university. Undeterred, she discovers her true calling—not in biology, but in photography. Sixty-four years later, Hannes falls in love with a botany student. While tasked with overseeing a project for her thesis, he develops a rather unusual relationship—with a geranium.

Finally, during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, Tony, a neuroscientist from Hong Kong, finds himself stranded in the deserted university residences. We follow their attempts to connect, as they are transformed by the mysterious power of nature.