Micha Wald

To attain knowledge, man and woman had to be willing to give up their innocence," says Boris Lehman. Life Lesson is a poetic and philosophic reflection on the theme of paradise lost. Some fifty persons illustrate the planet's convulsions and the world's vacillations. Trying to communicate, to commune with the invisible, they cry out, sing out, give out messages, each in their own way, in their own state of solitude. These are like multiple echoes that resemble waves in the water or stars in the sky. " Behind these images and sounds that have been stifled by today's society, Lehman hunts for noises, cries, songs, messages that go astray. He says that if we look at the invisible we may hear the words. He invites us to look beyond the appearances of social life and to vibrate in tune with life's polyphony that is all around us."

A family of Polish-Jewish refugees arrives in Brussels in 1947 to navigate the challenges of postwar survival. Guided by a maternal voice-over, the narrative tracks their daily struggles with poverty, housing, and obtaining legal residency permits. Through staged, static tableaus, the film records these everyday bureaucratic and living conditions.

Since the year 2000, there have been several waves of suicides among the indigenous population of the Colombian Amazon. I discovered that the men commit suicide because of love sorrow. Their wives leave them for white men. The latter think that the Indian feels nothing because they do not express themselves in the same way and, in their language, there are no words to describe feelings. Is it possible that a whole people, the Cácuas Indians, do not feel anything?

Simon, 35, has returned to live temporarily with his father. They make life unbearable for each other. To add spice to this situation, Uncle Maurice and Aunt Mala, Ernest's brother and sister, meddle in everything and, notably, try to find a "nice little Jewish girl" for Simon to marry. When Ernest passes away, Simon fulfils his father's last request: bury him in the village where he was born, in the depths of Ukraine. And so Simon finds himself caught up in an event-packed road movie in the company of his paranoid old uncle, his aunt who nags him endlessly about his "Goy dancer", his six-years-old son, his father's body and his ghost, and also a rabbit. Not to mention his ex who hassles him by phone. The journey will be nothing like a cruise down the Nile!

Simon, 35, has returned to live temporarily with his father. They make life unbearable for each other. To add spice to this situation, Uncle Maurice and Aunt Mala, Ernest's brother and sister, meddle in everything and, notably, try to find a "nice little Jewish girl" for Simon to marry. When Ernest passes away, Simon fulfils his father's last request: bury him in the village where he was born, in the depths of Ukraine. And so Simon finds himself caught up in an event-packed road movie in the company of his paranoid old uncle, his aunt who nags him endlessly about his "Goy dancer", his six-years-old son, his father's body and his ghost, and also a rabbit. Not to mention his ex who hassles him by phone. The journey will be nothing like a cruise down the Nile!

1542, the year of Jacques Cartier's second mission to Canada. Pregnant by a man other than her future husband, the expedition's commander, the young Marguerite de la Rocque is abandoned on a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland with the man who raped her and his maid. She will remain there for two years, surviving hunger, cold, despair, and madness.

1542, the year of Jacques Cartier's second mission to Canada. Pregnant by a man other than her future husband, the expedition's commander, the young Marguerite de la Rocque is abandoned on a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland with the man who raped her and his maid. She will remain there for two years, surviving hunger, cold, despair, and madness.

Simon has to drive his old aunt Mala and two of her friends, Lydia and Colette, to the seaside. While driving, he gets a call from his girlfriend, Alice, which turns into an argument. Being the Jewish grandmothers that they are, the three women slowly but surely interfere. This, of course doesn't solve anything...

Jakub and Vladimir, two brothers in their late teens, join in the Cossack army to flee poverty. Elias and Roman, two other brothers, on their own as well, steal horses to survive... When fate brings them together, the encounter proves lethal. Vladimir gets killed. Jakub now burning with anger, is obsessed with revenge. A wild track begins, no one will be left unharmed...

Jakub and Vladimir, two brothers in their late teens, join in the Cossack army to flee poverty. Elias and Roman, two other brothers, on their own as well, steal horses to survive... When fate brings them together, the encounter proves lethal. Vladimir gets killed. Jakub now burning with anger, is obsessed with revenge. A wild track begins, no one will be left unharmed...