A present-day fable for the increasing disconnect we find in urban life, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Air Doll transports the Galatea myth to present-day Tokyo. A life-size air doll (Bae Doona, The Host) lives in a shabby apartment in Tokyo. She can neither speak nor move, but is the sole companion of her middle-aged master. He talks to her, bathes her, and makes love to her every day after he returns from work—until their routine life is disrupted when fantasy becomes reality. Exploring the complexities of love and loss, joy and pain, fantasy and reality, this bittersweet love story examines the intricacies and frailties of our human existence.

In a small town in Serbia, Nikola (Goran Bogdan, Fargo), a day laborer and father of two, is ordered to give up his children to social services after poverty and hunger drive his wife to commit a desperate act. Until he can provide adequate conditions for their upbringing, the children will be placed in foster care. Despite Nikola’s best efforts and several appeals, social services refuse to return his children, leaving him feeling hopeless. But when Nikola discovers the local administration may be corrupt, he decides to travel across Serbia on foot and take his case directly to the national ministry in Belgrade. Against all odds and driven by love and despair, this father refuses to give up on justice and his right to raise his children.