53rd Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or (1-23) and Un Certain Regard (24-47) competitors (2000)

An Eastern European US immigrant with a love for musicals has to cope with the gradual loss of her vision.

Two Latina sisters work as cleaners in a downtown office building, and fight for the right to unionize.

Kurdish teachers Said and Reeboir roam Iranian villages near Iraqi border during war. Said guides displaced men, marries widow Halaleh. Reeboir joins child smugglers. Amid danger, they try teaching nomadic students while soldiers patrol.

A governor's son falls in love and marries a beautiful girl, the daughter of a courtesan. Their marriage is kept a secret from the governor who would immediately disown him if he found that his son married beneath him.

A young man harasses a homeless woman, another man protests, the police arrest both and the woman has to leave the country. What were their various story-lines leading up to this event?

Villagers in World War II China are unsure what to do with the two enemy prisoners who have been left in their care.

A Jewish girl in 19th-century London dreams of becoming a stage actress.

The traumatized survivors of a murderous bus hijacking come together and take a road trip to attempt to overcome their damaged selves. Meanwhile a serial killer is on the loose.

An imaginary woman recollects the painful experience of adultery to a storyteller.

How important is the truth when falling in love? Bella is a Manhattan café waitress, about to turn 35, stuck in a long-term affair going nowhere. Paul is a widower, facing old age alone. Bella's mother sets her up with Bruno, a novelist/cabbie who likes to bed-hop and whose ex-wife expects their two children to stay with him for awhile. While Bruno learns some maturity from his young daughter, Paul answers a personals ad placed by a "widow, 60." The two couples - along with one of Paul's older pals and a Jungian stripper - sort out how to initiate a relationship these days, what to do when someone you like disappoints you, and when to tell the truth.

The new member of a samurai militia unit causes disruption as several of his colleagues fall in love with him, threatening to disturb the rigid code of their squad.

A man marries an heiress for her money even though he is actually in love with her friend.

Harry knew Michel in high school; they meet again by accident, Harry inserts himself in Michel's life... and things take a sinister turn.

Two neighbors form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs.

When the Yom Kippur War breaks out, two Israeli soldiers find themselves unable to locate their unit. Eager to take part in the war effort, they join an airborne medical evacuation unit.

Comedy about a widow's post-traumatic obsession with a soap star.

In the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them.

In late nineteenth century Charante, Protestant minister Jean Barnery causes local disquiet when he arranges a separation from his obsessive wife - and more talk when he decides to take her back. By this time he has been drawn to Pauline, niece of a Cognac distiller, and this precipitates him divorcing his wife, settling on her and his daughter the shares he owns in his family's porcelain factory. He resigns the ministry, marries Pauline, and moves to Switzerland and a tranquil life. On the death of his father he agrees to return home to save the factory, knowing the problems it will bring will change his life completely. So it proves, with service in the Great War having a further profound impact on him and those around him.

Where are we humans going? A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. We meet people in the city. People trying to communicate, searching compassion and get the connection of small and large things.

The journey of a middle-class amateur.

The beautiful Tanya returns to her small mining town, after supposedly working as a model in Moscow. She decides to marry her shy school sweetheart Mishka, who now works in the mine. The miners finally receive some pay, but Mishka still ends up with no money to buy his bride a gift, so he seeks the help of his perpetually drunk buddy Garkusha. Mishka's poor working-class family all help to put on a fine wedding with copious amounts of vodka, even though they are suspicious of Tanya's occupation in Moscow, and of her connection with her Mafia ex-boyfriend Borodin.

Ex-con Leo tries to go straight, but his plans are derailed after reuniting with his old crew and a well-connected railway contractor.

Each member of a middle-class Taipei family seeks to reconcile past and present relationships within their daily lives.

Five California women struggle with personal problems as their own paths unwind in unexpected ways.

With the brilliant Vietnamese summer as a setting Vertical Ray of the Sun is beautiful from beginning to end. The plot centres around three sisters, two of whom are happily married (or so it appears). The youngest sister is single and living with her cute older brother, whom she is desperately in love with. A second sister is married to a man who has another woman and child elsewhere whom he loves just as much as his wife -with a few conditions, she agrees to carry on with the marriage. The third sister and her husband are overjoyed to discover she is pregnant, and though he is tempted, her husband remains loyal to her. Charming, slow-paced, face value, family saga film.