My personal Berlinale Ranking - 2008

Based on childhood days of Teruyo Nogami.

A divorced couple learns that the way to possibly save daughter, who is suffering from blood cancer, is to have another child. Problem is: They're both already remarried.

An examination of the Soviet slaughter of thousands of Polish officers and citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.

Forty-something single mother Minoo is a product of the Islamic Revolution, a generation of women repressed by changes in law under the new Islamic Republic. Her daughter Pegah is a rebellious youth, part of a generation in search of an identity they're yet to find. Together they live with Minoo's mother - three women of three different generations, living in the past, present and future. When Pegah takes off on an existential journey, Minoo realizes she needs to reconnect her fracturing family, and sets out to find Pegah - encountering a myriad of Tehran characters, including an improvisational indie rock band. Things take a turn for the worse when she loses her mother along the way.

The story of a Palestinian widow who must defend her lemontree field when a new Israeli Defense Minister moves next to her and threatens to have her lemon grove torn down.

The daughter of a Jehovah's Witness is forced to choose between religion and love when she falls for someone outside her faith.

As an alternative to getting bullied at school, an autistic teenager retreats into the world of online role-playing games.

Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.

Eun-young is a woman cursed with great beauty. Wherever she goes, she gets unwanted admiration from men and jealousy from women. One day, one of her stalking admirer invades her place.

All Thomas wants is a normal adolescence but his autistic brother, Charlie, thwarts his every opportunity. Will Thomas, with the help of his girlfriend, Jackie, accept his brother?

A woman tries to extort money, using a young boy as bait.

An ostrich-rancher, Karim, embarks on a journey to Tehran, a bustling city, to replace his daughter's hearing aid, a pivotal moment in his family's struggle for independence and cultural exchange.

Thomas' sister is a journalist and wants to talk to him but "drowns" just before. In her apartment he finds papers about biochemical weapons and the Danish intelligence agency their dead dad was in. Thomas investigates.

A black-and-white study of a social environment in London, concentrating on a pair of unlikely new friends and the girl they both fancy.

Taeko is a stressed career woman who leaves her life in the city for an island vacation. The vacation does not become what she expected as everyone on the island is strange.

11 year old Niaz's father has been a Pashtun on jihad in Afghanistan. Back in Darra in NWFP of Pakistan, where guns and hashish are common, he wants Niaz to learn to shoot and work in his gun workshop, while Niaz wants to go to school.

A coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old girl trying to fit into both a posh private school and an ordinary public school.

The near future. Like tomorrow. In a world marked by closed borders, corporate warriors, and a global computer network, three strangers risk their lives to connect, break through the barriers of technology, and unseal their fates.

The true story of a young female soldier who comes of age during the Eritrean civil war.

Santi, a young high-school student with a serious physical reaction to sunlight, is forced by his health to move with his single mother to a shadowy, isolated village in the mountains of Spain where the inhabitants begin to reveal themselves as strangely xenophobic. When terrible, violent events begin to occur, Santi becomes first a pariah at school and then strongly suspected by the police of hideous murders. Santi himself, however, wonders if he is not the next victim.

A man endeavors to collect memories of his grandparents who died in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.

Two young Nicaraguan children, Saslaya and her mute brother Dario, must travel to Costa Rica to find their long-lost mother.

An unsatisfied woman in her late 30s dreams about stealing the big cash and leaving the country. She meets a petty criminal ten years her junior who has the thing for her, and she asks herself is he the only true love of her life.

A successful woman searches for romance by speed dating in this drama. Eloise has a great job and a great education, but she's looking for love. Can a couple of minutes be the key to finding true love?

Two boys, Li Ahh and Li Ohm, grow up motherless. Their father, Sui, is a workaholic who shuts himself out of the world. The boys' quest to reach out to their father leads them to adopt a puppy. But when the animal is sent away for being a nuisance, the boys are devastated. For the first time, Sui realizes that all his children ask is simply to love and be loved.