A selection of award winning films are on offer as part of the Bermuda International Film Festival's World Cinema Showcase next month.

Noted films from respected festivals, will screen alongside Oscar-nominated works at the event, which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary.

BIFF's mission, "to advance the love of independent film from around the world, and create a community welcoming to filmmakers and filmgoers," is obvious in the quality of pictures which will screen in the World Cinema Showcase this year — five award winners from the Cannes Film Festival, two award winners from the European Film Awards and two Oscar-nominated documentaries.

Thirteen films in total have been selected for the event, which runs March 16 through 24 at cinemas throughout the island.

• 12:08 East Bucharest was named Best First Film at the Cannes Film Festival. Sixteen years after Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu fled Bucharest in a helicopter at eight minutes past noon, the owner of a local television station invites two guests onto his talk show to share their memories of that celebrated revolutionary time. The result is a hilarious, smart and highly original film. The only guests that host Jderescu can round up are Manescu, a hard-drinking history teacher, and elderly retiree Piscoci, who works as a part-time Santa Claus. The guests proudly share stories of their heroic contributions to the town's rebellion - but then viewers begin to call in with their recollections. Weren't the two guests just boozing in a bar that day - or doing their Christmas rounds?
• Black Book. In the late summer of 1944, pretty Jewish chanteuse Rachel Stein is waiting out the war, separated from her family and a moment away from being caught by the Gestapo. She joins the Resistance, and infiltrates the German security service. Her mission soon finds her charming a high-ranking official and, without any warning, she is swept into a spider's web of intrigue, treachery and betrayal that even sheds light on the ambush that wiped out her family.
• Climates won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Isa and Bahar are in a relationship that has become fractured. While on holiday, they have dinner with another couple, enjoy time in the sun and go on a motorbike ride. Isa is a difficult, flawed man, and Bahar leaves for Istanbul - alone. In the fall, he takes up with a beguiling former lover, Serap - their rough sex is a startling vignette. In winter, he hears that Bahar has left the capital to work in the east of the country - and so he goes to the mountains to find her, and to raise the possibility of a reunion.
• Deliver Us From Evil is nominated for an Oscar Award in the category of Best Documentary. Over the past decade, the Catholic Church has been rocked by a series of shocking scandals involving priests accused of molesting young children of both genders. Amy Berg tells the story of Father Oliver O'Grady, a notorious paedophile who used his position - as well as his Irish charm - to rape and abuse members of dozens of Catholic families across northern California over a 20-year period. The most astonishing thing about Deliver Us from Evil is O'Grady's participation in the film.
• Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. Single mother Esma lives with her 12-year-old daughter Sara in Sarajevo's Grbavica neighbourhood, where life is still being reconstructed after the 1990s Yugoslav wars. Sara's father becomes an issue when she requires a certificate proving he died a 'shaheed', or war martyr, so that she can receive a discount for an upcoming school trip. Realising her mother has paid full price for the school trip, Sara aggressively demands the truth. Their confrontation is painful, but it brings hope for a renewed relationship between mother and daughter.
• The Lives of Others was named Best Film at the European Film Awards. It is 1984: Glasnost is a million miles away and a government minister, used to exploiting his position to eliminate rivals in politics or love, takes a fancy to Christa-Maria, a beautiful, popular and very attractive actress. She is living with one of the country's most popular - and loyal - playwrights, Georg. While fellow writers have fallen out of favour, Georg has curried connections and is feted as a cultural superstar. However, the couple's apparently safe little world is about to be turned upside down.
• My Country My Country is nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary in Sunday's Academy Awards. Working alone in Iraq over eight months, director/cinematographer Laura Poitras creates an extraordinary intimate portrait of Iraquis living under U.S. occupation. Her principal focus is Dr. Riyadh, an Iraqi medical doctor, father of six and Sunni political candidate. An outspoken critic of the occupation, he is equally passionate about the need to establish democracy in Iraq, arguing that Sunni participation in the January 2005 elections is essential. Yet all around him, Dr. Riyadh sees only chaos, as his waiting room fills each day with patients suffering the physical and mental effects of ever-increasing violenc
• Offside received the Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. Many young Iranian women love soccer but they are prevented by law from attending live matches in their country. Inspired by the day when his own daughter was refused entry to a soccer stadium in Iran, the film follows a day in the life of a group of young women who attempt to watch their team's World Cup qualifying match against Bahrain. A disparate group, united only by their desire to see their beloved team play, disguise themselves in myriad ways, risking arrest to try to get into the match. They are all caught and taken to a holding area where they can hear the roar of the crowd but cannot see what is happening in the match

• Red Road won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Red Road is the name of a run-down high-rise tenement block in Glasgow. Jackie works as a CCTV operator. Each day, she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze. Many of her days are routine, but one day a man appears on her monitor - a man she thought she would never see again, a man she never wanted to see again. As Jackie stalks her quarry in this white-knuckle thriller, the filmmaker's brilliant command of tension and atmosphere builds to an explosive finale.

• Ten Canoes won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This extraordinary film, featuring only aboriginal Australians who speak the aboriginal language, allows the viewer to experience a traditional story telling. Introduced by a present day narrator who speaks in English, the film is actually two stories nested inside one another; one is set 1000 years ago, the other a very, very long time before that. They are the same story and we come to realise that the tales of the ancients and the lessons they teach are still as relevant today as they were at the beginning of the world. The story, full of sorcery, gluttony, kidnap and revenge, is the story told to teach a younger brother the proper way to live.
• Time was named Best International Film at the Chicago International Film Festival. Ji-woo and his girlfriend, Seh-hee, are lovers who should simply be enjoying the gift of their mutual love. But she becomes obsessed with the thought that his passion will wane - and that he will become tired of seeing her face daily. Seh-hee decides to have cosmetic surgery in order to re-invent herself for Ji-woo. She disappears from his life, and the frantic Ji-woo searches for her to no avail. He meets other women, but rejects them until he falls under the spell of one of them.

• The Violin for which Don Angel Tavira was named Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. Francisco Vargas Quevedo's debut feature, expanded from his well received short of the same name, is a tender and poignant film about the 1970s peasant revolution in the Guerrero region of Mexico. Shot in black and white, and unfolding with a dreamlike languor, the film tells the story of the quietly dignified Don Plutarco, his son Genaro and grandson Lucio, who make a living as traveling musicians. They also live a secret life, collecting supplies for the guerrilla movement that has arisen in response to the tyrannical regime. When the army occupies their home village, they must find a way to salvage a secret arms cache.
• Volver (d. Pedro Almodovar, Spain, 120 minutes) Spanish with English subtitles With this film, Almodovar comes back to comedy, to the female world - and to his birthplace, La Mancha. Three generations of women survive the east wind, fire, insanity, superstition and even death by means of goodness, lies and boundless vitality. They are Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), who is married to an unemployed labourer and has a teenage daughter (Yohana Cobo); Sole (Lola Duenas), her sister, who makes a living as a hairdresser; and the mother of both (Carmen Maura), who died in a fire along with her husband. Winner, Best Director and People's Choice, European Film Awards.

Tickets to BIFF 2007 will go on sale March 5 at 10 a.m. both online at www.biff.bm as well as at the festival's physical box office at # 6 Passenger Terminal, Front Street, Hamilton.