Rang-e khoda / The Color of Paradise - by Majid Majidi (1999)

Mohammad, a boy at Tehran's institute for the blind, waits for his dad to pick him up for summer vacation. While waiting, he realizes a baby bird has fallen from its nest: he chases away a cat, finds the bird, climbs a tree, and puts it back. His father finally comes and takes him to their village where his sisters and granny await. The lad is a loving student of nature and longs for village life with his family, but his father is ashamed of him, wanting to farm the boy out to clear the way for marriage to a woman who knows nothing of this son. Over granny's objections, dad apprentices Mohammad far from home to a blind carpenter. Can anything bring father and son together?

Most people don't think about singing when they think about revolutions. But song was the weapon of choice when, between 1986 and 1991, Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. During those years, hundreds of thousands gathered in public to sing forbidden patriotic songs and to rally for independence.

Pina - by Wim Wenders (2011)

“Dance, dance, or we are lost.” Pina Bausch’s final words summarize her life and provide the inspiration for acclaimed director Wim Wenders’ (WINGS OF DESIRE, BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB) breathtaking tribute to the legendary choreographer. Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal elevated dance into brilliantly subversive new expressive realms, and in this exhilarating film Wenders captures the raw, heart-stopping intensity of the movement and in stunning 3D transforms it into a transcendent cinematic experience.

Der Wald vor lauter Baumen / The Forest for the Trees - by Maren Ade (2003)

As an awkward idealistic high school teacher begins her first job in the city, things turn out to be much tougher than she had imagined.