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To some, it sounds impossible. But Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus is doing exactly that. Bonsai People celebrates Yunus’ extraordinary humanitarian work, which started when he simply lent $27 to 42 people out of his own pocket. As the founder of Grameen Bank, Yunus pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people – mainly women – with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty. In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and benefited over 100 million families. His Grameen Bank currently lends to one out of every 1,000 people on earth and with a 98% rate of return – unheard of in the financial world. But Muhammad Yunus didn’t stop there. Now, Yunus goes beyond microcredit to pioneer the idea of social business – a completely new way to use the creative vibrancy of business to tackle social problems from poverty and pollution to inadequate health care and lack of education. Bonsai People shows how Yunus – in partnership with some of the world’s most visionary businesses – is launching purposely designed social ventures. From collaborating with Danone to produce affordable, nutritious yogurt for malnourished children in Bangladesh to building eyecare hospitals that will save hundreds of thousands of poor people from blindness. Bonsai People offers a glimpse into his visionary work. While Muhammad Yunus didn’t invent the notion of doing business for social good – it is a concept that needed a leader, Yunus has become that person. The Millennium Development Goal to cut poverty in half by 2015 is one of the most courageous goals mankind has ever set for itself.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1991. The communists have fallen from power and Divko Buntic returns to the small town where he grew up to reclaim his family home. After a 20-year exile in Germany, Divko arrives in his flashy red Mercedes with sexy young girlfriend Azra, lucky black cat Bonny and a pocketful of Deutschmarks. Divko uses his money and connections to forcefully evict estranged wife Lucija, but he tries to reunite with 20-year-old son Martin. When Divko's beloved cat Bonny disappears, the whole town joins in a frantic search to get the cash reward. The daily hunt for the missing cat strains Divko's fragile relationship with Azra and opens up an unexpected but strong attraction between Azra and Martin. Busy fretting over everyday concerns, most of the townsfolk seem to disregard the rumbling political unrest: Croatia has seceded, all Yugoslavs are being forced to take sides, and the Serbs begin bombing Dubrovnik. Although their area is on high alert, many still can't imagine anyone or anything could divide Bosnia and Herzegovina ... (Running time 1:53)

In Bosnian with English Subtitles

Belgium-based trio Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy follow their acclaimed ICEBERG and RUMBA with another Jacques Tati-inspired, candy-colored romp: this time, a charmingly off-kilter adventure about a hotel clerk who falls in love with a wish-granting fairy. (Running time 1:33)

In French With English Subtitles

The anger and outrage captured by graphic artists have defined revolutions through the centuries. Printmakers have depicted the human condition in all its glories and struggles so powerfully that perceptions, attitudes and politics have been dramatically influenced. And the value and impact of this art is even more important today.

In the new documentary, ART IS... THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION, three contemporary American artists and a master printer help explain the dynamic sequences of social reality and protest. Among the wide range of 60 artists on display are Rembrandt, Goya, Daumier, Kollwitz, Dix, Masereel, Grosz, Gropper, and Picasso. While their stirring graphics sweep by, the making of an etching, a woodcut and a lithograph unfolds before our eyes, as the contemporary artists join their illustrious predecessors in creating art of social engagement. (Running time 1:22)

Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? reveals how American corporations orchestrated the dismantling of middle-class prosperity through rampant deregulation, the outsourcing of jobs, and tax policies favoring businesses and the wealthy. The collapse of the U.S. economy is the result of conscious choices made over thirty five years by a small group: leaders of corporations and their elected allies, and the biggest lobbying interest in Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. To these individuals, the collapse is not a catastrophe, but rather the planned outcome of their long, patient work. For the rest of the country, it is merely the biggest heist in American history. (Running time: 1:23)

based on the memories of Marga Spiegel. In her narrative, published in 1965, she describes how courageous farmers in southern Münsterland hid her, her husband Siegfried {named Menne} and their little daughter Karin from 1943 until 1945, thus saving them from deportation to the extermination camps in the East. The film tells this story of survival with a sense for the absurd in daily life and not without the typical Westphalian humor. Without reservation, the farmers offer the refugees their protection. That this turns them into heroes would never occur to them. They are used to weathering even dangerous situations somehow, guided only by their instinct and century-old code of ethics. They risk their own lives, and, if necessary, even that of their families. There is never a discussion about friendship, reliability, humanity. In Yad Vashem the farmers’ names are immortalized: Heinrich Aschoff, Hubert Pentrop, Bernhard Südfeld, Heinrich Silkenböhmer, Bernhard Sickmann. (Running time 1:35)

In German, French & English with English Subtitles

In German-occupied Paris, a young unemployed Algerian named Younes (played by break-out star, Tahar Rahim) earns his living as a black marketeer. Arrested by the French police but given a chance to avoid jail, Younes agrees to spy on the Paris Mosque. The police suspect the Mosque authorities, including its rector Ben Ghabrit, of aiding Muslim Resistance agents and helping North African Jews by giving them false certificates. At the Mosque, Younes meets the Algerian singer Salim Halali, and is moved by Salim's beautiful voice and strong personality. When Younes discovers that Salim is Jewish, he stops collaborating with the police and gradually transforms from a politically ignorant immigrant into a fully-fledged freedom fighter. (Running time 1:39)

An uptight lawyer, Lenny Rubins, (Timothy Spall – The King's Speech), has to put his dream retirement on hold when his ailing mother (Honor Blackman – Goldfinger) emotionally blackmails him into reuniting his estranged children for a holiday gathering. They may be peas from the same pod, but in Lenny’s eyes, his grown-up children are certainly not even from the same planet: a ruthless control-freak and hard-nosed capitalist (James Callis – Battlestar Galactica), an outspoken, argumentative eco-warrior committed to the cause (Rhona Mitra – Underworld: Rise of the Lycans), an outer-worldly Buddhist Monk; and to cap it all, a bible bashing born-again Rabbi! While they might quarrel, fight, and perhaps even be starting a war in Africa, they are still family. It is going to take a whole lot of soul-searching and sacrifice for everyone to come together in this heart-warming and comic family reunion that will have you thinking fondly of your own. (Running Time: 1:39)

On a lonely stretch of Texas highway, a rusty billboard declares "Dell City -- The Valley of Hidden Waters". Once a thriving town of several thousand, Dell City is down to a few hundred stubborn souls committed to life in a tough desert oasis. Taking an original approach to documentary filmmaking, Josh Carter travels to Dell City and asks people what they would film there. He then helps some of the residents make their ideas into short films. Surprising and heartfelt, these shorts take on everyday subjects in Dell City that are full of personal meaning for each filmmaker. They reveal life in Dell City as pictured by those who know it best. Like much of rural America, Dell City has experienced a long, slow decline that continues unabated. TALES FROM DELL CITY, TEXAS paints a complex and charming portrait of the people who remain in Dell City. Mostly at ease in their choice to live in such a remote and challenging environment, they face an uncertain future with humor and determination. (Running time )

An Encounter with Simone Weil tells the story of French philosopher, activist, and mystic, Simone Weil (1909-1943) -- a woman Albert Camus described as "the only great spirit of our time." On her quest to understand Simone Weil, filmmaker Julia Haslett confronts profound questions of moral responsibility both within her own family and the larger world. From the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War to anti-war protests in Washington DC, from intimate exchanges between the filmmaker and her older brother (who struggles with depression) to captivating interviews with people who knew Simone Weil, the film takes us on an unforgettable journey into the heart of what it means to be a compassionate human being. (Running time 1:25)

This is a documentary film that is based on corporate corruption. It is a true "David and Goliath" story. It is a film that recounts the epic story of Walter L. Shaw, an engineering genius who, almost half a century ago, invented the technology that transformed the rudimentary telephone system of the early 1900s into the foundation of today’s cutting-edge global telecommunications industry. It is narrated by Frank Langella. This film is the story a man with the visionary genius, passion and integrity that should have made him the quintessential candidate for achieving the ‘American Dream.’ But a monopoly-controlled telecommunications company made sure his revolutionary inventions never saw the light of day. Instead, Walter L. Shaw’s life took another direction, when, in order to provide for his family, he invented the infamous ‘black box,’ exposing his son Walter T. Shaw to the world of organized crime, and creating a ripple effect that would damage their family for generations to come. (Running time 1:28)

In this sexy, French romantic drama, two couples decide to explore the boundaries of their relationships by swapping partners. What starts as a fun, free-spirited ménage-a-4 experimentation full of sleepovers, shared vacations, and dinner parties soon turns into a hotbed of desire, anger, and confusion. As their arrangement leads them down an increasingly surprising and provocative path, the lovers begin to question their personal choices and lifestyles, leading to consequences none of them could foresee. (Running time 1:05)

In French with English Subtitiles

“God Save My Shoes” is the first documentary film to explore the intimate relationship women have with their shoes. To understand how shoes have come to hold such a pivotal place in pop culture, sexuality and women’s lives, God Save my Shoes turned to many of those who play a role in the global shoe phenomenon: Extreme shoe lovers, fashion historians and editors, psychologists, sex experts, shoe fetishists, and star designers Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik, Walter Steiger, Pierre Hardy, Bruno Frisoni, and Robert Clergerie, along with such celebrities as Fergie, Kelly Rowland and Dita Von Teese. With its psychological, sociocultural, and erotic take—from ancient elevated soles to today’s skyscraping stilettos, from Marilyn Monroe to Sex & the City—God Save my Shoes brings an offbeat and captivating answer to the universally puzzling relationship between women and their shoes. (Running time 1:10)

Player Hating: A Love Story follows Half-a-Mill and his Brooklyn crew, The Godfia Criminals, as they struggle to launch Milion, in an effort to attain money, success and recognition through music. Player Hating delves intimately into the lives of young “thugs”, and takes the viewer into an underground world of poverty, alienation, gangs, violence and music that most audience members have an inkling of, but few rarely see—unless they’ve lived it. (Running time: 1:35)

The Havana Film Festival New York (HFFNY) is as a platform for films from Central and South America, the Caribbean and Mexico as well as Latino films from the U.S. that lack the recognition they deserve. A project of the American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba (AFLFC), HFFNY is proud to represent the largest collection of Cuban films and showcase those Latino cinematic gems that are rarely screened in the U.S.

The delivery of a battered suitcase to Fumiko Ishioka at the Tokyo Holocaust Museum begins the true-life mystery that became the subject of Karen Levineʼs best-selling book Hanaʼs Suitcase. The suitcase came from the Auschwitz Museum and had Hana Bradyʼs name painted on it. Larry Weinsteinʼs masterful film follows Fumikoʼs search to discover the details of Hanaʼs life, which leads to the discovery of her brother George in Toronto. As small children they had been sent to Thereisenstadt for being Jewish after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. A superb musical score by Alexina Louie and Alex Pauk, coupled with dramatic reenactments stunningly shot by Horst Zeidler, catches us by the heart to invoke the tragedy of the times. The voices of children from Japan, Canada, and the Czech Republic telling Hanaʼs story are woven around the drama, along with Georgeʼs memories and Fumikoʼs quest, to create a film of astonishing power and hope. (Running time 1:30)

Founded in 1869, Cherry Grove is considered by most to be the first openly LGBTQ community in the United States. It has become known as one of the most accepting resort communities – a place where you can not only discover who you are, but also freely experiment with who or what (gender) you may want to become. This film tells the stories of a variety of long-term residents and what they find so wonderful about life in Cherry Grove.