In the City of SylviaMovies like In the City of Sylvia
- Key Features:
- Memory, Obsession, Searching, Past, Unrequited love, Mystery, Nostalgia, Existential, Contemplative
- Tone:
- poetic, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Arthouse cinema enthusiasts, Fans of slow-burn narratives, Those interested in memory and identity
- Emotional Arc:
- Longing → Reflection
In the City of Sylvia

A man returns to a city to try to track down a woman he met six years earlier.
In the City of Sylvia
Sylvia is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life: her daughter, her job, her AA meetings. This is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they open the door to the past.

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.

Jota's suicide attempt is interrupted when a motorcyclist crashes off a bridge. After he rescues her, he decides to invent a life story for her — one of love and shared memories — creating a fragile web of deception that intertwines their fates.

Years after his mysterious disappearance, Julio Arenas, a famous Spanish actor, is back in the news thanks to a television program.

After getting into a minor traffic accident, Pablo attempts to make light of the situation by asking the driver of the other car, Sonsoles, out on a date. When she refuses and instead files an injury report, Pablo snaps and begins stalking her. He soon discovers that Sonsoles has a beautiful teenage sister, Maria, with whom Pablo is immediately infatuated -- a lust that soon turns dark. Can Pablo control his obsession, or will it consume him?

Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget.

Seven years after their first infatuated encounter, Abril and Manuel meet again. Despite the fact that they are both married, it is soon apparent that their attraction has only grown.

A woman recalls her childhood growing up in the North of Spain, focusing on her relationship with her father.

After ending his long-term relationship, Antonio is sure that he can quickly get over Sofia. But nothing is as simple as it seems. And realizing the impossibility of controlling his own feelings, he begins to boycott them, using all sorts of contemporary palliative measures to free himself from the memories of his ex: cognitive psychoanalysis, prescription drugs, Tinder, among others. Ergo, Antonio will go through several tragicomic situations.

As the first snow falls in Seoul, two old friends reunite; one is a successful college professor, and the other, a struggling filmmaker recently returned from the United States. After their reminiscences, they finally decide to go in search of the young woman each had romanced years earlier.

Ten years have gone by since Elena's six-year old son has disappeared. The last thing she heard of him was a phone call he gave her, saying that he was lost on a beach in France and couldn't find his father. Nowadays, Elena lives on this same beach and manages a restaurant. She is finally beginning to emerge from this tragic episode when she meets a French teenager who strongly reminds her of her lost son. The two of them will embark on a relationship which will sow chaos and distrust around them.

After running into something with her car, Vero experiences a particular psychological state. She realizes she might have killed someone.

A young man from a small mining town embroils himself with a wealthy family with a dubious past.

Lucía and Ofelia, two sisters, finally meet after 7 years of cold relationships upon Lucia 's wedding. But when Juan, Lucia's husband, and Ofelia meet, they feel like a disruptive fantasy have enchanted their minds and bodies...

Nicolas Bannister, a rugged and solitary veteran living in a near-future Miami flooded by rising seas, is an expert in a dangerous occupation: he offers clients the chance to relive any memory they desire. His life changes when he meets a mysterious young woman named Mae. What begins as a simple matter of lost and found becomes a passionate love affair. But when a different client's memories implicate Mae in a series of violent crimes, Bannister must delve through the dark world of the past to uncover the truth about the woman he fell for.

Twenty-five years ago Adib, a promising young officer in the Syrian military police, suddenly left Damascus under suspicious circumstances. Abandoning the love of his life Fatima, he made his way to Canada and wiped the slate clean. When his daughter Muna suddenly disappears in Damascus, his past threatens to violently catch up to him. Teaming up with a Canadian emissary, Adib must now confront the turmoil he thought he left behind in order to find Muna.

While searching for his fiancee Ritsuko, Sakutarou rediscovers through flashbacks the void deep within him caused by the events from his high school days.

Hoping to put to rest years of unease concerning a past case, retired criminal investigator Benjamín begins writing a novel based on the unsolved mystery of a newlywed’s rape and murder. With the help of a former colleague, judge Irene, he attempts to make sense of the past.

Antoine works in a bar in Paris. One evening on his way home from work, he intervenes when a man tries to commit suicide. He feels strangely guilty about having saved the man's life and constantly tries to help him, make things better. No matter what Antoine does, he can't get Louis's mind off Blanche, the woman of his dreams, his sole obsession, the reason why he wanted to die... Antoine decides to look for her, but doesn't let Louis know.

Lisbon, Portugal, 2010. Pilar, a pious woman devoted to social causes, maintains a peculiar relationship with her neighbor Aurora, a temperamental old woman obsessed with gambling who lives tormented by a mysterious past.

After a global neurological epidemic, those who remain search for meaning and connection in a world without memory. Five interwoven stories each explore a different facet of life without memory in a future that has no past.

Julián, a middle-aged single doctor, is reunited with Pablo, a childhood friend who has just married Elena, a beautiful young woman.

Lila, a famous retired singer, loses her memory after suffering an accident, just as she planned her return to the stage.

Meeting by chance when they return to their tiny California hometown, two former high-school sweethearts reflect on their shared past.

A former bank robber is released after 10 years in prison. He gets help from a social-worker, but gets harassed by an old cop from his past.

A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.

After hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, a Scottish woman begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia.

The sudden disappearance of a wealthy banker's wife cracks open a dizzying world of secret fetishes, desperate acts and elaborate deceptions.

While he's receiving an enigmatic phone call from his girlfriend Francine, Thomas remembers the milestones of their relationship, from the very moment they met in a really strange way. A segment of “Paris, je t'aime” (2006).

Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.

Gallery director Stanislas bolsters the development of modern art with his collection of surprising works. His newest acquisition is a sculpture by Gilbert, whose wife Josée is captivated by Stanislas. But unbeknownst to her, Stanislas is amassing photographs of a very perverse, disturbed nature.

To celebrate his 90th birthday, an old single journalist, Sabio, wants something special from Rosa Cabarcas’s brothel: an intense night of love with a virgin teenager. The madam finds him the ideal young woman, Delgadina, a factory worker, who is selling her virginity to support her family. When he sees Delgadina sleeping angelically, he loses interest in pure pleasure and falls in love with her. That love was not meant to be true, but fate changes, and that hope is born of an opportunity for unbridled love.

The story of the encounter between a boy and a girl. He confesses that he fell in love with her at first sight, but she does not believe him. However, as they walk through the night in Madrid, they share their desires, secrets, and maybe a few little lies. But soon the film brings us back to the harsh reality of power struggles, psychological games and conflicts between the sexes. Stockholm thus offers an incredible reading of the relations between young people today.

Late one evening Alex suddenly abandons his girlfriend, Simone, to pursue the beautiful Aimee. In his encounter with Aimee time and place dissolve for him and he becomes a stranger to Simone, to whom he cannot return.

A man becomes involved in a memory manipulation operation to try and regain lost memories. He thinks the exercise may help repair his failed marriage, but accidentally ends up with the mind of a serial killer.

Alejandra and her dad Roberto have just moved to town. She is new at school, he has a new job. Starting over is sometimes complicated when you have left so much behind.

A young woman returns home and must confront her ex-boyfriend when an unexpected tragedy occurs.

Sebastiano teaches high school gym classes and coaches swimming. He’s got a job, a girlfriend, and a pretty normal life. But as young Martin starts to infiltrate Sebastiano’s life, his world will get turned upside down. Eerie from the first frame, this Hitchcockian thriller portrays sexual obsession with terrifying realism.

Follows six very different men and their struggles with women, family and work. Yet, they are somehow connected to each other.

A wealthy New Orleans businessman becomes obsessed with a young woman who resembles his late wife.

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

A radio-show assistant meets a budding screenwriter during a group-therapy session for sex addicts.

In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs incident, Sergio chooses to stay behind in Cuba while his wife and family escape to neighboring Miami. Alone in a brave new world, Sergio observes the constant threat of foreign invasion while chasing young women all over Havana. He finally meets Elena, a young girl he seeks to mould into the image of his ex-wife, but at what cost to himself?

Anita, a young woman with a troubled childhood and a hunger for love, finds a soul mate in Erik, a kindly college student.

While traveling, Emmanuelle meets Kei, a man who constantly eludes her. Though she indulges in the many alluring distractions, she can’t shake their chance encounter. Will she submit to her basest desires to forge a deeper relationship?

Mexico City. Every day, Beatriz is insulted and humiliated by her jealous husband, but she does not flee his side because they have created a codependency and, at least for her, she would not conceive of her life any other way: by dint of feeling humiliated, she feels desired and desirable.

After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

In Paris, six people all look for love, despite typically having their romantic aspirations dashed at every turn.

Thomas, a father in his fifties, returns by chance to the town where he grew up. He collapses and wakes up forty years earlier in the body of his teenage self. Thrown back into his past, Thomas will not only have to re-live his first love, but also try to understand the reasons for his father’s mysterious departure. Can you change the past by living it again?

Quiet Jose woos cafe worker Ana, but she is unaware he has intentions other than the purely romantic.

Waking up in an unfamiliar city, a man with no memory must confront the mysteries of his own identity. However, his desperate search to uncover the past pits him against a powerful enemy, leading to a showdown that ultimately reveals the truth.

Three months after surviving a terrorist attack in a bistro, Mia is still traumatized and unable to recall the events of that night. In an effort to move forward, she investigates her memories and retraces her steps.

A photographer, Isaac is asked by hotel owners to take portraits of their recently deceased daughter Angélica. When he looks at her through the lens of his camera, she appears to come back to life just for him. He instantly falls in love with her. From that moment, he will be haunted by Angélica day and night.

A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life.

Sibyl, a jaded psychotherapist, returns to her first passion: writing. But her newest patient Margot, a troubled up-and-coming actress, proves to be a source of inspiration that is far too tempting. Fascinated almost to the point of obsession, Sibyl becomes more and more involved in Margot’s tumultuous life, reviving volatile memories that bring her face to face with her past.

Lucio and Martina used to share an indescribable chemistry during their highschool years, however, they took separate ways. 25 years later they meet again, but this time they decide to invent an ideal life in order to hide themselves from an inevitable truth: they were really waiting for each other in all of these years.

Childhood friends Matías and Jerónimo reach adolescence and experience sexual attraction to each other, before being separated by circumstances. Later, as young adults, they meet again, and the film follows themes of complicated relationships and sexual tensions, as well as issues of homophobia.

Years after moving to a remote town, ex-cop Pipa is pulled back into the dark world she thought she'd left behind when a corpse appears on her property.

After 30 years of wrongful imprisonment for murder, a woman is released from prison and plans to take revenge on the man who framed her - her former lover, a wealthy member of the ruling class.

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

A business mogul runs into his old small town girlfriend while she is visiting the big city only to find out that they had a child together that he was unaware of.

Nina is a young, carefree actress who arrives in Paris searching for her big break. There, she finds drama both on- and offstage as she becomes involved with three men: a mild-mannered real-estate agent who offers her stability, a bad-boy actor who lives dangerously on the edge, and an intense theater director who casts her in a production of “Romeo and Juliet.” As opening night approaches, the emotional extremes of Nina’s love life fuel her art.

A portrait of the director’s young adulthood, set in the 1940s–1950s, in the electric capital city of Santiago. There, he decides to become a poet and is introduced, by destiny, into the foremost bohemian and artistic circle of the time.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

Petra heads to New York in search of her older sister after a long time of being separated. They are both movie actresses and heirs of the wounds of the Brazilian dictatorship. But Petra has only a few clues: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary...

After the renewed flings with their former lovers prove to be disastrously unlike the romantic memories, an unfaithful couple returns to each other.

A Spanish orchestra conductor deals with the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend.

In 1987 Madrid, the unexpected encounter between a seasoned journalist and a young student leads to a profound exploration of love, desire, politics, power, and discovery of each other.

Movie director Niccolò has just been left by his wife. Subsequently he embarks on an obsessive relationship with a young woman who eventually leaves him and disappears while searching for her, he meets a variety of other willing girls. This gives him the idea of making a movie about women's relationships. He starts to search for a woman who can play the leading part in the movie.

Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment - even a wife. But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong. Andreas makes an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there's no way out. Andreas meets Hugo, who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar. Beautiful music streams out from the crack. Maybe it leads to "the other side"? A new plan for escape is hatched.

Pierre and Manon are poor. They make documentaries with nothing and they live by doing odd jobs. Pierre meets a young intern, Elisabeth, and she becomes his mistress. But Pierre will not leave Manon for Elisabeth; he wants to keep both.

Tomás, who lives in Canada, travels to Madrid, Spain, to visit his old friend Julián. Both of them, accompanied by Truman, Julián's faithful dog, will share many surprising and emotional little moments, triggered by the hard situation Julián is going through, for just a few days.

Pablo, a successful film director, disappointed in his relationship with his young lover, Juan, concentrates in a new project, a monologue starring his transgender sister, Tina. Antonio, an uptight young man, falls possessively in love with the director and in his passion would stop at nothing to obtain the object of his desire.

After etching their love on a stalk, a boy and girl reunite years later, reigniting their romance amidst the Mexican Revolution.

Just as the disheveled and alcoholic filmmaker Ismaël embarks on a difficult new film project, his life is sent into a tailspin. His wife Carlotta, presumed dead for 20 years, come crashing back into his life creating chaos in his work and his current romantic relationship with the starry-eyed astronomer Sylvia.

After an older lady hangs herself in a church, a new psychiatrist discovers she was obsessed with the disappearance of his eight-year-old son, who vanished three years earlier. Meanwhile, three city dwellers are restoring a house when they realize it is haunted.

A woman wakes up in a river. Wounded and without memory, then races to elude mysterious followers and recover from amnesia.

Soo-jin, who lost her memories due to a horrible incident, starts suspecting her husband. She is confused between reality and illusion, truth and lies.

Told from the man's perspective, the story of a couple trying to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.

In the polarized and violent Medellín (Colombia's 'City of Eternal Spring') of the 1970s, doctor Héctor Abad Gómez is concerned about both his children and children from less favored classes. After a devastating loss in the family, Héctor gives himself to the greater cause of public health programs for the poor in Medellín to the consternation of the city's authorities.

A woman watches time pass beside the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn't understand that his master has abandoned him.

Kwon returns to Seoul from a restorative stay in the mountains. She is given a packet of letters left by Mori, who has come back from Japan to propose to her. Kwon drops and scatters the letters, all of which are undated. When she reads them, she has to make sense of the chronology.

A once-respected surgeon who's lost his family and his memory gets a chance at redemption when he reconnects with someone from his forgotten past.

Max is a former playboy who has decided to settle down by marrying his current love, Muriel. However, when Max catches a glimpse of the great lost love of his life, he becomes obsessed with rekindling their relationship.

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

A woman with no memories runs in fear through the night when she is rescued by a man passing by. They will both have to figure out who her mysterious enemies are and what they want to achieve.

Sylvia, an industrial scientist, is troubled by strange hallucinations related to the tragic suicide of her mother.

The story of a husband who suspects his wife of adultery, and sets out to track down the other man in her life.

Simone inherits a dilapidated farmhouse in France and makes her way there with her husband Eric and their two children. Her dream is to turn the house into a bed and breakfast but as the hectic pace of the rebuilding gets underway, she gets caught up in the romance and chaos of it all. Losing sight of her goals, she must find her way back to the dreams and ambitions which brought her there in the first place.

Gloria encounters Francisco, a man whose social veneer betrays a truer self burrowed underneath.

After his father's death, Eric Zimmerman travels to Spain to oversee his company's branches. In Madrid, he falls for Judith and engage in an intense, erotic relationship full of exploration. However, Eric fears his secret may end their affair.

In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.

A group of literature-loving friends bury letters to be opened 10 years later when they will confront the dreams of their youth with what the future has held in store for them.

A retired academic teacher tries to find the love of his youth after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

After moving to Bogotá for a chance at a better life, a young Korean man rises through the Colombian black market — risking peril for a shot at success.

Franck wants a quiet life and a fresh start. After 15 years of a failed theatre career, he finds a seemingly perfect job: museum guard. But that is before he meets Sybille, his neurotic colleague.



