Social & External
The people behind it
Cristian Menezes
Lonely Boy
After his daughter persuades him to move into a new apartment, aged widower Fred strikes up a friendship with his eccentric 74-year-old neighbour Elsa, who convinces him it's never too late to keep enjoying life. Although he seemed resigned to a miserable bedridden existence, Fred embraces Elsa's youthful enthusiasm as she introduces him to the path of life and entertains him with outlandish stories about her past life. But when he discovers Elsa's terminally ill, Fred decides to accompany her on the trip of her dreams to the eternal city of Rome to help her fulfil a lifelong ambition.
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defence minister and his wife move next door, forcing the Secret Service to order the trees' removal for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority, Israeli army, and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?
Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.
An unapologetic former sex worker starts working at a bento stand in a small seaside town, bringing comfort to the lonely souls who come her way.
Friday, 11 p.m. Carla, a woman in her forties, is alone in her office. She gets a call. It's Raúl, a young guy who sells cocaine. Tonight will be the last night that Raúl works as a dealer. He wants to change his life.
Percy Nilegaard collects Swedish single men and embarks on a bus trip to Tallinn with a so-called "highly-experienced driver".
Recently widowed after 41 years of marriage, Frank Walsh meets the outgoing Florence, sparking joy back into his life again. However, there is clear disapproval of her from his grown children, especially his eldest son Robert. As Frank and Florence grow closer in their relationship, Robert begins to change his perspective on their commitment and devotion to one another.
Kei works at a cocktail bar, while Ai works as a model. Fearing she'll be ostracized by society, Kei chooses not to admit her sexual orientation to anyone, and, as a result, she becomes distressed and lonely. One day, Kei gets close to Naima, an Iranian student studying art in Japan.
Uriel is a man haunted by regret after losing his friends and recalls the one time one of his friends got lost to maybe find a clue on where to find them, looking at the time where his friend 'Santi Hammer´ got lost and how that was the last time he saw his friends.
Erika, David, and Pjerrot arrive at the train tracks. They have to wait for the next freight train to arrive, because Erika has given them a challenge that will make them feel alive. But what is going on in their home, and why are they seeking the border? Perhaps it is not just a game.
Félix finds a young man lying unconscious on the beach and realizes he has scales on his back. Félix takes him home and takes care of him.
After Maribel Cruz Mejía's death, all that remains is a recording. Through it, a woman tries to preserve the memory of the greatest love of her life and of the person she once was.
The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
A poetic story about the first love of the village girl Natasha, loyal to the memory of the deceased fiancé. In peacetime, the heroine's fiancé blew up on a land mine that remained on the collective farm field since the war, and her life turned into a nightmare. But sooner or later, dreams end and the world opens again. Pregnant Natasha goes to the institutions, seeking to be signed with the father of the unborn child who died tragically. At the end, after long ordeals, she comes to the conclusion that writing in the marriage book will not change anything in her life.
The story of a lonely man who is caught in a perpetual cycle of time. He hangs in limbo, between reality and dreams. His only companions are a maid, a cat, and a grandfather clock. The same things are happening in his life and he becomes increasingly frustrated.
A disillusioned psychologist tries to commit suicide until he strikes up a friendship with an unlikely saviour who teaches him a new way of living.
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
A man is released from prison after 15 years. He reunites with his high school girlfriend, now a single mother of three. What follows is a lyrical take on love, regret and second chances.
An 11-year-old girl watches her father come down with a crippling depression. Over one summer, she learns answers to several mysteries and comes to terms with love and loss.
South America, 1960. A lonely and grumpy Holocaust survivor convinces himself that his new neighbor is none other than Adolf Hitler. Not being taken seriously, he starts an independent investigation to prove his claim, but when the evidence still appears to be inconclusive, Polsky is forced to engage in a relationship with the enemy in order to obtain irrefutable proof.
At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
Tracey Berkowitz, 15, a self-described normal girl, loses her 9-year old brother, Sonny. In flashbacks and fragments, we meet her overbearing parents and the sweet, clueless Sonny. We watch Tracey navigate high school, friendless, picked on and teased. She develops a thing for Billy Zero, a new student, imagining he's her boyfriend. We see the day she loses Sonny and we watch her try to find him.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
A disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem.
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
In a small village, a lonely fisherman yearning for a son is drawn to an ethereal light that links him to others and their long-buried secrets.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
When strangers Jim, Eva, Emily and Mo meet William online in his new 'Chelsea Teens!' chatroom, they're completely seduced by his fast-talking, charismatic character. But beneath the surface lies a much darker truth. William is a dangerous loner, channeling all his energies into cyberspace. He's become an analyser, a calculating manipulator who finds it almost impossible to interact normally with others in the real world, instead turning his hand to manipulating people online.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.