A reflection on loss, pain, sex and breathing.
Social & External
The people behind it
Maurício Barcellos
Igor Mo
Hao, a chubby gay man, works as a janitor at a gay spa. For him, romantic relationships are an unreachable dream. One day, an attractive customer, Kai, walks into the place, and Hao has the opportunity to massage him.
A teen raised in a southern home in the mid-1960s risks everything to cross-dress for the first time after receiving an invitation to an underground party.
Camille is a professor at a Protestant college and is in a long-term relationship with Martin, a respected minister and fellow professor. When Camille meets Petra, a bold and flamboyant performer in a circus troupe, she is inexplicably drawn. Pursuing Petra, Camille throws her whole conservative life into disarray.
An egotistic, self-centric painter discovers he has developed a life-changing disease. Choosing to forget his troubled past, he immerses himself in painting, reshaping his memories to imagine a different past.
Mélanie Prouvost, a ten-year-old butcher's daughter, is a gifted pianist. That is why she and her parents decide that she sit for the Conservatory entrance exam. Although Mélanie is very likely to be admitted, she unfortunately gets distracted by the president of the jury's offhand attitude and she fails. Ten years later, Mélanie becomes her page turner, waiting patiently for her revenge.
Paris, in the early 1990s: a group of young activists is desperately tied to finding the cure against an unknown lethal disease. They target the pharmaceutical labs that are retaining potential cures, and multiply direct actions, with the hope of saving their lives as well as the ones of future generations.
Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him, but soon discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.
In the course of one afternoon, Raphael's paradise turns into a spiral of guilt and paranoia.
A gang of students pulls an elaborate scam to make some money until they find themselves caught in their own gimmick.
Arnold Beckoff is looking for love and acceptance, but as a gay man working as a female impersonator in 1970s New York City, neither come easily. After a series of heartaches, Arnold believes he has found the love of his life in Alan, and the couple make plans to adopt. But when tragedy strikes, Arnold's life is shaken to its very core, leading to a confrontation with his overbearing mother, who has never approved of her son's lifestyle.
After succumbing to a night of passion with gorgeous Kate Collins, married Eric Roarke discovers the mysterious temptress won't give him up easily. Eric's life spirals out of control as Kate's increasingly possessive behavior threatens his marriage and his life.
Five lonesome cowboys get all hot and bothered at home on the range after confronting Ramona Alvarez and her nurse.
'Guacho' narrates a summer day in the life of two teenage friends, Maikol and Darío, who want to escape their everyday crushing reality, at least for a day. They spend up to the last penny to get to the mountains where, taking refuge in tranquility and mutual love, they manage to get a grasp of happiness. But freedom does not seem to be so available to them.
Manuel is a gay Latino teen who lacks guidance and support. Even though his mother, Anna deeply cares for him, she is only able to prove and instill her love through video tapes made from afar. Keeping his sexuality and boyfriend a secret from his homophobic father, Manuel must decide the life he wants to live or end.
A community of women lives in an old convent that falls apart. They never talk and strive to keep everything clean. One day, Irene realizes for the first time that there is much more beyond the routine she and her sisters keep doing over and over. Irene, following nature’s signs, starts a journey of reconnection with her own impulses and body to finally find her own voice.
A young boy overcomes the communication obstacle he has with the object of his affection: A deaf girl.
A visiting city reporter's assignment suddenly revolves around the murder trial of a local millionaire, whom he befriends.
“There must be a different solution than the one from hell’. Full unadulterated terror (and music). 'The best class always ends with a lesson'. Almost baroque in its ambition and detail, Akerman and Seabra Lopes’ mesmerising short film delves deeply into the hard-wired dread of music lessons. Sewn around Schubert’s steely Opus 1, which is itself based on the no less terrifying legend of Goethe's Erlkönig, their film is a revelation.” International Film Festival Rotterdam.
16-year-old Ina is in love for the first time; her boyfriend is 17-year-old Christoph. Their role models in terms of relationships are the very emotional Helen and the self-confident Markus. Then Helen says that she is very likely pregnant, and Ina becomes concerned.
An array of outrageous people, including a desperate nymphomaniac and a terrorist with an acute sense of smell, seek love and happiness in Madrid.
Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.
Grieving parents journey through an emotional void as they mourn the loss of a child after a tragic school shooting.
10-year-old Pixote endures torture, degradation, and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of its members are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old trans hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape and they start to make their living by a life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.
When Gabriel, a 7-year-old Chinese kid who loves ballet, becomes friends with Rob, another Chinese kid from school, Rob’s dad gets suspicious about Gabriel's feminine behavior and decides to intervene.
Sergio is a brooding, alienated man who works as a trash collector in Lisbon by day and roams the city streets by night seeking rough, anonymous sex with men. One night he meets a man who seems to be the embodiment of his tormented fantasies, and he becomes obsessed with the stranger until loneliness and unfulfilled desire propel him finally into a dark and dangerous animalistic state.
After several behavior problems, teenager John is admitted to a psychiatric clinic by his family. There he meets Judith, for who he soon falls in love. The problem is that she does not have long to live and they know it. This shall not prevent the emergence of a great romance in the clinic.
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
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.
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.
When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
A nameless drifter navigates a barren landscape punctuated by satellite dishes, radio towers and droning airplanes. Stopping periodically in anonymous hotel rooms, she makes attempts to connect to an unidentified second party.
Teenage gang member Cal, hides his sexuality from his fellow gang members despite their often violent dislike of anyone that isn't the same as them, be they unsuspecting shoppers, foreign students, gays, etc. When his world collides with Olivier, a student he rescues from a pointless beating, he encounters a lifestyle that presents as many new experiences as it does obstacles.
Davey Gordon, a New York City boxer at the end of his career, falls for dancer Gloria Price. However, their budding relationship is interrupted by Gloria's violent boss, Vincent Rapallo, who has eyes for Gloria. The two decide to skip town, but before they can, Vincent and his thugs abduct Gloria, and Davey is forced to search for her among the most squalid corners of the city, with his enemy hiding in the shadows.
Paul, a 20 year old midwesterner, arrives at the central bus station and quickly catches eyes with Wye, a 22 year old girl voguing on the sidewalk. After Paul seeks her out in secret, an intense love between them blossoms. But when Paul discovers Wye is trans, he is forced to confront his own identity and what it means to belong.
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
Biographical drama based on the last 20 years of Crisp's life. The literary figure and gay iconoclast emigrated to New York in 1981 and lived there until his death. The film observes Crisp in both his public and private lives, from his seemingly cavalier response to the outbreak of AIDS to his tender relationship with his friend Patrick Angus and his own response to growing old.
Agnes and her two sisters struggle through a day in a home overrun by gamblers, thieves, and johns.
