Thumbsucker - Behind the Scenes

Only Me, Me Alone

Longing for acceptance, a neurodivergent boy taunts the boundaries of his best friend: his brother.

plants with spikes or thorns

An experimental short film about sensory seeking behaviour in childhood. Filmed on VHS.

Me & My Shadow

After turning in his fourth late assignment, Sam is sent to his university's counsellor, Dr Miller. Struggling to focus and sit still, Sam reveals how his love for music and all things practical was neglected by his parents, who eventually pushed him into theoretical subjects he can't excel in. When the counsellor suspects he has ADHD, Sam reveals that he sometimes feels all his annoying impulses could be best described as an irritating "shadow"; a loud, brightly-dressed version of himself who never leaves him alone. She then asks Sam to recount the day when the "Shadow" led him through London, prioritising trivial tasks over his assignment, ultimately leading him to not hand it in on time.

Trying

Meg, a millennial painter with ADHD, navigates her life on the way to a job interview. What starts as a simple task turns into a race against the clock as she encounters society’s stigmas, unlikely allies, and challenges from her past.

Nebulosa

Exhausted by the devastation that ADHD has caused to her finances, studies, and friendships, Ana decides to give herself one last chance by participating in a job interview.

Thumbsucker

Justin Cobb, a teenager in suburban Oregon, copes with his thumb-sucking problem, romance, and his diagnosis with ADHD and subsequent experience using Ritalin.

Non Grata

Julia and her son Dani with ADHD attend a birthday party to which they haven’t been invited. Parents seem reluctant to let them in but they end up letting them pass. The party goes on well until an aggression between the kids makes the adults to blame Dani and Julia loses her temper for defending him.

coping.

Three individuals describe their unique ways of coping with everyday stress, anxiety, and mental health. A narrative short film presented as documentary-style interviews, exploring the honest, messy reality of coping mechanisms and neurodivergent life.

The Buzz

Alma (20), who has ADHD, works as a beekeeper but dreams of a life in the city. The day before her university exam, Pietro, her father, expresses his concerns about his daughter’s future. During the test, Alma struggles against the distractions caused by her condition but is interrupted by a tender memory: a bee buzzing around her. This event takes her back in time, to her first encounter with the beehives. What at first seems chaotic reveals itself to her as the most intelligent of natural structures.

Hyper

Jamie is a woman in her 30s who has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. The diagnosis doesn't come as a surprise, in fact it all now makes sense. She's constantly walking on eggshells, always scared of saying the wrong thing. Jamie and Allie are falling in love. Always late, messy and not listening, will Allie lose interest in Jamie?

Freshman's Ballad

The story of a lonely, emotional and almost psychotic freshman’s in his first year of High School.

The Specials

For twenty years, Bruno and Malik have lived in a different world—the world of autistic children and teens. In charge of two separate nonprofit organizations (The Hatch & The Shelter), they train young people from underprivileged areas to be caregivers for extreme cases that have been refused by all other institutions. It’s an exceptional partnership, outside of traditional settings, for some quite extraordinary characters.

The Selfish Giant

A hyperactive boy and his best friend, a slow-witted youth with an affinity for horses, start collecting scrap metal for a shady dealer.

All Day Happy Dance

A single mom has one of her identical twin boys assessed and after being diagnosed with ADHD, he shares his medication, leading to adventures and consequences.

The Worst Ones

The story centres on a group of teenagers street cast in their neighbourhood and selected to play in a feature film during the summer. The film tells the story of this film shoot and of the connections that will be formed during it.

Blue & White

A man suffering with ADHD struggles to get through his daily routine.

Egyéniségek

The Star of Therapy

When Kendra is admitted into group therapy, she becomes overly competitive about completing her weekly goals.

Remedial

As Will struggles to cope with the tragic loss of his father, he and his mother resolve to build a new life by relocating to Houston, Texas. At his new school, Will’s social and learning difficulties lead to a false diagnosis of his condition. Inspired by real events, this film observes one of the loneliest disorders that children recovering from life-altering traumas face.

Girl in the Box

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

Starving in Suburbia

When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?

A Mouthful of Air

Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.

Call Me Crazy: A Five Film

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

Normal

A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.

Most

A poetic and powerful story of a father forced to choose between love and duty.

Tuesday

A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.

Fast Girls

A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.

Effie Gray

A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.

The Truth About Emanuel

A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

Eleanor the Great

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.

Iron Jawed Angels

Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.

Hungry Hearts

The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.

Lorelei

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.

Come Sunday

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

Won't Back Down

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

The Safety of Objects

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.

War Room

The family-friendly movie explores the transformational role prayer plays in the lives of the Jordan family. Tony and Elizabeth Jordan, a middle-class couple who seemingly have it all – great jobs, a beautiful daughter, their dream home. But appearances can be deceiving. In reality, the Jordan’s marriage has become a war zone and their daughter is collateral damage. With the help of Miss Clara, an older, wiser woman, Elizabeth discovers she can start fighting for her family instead of against them. Through a newly energized faith, Elizabeth and Tony’s real enemy doesn’t have a prayer.

Here

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.

The Hummingbird Project

A pair of high-frequency traders go up against their old boss in an effort to make millions in a fiber-optic cable deal.