A reflection on loss, pain, sex and breathing.
Social & External
Unknown Role
Even as a young boy, Beethoven marched to the beat of a different drummer. Trained in the traditional music methods by his father, Beethoven was an accomplished pianist by the age of 12. But he yearned to try new sounds and persevered until audiences heard his music. By his early twenties, this persistent young man performed for Joseph Haydn, who compared him to the great Mozart. Sadly, Beethoven began to lose his hearing, but he threw himself even more deeply into his music, composing "Fur Elise," "Sonata Pathetique" and the dramatic "Fifth Symphony" years later, audience members heard what he could not and leapt to their feet in ecstatic appreciation for such passionate music. His creativity gave the world then, as it does today, music that stirs the soul. The video begins in 1827 with 30,000 people paying tribute to the great Beethoven in Vienna, Austria. Then the video switches to his life as a child...
A short film about a man who struggles with his sexuality.
Sleazy director "auditioning" actresses for a movie and trying to get them to commit to more to get the part.
Former lovers Pich and Shane reconnect through Thai floral art, but Pich’s illness leads Shane to seek peace by becoming a monk.
While discovering the cure for cancer, Dr. Castle (Jenna Castle) has an unexpected delivery.
An actor goes out at night to cover a second job and meets two passengers who invite him to make a detour.
Michael is faced with a dilemma, when a night of drinking with friends, turns into a sensual exploration of sexual identity.
Lost at war, two soldiers struggle to find their moral grounding before their ultimate demise.
A masked man is stalking a young couple, Bette and Anthony
Torn between the desire to protect his little brother in a violent world and the longing for the utopia of a queer community, Hector (23) embarks on a journey between reality and fantasy to reflect on his own experience of violence and to find closeness to his brother again.
The circus dancer Lulu is a thoroughly liberal being. Although she loves her former savior, the clown Alfredo, she begins a relationship with the noble Henri von Reithofen. Henri kills himself ruined by the horrendous expenses for Lulu. She however is fishing for the next rich patron, the much older Baron Waldheim. His son knows Lulu and warns his father that she will also hurt him. Waldheim succumbs to Lulus's insinuations and punishes his son.
Short film from Taiwan.
A lonely young lady strolls through the busy streets of a big city in the evening and casts meaningful glances at passers-by. Short conversations ensue and a man finally invites her to his place. He laboriously prepares dinner for her, but she becomes increasingly bored and suddenly disappears. She walks through the streets again and finally enters a record store. With ambiguous words she attracts the attention of the salesman, then the movie ends.
Short film directed by Orly Toren
A word or phrase whose meaning does not change whether spelt backwards or forwards. A young man loses everything he has in one day. He is fired from his job, kicked out of his hotel, betrayed by his colleagues and turned down by an old flame. We see this ordinary tale told backwards in time
Two best friends attend the funeral of a Hebrew school classmate who died by suicide and accidentally damage their friendship beyond repair.
A family faces a difficult farewell after breakfast one morning.
A dance group rehearses for their latest performance Inabitáveis about black homosexuality. While the choreographer conducts research and gives guided tours, he meets Pedro, a young trans girl looking for her own means of expression. She desperately wants to be taught by him.
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.
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.
Sean is taken to a motel and is given a prostitute for his 18th birthday by his father. He must sleep with her to "fix" his questionable homosexuality. "Pretty Boy" is a coming of age story of a young bullied teen, Sean, struggling with his sexuality and the hardships of high school. After his father finds some questionable magazines in his room, this devout Christian will go to any lengths to get his son to find the light and "perform" the way a man should. Sean is introduced to Katie, a prostitute that understands the stigmas of modern society and helps him see the true light that is within him.
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
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.
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.
A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.
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.
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 tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
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.
After breaking up with her boyfriend, a woman named Odete descends into madness and claims to be pregnant with the child of her neighbour Pedro, who died in a car crash and is mourned by his boyfriend Rui.
A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.
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.
The continuation of Joe's sexually dictated life delves into the darker aspects of her adult life and what led to her being in Seligman's care.
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.
In this Oscar-winning short film, grieving parents journey through an emotional void as they mourn the loss of a child after a tragic school shooting.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
A young man of Chinese-Cambodian descent dies, leaving behind his isolated mother and his lover of four years. Though the two don't share a language, they grow close through their grief.
An outrageous erotic poem focusing on the daydreams of a beautiful boy prostitute who, from the seclusion of his ultra-kitsch apartment, conceives a series of interlinked narcissistic fantasies populated by matadors, dancing boys, slaves, and leather-clad bikers.
