Boys Feels: Desire in the Dark

These five award-winning coming of age short films offer a glimpse of how boys and young men tackle life's difficult desires: confronting one's demons, understanding sexual relationships, gaining the respect of one's father, or simply running away from it all. This is only the start of their complex formative years, where not every question has an answer, and not every answer makes sense. The short films are: Boys [Pojkarna] (2015); Ioana (2015); Kiem Holijanda (2017); Picnic [Piknik] (2015); Tomer & Elias [Tomer en Elias] (2016).

Amen

Begoña, Pelayo and María are saying a last goodbye to their mother. Confusion arises when they discover she wanted to be buried in a very special outfit.

Lazy Boy

Ray discovers his La-Z-Boy recliner is a one-minute time machine. Will he learn from his mistakes or is he destined to repeat them forever?

Aline

Alban lives in a ski resort with his mother. Each night, the teenager slips away to meet up with Julien – this boy who curiously has the same name as the hero of the novel Alban is devouring.

Mary No More

A contemplative coming of age drama. With her grandmother's impending death, 18 year old Mary finds it difficult to connect, instead growing ever closer to her cousin Cameron.

Totality

An astronomer and his daughter embark on a camping trip to see the eclipse.

An Alley Behind Our House

The story of two youngster girls who became the victims of female genital mutilation.

Dreams Come True

Alice: Crack of Season

Yoon-hye likes Da-joo more than just as a friend but denies her feelings for the sake of their friendship. After some events following Da-joo being introduced to a boy, Yoon-hye is not able to hide her emotions anymore.

Canine

Karin and Peter have been married for almost 15 years. From the outside, they seem happy, but behind the closed doors of the house there is a repression. Then the dog Orion steps into their lives ...

The Last Rung on the Ladder

Larry is one of the most respected corporate lawyers in the country. You might say he has everything in life one could want - except everything that one needs. He shares his life with nobody and has saturated himself into his work to the point where it is his world. When his sister, Katrina, falls victim to circumstances of life, he is nowhere to be found. The Last Rung On The Ladder is a story about loss and regret.

Judas

Two opposing gangs. Two individuals from either side of the dispute. In Judas, watch as they come together and share a moment during a seemingly innocent game of basketball.

Right of Way

Two joggers attempt to restart their run after their paths intersect.

Jamie

After chatting to a guy online, Jamie makes the bold step to meet up with him in person.

We Love Moses

When Ella was twelve, she had her first fight. And when she was twelve, she discovered sex. Now eighteen, Ella reflects on how her obsession with her older brother Michael's best friend Moses left her with a secret she still carries.

Lone Star Bull

Bull Jackson is a bouncer in a gay bar where Jordan performs as a drag queen by night and is a medical student by day. When Coco, their mentor and owner of the club, is shot in what appears to be a random homophobic attack, Bull and Jordan form an unlikely team to find those responsible.

Inky Pinky Ponky

When a young fakaleiti falls in love at St Valentine’s Highschool, she must navigate her way through a world of intolerance and bigotry to find happiness - in an unexpected place.

A Father's Worst Nightmare

A middle aged couple, Jane and John are concerned about their 17 year old daughter, when she decides to attend a party with boyfriend Chad, whom they don't approve of.

The Clown

A man chooses his ambitions and dreams over a future with a family and later finds himself trying to repair the mistakes of his past.

Pariah

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Fitting In

A teenage girl gets diagnosed with a reproductive condition that upends her plans to have sex and propels her into exploring unusual methods to have a sex life, challenging her relationships with everyone in her life, but most importantly, herself.

Boy Erased

Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, is outed to his parents at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith.

Palm Trees and Power Lines

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 Human Voice

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.

3 Generations

A teenager transitions from female to male, and his family must come to terms with that fact.

Benjamin

Benjamin, a rising star filmmaker, is on the brink of premiering his difficult second film No Self at the London Film Festival when Billie, his hard drinking publicist, introduces him to a mesmeric French musician called Noah.

The People's Joker

An aspiring clown grappling with her gender identity combats a fascistic caped crusader.

Real Women Have Curves

In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.

Young Hearts

14-year-old Elias increasingly feels like an outsider in his village. When he meets his new neighbour of the same age, Alexander, Elias is confronted with his burgeoning sexuality.

Boys

Two teen track stars discover first love as they train for the biggest relay race of their young lives.

Twenty Something

Follows Gia, who has to deal with the challenges and insecurities of "adulting" during her 21st birthday.

The Truth About Jane

High schooler Jane struggles with the self-discovery that she is a lesbian after developing an intense friendship with another girl. However, this is only the start of Jane's troubles when her unaccepting mother Janice also contends with the surprising revelation brought forth by her only daughter.

Eighth Grade

Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year — before she begins high school.

Pretty Boy

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.

Alex Strangelove

Alex Truelove is on a quest to lose his virginity, an event eagerly awaited by his patient girlfriend and cheered on with welcome advice by his rowdy friends. But Alex, a super gregarious dude, is oddly unmotivated. A magical house party throws Alex into the presence of Elliot, a hunky college guy, who pegs Alex as gay and flirts hard. Alex is taken aback but after a series of setbacks on the girlfriend front he takes the plunge and learns some interesting new facts about himself.

Maurice

After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.

Beautiful Thing

During a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

Port Authority

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.

I Saw the TV Glow

Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate Maddy introduces him to a mysterious TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.