

Queer Boys and Girls on the Shinkansen brings together ten filmmakers and artists who consistently affirm what it means to be gay or lesbian in their work. Habakari chose ten filmmakers to make a five-minute work each, developed around a gay or lesbian theme, and compiled the resulting shorts in random order to create this omnibus film. The result is a queer film, by queer filmmakers, for a queer audience. Each short is its own short story, and the styles range from drama and experimental film and animation. (2024 complete version includes all eleven films, 65 mins.)

6.4Fourteen-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.
6.8At a birthday party in 1968 New York, a surprise guest and a drunken game leave seven gay friends reckoning with unspoken feelings and buried truths.
5.8August tells the story of two former lovers, Troy and Jonathan, who reunite after a long ago painful breakup. After spending several years in Spain, Troy returns to Los Angeles and decides to phone Jonathan and meet for coffee. A seemingly innocent rendezvous turns into an attempt to revive passions past. Only this time it's not that simple as Jonathan has a new beau, Raul, and is trying to make the right decision a second time around.
6.6Two tiny, aquatic humanoids search for their missing father, a boy battles a lethal allergy to eggs, and an invisible salaryman tries to become a hero.
6.5Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering around a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.
6.4An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.
7.0Football star Charlie has the world at her feet. With a top club desperate to sign her, her future is seemingly mapped out. But the teenager sees only a nightmare. Raised as a boy, Charlie is torn between wanting to live up to her father's expectations and shedding this ill fitting skin.
6.3Five stories, five maestros, five styles and one common denominator: maximum creativity. Studio 4°C, the coolest label on the planet, invites us for the second time to an exclusive reunion of a talents with a group film, full of freedom and ingenuity, that goes from Mahiro Maeda's classic anime, to Kazuto Nakazawa's intricate urban sketches, Shinya Ohira's bedlam of color and Tatsuyuki Tanaka's animated cyberpunk. And as if that wasn't enough, Koji Morimoto, the studio big boss, is charge of putting the icing on the cake with fantafabulous piece of abstract poetry that would make a VJ die of ecstasy. The party of the year.
7.0The story of two radically different men thrown together in a Latin American prison cell. One is Valentin, a journalist being tortured for his political beliefs. The other is Molina, a gay window-dresser who fills their lonely nights by spinning romantic fantasies drawn from memories of old movies.
6.0Paul, 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.
6.9A decade after the death of an American TV star, a young actor reminisces about the written correspondence he once shared with the former, as well as the impact those letters had on both their lives.
6.8A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.
6.4It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.
6.0An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.
6.6Two stories featuring Marvel's anti-hero The Incredible Hulk and his encounters with the X-Man Wolverine and the god known as Thor.
7.5Three back-to-back anime films by three different directors make up this sci-fi trilogy three years in the making.
6.8Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
7.2Fourteen years after Third Impact, Shinji Ikari awakens to a world he does not remember. He hasn't aged. Much of Earth is laid in ruins, NERV has been dismantled, and people who he once protected have turned against him. Befriending the enigmatic Kaworu Nagisa, Shinji continues the fight against the angels and realizes the fighting is far from over, even when it could be against his former allies. The characters' struggles continue amidst the battles against the angels and each other, spiraling down to what could inevitably be the end of the world.
6.3Biographical 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.
6.7When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.
6.8The story of a lawyer's journey to overcome her fears and social boundaries in order to transition.
10.0After June and Charlie break up, Theo finds a scrapbook containing their fondest memories together, and he becomes obsessed with their relationship. He convinces June to try and win Charlie back by recreating moments from the book. Dear June follows the intricacies of a relationship going downhill and explores how straight men view and tokenize sapphic relationships.
8.0Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.
6.7The lives of an American expat and a half Japanese construction worker living in rural Japan are forever changed over the course of three days as they engage in an unexpected romance.
5.9Felix is a friendless achiever in high school whose life changes after the arrival of the half-American Snyder brothers, entangling him in their dark ambitions.
5.6It's 1986, tormented teenager Henry is struggling with his sexuality and abusive home life. Henry sits in his closet contemplating suicide. In a flash of light he is transported to 2016 where he meets teenager Ben — now occupying his room 30 years later.
6.2In 1895, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was the most famous writer in London, and Bosie Douglas, son of the notorious Marquess of Queensberry, was his lover. Accused and convicted of gross indecency, he was imprisoned for two years and subjected to hard labor. Once free, he abandons England to live in France, where he will spend his last years, haunted by memories of the past, poverty and immense sadness.
4.3On holiday, Ben meets the handsome Sam, whose friends recommend they go to a private cruising beach, the Pass.
3.7Berlin, 1934. Many men are forced to live their hidden homosexuality. Erich, a photographer, has an appointment in his photo studio with Wolfgang, a Nazi soldier, with whom he shares a loving, tumultuous, and passionate relationship. For both of them, this should not be a problem, but appearances deceive.
4.7Felix is secretly in love with Ralph. This doesn't seem to be the biggest problem. But Felix is 15 and Ralph his 34 years old soccer coach. They meet every day in an ambush. One day Felix mother finds out and Ralph has to decide between feeling and reason.
4.6When Wolf refuses to fight his best friend Alexander during a weekly boxing match, the whole village turns against him. He tries to convince Alexander to join him leaving the village, but his overly romantic message runs into a wall.
4.2Love Me Anyway is a sun soaked drama about a filmmaker falling for a dreamy surfer, a man trying to save his marriage and a young wife exploring the greener grass of an extramarital affair with another woman.
4.2After his star actress, Indre, murders her mother, rich-kid filmmaker Romas plans her escape from Lithuania. His Mexican boyfriend Carlos helps them reluctantly. On the road, Romas begins shooting an improvised experimental film. As events take an unexpected turn, their secrets, memories and emotions make this journey wilder than any film Romas could have imagined.
6.9An anthology of eleven vignettes featuring star-studded casts of extremely unique individuals who all share the common activities of conversing while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
2.3Feast your eyes on a second volume of short stories set in South America that explore growing pains, first loves, political upheaval, gay parenting and coming out. The 6 short films are: Seat Belt [Cinturón de seguridad] (2018); Before It's Too Late [Antes Que Seja Tarde] (2019); Ajar [Entreabierto] (2018); Guacho (2018); The Grey Zones [Las zonas grises] (2019); Orizaba's Peak [Pico de Orizaba] (2017).
6.8Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
6.2The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.
6.0There is a performance team preparing for an outdoor yard play in Jeonju. Director Young-ro, supporting director Se-young. Actor Man-sik and his wife Hye-young. And Joo-young, the youngest member of the performance team. And Minwoo, who plays busking music. The warm, heart-wrenching stories of the three couples are depicted in omnibus format.