Firsts

Teddy(en)

A desperate father tries his best to wake up his wife who's in a coma.

Prisoner C33(en)

Reading Gaol, England, 1896. Prisoner C33, starving and thin, unable to wash properly, is a brilliant writer, husband and father of two, once the most beloved artist in Victorian London. His real name is Oscar Wilde.

Iris(de)

4 Moons(es)

Four interwoven stories about love and self-acceptance: An eleven year-old boy struggles to keep secret the attraction he feels towards his male cousin. Two former childhood friends reunite and start a relationship that gets complicated due to one of them’s fear of getting caught. A gay long lasting relationship is in jeopardy when a third man comes along. An old family man is obsessed with a young male prostitute and tries to raise the money to afford the experience.

Hotel Chevalier(en)

In a Paris hotel room, Jack Whitman lies on a bed. His phone rings; it's a woman on her way to see him, a surprise. She arrives and the complications of their relationship emerge in bits and pieces. Will they make love? Is their relationship over? (A prequel to The Darjeeling Limited, 2007.)

Lilly White(en)

After her hands are severely damaged in an accident, an over-zealous hand model hatches an ill-conceived plan to get back in the extremity modeling game with her feet.

The Super(en)

Scuggs, the utterly unpleasant super of a Bronx tenement is driven to desperate measures by an innocent-appearing, but manipulative 11 year-old girl. Based on the graphic novel by American Master Will Eisner, Meinecke combines larger-than-life characters, borrows from the traditions of melodrama and applies a visual language derived from German Expressionists to create a haunting tale, that won particular favor with New York critics.

The Blind Owl(en)

Ricky is a young man who takes care of his sick mother. His father hovers at the edge of the picture, so Ricky provides for himself and his mom through prostitution, running errands, and acting as a caregiver for a blind man. Through the course of the film, Ricky befriends Janey, a young woman he finds beaten by her ex-boyfriend, and Trenn, a mysterious young man in trouble with the law. The three of them navigate a dark and confusing world. It uses many of the actors who have come to constitute the Dar A Luz company, including Tony Torn, Tom Fitzpatrick, Juliana Francis, and Tom Pearl. It will disappoint those who approach it looking for a film analogue of the “faster and louder” aesthetic that critics have used to characterize much of Abdoh’s stage work. The Blind Owl does use a variety of techniques reminiscent of his stage direction, giving it an unusual theatricality.

Naughty Boys(ja)

On Gacchan’s birthday, a wild night in Shinjuku turns into a whirlwind for him and Takayuki, testing their love after a careless mistake and a heated confrontation.

First Snow(fr)

On Christmas Eve, Léa and Juliette, a couple, want to rob a supermarket that Juliette knows is empty of surveillance on this festive evening. But, as much for each of them as for Eric, the vigil who is there after all, nothing will happen as planned. Besides, shortly before leaving him alone, the store manager gave Eric a gun, just in case.

Cat Skin(pt)

A few weeks before Carnival, slum boys organize huntings for stray cats, whose leather can be used in Samba percussion instruments, like the Tamborim, a small drum.

The Boy and the Wind(pt)

A young engineer on holiday gets involved with a boy who has a strange relationship with the wind. Their close friendship arouses suspicion in the small town. When the boy disappears, the engineer is accused of murdering him.

All About My Mother(es)

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

Antoine and Colette(fr)

Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).

Paradise Now(fr)

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

Billy Elliot(en)

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

A Complete Life(zh)

A man returns home from years on the run to find his wife having died of cancer and his son getting a divorce after his grandson's birth. The once mighty gangster ends up living in a nursing home where he finds the warmth and love of a younger woman. As he tries to break the news of his May-December romance to his son, he finds out that his son is now living with a man claiming to be a "close friend." Three generations of Wu, the grandfather who hates to lose face, the father who thinks love trumps all, and the rebellious grandson, collided as they dealt with love, friendship, and family.

The Fall of the House of Usher(en)

Animated adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe 1839 short story The Fall of the House of Usher, a work of Gothic fiction that includes themes of madness, family, isolation, and metaphysical identities.

His Cat: Extra Chapter 1(zh)

Henry Chen and Junho Tan, the stars of His Cat, jointly perform the short story fragments of gay lovers.

The Bartered Crown(en)

It was a hard struggle Mina, the little lace-maker, had with the world, supplying the needs of herself and her crippled little sister. An expensive brace was necessary. There was only one way left. Mina decided to sell her hair. So her romantic young landlord bought it. Of course, being human, we know the end, but Mina didn't.

Alex Strangelove(en)

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.

Nowhere(en)

In Los Angeles, a colorful assortment of bohemians try to make sense of their intersecting lives. The moody Dark Smith, his bisexual girlfriend, her lesbian lover and their shy gay friend plan on attending the wildest party of the year. But they'll only make it if they can survive the drug trips, suicides, trysts, mutilations and alien abductions that occur as one surreal day unfolds.

Starcrossed(en)

Two brothers develop a sexual attraction to one another amid the unkind world around them.

Benjamin(en)

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.

Yes, God, Yes(en)

Alice, a young innocent Catholic girl, is tempted into masturbating after an AOL chat suddenly turns sexual, however is conflicted as the act would be considered a sin.

Lady Bird(en)

Lady Bird McPherson, a strong willed, deeply opinionated, artistic 17 year old comes of age in Sacramento. Her relationship with her mother and her upbringing are questioned and tested as she plans to head off to college.

Imagine(en)

A blind teacher breaks the rules to help a female student rediscover the pleasures of life.

Heavy Traffic(en)

A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.

Beach Rats(en)

On the outskirts of Brooklyn, Frankie, an aimless teenager, suffocates under the oppressive glare cast by his family and a toxic group of delinquent friends. Struggling with his own identity, Frankie begins to scour hookup sites for older men.

Maurice(en)

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

I Saw the TV Glow(en)

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.

The First Time(en)

A spark of attraction smolders, then ignites, between two teens from different high schools who meet by chance at a party.

Good Dick(en)

A fidgety, wisecracking video store clerk develops a fixation on a particularly reclusive customer, a frequent visitor to the pornography section of Cinefile, the video store where he works in Los Angeles. After multiple failures to impress her during their brief daily transactions, he finds her street address in the store's database, drives to her apartment building and initiates an unconventional campaign to win her affections.

Clapham Junction(en)

Set in the Clapham district of south London, England, the film is inspired by true events. The paths of several men intersect during a dramatic thirty-six hours in which their lives are changed forever.

I'm Here(en)

A library assistant plods through an ordinary life in LA until a chance meeting opens his eyes to the power of creativity and ultimately, love. When this new life and love begin to fall apart, he discovers he has a lot to give. This short film proves that ordinary is no place to be.

A Corner in Wheat(en)

On a whim, a greedy tycoon decides to corner the world market in wheat. This doubles the price of bread, forcing grain producers into charity lines and others further into poverty. The film contrasts the differences between the lives of those who work to grow the wheat and the life of the man who dabbles in its sale for profit.

Pariah(en)

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

Akron(en)

Benny, a college freshman at the University of Akron, Ohio meets and falls for fellow freshman Christopher at a football game. With the support of their families and friends they embark on a new relationship. But a tragic event in the past involving their mothers soon comes to light and threatens to tear them apart.

Modern Romance(en)

A film editor breaks up with his girlfriend, unsure if he is in love.

Appropriate Behavior(en)

Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities.