Cat Skin

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.

El pasito de onda

She works nights, when most people are asleep. As she listens to trendy music, she practices the words she means to say to jump out to the world that she senses, is vibrating outside.

Cherry-Red

Anna and Marie are two women who could possibly love each other, but each must decide if she is willing to throw away her old life in pursuit of this new overwhelming feeling.

According to Mateo

Mateo and his boyfriend, Marc, arrive home after a night out with Luke, a guy they've just met. After an argument, Mateo leaves the flat and bumps into Jon, a drug dealer they have called. Mateo convinces Jon to take him to his house where he discovers he can't feel anything if it's not through pain.

Eclipse

The event of the century is about to take place, a spectacular total solar eclipse. A girl is going to witness it with her grandmother and, despite her happiness, she will have to face her fear of the dark to enjoy the moment when it gets dark in the middle of the day. But when that happens, both of them will understand that sometimes the mind is also overshadowed by a reality that can erase all its memories.

The Good Teacher

The Good Teacher is a film about the lives of school teachers in a low-income urban area and the challenges they face while trying to provide a quality education to students. Dominique Daily is a first year school teacher who gives up his football career after an injury to teach Math at Louis Jones high school while struggling to cope with his short-lived life long dream of being a football star.

Manzanas

Manuel and Alexander met in 1945. They fell in love and together they fought for the creation of laws and norms for inclusion and equality in society.

Intended Parents

'Intended Parents' is a short film about a Black millennial couple, seeking to expand their family through surrogacy. With one partner identifying as a transgender woman, the couple (Alexandra Grey as "Robyn" and Lawrence Locke as "Anthony") find themselves continously educating or being imprisoned by outdated traditions and opinions from loved ones. While the film explores the intersections of love, gender, surrogacy, acceptance, and desperation; the powerful couple aims to deflate multiple negative stigmas as they prepare for the life-alternating roller coaster of fertility and surrogacy.

Soğuk, Uzak ve Kirli

Untitled

From the music of UK composer Anne Dudley, Belgian filmmaker Stijn Coninx crafts a story of a hearing-impaired woman on various runs, determinedly straight ahead of herself, crossing deserted forests, meadows and swamps, in different get-ups. This short film is part of the 2x25 Project of Film Fest Gent and the World Soundtrack Awards. The project commissioned 25 composers to compose a short piece of music, after which 25 filmmakers made short films that are the ultimate symbioses of music and cinematography, fitting completely within the DNA of the festival. The result: 25 exceptional films where the music inspired the form, narrative and texture.

Seize The Day

Seize the Day is about a man, Ray Stevenson (James S. Cacciatore) who had dreams of changing the world, but through some poor decisions he made in his life he has lost everything. Frustrated and dying of cancer he blames one man for his misfortune, his business partner Jon Peterman (Jay E. Salsberg). To get revenge he storms his former office building and takes him hostage. At the same time throughout the city high power businessmen are getting knocked off one by one. And its up to a Cal (David J. Plescia) a rookie Detective and his veteran partner Burke (Jay Storey), to solve these murders and how they tie into the recent hostage situation.

Martha and the Bird

A fantastic story of Martha, a little girl, who finds true love three years after her mother died.

Millimeterle

Measuring their power and proving themselves is part of the boys’ everyday life. Even for the 13-year-old gentle-natured Yannik. Until his best friend’s upcoming sexual curiosity suddenly puts him in a threatening situation. Where is the line between game and reality and what happens if that line is crossed?

The Car Thief

Two friends are engaged in theft of cars in order to extort money from their owners. The next stealing runs smoothly. The owner of the car agrees to pay, but puts forward an unexpected condition ...

First Act

Theatre students André and Gabriel drum up support for resistance against the dismantling of culture policies in Brazil.

Fake Me A Happy New Year

Anita and her children, Santa and Kristaps, live in an apartment in Riga. Every year, they celebrate New Year’s Eve with grandma, uncle Peter and a feast fit for kings…

Between Wolf and Dogs

A young criminal plans his first murder which will be carried out before an old man, his plan does not go as expected and takes a 180 degree turn.

Summer Animals

Living out of a motel, 15-year-old Tommy makes a drastic decision in order for her siblings to escape the heat before the summer’s over.

Sun in My Mouth

A young man confesses his sexual past to an unseen phone sex operator. He reflects on his sexual identity as we follow him on a solitary excursion to a beach.

Fairytale of London Town

Requiem for a Dream

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.

Heaven Knows What

A young heroin addict roams the streets of New York to panhandle and get her next fix, while her unstable boyfriend drifts in and out of her life at random.

Cardboard Boxer

Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.

Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story

Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.

The Poker House

Agnes and her two sisters struggle through a day in a home overrun by gamblers, thieves, and johns.

Kids

A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.

Stuart: A Life Backwards

Story about the remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator and a chaotic homeless man, whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison.

Urchin

Mike, a rough sleeper in London, is trapped in a cycle of self-destruction as he attempts to turn his life around. Along the way, he encounters unexpected chances for a fresh start.

Poor Cow

A young woman lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age she marries and has a child--with an abusive thief who quickly ends up in prison. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure--if that.

Beast

MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.

Girl, Interrupted

Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

Mikey and Nicky

Nick is desperate, holed up in a cheap hotel, suffering from an ulcer and convinced that a local mob boss wants him killed. Terrified, he calls Mikey, his friend since childhood and a fellow gangster. So begins a long night…

Not Without Hope

A group of friends' fishing boat capsizes off the coast of Mexico and they're left alone stranded at sea and struggling for survival.

From Straight A's to XXX

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.

Kisses

Two kids, Dylan and Kylie, run away from home on Christmas Day and spend a night of magic and terror on the streets of inner-city Dublin.

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?

Wasteman

Taylor's hopes for a fresh start post-parole are jeopardised by cellmate Dee's arrival. As Dee takes Taylor under his wing, a vicious attack tests their bond, forcing Taylor to choose between protecting Dee and his own chances at freedom.

The Smashing Machine

In the late 1990s, up-and-coming mixed martial artist Mark Kerr aspires to become the greatest fighter in the world. However, he must also battle his opioid dependence and a volatile relationship with his girlfriend Dawn.

The Experiment

20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.

Mexicali

A former special forces contractor is forced out of retirement as an avocado farmer in Mexico when local gangsters try to force him and his family off their farm.