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.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I

A man named Seligman finds a fainted wounded woman in an alley and he brings her home. She tells him that her name is Joe and that she is nymphomaniac. Joe tells her life and sexual experiences with hundreds of men since she was a young teenager while Seligman tells about his hobbies, such as fly fishing, reading about Fibonacci numbers or listening to organ music.

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.

All of Us Strangers

One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor, which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life.

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.

American Beauty

Lester 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.

4 Moons

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.

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 ...

The Male Gaze: The Heat of the Night

When darkness falls, temperatures rise in these six stories about late night confessions, intimacy for sale, high speed hookups and full moon frissons. But when the sun comes up and reality reveals itself, will it have all been worth it? The short films are: Thirst (2018); According to Mateo [Según Mateo] (2017); Hardcore (2016); Beast [Séptimo] (2011); Petit Ami (2017); Skai Blue (2017).

First Act

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

Enthralled

An enthralling directorial debut by the phenomenal, biting columnist and broadcaster Chip Tsao. Three elementary school pals, separated during the post-Tiananmen wave of emigration, reunite after 20 years, only to find themselves in totally different places. When each of them gets involved in an unlikely and at times illicit romance, their disparate lives intertwine and take a dire turn. The simmering ennui of post-handover Hong Kong is insightfully captured in this original and hardhitting drama about love, deceit and betrayal.

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.

Tea and Sympathy

A sensitive young man recalls his time in boarding school when the only person who seemed compassionate towards him was his housemaster's wife.

Bully

A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.

The Karate Kid

New Jersey teen Daniel LaRusso moves to Los Angeles with his mother, and soon strikes up a relationship with Ali. He quickly finds himself the target of bullying by a group of thugs, led by Ali's ex-boyfriend Johnny, who study karate at the Cobra Kai dojo under ruthless sensei John Kreese. Fortunately, Daniel befriends Mr. Miyagi, an unassuming repairman who just happens to be a martial arts master himself. Miyagi takes Daniel under his wing, training him in a more compassionate form of karate for self-defense and, later, preparing him to compete against the brutal Cobra Kai.

Speak

Freshman high-school student Melinda has refused to speak ever since she called the cops on a popular summer party. With her old friends snubbing her for being a rat, and her parents too busy to notice her troubles, she folds into herself, trying to hide her secret: that star senior Andy raped her at the party. But Melinda does manage to find solace in her art class headed by Mr. Freeman.

Bad Education

When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.

The Fabelmans

Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1991. High school freshman Charlie is a wallflower, always watching life from the sidelines, until two senior students, Sam and her stepbrother Patrick, become his mentors, helping him discover the joys of friendship, music and love.

Kids

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

Zero Day

Two troubled adolescents chronicle the events that ultimately lead up to a terrifying assault on their school.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

The 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.

Joe Bell

The true story of a small town, working class father who embarks on a solo walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay.

Girl in the Box

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

Shank

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.

2:37

A contemporary, ensemble drama that tells the complex tale of six high school students whose lives are interwoven with situations that so many of today's youth are faced with. The story takes place during a normal school day. At precisely 2:37 a tragedy will occur, affecting the lives of a group of students and their teachers.

Giant Little Ones

Two popular teen boys, best friends since childhood, discover their lives, families, and girlfriends dramatically upended after an unexpected incident occurs on the night of a 17th birthday party.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

The screen adaptation of Azar Nafisi’s memoir tells the true story of a literature professor in revolutionary Iran who, amidst censorship and religious extremism, gathers seven of her most dedicated female students to immerse themselves in banned literary classics.

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.

I'm Not Ashamed

Based on the journal entries of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.

Whiplash

Under the direction of a ruthless instructor, a talented young drummer begins to pursue perfection at any cost, even his humanity.