What's This Country Called Now? (2020)

Valerio's Day Out

A sedated young jaguar dispassionately ruminates over his latest victims as well as the object of his affection in this mesmerizing video diary.

My Brother is a Mermaid

A short film about the experiences of a non-binary teenager, as seen through the eyes of their 7-year old brother. Set in a desolate seaside town, the film fuses social realism with fairytale, as it examines how a child's innocence and unconditional love can be a powerful and disruptive force for good.

The One You Never Forget

A 14 year old boy excitedly prepares for his first dance, but when his date arrives he's faced with a split-second decision.

Cocoon

China, 1997. An unhappy marriage, a love affair and a child who holds all the secrets.

La Jetée

A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.

My Sweet Prince

Alcopops, VHS tapes, cigarettes, boys, MSN Messenger, Placebo - this is 2003. Set on the Isle of Wight, fragments of the director's own teenage video diaries collide with the fictional story of 15-year-old Tommy in this short film about a boy's search for connection in the advent of the internet age. Infatuated with his best friend's boyfriend and unable to truly reveal himself to anyone, Tommy feels an overwhelming sense of isolation on the small chalk island he calls home. Desperate to be seen, he logs on to family computer, clicks connect and opens MSN.

All Good Things

Road trips usually signify a beginning but for Isaac and his partner Levi, this is their last chance to spend time together before they part ways. As they drive closer to their destination, Isaac finds that maybe he isn't as prepared for his first breakup as he had thought.

Tiny Death

Christian (12) and his best friend have been invited over to an older boy from school. There, he enters a mysterious world. It becomes an overwhelming experience - an essential step towards puberty.

Enclosed World

A short animation by Makoto Shinkai in Lightwave 3D. Inspired by Haruki Murakami's book "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" with music by Tenmon.

Nobody's Boy

A hustler named Oscar encounters both the light and dark of humanity in an alcohol fueled odyssey of sex, love, and death.

The Doldrums or How to Cure Sadness

The tiricia is an illness of the soul when the heart is saddened. A story of three generations afflicted with being tiricientas: Ita, Justa and Alicia – grandmother, mother and daughter – who have at different times suffered, tolerated and allowed abuse, dragging on the disease. Alicia decides to break the cycle, eradicating it for future generations.

Tempo

A different family breakfast. He spills milk, she picks it in the air. She catches the roasted bread as it jumps up from the toaster...

Wren Boys

On the day after Christmas, a Catholic priest from Cork drives his nephew to prison.

Rastres

Rita is a little 9-year-old girl who lives immersed in her own little world, full of illusions and innocence. After secretly hearing her parents say that they may have to leave their home behind forever, without really understanding the situation, Rita will find herself in the need to defend and protect her little world to prevent what she has heard from happening.

A Fistful Of Pebbles

A Fistful of Pebbles won the 3rd prize in the SEA Tropfest Film Festival 2015. The story is about a mysterious man who finds himself in the muddy monsoon in a village terrorized by a local gangster. When he’s unwittingly drawn into the village’s problem and the beautiful daughter of the village Chief is about to be taken, the hero takes matters into his own hands… with a fistful of pebbles.

Mute

Monette, a middle-aged salesman, picks up a deaf/mute hitchhiker on the road. The hitchhiker falls asleep and Monette vents his problems knowing they fall on deaf ears. He rants about his wife’s infidelity and her embezzlement from her employer. Monette thinks nothing of this encounter until two days later his wife and her lover are found murdered.

Cain Rose Up

College student, Curt Garrish, goes on a murderous rampage.

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away

An adaptation of a Stephen King short story of the same name, "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away".

Boomerang

Black public figure Jim Taylor is pursued by the police. He dies from a bullet in the head. In a private clinic, he is transplanted with the brain of Sheriff Maclain, who died in a car accident. While remaining black, he begins to think like a racist Maclain.

Black Cat in a Dark Room

After years of helping euthanize the terminally ill, a "hospice" worker begins to question the ethics of her job.

In Orbit

The future, the space. Sonia is about to be transferred from her station to a newer one. Although everything seems to be going well, Sonia's mind is actually elsewhere, haunted by tragic events from the not too distant past.

Akashi

Kana, a young woman from Japan is pursuing her career in North America and has adapted to her new environment. However, her new lifestyle has made her emotionally distant and can't seem to sustain a long term relationship. Her mother calls informing Kana that grandma passed away. As Kana returns home to pay her respects, she begins to recall her most intimate conversation with grandma. In their talk, Grandma is proud of Kana for leaving Japan. Kana argues it's even harder to raise a family and sustain a marriage for a lifetime. Grandma tells Kana that their marriage was far from ideal, and to Kana's surprise, Grandma reveals a secret which changes Kana's attitudes on relationships. Memories and the funeral force Kana to look inside herself and examine her own life.

The Dead Girls

Two teenage girls forced to serve a violent drug cartel await the first snowfall at the desert surrounding a mountain called La Siberia.

Yo, Diablo

Joey works as a waiter for a hedonistic community of summer holiday makers in a small Mediterranean paradise. It is unclear if their exaggerated behaviors are due to the fact that the summer is coming to an end or if its just the last of their summers.

Equilibres

A silent teenage girl who works as a tightrope walker tries to keep her balance while crossing Paris.

Kind Mother

An estranged mother arrives at the silent retreat that her daughter is attending. When the two women engage in an unusual - and fantastical - power struggle, limits are tested, generational trauma is brought to light, and together they must grapple with mortality and forgiveness.

I don’t know if i'll have to say everything again

A short film that presents a small excerpt of the family life between a homosexual son and a mother diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The film presents Fernando's conflict in his search for acceptance and recognition from his mother, which is made difficult by the difficult progression of the disease and, possibly, by a veiled prejudice.

ABC

16-year-old girls Alma and Bea had managed to lure the middle-aged football coach Carl into a changing room at the football club. They got him where they wanted. He wanted to see them naked. They wanted to see him suffer. They shouldn’t have done that, or should they?

The Name of the Prime Minister

A psychiatrist is taken to a secret government facility to interview a man convinced Tony Blair is still the Prime Minister.

Dedication

A young maid enlists supernatural help in order to escape her past.

Otava

An adolescent girl tries to dream about memories of Mother while having to be physically present in the surrounding farm with grandmother.

Anemone Me

The only black American family in Maine has a son, a blind bodybuilder, who falls in love with a white "mer-boy."

Judgement

At the identification of a dead body, a couple and a morgue employee both claim to be related to the deceased, and therefore the rightful recipient of an indemnity of at least 520,000.

Dirty Laundry

The story of a guy trying to get his washing done, late one fateful night.

Pendulum

Two friends seek spiritual salvation in India, away from their hedonistic and disconnected London lives, in advance of the impending collapse of the Cosmos.

Discreet

Two young men from the same neighborhood meet randomly. As they give each other the lowdown of their night out, an unexpected game envelops them.

Little Weakness

While his wife is pregnant, Marc enters into a strange relationship with a young Polish man who is willing to do anything.

Lust

A sister and a brother and the fear of fornication.

The Dead Ones

Markopoulos’ first attempt at making a 35mm feature film, clearly inspired by the cinema of Jean Cocteau, was left unfinished and the materials were lost for many years.

Go Play Outside

One summer morning, Abel decides to solve his parents' financial problems by taking matters into his own hands. Helped by his best friend Edwin, he roams the neighborhood in search of easy money and soon finds himself unable to resist the call of crime.

8 Minutes

With the end of the world fast approaching, an aging magician realizes one last feat of magic is required of him.

Laps

On a routine morning, a woman on a crowded New York City subway is sexually assaulted in plain sight.

Where to Go

Mitchell and Miles once spoke the language of love fluently, but now even a dream trip can't drown out the silence growing between them.

Daniël

A poetic coming-of-age story as a teenage boy explores love.