Luciérnagas (2022)

The First Death of Joana

Late summer of 2007, South of Brazil. Joana, 13, wants to find out why her great-aunt Rosa died at 70 without ever having dated anyone. Encouraged by her friend Carolina, Joana starts an investigation about Rosa’s past. As she confronts the values of her community, Joana realizes that all the women in her family have a secret, while something hidden inside her also reveals. She plunges into her imagination to find answers while a large wind power plant is being built in their small town.

Kinky Boots

Charles Price may have grown up with his father in the family shoe business in Northampton, central England, but he never thought that he would take his father's place. Charles has a chance encounter with the flamboyant drag queen cabaret singer Lola and everything changes.

The Colour Blue

Reece tries to find the courage to come out to his family and friends.

Unexpected Journey

Lasse is an old racist who has lives in an apartment block filled with a selection of refugees and immigrants. Kamal is a 16-year old boy who's fed up in his life in Finland, and dreams of moving to Nairobi to live with his father. Only problem is that he doesn't have the money to buy the ticket.

Anything's Possible

Anything’s Possible is a delightfully modern Gen Z coming-of-age story that follows Kelsa, a confident high school girl who is trans, as she navigates through senior year. When her classmate Khal gets a crush on her, he musters up the courage to ask her out, despite the drama he knows it could cause. What transpires is a romance that showcases the joy, tenderness, and pain of young love.

Before I Change My Mind

1987: While the other students wonder if new kid Robin is a boy or a girl, Robin forges a complicated bond with the school bully, making increasingly dangerous choices to fit in.

Lane 1974

At 13 years old and the eldest of three kids, Lane struggles to keep her family together as her iconoclast mother moves without warning through the communes and dusty back woods of Northern California.

Worlds Apart

17-year-old Sara leads a sheltered existence with her family, members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, when she meets the outsider Teis and falls in love. Sara, herself a believer, now faces an important turning point in her life as she is forced to choose between religion and love.

Aching Hearts

Set in the early 1960s, the story revolves around high school sweethearts Jonas and Agnete, their friendships and families, trials and tribulations.

Zappa

Denmark, 1961. Bjørn, a middle-class boy in his early teens, wants to be accepted by Steen, a bullying peer of his with wealthy but freezingly cold parents. Bjørn's other good friend is Mulle, a cheerful and more childish working-class boy. All three seem friends at first, but gradually Steen starts pushing Mulle away while pulling the impressionable Bjørn with him towards more and more violence.

The Perfect Man

Holly is tired of moving every time her mom Jean breaks up with yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man, an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her self-esteem.

Hairspray

Pleasantly plump teenager Tracy Turnblad auditions to be on Baltimore's most popular dance show - The Corny Collins Show - and lands a prime spot. Through her newfound fame, she becomes determined to help her friends and end the racial segregation that has been a staple of the show.

Mariana Mariana

The story runs in the 1940s Mexico City. A schoolboy (Carlos) falls in love with his best friend's mother (Mariana). Carlos is impressed because this family is not like the ordinary mexican families of the time, because they have many expensive American things, although they are not rich. The drama begins when Carlos gets out of school to go to declare his love to Mariana, and is discovered by his teachers.

The Half of It

Shy, straight-A student Ellie is hired by sweet but inarticulate jock Paul, who needs help wooing the most popular girl in school. But their new and unlikely friendship gets tricky when Ellie discovers she has feelings for the same girl.

1-2-3 Corona

Post-war Germany 1945: Two rival gangs of uprooted boys fight each other in the ruins of Berlin, whose business is the black market out of necessity in order to survive. Their respective leaders are Gerhard and Dietrich. A pretty young circus artist named Corona comes to the destroyed city with a traveling circus. She immediately caught the boys' attention. When the latter notice that the circus director is abusing the girl, the two gangs join forces and plot an act of revenge against the tyrant. But with the hustle and bustle caused by this, Corona falls from the trapeze and is seriously injured. When the circus moves on, the boys organize a doctor for the sick artist who has been left behind. Their collectively concern for the blonde beauty makes them forget their enmity. This welds the troops closer together and sets the course for a common, meaningful future.

Cherry Tobacco

An exploration of the growing friendship between small-town girl Laura, who is persuaded onto a hiking trip by her friend Merit, and Joosep, a middle-aged guide.

Samurai Cowboy

Manuel is an extremely shy 12-year-old boy who escapes reality through a samurai obsession. One day, a mysterious cowboy kid crosses his path. This begins a fierce rivalry between the two, who gradually discover they have a lot in common.

George Washington

Set in the landscape of a rural southern town, "George Washington" is a stunning portrait of how a group of young kids come to grips with a hard world of choices and consequences. During an innocent game in an abandoned amusement park, a member of the group dies. Narrated by one of the children, the film follows the kids as they struggle to balance their own ambitions and relationships against a tragic lie.

Big Wednesday

Three 1960s California surfers fool around, drift apart and reunite years later to ride epic waves.

Around the Fire

Simon is an intelligent and privileged young man whose family expects him to become a Princeton graduate. Crying out for attention from his reserved and cool hearted family, Simon commits numerous petty crimes and is soon sent away to boarding school where he befriends a "Deadhead," adopts the "hippie" lifestyle and dabbles in many drugs in his search for acceptance.

Her Best Move

15 year-old soccer prodigy, Sara Davis, has a chance to join the U.S. National Team, but she must juggle high school, romance, sports, and parental pressure while deciding her own priorities.

Changing Signs

19-year-old Nata has just returned from the States and wants to imitate the American college lifestyle in her Georgian life. Together with three other students, who all have different interests and views, she moves to a new flat.

The Boys and the Donkey

A group of young Tibetan boys seek retribution against a donkey that harmed one of their own, only to encounter escalating complications.

Bottle Up & Explode!

When a game of spin-the-bottle branches reality out to different timelines, a group of teenagers re-evaluate their friendship when secrets are revealed.

Letter to You

Sheltered in her own world of music and carefreeness, a curious young girl fights against a mysterious melancholia as she whizzes on her roller-skates around the most colourful London.

The French Kissers

An awkward adolescent boy and his angst-ridden friends try their best to fit in amongst a cast of varied characters.

The Boy and the Pirates

Jimmy desires to be a pirate when one day he discovers a magic bottle on the beach. He makes a wish and suddenly finds himself aboard Blackbeard's ship. Soon he realizes that being a pirate isn't what he expected.

L.I.E.

With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile. He propositions Howie, who declines, but the two eventually develop an unlikely and dangerous friendship.

Keep Going

Shan's crush is going to move away and they make a promise of exchanging their favorite signed baseballs. His signed ball, however, is lost because of his brother Jia, so the brothers start a journey to find the ball...

Out of My Mind

Melody Brooks, a sixth grader with cerebral palsy, has a quick wit and a sharp mind, but because she is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair, she is not given the same opportunities as her classmates. When a young educator notices her student's untapped potential and Melody starts to participate in mainstream education, Melody shows that what she has to say is more important than how she says it.

White Water Summer

When the experienced guide Vic accompanies the city boy Alan and his three friends on their first wilderness experience, he not only hopes to teach the four boys lessons about the wilderness, but about themselves. Vic pushes them to the limit. Soon after alienating the boys, Vic finds himself in desperate need of help and must rely on his students in order to survive.

Apples, Oranges, Lemons & Limes

A young man, suffering from social anxiety, finds surprising joy and romance after an unexpected encounter at a party encourages him to let loose.

Butterfly Cloud

End of childhood, first love and misunderstandings that seem unsolvable. Comic story of sixteen years old boy who seems to be all against his dreams - and the families and friends, and the world from the supermarket where he works.

What are the Odds?

On the day of a major exam that could help determine her future, eccentric Vivek decides to take a slightly strange stand against the system.

The Runaway

When Jasmine, a runaway teen, accepts a lift from a stranger, Mick, an older man searching for reconnection and forgiveness within his own family, she finds herself caught up in a messy situation and very far from home, coming to realise that running away is not always the solution.

2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten

Felix 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.

Whale Valley

The film shows a strong bond between two brothers that live in a remote fjord with their parents. We look into their world through the eyes of the younger brother and follow him on a journey that marks a turning point in the lives of the brothers.

anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day - The Movie

A year has passed since Menma's ghostly return to the Super Peace Busters. Although the time they spent together during that summer was short, the five members reminisce about what happened as they each write a letter to their lost friend.

Eden

Eden is a coming-of-age film about a Protestant Confirmation camp on a summer’s week, set in the archipelago of Helsinki. Aliisa is the intellectually confident non-believer, Jenna is the queen bee and Panu is the scared bird. The experience of these teenagers is affected by Tiina, a young and eager priest.

Big

When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big—he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight. But he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.

Spring

Fernando is attracted to his best friend. They skip class together and go camping in the woods.

Edge of Seventeen

1984, Sandusky, Ohio. A naive 17-year-old navigates heartbreak and self-expression as he explores his sexuality.

Axolotl Overkill

Mifti is a teenager as beautiful as she is reckless. Mentally unstable, fed up with her dysfunctional family, oblivious to the youthful world, and aware of the sexual magnetism she gives off with her peculiar appearance, she wanders through the dark path of several bohemian adults with questionable lifestyles.

Mermaids

Fifteen-year-old Charlotte Flax is tired of her wacky mom moving their family to a different town any time she feels it is necessary. When they move to a small Massachusetts town and Mrs. Flax begins dating a shopkeeper, Charlotte and her 9-year-old sister, Kate, hope that they can finally settle down. But when Charlotte's attraction to an older man gets in the way, the family must learn to accept each other for who they truly are.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.

Where Hands Touch

Germany, 1944. Leyna, the 15-year old daughter of a white German mother and a black African father, meets Lutz, a compassionate member of the Hitler Youth whose father is a prominent Nazi soldier, and they form an unlikely connection in this quickly changing world.

The Whaler Boy

Everything changes in the life of a young 15-year-old Chukchi hunter Lyoshka with the advent of the Internet in the village. He falls in love – for the first time and deeply – with the silent video chat girl. Upon learning that she lives in Detroit, Lyoshka decides on the most desperate act in his life.

C.R.A.Z.Y.

A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.

Welcome to the Dollhouse

An unattractive 7th grader struggles to cope with suburban life as the middle child with inattentive parents and bullies at school.

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

Georgia Nicolson is fourteen, lives with nosey parents who don't understand her, an annoying three year old sister and has to wear a beret to school. She would, however, rather be blonde, have a smaller nose and a boyfriend. Revolving around her hilarious journal entries, prepare to be engulfed in the world of the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager.

Aftersun

Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between miniDV footage as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't.

Lesson Learned

Ten-year-old Palkó has just moved home to Budapest from Berlin and observes the daily life of an ordinary Hungarian elementary school with confused amazement. Juci, the young teacher just started working there. She is the only one who understands Palkó, as in their own way, they are both suffering from the same, sometimes grotesque educational system.

The Expediter

A soulful coming of age story set in 1975 New York City about a young man who is forced to work under a former marine, leading them both through one summer they will never forget. Sometimes the unlikeliest of mentors become our greatest teachers.

Boys Feels: High Tide

Like tears in the rain, water is the metaphor for growing pains and so much more in these four tales about young boys coming to terms with a host of emotions for the very first time. These polished productions and festival favourites are brought to you by a host of talented directors from across Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. The short films are: Ocean [Océan] (2013); Go Daan Go! [Daan Durft] (2014); The Boy in the Ocean (2016); Beach Boy (2011).

Middle of Nowhere

The film follows Grace, a young woman whose irresponsible mother blows her college fund on her younger sister's beauty pageant campaign.

The Cactus

Ben is given a Cactus as a gift for his 18th birthday. He places it down on his desk. As this cactus's life passes so does Ben's. He graduates high school and finds himself in a tumultuous period of his life. Full of emotional highs and lows we witness the life of this cactus and an uncertain slice of Ben's life.