Highly Explosive (2025)

No Hard Feelings

Parvis, the son of exiled Iranians, copes with life in his small hometown by indulging himself with pop culture, Grindr dates, and raves. After being caught shoplifting, he is sentenced to community service at a refugee shelter where he meets siblings Banafshe and Amon, who have fled Iran. As a romantic attraction between Parvis and Amon grows, the fragile relationship between the three is put to a test.

The Secret

A stranger enters into and forever alters the life of a couple. He claims to be pursued by certain authorities who intend to prevent him from disclosing a secret that only he holds, whence the title. Is he lying, or insane - or is he telling the truth? Who, if anyone, is after him? And what *is* - the secret?

The Crossing I

At the end of the World War II and the middle of the Chinese Revolution, three couples from different backgrounds with different nationalities flee from China to the island of Taiwan.

Tears of the Sun

Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

The Day After

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

Chiko

This is the story of Isa, who grows up in a Hamburg suburb. It might be one of the world's richest cities but every beast has its belly and here, in the very underbelly, Chiko lives in a world where violence, staking and keeping a claim, and drug taking are the norm. Where down is not an option, Chiko is determined to rise to the top, whatever and whomever it costs.

Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iraq border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

Listen Up!

Finally summer vacation. Teenager Mahmoud wants a relaxing summer when Uncle Ji comes to visit from Pakistan. He has to be responsible for being his Oslo guide, and little brother Ali has a secret that turns his whole life upside down.

Port of Desire

Pierre is in Hamburg on a merchant ship with his friends Georges and Jean-Marie. While they are just looking for a good time in the twenty-four hours they have to waste in the city, Pierre is seized by the memory of a young German girl, Maria, whom he had known and probably loved when he was a prisoner of war in the bombed-out port of Hamburg. He abandons his companions in search of her, but is unable to trace her, her house having been destroyed and the search services having no record of her.

Dogville

When beautiful young Grace arrives in the isolated township of Dogville, the small community agrees to hide her from a gang of ruthless gangsters, and, in return, Grace agrees to do odd jobs for the townspeople.

Gigantic

The Hamburg friends Walter, Ricco and Floyd take each day as it comes between the estates of tower blocks and fast food restaurants. All three are in their early twenties and are dreaming of another life when Floyd suddenly takes a job on a freighter going to Singapore.

Eight Miles High

Achim Bornhak's movie focuses on the restless life of Uschi Obermaier, the icon of the 1968 movement in Germany and groupie. At the age of 16, Uschi is bored by her job in a photo lab, but soon becomes the "it girl" of Munich's club scene. When she gets to know Rainer Langhans, they move to Berlin and live in "Kommune 1", the first politically-motivated commune in Germany. While the other occupants claim she isn't political enough, Uschi just wants to have fun, works as fashion model and leads international music stars in temptation.

Erbsen auf halb 6

It all starts with a bang. The car breaks through the crash barrier and falls off the bridge. The lights go out. After that, he is not able to see anymore. His optic nerve is severed, from now on the young stage-director Jakob is blind. His life will change and nothing will ever be the same. Jakob cannot handle the idea of never being able to see again and screams at the only woman who is able and willing to help him, Lily. A rehabilitation teacher, she helps the blind deal with the darkness. Lily has been living with it since birth, she too is blind.

The Bourne Identity

Wounded to the brink of death and suffering from amnesia, Jason Bourne is rescued at sea by a fisherman. With nothing to go on but a Swiss bank account number, he starts to reconstruct his life, but finds that many people he encounters want him dead. However, Bourne realizes that he has the combat and mental skills of a world-class spy—but who does he work for?

Sounds of Sand

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.

Grand Illusion

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

Walk With Me

​While walking his dog, Eric bumps into the confident and carefree Ryan. Taking a nervous leap, Eric accepts Ryan’s invitation to walk through the city en route to a concert. In the next six blocks, the two men discover that intimacy through anonymity also exposes one another’s flaws and insecurities. Will they make it to the concert in one piece?

God is Good

A short film exploring queerness, blackness and religion.

The Hurt Locker

During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

My Paws Are Soft, My Bones Are Heavy

On this lonesome birthday, Johan tries to celebrate it as if his late mother is still here. Succumbing to his past, though in reality, there is only Paran, his best friend.

Night Shapes

The Pope is in town and the night of his stay is anything but heavenly for some of Berlin′s inhabitants. Rich and poor, down-and-outs and policemen, street kids and taxi drivers - in their search for a little bit of happiness, they all end up on an amusing and at times harrowing odyssey through the labyrinth of the big city.

The American Friend

Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.

101 Butterflies

It took a hundred queer years for Lola Perla to be finally recognized by a government that never really took notice of the likes of her. But that’s okay, because along with the president’s anti-climactic, and in many ways, almost insincere recognition is a fat envelope containing Php100,000 (USD$2,000). For Perla, this is more than enough money to transcend her idea of a lifetime legacy. Today is the day Lola Perla confronts her long-standing personal covenant: to bail an ex-lover’s son out of jail. Meeting fifty-someting Nanding transforms into a reunion, then, a communion of her present self, with an old love.

Backbeat

Chronicles the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. The film focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe, John Lennon, and Sutcliffe's girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr.

Christmas at the Ranch

When Haley Hollis returns to her family ranch to try and save it from closure, she wasn't banking on spending so much time with ranch hand Kate - or falling for her.

791 km

5 people of different personalities have to take a taxi from Munich to Hamburg, as the train service is canceled. The strangers discover that every one of them has their own cross to bear, but to overcome trouble they have to work together as a group.

Head-On

With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.

Short Sharp Shock

Gabriel, Bobby and Costa are old friends from Altona, a multicultural hood in Hamburg. Just out of prison, Gabriel wants to turn his back on crime, but the others continue to operate as petty criminals. Friendships are tested as the trio navigate a dark world of mafia bosses and deals gone wrong.

Hotel Rwanda

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

Anhell69

A funeral car cruises the streets of Medellín, while a young director tells the story of his past in this violent and conservative city. He remembers the pre-production of his first film, a Class-B movie with ghosts. The young queer scene of Medellín is casted for the film, but the main protagonist dies of a heroin overdose at the age of 21, just like many friends of the director. Anhell69 explores the dreams, doubts and fears of an annihilated generation, and the struggle to carry on making cinema.

The Swimmers

From war-torn Syria to the 2016 Rio Olympics, two young sisters embark on a risky voyage, putting their hearts and their swimming skills to heroic use.

The Refugee

A Chinese medical student named Gan Shosho finds himself cut off from his homeland as he is studying in Japan during the outbreak of the war. Despite his difficult circumstances, he finds love in the form of Sachiko and the two marry. They later travel to Nanjing to live a new life together where Sachiko and Shaochang cooperate with the Japanese-backed government. Their ultimate hope is to secure peace but their idealism is not enough to keep them together through brutal times and with the end of the war the two find themselves facing a divorce... --Osaka Asian Film Festival

The Cloud-Capped Star

A selfless young woman, the daughter of a middle-class refugee family from East Pakistan, sacrifices her own happiness for her unappreciative family.

Dreamers

Caught without papers, Isio is relocated and trapped inside Hatchworth Removal Centre, where she learns that finding love, friendship and freedom sometimes means doing the wrong things.

St. Louis

Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Getting a passage aboard the passenger liner St. Louis seems to be the last hope of salvation for more than nine hundred German Jews who, desperate to escape the atrocious persecution to which they are subjected by the Nazi regime, intend to emigrate to Cuba.

The Strangers' Case

Set against the backdrop of the Syrian Civil War, the lives of pediatric surgeon Amira and her daughter intertwine with five families across four continents in a chain reaction of tragedy, resilience, and hope.

Blood Alley

An American Merchant Marine captain, rescued from a Chinese Communist jail by local villagers, is "shanghaied" into transporting the entire village to Hong Kong on an ancient paddle steamer.

Little Trouble Girls

Introverted 16-year-old Lucia joins her Catholic school's all-girls choir, where she befriends Ana-Maria, a popular and flirty third-year student. But when the choir travels to a countryside convent for a weekend of intensive rehearsals, Lucia’s interest in a dark-eyed restoration worker tests her friendship with Ana-Maria and the other girls. As she navigates unfamiliar surroundings and her budding sexuality, Lucia begins to question her beliefs and values, disrupting the harmony within the choir.

Appalachian Dog

Appalachia, 1946: a seamstress welcomes home her tailor husband to find they are not the team they were. Trying to stitch their old life back together, time and again it threatens to fall apart - with each of them pulling at the thread.

Silent Night

Fact-based World War II story set on Christmas Eve, 1944, finds a German Mother and her son seeking refuge in a cabin on the war front. When she is invaded by three American soldiers and then three German soldiers, she successfully convinces the soldiers to put aside their differences for one evening and share a Christmas dinner.

Casi divas

Four ambitious and beautiful young women. From four very different corners of Mexico. Just like hundreds of others, they are caught up in the frenzy that sweeps the nation when Alejandro Mateos, one of the country's most powerful producers, dreams up a nationwide talent search to cast the lead in his next big movie. But all this is news to Alejandro's on-again, off-again lover, Eva Gallardo, a diva of epic proportions, who expected to get the part. While Eva schemes to nail down the role, our four leads begin their own journey on the road to fame.

Woman of the Year

Rival reporters Sam Craig and Tess Harding fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.

Two Women

A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.

Totally F***ed Up

Gay, alienated Los Angeles teens have a hard time as their parents kick them out of their homes, they don’t have money, their lovers cheat, and they are harassed by gay-bashers.

The Boy of The Fish

"The Boy Of The Fish" follows Noon, a young boy living in a Syrian refugee camp, who finds solace and a sense of freedom in a whale-shaped doll he names "Bahr." Set against the challenging realities of camp life, Noon’s journey is both a story of resilience and a testament to the boundless imagination of childhood. Through vivid symbolism and a unique soundscape, the film explores themes of loss, hope, and the longing for freedom amidst confinement. Shot entirely on an iPhone due to restrictions in the conflict zone, the film combines raw authenticity with poetic depth to capture the emotional landscape of a young soul navigating adversity.

Beasts of No Nation

Based on the experiences of Agu, a child fighting in the civil war of an unnamed, fictional West African country. Follows Agu's journey as he's forced to join a group of soldiers. While he fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination.

The House by the Sea

By a little bay near Marseille lies a picturesque villa owned by an old man. His three children have gathered by his side for his last days. It’s time for them to weigh up what they have inherited of their father’s ideals and the community spirit he created in this magical place. The arrival, at a nearby cove, of a group of boat people will throw these moments of reflection into turmoil.

Kandahar

After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.

Las Pardas

A group of transvestite friends sneaks into the municipal swimming pool like every night. The darkness protects them from the gaze of the world. But tonight is different.

The Truce

After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.

Arch of Triumph

In the winter of 1938, Paris is crowded with refugees from the Nazis, who live in the black shadows of night, trying to evade deportation. One such is Dr. Ravic, who practices medicine illegally and stalks his old Nazi enemy Haake with murder in mind. One rainy night, Ravic meets Joan Madou, a kept woman cast adrift by her lover's sudden death. Against Ravic's better judgment, they become involved in a doomed affair.

Kannathil Muthamittal

A little girl is told by her parents that she is adopted. Determined to find her birth mother, her family eventually agrees to take her to Sri Lanka, where they encounter the militant group known as the Tamil Tigers.

My Name Is Loh Kiwan

After defecting from North Korea, Loh Kiwan struggles to obtain refugee status in Belgium, where he encounters a dejected woman who has lost all hope.

Any Day Now

Bahman, Mahtab, Ramin and Donya Mehdipour are enjoying a perfect summer in a small Finnish town. Their routines are fractured by a negative decision on their application for asylum by the Finnish Immigration Service. But life must go on and the 13-year-old Ramin is about to enter an entirely new school, junior high. The Mehdipours use their last chance to appeal but continue their everyday lives, fuelled by their exceptionally positive outlook and attitude.