Escapism (2023)

Norman the Snowman: The Northern Lights

The boy has longed to visit the northern country and experience the beautiful mysteries of nature that his childhood friend Norman the Snowman has told him about. On the first day of snow in the northern country, the boy sneaks out of his house and boards a northbound train with Norman to see the mysteries of nature with his own eyes.

Moon of a Sleepless Night

In a thick forest full of giant trees, a boy lives modestly with his family. One day, a guardian of the moon looking like a squirrel shows up in front of the boy, saying the moon got accidentally stuck on a high tree somewhere far East. Night dominates the world as the sky stops moving with the still moon. Now, the boy and the squirrel go off on adventures into the dark forest to search and free the moon.

Night of the Living Dread

When a power-cut ruins Ruby's bedtime routine she finds herself haunted by embarrassing past versions of herself. The only way for Ruby to get a peaceful night of sleep is to confront her visitors and accept herself just as she is.

Ways Of Seeing

Rumble of train rails; Crashing of ocean waves; Soft caress of distant wind. Two people. Two ways of perceiving the world.

Clé à molette & Jo

Plot unavailable

Rest Stop.

It's 1975, and John Dykstra, a lowly college professor, with not much confidence but a semi-successful author, is on his way home from his monthly meet up group with fellow authors, when he decides to pull off to the nearest rest stop. What he encounters there is an unnerving domestic assault, that will force him to embrace his alter ego, Rick Hardin, the hitman in his novels, and finally decide what kind of man he wants to be.

Senko

A Japanese family is confronted with the mother's disease. The profoundly symbolistic images of this short film show us how Yù and his father perceive the possibility of the death and how it affectsa young boy and his vision of life.

Broads

The social democrats of the sixties and seventies worked on their grand plan to build a highway network in Germany that every German citizen could reach within five minutes of their home. The little film hangs around between and on the streets of this network - where the country discos, pedestrian zones, shopping centers, hospitals and roads home are behind noise barriers.

The Boy Who Couldn't Swim

Two teen boys meet each other in Copenhagen and team up to find one of the boys' mother. Instead they end up finding themselves - and each other.

CEREAL!

Animated Student Short Film By Xierra Also Known As XrayAlphaCharlie

A Close Shave

Wallace's whirlwind romance with the proprietor of the local wool shop puts his head in a spin, and Gromit is framed for sheep-rustling in a fiendish criminal plot.

I Want Pluto to Be a Planet Again

A transhumanist romance in the near future. A young boy of modest origins, Marcus, an H- , falls madly in love with an H+.

Home Sweet Home

An old lady’s house is full of boxes filled with memories. Every Wednesday, along with her cockroach friends, she tells her granddaughter wonderful stories. But as the little girl grows bigger, they start running out of space inside the house.

Shabbat Dinner

Shabbat Dinner is boring as usual for William Shore. His mother has invited two crazy hippies and their son and is doing her best to show off, his father is drunk and berating their oddball guests, and he doesn't have much in common with their son Virgo. That is, until Virgo tells him that he has just come out as gay.

La chair

Plot unavailable

Fallas 37: el arte en guerra

In November 1936, a few months since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the government of the Second Republic moves to Valencia. In this situation, several Valencian artists and intellectuals decide to build four fallas — satirical plasterboard sculptures created to be burnt — to mock fascism.

And So We Put Goldfish in the Pool.

One summer day, 400 goldfish were found in the swimming pool of a secondary school. This is a story about the four 15-year-old girls who put them there.

(Practically) Gay

After Alex's boyfriend breaks up with him at a wedding, another couple invites him in for a nightcap in their Airbnb's hot tub. When he starts to open up to him about his romantic troubles, they console him in more ways than one. Alex reckons with the feelings for women he's previously ignored out of a belief that living authentically as an out, bisexual male was impractical.

Un spectacle interrompu

Plot unavailable

Unseen

Unseen explores racial fetishisation and micro-aggressions through the eyes of Lien, a young woman who hopes for more than society is willing to offer her.

Les fourmis de ma grand-mère

Plot unavailable

Janjaal

A fisherman survives a deadly boat incident with a mysterious golden pocket watch that grants wishes, but at a steep cost. As a police officer seeks to revive his son, he discovers the dark power of the watch, leading to devastating consequences.

Way Up There

A family of giraffes is spending their holidays in a far-away forest. The baby giraffe gets lost and meets some of the animals that live there. But a bad-tempered squirrel does not seem at all ready to accept the newcomer. When the others see that he is not only kind but also pretty smart, he soon becomes one of the crowd, much to the annoyance of the grumpy squirrel.

Isabella

This film aims to capture the stories of the aging Isabella, but also captures her condition and loss of cohesiveness as she loses herself into dementia and Parkinson's. It is also a very personal film since the subject is the grandmother of one of the co- directors. The idea is interesting as it links one strong clear memory, told several times, to other fragments and truths of her condition. Animation is sparingly but cleverly used to complement the delivery and avoid it just being a talking head.

Anxious Body

When living things, artificial things, geometry shapes, and lines encounter, a new direction is born.

The Nephew

Burgundy, France, end of 1945. On the day of his 15th birthday, Louis receives a very special gift from his uncle Jules, who decides to take his nephew to his favorite brothel in an attempt to let him explore his new life as a grown-up man. Through the evening’s bittersweet encounters, Louis discovers the adult world in all its complexity and cruelty.

Pollock

The delivery person, Kim Su is learning Korean while working in Korea. One day, he happens to catch the criminal by motorcycle accident and get a bounty. As he gets money, he would like to treat his Korean teacher and classmates to meals.

Cedric

Death as a global service provider? Unthinkable! So far Death has thought that too. But then his nephew Cedric had the crazy idea of founding the company AFTER LIFE while his uncle was away. This company takes over the craft of death with the latest technology and markets it worldwide.

Crimes of Diogo Alves

Diogo Alves is a Spanish fugitive that comes to the Portuguese capital terrorizing the inhabitants by his cut-throat methods against rich and poor people alike. He attacks the women launderers on the Lisbon Aqueduct and throws the bodies over the high wall, and assaults homes with his large band of criminals. Eventually arrested, he, his female companion and his henchmen are condemned to death by the court.

An Entire Future Together

Two men at the bar. They work in banking and have sold preferred securities in an undetermined amount. One of them, the general manager, is being harassed at his home. After several days of harassment, he finally has a revelation.

Pioneers

Two desperate pioneer women escape together across the midwestern desert in 1848.

A Regular Thing

Love has a price in this quirky sex comedy. Sten is a 30- year-old librarian. Over a book he meets supersexy Katja, the woman of his dreams, and they soon end up in bed together. It's love at first sight, but the next thing he knows, Katja wants money every time they make love. Otherwise their relationship will become trivial, she says. Reluctantly Sten agrees, but then Katja puts up the price.

The Idyll

A modern adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story about a man and a woman sharing an unexpected encounter on a train as it travels through a beautiful and surreal landscape.

The Summer House

A young girl flees to France to forget her boyfriend; first his letters pursue her, then he himself follows her there. During a party to celebrate the moon landing she takes her own small step...

Islands

A sexual reverie unfolds over the course of one ethereal night. Characters wander through an erotic maze of love and lust, blurring the lines between wet dream and lucid nightmare as a macabre, erotic stage performance sends a ripple of lustful desires through its audience and performers.

Bad Bunny

Wayward boy punishes his mother’s lover. Beauty and horror fondle each other. Young gods callously abjure conventional morality. Death goes whoring in child’s guise.

New Babylon

An impossible city is built up out of enormous rotating rings, steering the lives of its lonely inhabitants. New Babylon is a visual trip through an oppressive night in which contemporary, individualistic life is reflected in a circular metropole.

Hillbilly Blue

Crawdad Eustace is fed-up with being treated as food and goes with possum pal Mordechai on a cross-country trip to New Orleans.

Carne

After a dreadful incident coupled with an ungovernable paroxysm of violence, a butcher will fall into a downward spiral that will burn to the ground whatever dignity still remained in him.

Automagic

On his return home, androgynous-looking Madhu attempts to seduce Ratnakar, his rickshaw driver, who is practicing celibacy in preparation for a religious pilgrimage.