The Last Straw (2023)

Miyazaki

Plot unavailable

The Monsters

A look inside the minds of two students who have been bullied to the extreme.

American Eid

Ameena, a Muslim Pakistani immigrant, wakes up on Eid to find out that she has to go to school. Homesick and heartbroken, she goes on a mission to make Eid a public-school holiday, and in the process, reconnects with her older sister, and embraces her new home, while her new home embraces her.

Before It's Too Late

Brazil, the first week of 2019. A new president takes office in a scenario of fanaticism, prejudice, and violence. Locked in a hotel room, two teenagers decide to change the course of their lives, before it’s too late.

Bloody Hell

When Camille wakes up on the morning of her 16th birthday the world seems to have changed over night. Nothing makes sense and everything sucks. While impatiently waiting to finally start her first period, she's challenged with the emotional stages of PMS to begin her transition into womanhood.

Tea

While rehearsing asking out the girl of his dreams, a lonely and highly allergic Circuit-Shack employee gets stung in the throat by a hornet.

I Dare You

Two high schoolers skip school and go drinking. While making dares with each other, one hints at his feelings for the other.

Keep It for Yourself

Sophie comes to New York from France with the intention of joining a man she met a few months before. She finds herself alone in the apartment of the guy, who left town because he was scared stiff at the idea of seeing her. Originally commissioned as one third of an omnibus feature showcasing the Figaro, a Japan-only retro throwback car.

The Bereaved

After the death of his father, Paul (18) meets Dresen (60), who also suffered a loss. The two of them spend the night together. But their suppressed mourning turns into aggression. The situation is about to escalate.

Adam in aeternum

Plot unavailable

The Name of the Son

Long hair would look good on him, but so would a moustache. This summer by the sea, the trans boy Lucho knows that there is a lot in him that is difficult to share with others.

Closing Dynasty

On a school day, a seven year-old girl, Queenie, hustles and schemes ways to make money on the streets of New York City.

White Spirit

Avoiding uncomfortable pauses in a conversation is an art. Creating such moments in a conversation is a job, more precisely, this is White's job. In this whimsical musical short, dance along with White, a man who interferes in conversations at appropriate - or quite inconvenient - moments.

00-Baby Boom Child

On their way home by bike through a deserted industrial area, a mother and her son starts to talk about what happened when our dream of eternal economic growth collided with the peak, and following decline in global oil production. In a sad but quite plausible picture of the near future, our children make us accountable for today's irresponsible way of living.

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away

Based on the Stephen King short story: A middle-aged traveling salesman contemplates his life choices at a shitty motel in Nebraska.

Altered Innocence Vol. 1

A vibrant anthology of LGBTQ+ short films and music videos that delve into the complexities of youth, identity, and desire. This diverse collection showcases a range of cinematic voices—both emerging and established—exploring the exhilaration, vulnerability, and confusion of coming-of-age through stories that celebrate queer love, self-discovery, and the breaking of societal boundaries. Blending narrative shorts, experimental visuals, and music-driven pieces, the anthology offers an evocative, multifaceted portrait of innocence transformed.

The Drunkard

A couple shelters an alcoholic haunted by his Republican past in their suburban home.

Sugar

19-year-old Fiadh spends a night in Berlin's nightlife - oscillating between her sugar daddy Marcel and her boyfriend Micha.

Another Luna

A gap in the relationship with her mother causes Luna to seek affection from a mysterious doll.

Sweet Rabbit

Jeanet, an insecure middle-aged woman, discovers one day that rabbit ears are growing out of her head. Shocked and confused, she rushes to the doctor to get rid of her ailment. But the doctor turns out to be a poor listener. Jeanets relatives seem to have attention for her. Jeanet thinks she is on her own until she knocks on her husband's door.

Second Round

In a world where childbirth is state-regulated, a couple applies for a license to have a child. They pass the first round of the process, but have no idea what awaits them in the second round.

Ten Minutes

A desperate man makes a call to customer service looking for an answer.

Slave

14-year-old Ana is easily seduced by Sam, a 17 year-old young man who, along with his mother and others deceive and blackmail Ana into the world of prostitution. Ana will shortly discover soon that it is part of a network of trafficking in persons and tries to escape.

Mediation

A divorce mediation spins way out of control for a husband, his soon-to-be ex-wife and their court-appointed mediator.

Cowboys

Martin is a finished actor, both professionally and personally. He is divorced, has no friends and a son he has not talked to for more than a year. But one fine day he will get a working offer his agent will not let him pass: to be companion of a 5 years old boy in a costume contest at the Amusement Park.

The Roof

After being sent to stay with his grandfather, a Cheyenne teen uncovers a connection to his family and community in a way he never thought possible.

My Senses Are All I Have to Offer

Lourdes and Lana met telepathically using “sensory pills”, a technology that allows access to other people’s sensations from a distance. After months of relationship, Lourdes decides to visit the country house of her parents, Vicente and Carl, and introduce them to her girlfriend.

About a Father

Sixty-year old Jindřich is waiting for a heart transplant. His wife, in an effort to protect him from a heart attack, has moved with him and their teenage daughter to their cottage in the countryside, so that he would have an absolutely peaceful life. But their son David comes for a holiday and he is not alone. He would like to discuss his life situation with his father but his mother intervenes as she is afraid that it would upset his father. Is, however, the worry about his health the real reason why she is making her children lie to their father?

Frantic Attempts

Matthias is going on a weekend course of self-discovery called “My Value on Earth,” which was an expensive gift from his girlfriend. The course is supposed to help him deal with his chronic inability to finish things that he’s started. But before Matthias leaves, his girlfriend springs a surprise on him: he’s going to be a father. And so he hopes to use the weekend, which he has no real desire to go on, to answer new and pressing questions. The “alternative” therapist, however, doesn’t inspire much trust. The tragicomedy Frantic Attempts takes aim at the field of personal development, in particular, dubious therapists who offer quick fixes. After all, what if we should answer our existential questions ourselves instead of trying to find answers from others?

The Russian Sleep Experiment

Russian researchers funded by the Soviet Union during WWII are testing an expirimental gas on subjects deemed enemies of the state. The experimental gas is meant to eliminate the need for sleep, but all goes wrong as the gas has unexpected effects on the subjects.

A.

Having lost her memory, A. could barely recall glimpses of her childhood in Argentina. After her death, her son visits the empty house for the last time. A sensory journey through a house without objects but filled with memory.

Zodiac

Peter is an eight year old boy who lives in a cheap hotel room. When his mother oddly disappears, a transsexual woman comes to take care of him, against her own will. Sooner or later Peter will find out that this is the woman with the 'plumed snake', the woman that will pull him to outside world, where anything is likely to occur.

Antoine and Colette

Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).

Every Revolution Is a Throw of the Dice

A tribute to Mallarmé that not only asserts the continuing relevance of his work but also confronts its literary ambiguities with political and cinematic ambiguities of its own. In outline, the film could not be more straightforward: it offers a recitation of one of Mallarmé’s most celebrated and complex poems (it was his last published work in his own lifetime, appearing in 1897, a year before his death) and proposes a cinematic equivalent for the author’s original experiment with typography and layout by assigning the words to nine different speakers, separating each speaker from the other as she or he speaks, and using slight pauses to correspond with white spaces on the original page.

Self-Complacency

Cristian comes back to his house because he forgot his work badge. At home, he finds Fernanda, his wife, having sex with somebody else. Cristian does not dare to deal with the situation, so he wanders around the city to avoid the event and decide what to do about it.

Cor Petit

Gael, a young aspiring actor, will do everything possible to star in the next play by theater director Luca Rossi. During the rehearsals, a series of strange events will begin to occur while Luca's suspicions about Gael increase.

Biscut

BISCUT (HOTSTAR-DISNEY RELEASE -2022) In an Indian village ruled by muscle and money, one man sparks a revolution without guns or bullets by betting his life on just the power of democracy. Biscut is the awe-inspiring story of Bhoora, a poor Dalit (lower caste) youth condemned to a daily struggle for survival, who turns a collective curse into a formidable force for change. BISCUT is the Hindi language word for a cookie or a biscuit.

The Mistake

Martin is a curious boy, but because of his personality, he often has misunderstandings with his parents, siblings, and teachers.

Paradise Lost?

After discovering that John Milton is buried within London's Barbican grounds, Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard reimagined his epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’ as part of Doug Aitken's Station to Station project. The piece uses the architecture and atmosphere of the Barbican to update the story, which is told in three parts.

nothing, except everything.

A graduating high schooler navigates a world of seemingly inevitable chaos by finding order in the number 7.

La Cura

Plot unavailable

Nightshade

Tarik helps his father Elias transport illegal immigrants into the Netherlands. When an accident occurs, Tarik gains the acknowledgment from his father he has yearned for, but at a high price - the loss of his own innocence.

Debris

After a disastrous event on his construction site, Armando acts quickly to save his crew, but instead stumbles upon an unspeakable truth.