Shackles (2023)

Pre-Drink

Alexe is a young trans woman, and Carl a gay man. Best friends since forever, an evening spent together destabilizes Alexe, when both decide to have sex together for the first time.

Weapons and Their Names

Struggling to connect with her grieving family after the sudden death of her stepfather, a teenager sneaks off to shoot guns in rural Florida with her best friend.

Family Affair

Sunday. Classic game on the brazilian championship. Rossi’s family organize themselves in front of TV. Eunice, his mother, looks trough the window while Borges, his dad, and Cauã, his older brother, watch the football match. Rossi tries to find his place in the house.

Dirty

Marco cuts class to spend the afternoon with his boyfriend, Graham. Things do not go as planned.

Five Minutes a Day

Working in a small security kiosk, two men take advantage of the shift change to get to know each other and forge a touching bond.

Polaroid

Giuseppe, 33, is still struggling to build his life in a small Italian town where he has to hide his homosexuality. With a Polaroid in hand, he decides to leave for Berlin to find Peter, a summer love he has never forgotten. The shock of a cosmopolitan city is nothing compared to the moment he realizes that the German artist has a "normal" family. For him this represents the possibility of 'losing' himself and meeting Marco, who takes him around all night to arrive at dawn to the conviction that love is the only strength to find one's identity. "Polaroid" is one of five short film segments in an omnibus feature titled "A Quintet".

Connected

"Connected" is a about two lonesome people who find each other via a chance encounter on a subway train. They experience happiness in one another for a brief moment in their lives until circumstances out of their control rip them apart. However their paths may once again intersect down the line.

Swipe

A young boy addicted to iFatwa, an app that crowdsources religious death sentences, spends his days swiping on the lives of strangers.

The Magician

A modern reimagining of the trick film, combining the love of spectacle, the artist's process and the dark state of today's politics.

Annie

Annie wakes up in the middle of an abandoned quarry without knowing how, or why, has she got there. As she incorporates herself, she begins to understand her complicated situation.

We Came Frome The Sea

Einar is an addict who has just abandoned his wife and five-year-old daughter. While struggling to detox at his lodge near the ocean, Einar is harassed by a stranger.

Kitty

A girl dreams of becoming a kitten.

Pathetic Woman

An awkward encounter at work carries two unassuming co-workers into a dreamy holiday weekend. A weekend that inevitably falls to pieces when Andy introduces Katherine to some friends. A surreal portrait of love and how pathetic it renders us.

The Last Song

Ernie Hudson and Angie Kim star in this short film about a customer not wanting to leave a Karaoke Bar. A night without closure.

96 Ways to Say I Love You

The main narrative follows youngsters Al and Olive and their respective journeys towards saying those three words for the first time. However, the story is interspersed with inputs from different couples in evidently very different relationships.

Shelter

Shelter tells the story of Rin, a 17-year-old girl who lives her life inside of a futuristic simulation completely by herself in infinite, beautiful loneliness. Each day, Rin awakens in virtual reality and uses a tablet which controls the simulation to create a new, different, beautiful world for herself. Until one day, everything changes, and Rin comes to learn the true origins behind her life inside a simulation.

Private Photos

A sweet couple invite a third person over for the night, who brings a lustful energy to spice things up.

Memories for Sale

After his alcoholic father's death, a young man decides to sell the last memory of him — his taxi.

What We Don't Tell

Jeremy, a twenty-two-year-old drifter, goes on a search for the man who abused him as a child.

Sinbad and the Cyclops Island

Marina, Sinbad and his crew are resting on a small island. They soon find out they're not alone.

What a Wonderful World

An unhappily married couple makes a life-changing discovery in their kitchen in this sci-fi short.

Oscar Wilde's the Nightingale and the Rose

A nightingale bird discovers a true lover when she witnesses a young university student talk with great passion about his beloved. The Nightingale goes on a quest to find the red rose the Student needs win his lovers heart, but this comes at a chilling price. Based on the classic fairytale by Oscar Wilde.

I Am So Happy

Fragments of a Saturday winter day. The Vittenzein brothers are alone at their family house. Mateo stops by to pick up Bruno and Camilo and drive them to the country house where their mother awaits. A sudden break slam brings them into the intimacy of a waste land.

JONES

Jones' inner demons threaten to take over her life unless she outruns the voices in her head and the ticking of time.

Cold Turkey

A troubled teenager tries to get rid of the most dangerous addiction of them all - cannibalism.

The Black Balloon

While escorting a group of children through New York City, a harried man loses hold of a bouquet of one hundred balloons. Among them, a single black balloon drifts free, seemingly lifeless, only to revive and embark on a strange journey through the city. Searching for companionship, it drifts among the highs and lows of human life, discovering both joy and despair along the way. Conceived as a children’s tale but emerging as a surreal urban fable, The Black Balloon follows the haunting odyssey of a balloon that longs to belong.

Colour Poetry

Colour Poetry explores the journey of two lovers—Red, chaotic and anxious, and Blue, calm and structured—their characters being constructed through the lens of their emotional and mental states. As they navigate the complexities of a long-distance relationship, their interactions subtly transform their identities. While Red finds solace and stability in love, Blue begins to feel suffocated and reluctant to change. Their inevitable reunion forces them to confront an uncomfortable truth: growth isn’t always shared, and love doesn’t always mean staying together. As they move toward a seemingly unbreakable bond of their union, they must confront the reality that not all transformations are mutual.

Face in the Crowd

A woman on a journey through a crowd grapples with private and public revelation, repulsion, fear, personal safety, and the desire for basic human interaction.

Come Swim

COME SWIM is a diptych of one man's day; half impressionist and half realist portraits.