Stairwell B (2023)

After-School Special

A man and a woman have an awkward encounter at an indoor playground.

The American Wake

A seventeen year old girl who has lived all her life on an island off the coast of Ireland is faced with the choice to remain there or emigrate to America.

Boy Saint

A sumptuous short film of friendship and adoration between boys, based on a poem by Peter LeBerge. Moments of joy, bonding and roughhousing on a school trip to the beach counterpoint one teen boy’s introspective sexual awakenings and questionings. Magnificent cinematography and editing create a visual feast that provides the imagery for a narrated poem by Peter Laberge alluding to early homosexual desires, but with Catholic overtones never directly expressed.

Fish Out of Water

Fish Out of Water manages to unfurl its light-hearted tale of young man and the sea, without a word of dialogue. Avoiding the morning traffic jams, our man (Nick Dunbar) finds peace by rowing each day to work in the city. But when a seductive blonde unexpectedly enters the picture, he finds his morning boat ride heading in unexpected directions. Directed by Lala Rolls (Land of My Ancestors), Fish Out of Water was invited to play in the 2005 NZ Film Festival, plus another 10 overseas fests. Victoria Kelly composes the brass and banjo-inflected soundtrack.

Vacua

During an ordinary summer, Alba lives day by day trying to find the way to her future: a job, a purpose.

White Man

A white-collar South Korean man discovers a severed human finger and keeps it.

Phantom Pain

Daniel seeks catharsis by recalling with Sofía his past relationship.

Honeymoon

Sandra is travelling with Fay, helping her take the bus out of the country. A transphobic attack leaves them both stranded in the middle of nowhere. A sensitive and vibrant response to intolerance in the form of a gritty and realistic road movie.

Consumed

After her mother comes back from an extended hospital stay, a young girl begins to envision an ominous monster lurking in her home.

Adult

Having enabled a loss that now torments her, a woman enters an adult store in search of redemption. Adapted from a short story by Christos Tsiolkas.

Cla'am

A dark, surreal comedy about a local man who becomes convinced that a vast conspiracy is behind the impossibly rapid gentrification in his London area. But is it all in his head, or is the truth even darker than he imagines? Cla'am is the debut short from Nathaniel Martello-White, one of the UK's leading young playwrights.

Fry Day

Set against the backdrop of the execution of Ted Bundy in 1989, the story centers around a 16-year-old girl named Lauryn who makes a little extra money by taking and selling Polaroids of the people who are camped out near the prison, celebrating the execution.

Sycorax

Who is Sycorax? The first character in Shakespeare's "Tempest" to set foot on the island. The problem is that she has no voice. She is barely mentioned by Prospero as a crooked, old, wicked witch who vilely locked Ariel, the spirit of the air, in a tree. But why would she do that? Here, we wouldn't believe Prospero so much.

A Shade of Grey

A peaceful life on a family farm. A cold, clear winter day. Nine-year-old Noémy is about to leave the carefree world of childhood behind.

El balancín de Iván

Ana is a woman of thirty-something, goes back to the house where she spent of her childhood during the Argentine dictatorship.

Swingin'

When sixth-grader boy Qiu is bullied in school for having gay dads, his stepfather Howard, a flamboyant Jazz trumpet player, must confront his own nightmares of childhood bulling before he can provide his son a feeling of security.

Shannon Amen

Shannon Amen unearths the passionate and pained expressions of a young woman overwhelmed by guilt and anxiety as she struggles to reconcile her sexual identity with her religious faith. A loving elegy to a friend lost to suicide.

Meatoo

A naive actor auditions for a film which could launch his career. The things he's asked to do make him more and more uncomfortable, until a choice remark from the director makes him see red.

By the Sea Where We Played

A short story about a boy who is honest and courageous despite being paralyzed.

between the walls

A young artist, Sofia - a photographer, wanders the streets at night with her camera. She's led by a mysterious graffiti artist through his written poetry on street walls and embarks upon a spiritual quest.

The Doldrums or How to Cure Sadness

The tiricia is an illness of the soul when the heart is saddened. A story of three generations afflicted with being tiricientas: Ita, Justa and Alicia – grandmother, mother and daughter – who have at different times suffered, tolerated and allowed abuse, dragging on the disease. Alicia decides to break the cycle, eradicating it for future generations.

Women in Film: BBC Introducing Arts

Cultural historian Janina Ramirez presents a collection of intriguing and exciting short films by emerging women directors and artists. Each film gives a female perspective on modern-day topics from body image and new love to grief and belonging. Expect honest and refreshing storytelling that will make you laugh, make you cry and make you think. In a Room Full of Sisters; Blood Stains; Bridging the Gap; Cake; Ding-Ding, Next; Fruity; In Perpetuum; Owulide; White Dwarf; Cosmic Domestic; The Dead Are Jewels to Me; The Presence of Absence

Hiwa

Jay wakes up in Manila, yet he dreamed of Athens. He has a nightmare, during which he has a special quest: to save his two daughters from a dangerous surgery. In his attempt to rescue them, he roams around Athens’ cityscape, seeing things under a very different light.

Cherry Blossoms in March

In this mother-daughter story, a young woman explores her own mortality through art and poetry as her terminal illness holds her back from a normal life.

Beautiful Dreamer

Facing a terminal disease, a mother uses space travel and relativity to stretch her last two years over the lifetime of her baby daughter, visiting for only one night every seven years. Mother and daughter must negotiate to build a relationship despite the longing and estrangement that marks the life moments they are able to share.

Birdboy

A terrible industrial accident changes little Dinki's life forever. Now Dinki's fate may ride on the wings of her eccentric friend Birdboy, a misfit who hides in the forest lost in his fantasies.

Frozen Roads

Balthazar and siblings Christian and Lyla have been friends since childhood. As the trio struggles with coming of age in a rural, conservative Canadian town, they must confront escalating desires for one another that threaten to destroy their delicate bond.

Requited

Nicolas, a young man in his mid 20s, struggles to decide whether or not to go to the wedding of his best friend from high school, Aaron, who he's always been quietly in love with. The two had a falling out years earlier after Nicolas inexplicably kissed Aaron's girlfriend. Nicolas clings to an idealized image of his former friend, unconsciously sabotaging his own happiness in the process. The film is a realistic slice-of-life that poses the question "How do you get over something you never had?"

Boys Like You

A young man struggles with the boundaries of friendship when he finds himself in an intimate situation

Revolution

A coming-of-age story about Jack, a 16-year old Iranian boy growing up in 1989 Los Angeles. With the 1979 Iranian Revolution a distant memory, the AIDS movement as a backdrop, and a haunting score by Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij, Jack learns how to stage his own much smaller revolution within the confines of his traditional family.

The In-Between

The story or two men who fall in love and move in together.

Pê

Pê, a man with terminal cancer, wanders through his city, Lisbon. Throughout the day, he is confronted with a reality unaware of his suffering while he prepares his imminent death by writing a farewell letter to his daughter. When emptying her father’s house, the daughter discovers the letter. It is the beginning of a new encounter.

Tomorrow's Shame

Realizing he won't be able to pay his mortgage, Pierre faces a heartbreaking decision: to evict Micheline, his tenant and friend, who is behind on her payments.

The Trap

Maggie's friends have planned a surprise birthday party (despite it being a month away). During the party, Maggie realizes there's more to it then that.

Longing

When Michal finds out her husband Meir is having an affair with a man, her world collapses. Not only is she is forced to deal with sexual rejection from Meir, she also has to endure social rejection.

Lucky Fares

One of the Three Kings and Santa Claus spend Christmas in jail, talking about what their future will be like in a world like this.

Fidelity

A short comedy about infidelity, drinking too much at parties, and letting go.

Middle of Somewhere

After a family tragedy, a man attempts to guide his son into manhood through a series of hunting trips at the request of his overbearing and traditional father.

Gayndr II

In this short film the audience is confronted by one young man and his reaction to text messages received from other guys on different gay dating apps. It explores communication between gay men today and the use of dating apps.

What Grown-Ups Know

Teenage boy Roy and his ailing mother Elizabeth live an aimless life on the road, shuttling between gas stations, temp jobs and cheap motels. When they end up at a desolate caravan park, fractures begin to appear in Roy's relationship with his mother as he starts to fall head over heels for park manager Maurice.

In the Name of the Father

The short film depicts the life of a boy who is constantly sexually abused by his father. Leonardo Miggiorin brilliantly plays the role of this boy, who belongs to a poor and unstructured family.

The Clearing

In this short film written and directed by Alexis Bisticas, the audience sees through the eyes of a man in the woods, following the distant sound of a saxophone. In a single take, the fluid steadicam shot takes the viewer on a surreal and poetic journey, as the walker comes across everything from family picnics to men in bondage suits.

Fallen Art

Fallen Art presents the story of General A, a self-proclaimed artist. His art, however, consists of a deranged method of stop motion photography, where the individual frames of the movie are created by photographs made by Dr. Johann Friedrich, depicting the bodies of dead soldiers, pushed down by Sergeant Al from a giant springboard onto a slab of concrete.

Examination

A school physician whose son is being bullied at school finds that he must conduct a routine medical examination of one of his son's chief tormentors.

Happy Childhood

A life is difficult even for children during the forties in Estonia...

Frogs

It’s dripping through the ceiling, the space for sleeping is scarce. Under poor living conditions, a young mother handles everyday life with her two daughters in the Brazilian suburb as best she can. When they unexpectedly acquire a load of frog legs, this gives rise to a celebration that will not soon be forgotten.

Lost Property Office

A clerk at a lost property office is faced with unexpected change, and plans an unconventional response.