Mother Tongue (2024)

The Witch

Upon arriving home drunk, Martin, an old farmer, offends his wife Nicha and his grandson. Under the influence of witchcraft, Martin and Nicha sleep without being able to wake up, while a witch murders their grandson; a fact that will cause great sadness in Nicha, leading to her death, leaving Martin alone, deeply drowned in alcohol.

After His Death

After the death of her father, Ayelet discovers that he had an affair with a man. Ayelet confronts her mother, and discovers that she knew about it. Ayelet decides to invite her father's lover to his grave, despite her mother's opinion.

Million Dollar Baby

Despondent over a painful estrangement from his daughter, trainer Frankie Dunn isn't prepared for boxer Maggie Fitzgerald to enter his life. But Maggie's determined to go pro and to convince Dunn and his cohort to help her.

Foreign Lovers

A lonely New Yorker serendipitously meets a mysterious foreigner and sparks ignite. A meditation on life and love in the digital age.

100m Freestyle

Polo and Domingo spend their last days together between Ciudad Mendoza and Cordoba, in Veracruz, Mexico, before Domingo moves to another city for college. Domingo has to say goodbye to his girlfriend, Mina; while Polo deals with his feelings towards his best friend in the little time they have left.

Unicorn

A young German/Bolivian Mennonite risks his life to escape his strict religious community to find love and freedom in the city.

Wanks

Two friends decide to have a wank remembering old times.

Adam

This short film centers around a high school student whose declaration of love to another boy leads to hostile reactions from his classmates.

Santosh

A government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is found raped and murdered, she is pulled into the investigation under the wing of charismatic feminist inspector Sharma.

Time for Love

Two men hold hands in a public place, but even in 2018, something’s not quite right.

Playtime

A mother wants to play with her son who won't speak to her. A boy wants to find out what his friend is giving to a girl who is more slender than him. A cat has disappeared. But these are only games.

En passant

Andor is a young chess player, who even calls his pet turtle Kasparov. “Do you think I will succeed? - the boy asks her before the decisive tournament. "If I win, he will never come back." Who is Andor talking about and why is he either afraid of this return, or wants it?

The Bathtub

Ramon Riera is taking a well-deserved bath when his cell phone suddenly rings. On the other side of the line is Clara, a girl who insistently tries to sell him a life insurance.

Barely in Love

When a new troupe leader joins the 'Bnai Akiva' boy scouts movement, Yotam's world trembles. He is forced to cope with his sexual orientation and the difficulties he faces with family and religion, and is torn between his love of religion that forbids homosexuality and his mother who tries to 'cure' him.

If We Keep Talking in Summer Days

In a small city in the north, the time of midsummer is very short. Two boys get to know each other by chance and agree to meet by a lake. But one of them doesn’t keep the agreement, and it begins to rain heavily.

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.

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.

Sugar Glass Bottle

Near-future Tokyo. Kou, through the help of his high school best friend, finds a surprising way to express his mounting frustration at the insidious forces of commercialism that are forcing out the neighbors he cares most about. Initially inspired by a prank that the writer-director Neo Sora (The Chicken, 2020) had pulled on him in his childhood, a sense of warm nostalgia and cold, material reality intermingle to tell a tale set in the not-so-distant future about disappearing spaces and the forces of policing and gentrification that drills this process forward.

Sugar

After a defeating first year of college, a young woman enlists the help of a friend to participate in a baking competition, only to find fulfillment in unexpected ways.

17

A 17-year-old struggling to find intimacy at home or at school seeks it through a gay hookup app.

BOB

A painter in a creative crisis gets help from a monster behind a door in her studio.

Armour

Hector's father just died. His girlfriend just left him for an older man and returned to her parents' home, taking their eleven-year-old sons to meet her "new" father. Hector is drunk and is wearing light cavalry armor borrowed from an ambulance driver he knows. There is a medieval festival going on and the town gets on fire.

Trapped

A highschool janitor runs through a series of dangerous obstacles.

Learning English

An enthusiastic new arrival to the US seizes an unorthodox opportunity to practice her language skills.

Deluge

A family struggles to survive isolated from civilization, with the exception of a neighbor who lives nearby. A storm that has haunted them for the past four years, tests the family’s faith while they face their crop’s decay and other peculiar events.

I Follow You

Anna bumps into Jesper on the morning train. She’s never seen him before, but it turns out he knows everything about her. A short film about social media and surveillance in postmodern society.

The Golden Wedding

A grandfather recalls how he and his wife met and fell in love during the Second Italian War of Independence.

Truck Driver

In a boarding school, Raidel is witness to the abuse suffered by his schoolmate Randy.

Shower

A man enters the shower after his workout, but is soon sidetracked by a noise he cannot identify. He decides to seek out the source of the sound, and enters a situation that will leave him completely exposed.

Anything Once

Both Joey and Mike are faced with breaking boundaries that previously limited them. There's a first time for everything.

Boswellia sacra

Inspired by true events. "Boswellia sacra" is a short feature film about nature which draws a parallel between the environment and the protection of human rights; about the law of nature that is constantly being violated by man; about Vukasin Drakulic, a thirty-year-old young man who comes to realize this relationship. Can a person escape his own nature and the one that surrounds him.

Giitu

A woman returns home to her father and childhood home, after being gone for over 20 years. Her purpose for the visit is to deliver the message that her fathers former wife has passed away.

The Prince of Val-Be

Plot unavailable

Miles Above, Years Apart

A young man enjoying a refreshing hike in the mountains discovers a small boy living in an ancient temple. Trapped there by an evil spirit, the innocent boy's only wish is to return to the farmhouse where he once lived with his loving family.

Being

A once harmonious pair of angelic youth are disrupted when one decides he is fed up with his simple way of life. He takes a drastic step in order to get closer to the human boys he envies.

Out of Body

Over the course of a muggy summer day in New England, two friends meander from place to place, getting high and avoiding the aftermath of a recent family tragedy.

When Jesse Was Born

Tragedy strikes a comedic blue collar family as they welcome their third son into the world.

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.

Toyland

On a winter morning, a mother goes to waken her son Heinrich; his bed is empty. She leaves her flat to find him. The neighbors' door, with a Star of David painted on it, is ajar, the furnishings in disarray, the family gone. She asks passersby, runs to the police then on to the rail yard. Flashbacks show that Heinrich and the neighbors' son Paul are six years old and best friends. Paul's family's deportation is expected soon; Heinrich's mother tells her son that they're going to Toyland. Heinrich wants to go with them, has a bag packed, and listens for their departure. His mother realizes he's joined them, and her resolve becomes more urgent. Will she arrive in time to save Heinrich?

Daddy's Girl

Lo (14) is living alone with her father at his farm. Bored and frustrated she's fantasizing about sexy boys, spying on the hot seasonal workers. Rune (45) is a single parent too busy making ends meet to be paying attention to his child becoming a young woman. When he catches her masturbating in her bedroom, he goes out of his mind thinking she's a victim of male sexuality. Daddy's Girl is about fear of losing and fear of not getting.

After Forty…

An actress in her forties is facing family and domestic difficulties and feels that her demand in cinema and theater is decreasing over time. But she doesn't want to accept this.

From Forest To City

The story takes place in the year 1977 about the hero fleeing into the forest during the time when soldiers, police suppressed the communists. One day he meets the first villagers, everyone is afraid, but when the hero observes and analyzes that this villager is not disguised. A true villager Little knowledge due to loneliness of having to watch the spot alone, the hero tells the villagers to come back and forth. They are close to each other. It can be seen that only political ideology can divide us. One day the villagers suddenly didn't come as scheduled. The protagonist goes looking for the villagers. making the hero see bad things again

The Dreams Of Lonely People

After twenty years in prison, a man returns to his homeland to wait for death in peace. His world is completely changed when he accidentally meets a character from the magical world of nature.

Liyoki

Liyoki, a silverback gorilla, lives peacefully with his family, when they are attacked by poachers.

The Sun Is God

1918 - A woman imagines her lover has returned from the horrors of war in France, remembering moments shared together. A tale of love and loss told through classical ballet.

Piglet Piglet

The sudden pregnancy and miscarriage of a young woman results in a turbulent day of anxiety and loneliness, set in a monumental day of a country’s search for hope.  

Paulownia

Three boys experience self discovery at a skate park. [Made by director Hugo Esposti in his second year at Bournemouth University on the BA Hons Film course.]

We Need a Resolution

A 15 year old boy remembers his friend after he was killed because of the colour of his skin. A short film set in the 1980s in the UK.