The Gay Agenda 26 (2024)

The Wishmakers

Three young gay men arrive in Los Angeles to fulfill their dreams and aspirations, during a summer which will change their lives. In a world of You Tube celebrities, unemployment, downward mobility, and socializing through Facebook, they make a wish in a fountain to find love, fame, and transcendence. Will any of them do it?

Making Luck

Two boxers meet for a fight in a closed gym. With one boxer well prepared for the fight ahead the other tries making his own luck to better his opponent.

Naptha

Faraz’s quiet life working at an isolated petrol station is turned upside down when his ageing father Malik begins to speak in a long-forgotten language and insists on returning back home.

Party Day

Mena lives alone with her daughter Clara. Today is Clara’s seventh birthday. Despite her limited financial resources, Mena still manages to organise a birthday party. But after a phone call from her mother, she becomes distraught and anxious.

Community Gardens

A grown-up son goes on a countryside trip with his ageing parents in the hopes of reigniting the relationship, but there is nothing left to reignite. This story of familial dysfunction is set against the picturesque backdrop of a dacha community (instantly recognisable to every post-Soviet native), rendered by Vytautas Katkas with irony and a rare sympathy for his hapless subjects.

Lucia in Limbo

Sixteen-year-old Lucia wants to get rid of two things more than anything: her lice & her virginity.

Tuesday From 8 to 6

Névine, a secondary school monitor, is fully committed to her somewhat thankless day job, dealing with teachers, administration and students. Logan, a pupil she is found of insists on getting a cap back from lost and found. She has no idea of the consequences of her gesture.

She Runs

A teenager resorts to desperate measures in her efforts to quit her school's aerobic dance team and assert her independence.

Teach Me to Dance

In this drama, Lesia convinces her English-Canadian friend Sarah to perform a Ukrainian dance with her as part of their school's Christmas pageant. Sarah's father, angry at the growing number of Ukrainian settlers, won't allow his daughter to participate. Despite the prejudices of their parents, the girls' friendship remains strong, and they meet in Sarah's barn to celebrate Christmas Day together. Part of the Adventures in History series.

I Love You, Man

Peter Klaven is a successful real estate agent who, upon getting engaged to the woman of his dreams, Zooey, discovers, to his dismay and chagrin, that he has no male friend close enough to serve as his Best Man. Peter immediately sets out to rectify the situation, embarking on a series of bizarre and awkward "man-dates."

Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man

A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.

Kinky Boots

Charles Price may have grown up with his father in the family shoe business in Northampton, central England, but he never thought that he would take his father's place. Charles has a chance encounter with the flamboyant drag queen cabaret singer Lola and everything changes.

Love Lies Bleeding

Reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.

Beauty Marks

A young girl worries she shouldn’t have left her mother with a handsome drifter after wandering off with his unreliable daughter.

Spring

Fernando is attracted to his best friend. They skip class together and go camping in the woods.

Until Rainbow Dawn

When Hana falls in love with Ayumi, a girl she meets in her sign language group, she comes out to her parents who swiftly reject her. In an effort to cheer her up, Ayumi takes Hana to a deaf LGBTQ group in Tokyo, as they both find self-acceptance. A landmark film with a deaf cast and crew, this tender and sweet story showcases the beauty found within intersectionality and will warm the hearts of deaf and hearing audiences alike.

Where Water Flows

Julia is a single mother who takes care of Camila, her 10 year old daughter who suffers from a borderline disorder. After experiencing a crisis where Camila gets hurt, Julia makes a decision which will change her relationship with her daughter and with herself.

Simon

Plot unavailable

Carmín tropical

Mabel travels to her hometown to find the murderer of her friend Daniela. A journey through nostalgia, love and betrayal in a place where transgenderism once took on an unusual dimension.

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.

Perfect Obedience

The fictional Father Ángel de la Cruz is based on Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel, whose long history of child abuse was not addressed until 2006 and only publicly acknowledged in 2009. But director Luis Urquiza chooses to structure his film through the largely uncomprehending, wondering eyes of 13-year-old Julián, who travels from the arms of his loving pastoral family into the austere, hallowed halls of the seminary. Singling out the boy as his intimate disciple, installing him in his palatial private quarters and redubbing him “Sacramento Santos,” Father Ángel begins Julian’s instruction into the mysteries of “perfect obedience,” whose cardinal rule is: Never question a superior’s actions.

The Bubble

The movie follows a group of young friends in the city of Tel Aviv and is as much a love song to the city as it is an exploration of the claim that people in Tel Aviv are isolated from the rest of the country and the turmoil it's going through. The movie looks at young people's lives in Tel Aviv through the POVs of gays and straights, Jews and Arabs, men and women.

Because of a Boy

When Vincent finds himself a victim of outing in his high school, he must accept to live with the drastic changes it provokes, and redefine his relationships with his friends and family.

The Distance Between Us and the Sky

Night, national road. Two strangers meet for the first time at an old gas station. One has stopped to gas up his bike, while the other is just stranded. Lacking the 22 euros he needs to get home, he will try to sell him the distance that separates them from the sky.

All Inclusive

Kalervo, a bullied, downtrodden white-collar man whom nobody takes seriously, receives an unexpected gift from Annukka. A gift which Kalervo soon realizes has the power to change his life. The bill is due, and payback never tasted sweeter.

Who Talks

Caught on opposing sides of a debate about a proposed centre for refugee children, two parents try to navigate the turbulent tides of public opinion.

And Then the Bear

When a boy’s close bond with his mother is imperiled one night by the arrival of a mysterious stranger, matters of nature and nurture collide.

Traffic Light

Plot unavailable

Dawn

As dawn creeps across London, two lost outcasts meet in the darkness, more afraid of themselves than each other. As the sun begins to rise, and the veil of the night is lifted, the pair look into the cold light of day for hope and it takes more than just the eyes to see inside a soul.

The Focus

The Focus is the film about easy death on the Mediterranean sun.

The Wedding Banquet

Frustrated with his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris and running out of time, Min makes a proposal: a green-card marriage with their friend Angela in exchange for her partner Lee's expensive IVF. Elopement plans are upended, however, when Min's grandmother surprises them with an extravagant Korean wedding banquet.

Midnight Love

Content, the son of a film company owner, falls in love with Cop, a handsome guy who is looking for a job position as a security guard. Though they are different in both social status and roles, they are about to learn to know each other, and unforgettable friendship is going to begin.

Stormy Honeymoon

A newly married gay couple, still in their honeymoon phase, are disturbed when an old school-friend of the younger guy moves near by, and wants to re-establish their friendship. The older, more insecure partner, is immediately jealous, and asks another friend his age what he should do. However everything is not the way it seems.

Breakfast with Scot

The lives of Eric, an ex hockey player, and his partner Sam, are thrown into turmoil when they are forced to take in Scot, a flamboyant 11-year-old.

Not Without Me

Finn and Ash are "partners in crime", but when the phrase turns literal, they must evade death by hiding from the bounty hunters who are relentlessly chasing them.

Uncontrolled Love 2

Both Xie Yan and Shu Nian are still unable to deal with their feelings for each other, but Xie Yan realizes that Shu Nian is the one for him, but Shu Nian continues to hide from Xie Yan. Shu Nian is later fired by Xie Yan's father. Devastated that his father has sent Shu Nian away, Xie Yan's relationship with his father sours, particularly since the older Xie already knew about the relationship between Xie Yan and Shu Nian.

Crossing

Lia, a retired teacher from Georgia, learns from her young neighbor, Achi, that her long-lost transgender niece, Tekla, has crossed the border into Turkey. In search of Tekla, Lia travels to Istanbul with the unpredictable Achi, where they explore the hidden depths of the city.

The Trip

When 19-year-old gay-rights activist Tommy and 24-year-old Alan first meet in 1973, they find themselves on the opposite sides of the political coin...

Caught in a Landslide

Through a combination of pharmaceuticals and alcohol, Jay walks through the lost memories of true love. Tonight, he will walk in the wilting greenhouse that was the backdrop to his summer romance and he'll meet his familiar resident ghost.

White Echo

Five women in their thirties examine their own power in life.

The Van

The van finally stops, the doors open and Ben comes out alive. A few more fights and he will be able to pay his way out of Albania, and hopefully, take his father with him.

Anna

Living in war-torn Eastern Ukraine Anna is an aging single mother who is desperate for a change. Lured by a radio advertisement, she goes to party with a group of American men who are touring the country, searching for love.

The Shimmering Bodies

The afternoon Jorge asks Mariana over for a weekend at his house in Leiria, she starts to see him in a whole new light. Unsure of her friend’s intentions, Mariana accepts his unexpected and baffling invitation.

Mouth of Life

The film tells the story Hung, who was loved by his family as a child and lived in the protective arms of his parents. But the more the boy grew up, the more people slandered him about his gender. Pressure from family, and arguments from neighbors and people, the boy decided to run away to fulfill his "dream" of being himself, finding the light on the lottery stage. On stage, Hung becomes a charming and beautiful actress. People call her Hong Hoa, not Hung. She fulfilled her dream: to sing, to be praised, to be admired. But somewhere, deep inside her, there is still a smoldering wound called "family" - an emptiness that can never be filled.

Love Is Strange

After 39 years together, Ben and George finally tie the knot, but George loses his job as a result, and the newlyweds must sell their New York apartment and live apart, relying on friends and family to make ends meet.

Studies on Hysteria

Short film about a young man discovering pants in a nudist world. A parable of the societal intolerance to anything different.

Holger & Vilde

Holger and Vilde are best of friends, which makes them inseparable. At the start of their summer holidays, they have to split, but they promise each other they’ll re-unite as soon as possible. While on their own, they face different situations, meet new people and thereby they don’t fully realize how much they have changed during their separation...

Nord-West

A short story based on the novel by Mykolas Sluckis.

Pirates of 1920

A band of futuristic cutthroats terrorize the skies on board their powerful airship. After bombing a liner and stealing gold bullion from its hold, the ruffians try to escape, facing only Jack Manley, a valiant naval officer, and Marie Thompson, his sweetheart. (The surviving print lacks the story resolution, which apparently ends when the hero and the police rout the pirates and rescue the kidnapped heroine.)

The Tree

In a world of drought, an old man spends his days collecting drops of water to quench the thirst of a dead tree.

Bizarre Again

From the confined universe of Brooklyn's BIZARRE cabaret, we set off on a road movie across the American West. We are 7 years later. Lucas and Maurice have never seen each other again and have no contact since the tragic events of the BIZARRE cabaret in New York. Lucas now lives in Denver, Colorado. He is married to a slightly older man who is the father of a 16-year-old child. In the middle of this peaceful life, Maurice will again cross paths with Lucas. As another tragic event takes place in Denver, Maurice and Lucas will have only one solution, to flee towards San Francisco through the American West.

The Third Sex

Klaus is a young man in post-war Berlin. He is drawn to his friend Manfred and, under the encouragement of their acquaintance, Dr. Winkler, explore the underground world of gay clubs and electronic music. His family begins to learn of his other life and do everything they can to set him straight.

More Than Friendship

Mia, Lukas and Jonas always where like one heart and soul since their earliest childhood. Until three years ago when everything changed. Friendship became love that is well beyond all conventions. A Part of the society feels provoked by such kind of companionship and meets them with some lack of understanding to say the least. Even their parents aren't really fond of the situation. Once a year, the trio makes a trip. During which they try to let emotion flow as they come, not having to fear the reactions of others. Now there is the time again for such a trip. And that is where the film starts. After renting a mobile home the journey starts as usual. Only one thing different this time, Jonas was diagnosed with cancer in terminal state a few months ago. The three of them know that this might very well be the last trip they will ever make. Regardless, Mia and Lukas try their best for Jonas not to think of the inevitable. Sadly the vow to spend the last trip only in joy, fails.