When I Let the Fish Fly (2024)

The Unknown Cyclist

A man's dying wish is for the people in his life to participate in a 450-mile charity bicycle ride through Northern California.

Bad Education

An examination on the effect of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on the lives of two longtime friends.

Brokeback Mountain

In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.

Uranus 2324

Bonded in their youth and separated by tragedy, an astronaut and a free diver bend the laws of space and time in their efforts to be together again.

Isha

Rahmi, a Romanian immigrant living in England, creates a new life for himself while trying to keep up appearances with his Muslim family. This moving, evocative drama costars renowned Romanian actress Maia Morgenstern and Game of Thrones’ Lino Facioli alongside newcomer Hora Savescu as Rahmi.

Body Electric

Elias is a handsome young deputy manager in a garment factory in São Paulo. When he’s not working, he enjoys casual encounters in the big city. The arrival of a young African, Fernando, on the production line piques his interest and Elias finds himself increasingly drawn into socialising with his work colleagues.

My Own Private Idaho

In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.

7 Virgins

Tano is 16-years-old and is already sitting in jail. In 48 hours he’s a free man and off to the wedding of his brother. In the two days he recounts his neighborhood in a section of Sevilla.

Being John Malkovich

One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.

Enthralled

An enthralling directorial debut by the phenomenal, biting columnist and broadcaster Chip Tsao. Three elementary school pals, separated during the post-Tiananmen wave of emigration, reunite after 20 years, only to find themselves in totally different places. When each of them gets involved in an unlikely and at times illicit romance, their disparate lives intertwine and take a dire turn. The simmering ennui of post-handover Hong Kong is insightfully captured in this original and hardhitting drama about love, deceit and betrayal.

Boys on Film 23: Dangerous to Know

Boys on Film presents ten encounters from across the globe, where the dangerous allure of a risky attraction yields emotional results — proving that the age-old adage of taking the plunge is as relevant — and sexy — as ever before. The 10 short films are: My Uncle's Friend [O Amigo do Meu Tio] (2021); Budapest, Closed City [Budapest, zárt város] (2021); Eden (2020); Chaperone (2022); Break Me [Knus meg] (2018); By His Will [שעשני כרצונו] (2021); Red Ants Bite (2019); Jim (2022); Hornbeam (2022); Too Rough (2022).

Fragments

Chloe, a straight talking film director, tries to convince her friend Sam to be an actor in her next short film. Just after finding out that he once again didn’t get into medical school, Sam meets Alex, a hypochondriac 18 year old. A love triangle forms in these self-reflexive, humoristic fragments filled with sex talk , set in New Orleans.

It's Still Your Bed

David comes home from college to his family’s farm to find that his parents have hired a young man named Brent, who is also sharing his room. David is still in the closet and wants to come out to his high school friend, but he finds himself drawn to his new roommate and tries to determine if he is also gay.

1992

It's 1992. Martin is 17 and he films his daily life with his Hi8 camera. He films anything and everything—his room, the world around him... But never his father, the thought doesn't occur to him. One day he meets Dominique. He's 23 and works as a student monitor at Martin's high school.

Perfect Strangers

During a lunar eclipse, seven friends gather for dinner and decide to play a game in which they must share with each other the content of every message, email or phone call they receive throughout the evening.

Desert Hearts

While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed literature professor finds herself unexpectedly attracted by a carefree, spirited young woman named Cay.

Everything Is Illuminated

A young Jewish American man endeavors—with the help of eccentric, distant relatives—to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II—in a Ukrainian village which was ultimately razed by the Nazis.

Summer Storm

Tobi and Achim, the pride of the local crew club, have been the best of friends for years and are convinced that nothing will ever stand in the way of their friendship. They look forward to the upcoming summer camp and the crew competition. Then the gay team from Berlin arrives and Tobi is totally confused. The evening before the races begin, the storm that breaks out is more than meteor-logical.

Mala Noche

Walt is a lonely convenience store clerk who has fallen in love with a Mexican migrant worker named Johnny. Though Walt has little in common with the object of his affections — including a shared language — his desire to possess Johnny prompts a sexual awakening that results in a tangled love triangle.

Swan Song

An aging hairdresser escapes his nursing home to embark on an odyssey across his small town to style a dead woman's hair for her funeral, rediscovering his sparkle along the way.

Cabaret

Inside the Kit Kat Club of 1931 Berlin, starry-eyed singer Sally Bowles and an impish emcee sound the clarion call to decadent fun, while outside a certain political party grows into a brutal force.

Water Lilies

Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.

Elephant

Bartek lives in a village in the Podhale region, where he runs a small farm and takes care of his lonely and possessive mother. One day he meets Dawid, a slightly older man who comes to visit his family after many years of absence. Affection quickly develops between the two, followed by desire that Bartek suppressed for years.

Pria

Caught between the traditions of his upbringing in rural Indonesia and his idealization of Western freedom, a teenager struggles with the expectations of imminent manhood.

Love, Simon

Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier, it's a little more complicated. He hasn't told his family or friends that he's gay, and he doesn't know the identity of the anonymous classmate that he's fallen for online.

Martyrs

A young woman’s quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tortured her as a child leads her and her best friend, also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.

Philadelphia

Two competing lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.

The Opposite of Sex

A 16-year-old girl visits her gay half-brother and ends up seducing his boyfriend, thus wreaking havoc on all of their lives.

Peter von Kant

Peter von Kant, a successful, famous director, lives with his assistant Karl, whom he likes to mistreat and humiliate. Through the great actress Sidonie, he meets and falls in love with Amir, a handsome young man of modest means. He offers to share his apartment and help Amir break into the world of cinema. Several months later, Amir becomes a star. But as soon as he acquires fame, he breaks up with Peter, leaving him alone to face himself.

The We Should Game

Fame driven Ken Dean becomes the subject of a documentary when he attempts to start a pornography company. Following the failure of the company, Ken uses his father's religious music to start a Christian rock band but finds himself trapped in a gay conversion cult.

The Basketball Diaries

A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Jamie New is 16 and doesn’t quite fit in—instead of pursuing a "real" career he dreams of becoming a drag queen. Uncertain about his future, Jamie knows one thing for sure: he is going to be a sensation. Supported by his loving mom and his amazing friends, Jamie overcomes prejudice, beats the bullies and steps out of the darkness, into the spotlight.

We Love Moses

When Ella was twelve, she had her first fight. And when she was twelve, she discovered sex. Now eighteen, Ella reflects on how her obsession with her older brother Michael's best friend Moses left her with a secret she still carries.

Jamie

After chatting to a guy online, Jamie makes the bold step to meet up with him in person.

All of Us Strangers

One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry, which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life.

Mädchen in Uniform

A sensitive girl is sent to an all-girls boarding school and develops a romantic attachment to one of her teachers.

I Love You Phillip Morris

Steven Russell leads a seemingly average life – an organ player in the local church, happily married to Debbie, and a member of the local police force. That is until he has a severe car accident that leads him to the ultimate epiphany: he’s gay and he’s going to live life to the fullest – even if he has to break the law to do it. Taking on an extravagant lifestyle, Steven turns to cons and fraud to make ends meet and is eventually sent to the State Penitentiary where he meets the love of his life, a sensitive, soft-spoken man named Phillip Morris. His devotion to freeing Phillip from jail and building the perfect life together prompts him to attempt (and often succeed at) one impossible con after another.

In from the Side

Mark, a new and inexperienced rugby club member, finds himself drawn to Warren, a seasoned first team player. When a series of happenstances at an away fixture lead to a drunken encounter, Mark and Warren unwittingly embark on a romantic affair they struggle to hide from their partners and teammates.

Smalltown Boys

A young man seems to be dreaming of a reality different from the business he is about to take over and the married life that goes with it; he is drawn to the spicy life of a queer vaudeville troupe performing in his village.

Bound

Corky, a tough female ex-convict working on an apartment renovation in a Chicago building, meets a couple living next door, Caesar, a paranoid mobster, and Violet, his seductive girlfriend, who is immediately attracted to her.

Goodbye Mother

Văn comes back to Saigon from the US with his boyfriend Ian to visit his mother. Being the male heir of the family, everyone expects him to take a wife soon. And to top it all, his grandmother, who has Alzheimer, mistakes Ian for her grandson.

Wilde

The story of Oscar Wilde, genius, poet, playwright and the First Modern Man. The self-realisation of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas.

C.R.A.Z.Y.

A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.

My Beautiful Laundrette

A Pakistani Briton renovates a rundown laundrette with his male lover while dealing with drama within his family, the local Pakistani community, and a persistent mob of skinheads.

The World According to Garp

A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.

Close to His Chest

These men are undergoing a crucial stage of self-discovery, but for better or worse - they will not go through it alone. A selection of 6 shorts about the complexities of gay and male sexuality. Includes: Along the Road [Längs vägen] (2011); Drives [Pulsiones] (2009); Frozen Princess [Princesa de hielo] (2017); Naked [Desnudos] (2013); Swimming Pool [Piscina] (2017); Visibles (2018).

Walking with Shadows

In Lagos, Nigeria, Ebele Njoko has been running all his life. A search for acceptance and love from his family, has led him to recreate himself as Adrian Njoko, respected father, husband, and brother. Suddenly, Adrian’s past and secrets have caught up with him and his world soon begins to crumble as he frantically tries to control the growing ripple effect of a revelation. In coming to terms with his sexuality, Adrian is forced to choose between a compromised existence and the life that he would like to lead.

Tropical Malady

The passionate relationship between two men with unusual consequences. The film is divided in two parts. The first half charts the modest attraction between two men in the sunny, relaxing countryside and the second half charts the confusion and terror of an unknown menace lurking deep within the jungle shadows.

About Us

Two young students, Matheus and Diego, experience their first love.

Paradigm

Innocence, sex and lust converge to tell the story of Guille, a teenager who seeks himself through others.

Reminiscing

Two girlfriends have relationship problems.

Do You Want to Die in Indio?

When a budding romance falls apart, and a scholarship to USC gets yanked out from under him, 17-year-old Salvi hits the mean streets of Palm Springs and gets swept up into an incendiary weekend of partying, gun violence and sexual ambiguity.

Romper Stomper

Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity. Finally the Vietnamese have had enough and confront the skinheads in an all-out confrontation, sending the skinheads running. A woman who is prone to epileptic seizures joins the skins' merry band, and helps them on their run from justice, but is her affliction also a sign of impurity?

Hair

Upon receiving his draft notice and leaving his family ranch in Oklahoma, Claude heads to New York and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to boot camp.

Far from Heaven

In 1950s Connecticut, a housewife's life is upended by a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in society.

Threesome

At a sizable public college, high-minded student Eddy is forced to room with the slovenly Stuart, but the pair strike up a surprising friendship. When attractive co-ed Alex is assigned to live with the two male students because of her gender-neutral name, a roundabout love triangle ensues. Eddy secretly yearns for Stuart, who wants Alex, but she prefers Eddy. The complex situation leads to sexual experimentation and strained relationships.

Bringing Him Back

After losing their mother, Mía and Moi take refuge in a ramshackle family home, in the countryside, in the middle of nowhere. With them, Biel, Moi’s boyfriend. Together the three of them try to rest and heal the wounds. Especially in the case of Moi, who is recovering from a severe nervous breakdown. These are days of recovering family memories, some of them painful, of meeting again, of living without haste. The arrival of Mikel, Mía’s boyfriend, will alter the coexistence and disturb each of the inhabitants of the house in different ways. The tension grows until it explodes in an act of violence with irreversible consequences.

Riley

The life of a disciplined high school athlete begins to unravel when his queer identity competes against the idea of who he was supposed to be.

The Wedding Banquet

A Taiwanese-American man is happily settled in New York with his American boyfriend. He plans a marriage of convenience to a Chinese woman in order to keep his parents off his back and to get the woman a green card. Chaos follows when his parents arrive in New York for the wedding.

The Acrobat

In an ever-expanding but nondescript North American city, Christophe, a middle-aged businessman, unexpectedly encounters Micha, a Russian acrobat recovering from an injury, while house-hunting. An instant attraction is quickly consummated and they embark on a torrid affair that helps each of them cope with their respective trials. A provocative, poignant drama about intimacy in an age of anonymity.

The Third One

After meeting in a chat room, Fede (22) arrives at a downtown building to have an intimate encounter with a gay couple older than him. As the night unfolds, Fede has an intense and telling experience. The next morning finds him different, as if suddenly he had found a new possible way to love.

Triangle

Story about a happily married couple visited by an old friend, who ends up stirring the pot by becoming sexually involved with both the husband and the wife.

La León

Deep in the lush river jungles of Argentina, Alvaro lives a solitary existence fishing and harvesting reeds. What sets him apart from the rest of his village is that he is gay. There are no other gay men in his world, his only means of expression is with the occasional outsider who passes through. Most of these men come via the river taxi El León, whose captain El Turu is a mean man with a homophobic streak and a secret. When illegal loggers appear in the jungle El Turu accuses Alvaro of aiding them, a dispute which leads both men towards confrontation.

The Jealous Sea

The boyfriend of a handsome photographer tries to deal with his jealousy after finding nude photos he took of a gorgeous model.

Rhapsody

Peter, a gay cabaret pianist, falls in love with Bill, a construction worker with intimacy issues. When Peter discovers Bill's secret, he is determined to set him on a straight path, and when a shy young woman moves in across the hall, he puts his plan in motion, even as Bill seeks to strengthen his ties to Peter. This gay romantic drama was filmed in Chicago in 1992 where it had its premiere before it was thought to be lost. Now, recently re-discovered, the film has been remastered from the best source materials and presented now for your enjoyment!

Naked

A message from Javier's boyfriend changes his family situation and causes them to reconsider their relationships.

Pulse

A gay disabled teenage boy changes into the body of a beautiful woman, so that he can be loved.

Four Times That Night

A night of attempted seduction is recalled from the perspectives of the woman, the man, a lecherous doorman and a psychoanalyst.

Testosterone

Dean has been stumped for some time in his attempt to produce a follow-up to "I was a Teenage Speed Freak," his incredibly successful graphic novel. His fans expect great things from him and his editor, Louise, is hounding him. Instead of working, however, Dean spends his time searching for his Argentine lover Pablo, who went out one night for cigarettes and never came back.

Boy Meets Girl

In Kentucky, a transgender woman and her best male friend lament the lack of eligible partners and step across old boundaries of love and romance.

Against the Law

United Kingdom, March 24, 1954. Ten years before the decriminalization of homosexuality, journalist Peter Wildeblood and his friends Lord Montagu and Michael Pitt-Rivers are convicted and imprisoned for indecency and sodomy.

Catalina

Gus, Will, and Brian have been fast friends since middle school. Now in their mid-twenties, Gus is the only one to have left their hometown for New York City, immersing himself in the queer community and finally coming into his own. He returns home for a weekend camping with “the boys” on Catalina Island, and must find new common ground now that he has changed, while discovering how his friends have changed too.

Circuit

The hunky John is a closeted small-town cop who moves to L.A., where he is quickly seduced into the gay life of workouts and dusk-to-dawn parties. With actual circuit party footage and mounds of glistening and chiseled flesh, the pulsating Circuit is bound to get your juices flowing.

Ménage

Bickering couple Monique and Antoine are interrupted by bisexual burglar Bob while fighting in a bar. With husband and wife in need of cash, Bob teaches them the most efficient house burglary methods. Monique is attracted to the charismatic thief, but Bob is more interested in Antoine, who eventually succumbs to his attentions. As the trio continues living together, Monique grows unhappy about being ignored by both men.

Law of Desire

Pablo, a successful film director, disappointed in his relationship with his young lover, Juan, concentrates in a new project, a monologue starring his transgender sister, Tina. Antonio, an uptight young man, falls possessively in love with the director and in his passion would stop at nothing to obtain the object of his desire.

Herculanum

Three "meetings." Two men. A rumbling volcano.

Dry Cleaning

A bored couple takes in a young man who turns their lives inside out.

What She Likes

An emotional coming-of-age drama centered around Andou Jun, a gay student who is not out. He accepts a confession from his fujoshi classmate Miura Sae and they start dating. However, Jun is also seeing Makoto, but fails to tell Sae about his male lover.

It Is Not the Brazilian Homosexuals Who Are Perverse, But the Situation in Which They Live

Two queer Brazilians go skinny dipping in a lake where they talk about love, sex, colonialism and migration, on a pandemic summer afternoon in Berlin.