Blossoms in Agony (2018)

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.

Route-3

In a sweaty, overcrowded tram in Sarajevo, a shy teenager is beset by every imaginable impediment as he tries to capture the attention of his object of desire. Yet the overheated hero of this wild farce will not be easily defeated.

Sadla

A teen boy runs errands while being followed by various figures of authority. As he shares his experience with friends, this tense and controlled drama deftly explores the cyclical effects of victimization on the wider community.

Yandere

A miniature AI hologram, Maiko, is programmed to be utterly devoted to her teenage owner. But when he gets a real girlfriend, her passions may prove to be too large for her container.

Exam

A teenage girl gets involved in the process of delivering a pack of cocaine to its client, and gets stuck in a weird cycle of occurrences.

The Raft

In this stylish and ruthless satire, a famous performance artist faces an unexpected crisis when real-world political matters complicate her latest impeccably provocative and eminently bankable piece.

Green Light

A male escort has an odd encounter with a mysterious John that he picks up.

Fathers & Son

Two new dads are putting their newly adopted newborn son to sleep when something unexpected happens...

Lucia, Before and After

After traveling hundreds of miles, a woman must wait another twenty-four hours before she can get an abortion.

The Music of Regret

Simmons, best-known for her photographs of miniature rooms populated by dolls and of oversized objects—such as a house, birthday cake, and pistol—balanced on female legs, both human and fake, brings these characters to life in a three-act mini-musical. The film is inspired by three distinct periods of Simmons’s photographic work: vintage hand puppets, ventriloquist dummies and walking objects enact tales of ambition, disappointment, love, loss, and regret. Working with composer Michael Rohaytn ("Personal Velocity") and cameraman Ed Lachman ("The Virgin Suicides" and "Far From Heaven"), Simmons’s puppets come to life in miniature domestic scenes that echo real life.

Chang-ok's Letter

Housewife Eun-ha is busy every day: In addition to taking care of her husband who doesn’t help out at all and her willful daughter and son, she has to care for her nagging mother-in-law, who is nearly bedridden.

Julián (Transmutación)

Julián, a 10-year-old boy, is going through a stage of change in which he cannot find peace with his surroundings. In a dream stage, a beetle becomes recurrent in his dreams.

Break Me

A young cage fighter must choose between his head and his heart after his father discovers the truth.

My Baby Bright

Pla Thong's friend, Tod dies but his unfinished business means he can't move on. Pla Thong helps Tod figure out what that unfinished business is, and they realise how each other feels in the process.

Now You Know

An uninhibited 10 year old girl discovers harsh new boundaries at her strict Catholic school.

Fili di memorie

Plot unavailable

A Day

Lourdes and Humberto have been married for 21 years. Edgar seeks refuge with Venus, his dog. A waterpark, an afternoon to enjoy. A day that should not be ruined.

American Eid

Ameena, a Muslim Pakistani immigrant, wakes up on Eid to find out that she has to go to school. Homesick and heartbroken, she goes on a mission to make Eid a public-school holiday, and in the process, reconnects with her older sister, and embraces her new home, while her new home embraces her.

Dinner Is Served

A Chinese student at an elite U.S. boarding school realizes excellence is not enough when he tries out for a leadership position no international student has ever applied for.

Growing Fangs

Val Garcia, a Mexican-American teen who is half human/half vampire, has had to keep her identity a secret from both worlds. But when her human best friend shows up at her monster-infested school, she has to confront her truth, her identity, and herself.

The Little Prince(ss)

When Gabriel, a 7-year-old Chinese kid who loves ballet, becomes friends with Rob, another Chinese kid from school, Rob’s dad gets suspicious about Gabriel's feminine behavior and decides to intervene.

The Mess He Made

A man spends 15 minutes waiting for the results of a Rapid HIV Test.

Failure

The encounter of an ex-couple that haven't seen each other in five years. His name is Andrés and he's a film director. Her name is Lucía and she's an actress. They confront their past in a real-time conversation: a mingling of what they remember, what their dreams were, and what never happened — not even in their dreams.

On the Path

A road in the middle of nowhere. A car. A bike. Two lonely people looking for the same thing. They meet.

Chicken

Mick and Kev, teen Irish lads, are at the shore, throwing rocks at empty cans, drinking cider. Mick's the pushy one, engaging Kev in a game of mumbly peg, his hand on top of Kev's, fingers splayed. As Mick moves the knife between their fingers, a train is heard approaching. What's Mick's purpose?

No More We

Boyfriends Hampus and Adrian are in a destructive relationship. When Hampus finally works up the nerve to call it quits, he finds himself relieved. Adrian, however, is not quite ready to say goodbye. Examining the final week of a gay love affair, award-winning short film director David Färdmar begins with the end.

Faces

Ryan meets Nathan and they fall in love over the course of their first date. It's only later, as their relationship progresses, that Ryan starts to wonder: is my boyfriend who I thought he was? Am I who I thought I was? They experience joy and pain together, trying to overcome the painful fear of whether or not you can truly know another person.

Louder Than Words

A young musician named Ansel has an unexpected encounter with Niall, an endearing, deaf dancer.

Meaningless Conversations in Beautiful Environments

Against a backdrop of magnificent landscapes and epic tableaus, banal conversations take place between characters who are comically oblivious to their surroundings.

True

While he's receiving an enigmatic phone call from his girlfriend Francine, Thomas remembers the milestones of their relationship, from the very moment they met in a really strange way. A segment of “Paris, je t'aime” (2006).

Gulis

A story about a dysfunctional father and son who are still coping with a loss, the other with a highly-stigmatized illness who are compelled to talk to one another to make ends meet and heal the wounds of their relationship.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Ulises hasn't seen his friends since they graduated from high school. But now, walking to the reunion party, he is full of hope and joy to relive his past glories and rekindle the passion he had with Paulina, the girl he was always in love with but never dared to do anything with. But that will change tonight, which will surely be unforgettable.

The Decision

A film about the divorce decision and its impact on the children.

Bulldog

Charlie and Jack find an escape from the brutality of country footy in an isolated beach, and each other.

The silent cry of the trees

To protest the construction of a new car lot, a young guy named Bernat comes to the vacant lot in order to tie himself to the only left living tree. Upon arrival, Bernat finds Joel, an unknown young man who also has decided to tie himself up.

Zero One

Jimmy Park is visiting home for the first time in years and has nothing to show for his time living overseas in Seoul. But old tensions come to a head when he confronts his homophobic sister at a family dinner.

Contact Hours

A university caretaker's routine is disturbed when he unlocks the door of a student's room who hasn't been seen for days. This tragedy prompts him to try and mend the ailing relationship with his son.