mermaids don't play hopscotch (2024)

Agnes and His Brothers

Focuses on three very different siblings, all searching for happiness. Hans-Jörg is a sex addicted librarian, who is interested in young students. Werner is a successful politician with a dysfunctional family. Agnes, a trans woman, works as a table dancer in a night club. The three brothers just have one thing in common: their longing for a happy life.

Sandbag Dam

A story about a forbidden love set in a village threatened by swollen rivers. Upon his return home for his father’s funeral, Slaven revives his relationship with his childhood friend, a young sportsman named Marko, his teenage love, and the reason his father kicked him out of the house. Now tempted to reunite, they need to make peace with their own decisions and struggle against the family restraints.

Ed Wood

The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.

Cherry

A lost, sexually confused boy becomes increasingly obsessed with an hedonistic video artist and her group of oversexed, violent, cannibalistic followers and longs to be a part of their decadent world.

All Good Things

Road trips usually signify a beginning but for Isaac and his partner Levi, this is their last chance to spend time together before they part ways. As they drive closer to their destination, Isaac finds that maybe he isn't as prepared for his first breakup as he had thought.

Border

A boy and his faithful dog Meg face challenges of a post-apocalyptic world. Together, they explore desolate streets, face unexpected dangers and share a unique connection. When confronted by a group of hooded strangers, Meg shows courage and determination, saving the boy from a dark fate. In this exciting survival story, the bond between the boy and his faithful companion is strengthened, making them inseparable in a world that has changed dramatically.

The Estrogen Gospel

A young transgender woman takes a hike through the English countryside in an attempt to resolve her spiritual crisis - but an ancient evil strives to ensure that she never completes her journey.

We Are Dancers

Set in Berlin, 1933, We are Dancers is the story of real-life anti-Nazi drag artist Hansi Sturm and his circle of friends in the immediate aftermath of the Reichstag fire, an event that allowed Hitler to become absolute dictator of Germany. Confronted by a former lover, now a Nazi, Hansi must decide whether to abandon his club or stay and face the Fascists on his own terms.

All About My Mother

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

Bad Education

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

Breakfast on Pluto

In the 1970s, a young transgender woman called “Kitten” leaves her small Irish town for London in search of love, acceptance, and her long-lost mother.

Shortbus

In post-9/11 New York City, an eclectic group of citizens find their lives entangled, personally, romantically, and sexually, at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality.

Memoirs of a Geeza

A top lad recollects fights, friends and painting his toenails with his dad.

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.

20 Centimeters

Colloquially-told story of a few days in the life of Marieta, who's saving money for the last operation in her change from man to woman. She works as a prostitute in Madrid and longs for a legitimate job. Whenever she builds up her savings, her housemate and best friend Tomás finds ways to spend, lose, or cost her those funds. She meets Raúl, whom she likes and who likes her; the trouble is he also likes that part of her she wants removed. If that's not enough, she also has narcolepsy, and when she conks out, she dreams of musical-theater numbers in which she's the singing and dancing star. Are these dreams always going to be 20 centimeters out of reach?

Seduction: The Cruel Woman

Wanda is a dominatrix who runs a gallery in a building on the Hamburg waterfront, where audiences pay for the privilege of watching her humiliate her slaves. She is a business woman who smashes sexual stereotypes and social taboos with icy self-possession and an enigmatic smile. As artist she specializes in the staging of elaborate BDSM fantasies and her affairs transgress the usual boundaries of personal and professional life. Along the way she leaves her German lesbian lover, a shoe fetishist, for an American "trainee," and does more than step on the toes of the male performer who has broken the rules of the master-slave relationship by falling in love with her.

Just Past Noon on a Tuesday

Two strangers visit the penthouse of a recently deceased lover, only to find themselves learning more about each other.

Bittersweet Power

In one night, Lucas, Luiza and Bia remember the pains and delights of being who they are.

Flowers Bloom; Flowers Wither

Song Fei's time in the Yan household. Just like flowers, our life is timed. We grow in order to wilt.

The Crying Game

Irish Republican Army member Fergus forms an unexpected bond with Jody, a kidnapped British soldier in his custody, despite the warnings of fellow IRA members Jude and Maguire. Jody makes Fergus promise he'll visit his girlfriend, Dil, in London, and when Fergus flees to the city, he seeks her out. Hounded by his former IRA colleagues, he finds himself increasingly drawn to the enigmatic, and surprising, Dil.

XXY

Alex, an intersexed 15-year-old, is living as a girl, but she and her family begin to wonder whether she's emotionally a boy when another teenager's sexual advances bring the issue to a head. As Alex faces a final decision regarding her gender, she meets both hostility and compassion.

Days of August

In a dystopian America dominated by a tyrannical police state, a stirring revolution clashes with a forbidden romance.

Water Drops on Burning Rocks

In 1970s Germany, Léopold, a 50-year-old businessman, picks up and seduces 20-year-old Franz, who swiftly moves into his apartment. The dynamic between them intensifies with the sudden arrival of their ex-girlfriends.

Neon Boys

Unable to find a job after spending time in prison, Shawn takes work as an erotic dancer to support his daughter and falls in love with a man for the first time.

Eggshells

Created in response to a traumatic hate crime, artist, Venus Patel, explores her emotional journey through several archetypes, each of whom perform with an egg. Using the weapon of the assailant, the egg itself becomes a tool with many psychological and symbolic meanings within it. The power of reincarnation, birth, nature, hope while also pointing to the power it has to utterly humiliate and embarrass if used in a certain way. There is an embrace of the absurdity of these performances while still speaking to the deeper subject matter. By placing the outlandish characters into public spaces, they confront a preconceived notion of pushing true queer expression into only hidden spaces or only at night, into the daylight and into the normal everyday experience.

Transfixed

Bo is a transexual prostitute in Brussels who left home after being abused by her father. She's infuatuated with a neighbor and suspected by the police in a series of transexual murders. In order to clear herself she must turn detective.

Jumbo

Desperate to prove to his peers that he’s more than a chubby kid that never wins at anything, little Don wishes to win his local talent show by performing a stageplay inspired from a storybook written by his late parents. When unfortunately a bully stole that book, at the same time a little ghost appeared from the spirit world asking for Don’s help to reunite her with her parents’ spirits. The two new friends then embark on an exciting adventure to help each other and learn the true meaning of friendship.

Totally F***ed Up

Gay, alienated Los Angeles teens have a hard time as their parents kick them out of their homes, they don’t have money, their lovers cheat, and they are harassed by gay-bashers.

Bye Bye Love

Two young people undertake a doomed summer road trip through Japan, which in turn reflects on the dissipating promise of 1960s counterculture and free love.

20,000 Species of Bees

Lucía is an eight-year-old girl, who sometimes struggles as the world tries to catch up with the fact that she is trans. As the summer holidays pass, she explores her femininity alongside the women of her family who at the same time reflect on their own femininity.

The Pier Man

Theo is a young docker languishing in his native port. His life flows at the monotonous rhythm of cargo ships passing by. Through his encounter with Giuseppe, a disillusioned sailor ashore for a while, Theo will gather the courage to face the waves to escape his dull existence by trying to get into Giuseppe's gruff crew.

Natchathiram Nagargiradhu

Love and politics collide when modern day individuals working as theatre artists in fall in love while making a play about love. They realize that it's the social structure that determines their values and thoughts, and for their love to succeed, they have to go against it.

Os Santos

Kaio just wanted a night of sex with Eduardo, a guy he just met on a dating app. But strange things happen when the Santos family shows up unannounced and prepares a special feast for the two of them.

Escaping Gravity

To finally gain her father's acceptance, transsexual Leonie decides to return masqueraded as a man to the world of her childhood: the funfair. Though even the old owner of the ghost train has something to hide.

A Plea

A young girl is forced to reckon with the changing nature of her relationship

First Day of School

A documentary about an Iranian boy's first day of school. The beginning of hardships and understanding the realities of life, and perhaps unwanted pain and suffering.

Eudaimonia

Prudence, a dishwasher and housecleaner with the telepathic power to eavesdrop on people’s consciousness, creates eccentric characters out of clothing she steals from her clients and stages confrontational performances in the street. She’s estranged from her mother, an artist, and the only person who shares this telepathic gift. As Prudence comes to terms with her mother's terminal illness and the knowledge that her telepathy comes at a cost, she gains a clearer understanding of how to find meaningful connections with others.

Purebred

During a heatwave in Belfast, transgender man Owen returns to the flat of his on-off-again lover Seán after taking a pregnancy test.

Hedgehog

A headstrong trans teenager is propelled into their hangover when a reckless decision to have sex without a condom triggers an urgent need for the ‘morning after’ pill.

Neptune Frost

In the hilltops of Burundi, a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region's natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry.