for us, an essay (2024)

The Confession

Two best friends discover a deeper meaning of life as they grow closer.

All the Way

Rayvenn and Lourenço find themselves in new relationships but will their political differences drive them apart?

Performance Anxiety

Two straight actors must rehearse for an impending gay love scene. How will they make out?

I Killed My Mother

Hubert, a brash 17-year-old, is confused and torn by a love-hate relationship with his mother that consumes him more and more each day. After distressing ordeals and tragic episodes, Hubert will find his mother on the banks of Saint Lawrence river, where he grew up, and where a murder will be committed: the murder of childhood.

Close The Last Door

After being best man at his best friend's (Saitou Toshihisa) wedding, Nagai Atsushi realizes that he might have fallen for him. Nagai, drowning in his sorrows and hatred for the new bride then meets Honda Kenzou, another guest at the wedding. Honda takes care of Nagai when he was dead drunk and now Nagai can't stop thinking of both Honda and Saitou.

The Kite

A short coming-of-Age film about two boys, first love, and a kite that reunites them 20-years later.

Soldiers. Story from Ferentari

Adi (40), a shy and introverted anthropologist who got recently dumped by his girlfriend, moves to Ferentari, most notorious outcasted neighborhood in Bucharest. He wants to write a study on manele music. The pop music of the Roma community serves as a way out for some, but mostly as one more means for the mafia pimps to make money off their acts and keep them in slave-like dependency. While researching his subject, Adi meets Alberto, a Roma ex-convict and a bear of a man, who promises Adi to help him. Soon, the unlikely pair begins a playful romance in which Adi feeds Alberto with improbable plans of escaping poverty and Alberto reciprocates with well-concocted phrases of love. Little by little their casual affair grows into love. And the funny and sweet teasing turns into something precarious, since Alberto is both dangerous and fragile and belongs to a world whose codes Adi doesn't understand.

Boy Erased

Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, is outed to his parents at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith.

For a Lost Soldier

In the occupied Netherlands near the end of WWII, a young teenager, Jeroen Boman (Maarten Smit) is sent to the Dutch countryside to avoid the war in Amsterdam. While living with his adopted family, Jeroen meets and becomes friends with a Canadian soldier named Walt Cook, who is stationed at the same town he is staying at. Joroen and Walt spend a lot of time playing around and eventually a romantic relationship develops between them. The boy’s sexual curiosity leads him to have a sexual experience with Walt, an encounter that is shown with some vague detail but without actually showing any nudity, even though sexual intimacy between the two of them is implied. Overall, the movie handles this difficult subject with an elegant style and feeling, without having the adult-child relationship overwhelm the viewer and thus allowing the movie to be seen as just a wartime relationship between two people that marks an important time in a young boy’s life.

Lan Yu

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, combining dramatizations of three of his novels and a depiction of the events of November 25th, 1970.

Burnt Money

Set in Argentina in 1965, the story follows the tumultuous relationship between two men who became lovers and ultimately ruthless bank robbers in a notoriously famous footnote in the annals of crime history. After a large-scale hold-up that turns bloody, the two men must flee. It is not long before the police are surrounding the building they are in and they must confront their demons to survive.

Come Undone

Story of two gorgeous, young French boys who begin a passionate relationship that boils over and threatens to destroy both their lives. Shy 18-year-old Mathieu is on summer vacation in the south of France. He spends his days lazily sunning himself at the beach, until he spies the handsome Cédric and falls in love.

Formula 17

Naive country-boy Tien-Tsai travels to Taipei, where his quest to lose his virginity is impeded by his insistence on finding true love first.

My Life in Pink

Ludovic is waiting for a miracle. With six-year-old certainty, she believes she was meant to be a little girl -- and that the mistake will soon be corrected. But where she expects the miraculous, Ludo finds only rejection, isolation and guilt -- as the intense reactions of family, friends, and neighbors strip away every innocent lace and bauble. As suburban prejudices close around them, family loves and loyalties are tested in the ever-escalating dramatic turns of Alain Berliner's critically acclaimed first feature. Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and a favorite at festivals around the world, this unique film experience delivers magic of the rarest sort through a story of difference, rejection, and childlike faith in miracles.

Steam: The Turkish Bath

Francesco and Marta run a husband-and-wife design company in Rome. When Francesco's aunt dies in Instanbul he travels there to sort out the hamam turkish steam bath that she left him. He finds a love and warmth in his relatives' Instanbul home that is missing from his life in Italy.

Maybe Someday

Jay, a non-binary 40-something photographer, attempts to move across the country in the midst of separating from her wife. Along the way, she takes a detour to stay with her high school best friend who she used to be secretly in love with, and befriends a lonely gay comedian who adds humor and levity to her life. Memories of the past resurface as Jay searches for the joy and courage she needs to move forward with her next chapter in life.

Like Grains of Sand

A coming-of-age story. Shuji, a Japanese teen, is falling in love with his friend Hiroyuki, however, Hiroyuki is attracted to Kasane, the new girl in their class.

The Mudge Boy

Chronicling the troubled existence of Duncan Mudge, a 14-year-old misfit who—while vying for the attention of his vacant father—struggles to fill the void brought on by his mother's sudden death.

Milk

The true story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man ever elected to public office. In San Francisco in the late 1970s, Harvey Milk becomes an activist for gay rights and inspires others to join him in his fight for equal rights that should be available to all Americans.

Three Months

When a young man belatedly reveals to his lover an omission, their romance wavers.

Touchscreen

After an unusual online encounter, a lonely man is challenged to step out from behind his computer screen and shatter long-lived inhibitions to claim the touch of another human being.

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.

Losing My Cherry

Jamie's marriage depends on her birthday gift to her wife. But what if the handbag that Cherry covets is simply impossible to get?

Ballet Shoes

Two dancers are forced to confront their feelings for each other on the eve of a ballet competition.

Sally

When Sally, a lost soul stuck in the past, meets up with her part time lover Winnie at college, she must decide what's more important, her past with Kristian or present with Winnie.

Iceberg

A married woman falls in love with a 19-year-old girl, and she has to make a choice between her family and the one who might be the love of her life.

In Bloom | A Ghost Story

In Bloom is an abstract Gothic Romance short film by writer-director Christopher Rosica, blending experimental cinema with the timeless themes of love, loss, and memory. Crafted with a meticulous attention to atmosphere, the film offers a haunting exploration of the boundaries between the living and the dead. Shot in evocative black-and-white on a Fujifilm XT-30 by up-and-coming cinematographer, Xuepei Hou, In Bloom pays homage to the aesthetic traditions of visionary filmmakers such as Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Fellini, while drawing narrative inspiration from literary icons like Mary Shelley and Henry James.

Swain

Swain is inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Fanshawe, features a dreamlike narrative of a young man’s ritualized rejection of heterosexuality, as a mysterious woman in white gossamer pursues him through a ruined landscape.

D.E.B.S.

The star of a team of teenage crime fighters falls for the alluring villainess she must bring to justice.

Transamerica

A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.

The Illiac Passion

Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.

Velvet Goldmine

Almost a decade since larger-than-life glam-rock enigma Brian Slade disappeared from public eye, an investigative journalist is on assignment to uncover the truth behind his former idol.

Nowhere

In Los Angeles, a colorful assortment of bohemians try to make sense of their intersecting lives. The moody Dark Smith, his bisexual girlfriend, her lesbian lover and their shy gay friend plan on attending the wildest party of the year. But they'll only make it if they can survive the drug trips, suicides, trysts, mutilations and alien abductions that occur as one surreal day unfolds.

Trick

Gabriel is a young, aspiring musical composer whose life seems stuck in the First Act. When his new musical number gets a critical reception, a theatre colleague, Perry, tells Gabriel that he needs to get a life before he can write about one – so he heads straight for his local gay bar.

Rent

This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in late 1980s East Village, New York, USA. The film centers around Mark and Roger, two roommates. While a tragedy has made Roger numb to new experiences, Mark begins capturing their world through his attempts to make a personal movie. In the year that follows, they and their friends deal with love, loss, and working together.

Scarborough Ahoy!

A boozy barmaid (Frances Barber) and her newly found gay friend (Con O’Neill) quit London and hightail it to northeast England on the lookout for sex and excitement in this multi-award-winning film based on Tennessee Williams’ short story Two on a Party. This sensitive and finally very moving film both celebrates and challenges the unusual relationship between the two characters.

Mädchen in Uniform

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

My Summer of Love

In the Yorkshire countryside, working-class tomboy Mona meets the exotic, pampered Tamsin. To seal their friendship, Mona introduces Tamsin to her born-again Christian brother and helps her spy on her adulterous father. Bound together by their secrets, the two girls see their friendship deepen and enter into dangerous waters.

Mehmet & Tim

Mehmet and Tim are best friends for as long as they can remember. However, they are at the foot of a major event. An event that will change their friendship forever.

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.

Top Girls

Han Yu Meng has always dreamt about becoming a pop singer in South Korea, unfortunately due to Visa issues she had to go back to China. One of her new classmates is Sheng Shang - a tattoo artist, part-time singer and an underground boxer. Will they succeed in creating their own music band?

In Orbit

The future, the space. Sonia is about to be transferred from her station to a newer one. Although everything seems to be going well, Sonia's mind is actually elsewhere, haunted by tragic events from the not too distant past.

Ranchlands

The story of a spiritually scarred man whose life changes forever when he must return to his estranged family to help care for a brother who is suffering from brain cancer. With the help of a spiritually enlightened caregiver, he faces the demons of the past and a secret that has haunted him and his family for many years.

Altered Innocence Vol. 1

A vibrant anthology of LGBTQ+ short films and music videos that delve into the complexities of youth, identity, and desire. This diverse collection showcases a range of cinematic voices—both emerging and established—exploring the exhilaration, vulnerability, and confusion of coming-of-age through stories that celebrate queer love, self-discovery, and the breaking of societal boundaries. Blending narrative shorts, experimental visuals, and music-driven pieces, the anthology offers an evocative, multifaceted portrait of innocence transformed.

Auroras

Constantly orbiting at 400 km (250 mi) above the earth, the ISS is perfectly situated to witness the beautiful streamers of green and red light emanating from the collision of highly charged solar wind particles with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the earth's atmosphere. Centered about the northern (Aurora Borealis) and southern (Aurora Australis) poles the Auroras move in an almost hypnotic dance below the space station.

BPM (Beats per Minute)

Paris, in the early 1990s: a group of young activists is desperately tied to finding the cure against an unknown lethal disease. They target the pharmaceutical labs that are retaining potential cures, and multiply direct actions, with the hope of saving their lives as well as the ones of future generations.

Double Lover

Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him, but soon discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.

Unpregnant

A 17-year old Missouri teen discovers she has gotten pregnant, a development that threatens to end her dreams of matriculating at an Ivy League college, and the career that could follow.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret.

And the Band Played On

The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.

Alexander

Alexander, the King of Macedonia, leads his legions against the giant Persian Empire. After defeating the Persians, he leads his army across the then known world, venturing farther than any westerner had ever gone, all the way to India.

Wonderkid

Wonderkid follows the inner turmoil of an unnamed football prodigy as he comes to terms with his own identity, struggling to reconcile his sexuality with his issues with alcohol and OCD.

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.

Darker Than Midnight

Davide is different from the other teenagers. Something makes him look like a girl. Davide is fourteen when he runs away from home. His intuition leads him to choose Villa Bellini, a park in Catania, as a refuge. The park is a world in itself, a world of the marginalized, to which the rest of the city turns a blind eye. But one day the past catches up and Davide has to face the most difficult choice, this time alone.

DAKAICHI - I'm being harassed by the sexiest man of the year - the Movie: Spain Arc

Azumaya and Takato are set to star in "Blood Wedding," a two-person play that incorporates flamenco dancing; Takato decides to travel to Spain to learn about passion.

The Mess He Made

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

So Vam

After being kidnapped by a predatory old vampire, Kurt becomes part of a gang of rebellious vampires who feed on bigots and abusers. As a vampire he finally knows empowerment and belonging, but his maker is still out there and until Kurt faces the monster, he will never truly be free. But this time he won’t face it alone.