The Bag (2024)

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.

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.

Wonder

An 11-year-old kid growing up in "the hood" secretly dreams of trick-or-treating as Wonder Woman for Halloween.

Sonja's Grill

At Sonjas Grill, Bella is sitting around waiting for her boyfriend Gabbe. An old text-message conversation between Gabbe and his ex sheds new light on their relationship.

Play / Ground

Dad fights to get grandma out of bed. But grandma can’t, she just sleeps. Love just wants to play – to be part of things and be close.

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.

Paseo

Plot unavailable

Panda Syndrome

A young boy, Bjørn, discovers on his 17th birthday that his problems with the girls might not be self-inflicted.

Salvation Has No Name

A troupe of clowns gather to perform a story about a priest and a refugee, but as their misguided tale unfolds, the boundaries between fiction and reality begin to fray.

Auxiliary Man

An inept criminal with bad credit is finally given an opportunity to prove himself, but nothing goes as planned.

Re \ Entry

'What happened? Where am I?' The man who wakes up alone in the woods has many questions. Is he dead and in the hereafter? The voice of God soberly answers his questions: Yep, that’s right. Traffic accident. But it’s not that bad, because everyone eventually dies. All the man’s questions, also about the meaning of life, are answered. In an equally entertaining and stimulating dialogue in English, the film evokes a comprehensive image of the universe and man’s place in it.

Nahjum

A prehistoric family's desperate search for a mythical source of life turns to tragedy when the egos and obsessions of its male members rise to the surface.

Gourmet Detective: Roux the Day

Henry is hired to authenticate and purchase a long lost and very valuable recipe book. Soon Henry and Maggie find themselves in a murder mystery where secrets hidden within a treasured book have dire consequences for all who own it.

Bathed in Light

Two teenage couples are spending a weekend together in a house by the sea. When new feelings develop, the dynamic quickly changes.

Follow Me

Jasper (20), on the edge of adulthood , wanders around lost in the Port of Ghent. Fragments of a phone call betray a loss.

Nothing

Bia just turned eighteen. The end of the year is coming and also the ACTs. People at school and Bia’s parents are pressuring her to decide which graduation she will apply for. Bia doesn’t want to do anything.

Triptych on Matter and Death

A young woman, injured and alone, desperately seeks refuge in an empty house before finding an abandoned train car. Haunted by surreal visions, she repeatedly collapses. At dawn, her motionless form draws the curiosity of local children, leaving her fate uncertain.

A Movie Made of

In Vigo, Spain, during Christmas, Ángel, a Spanish filmmaker, walks through the crowded streets while thinking about a possible movie made of…

Too Many Crooks

A man tries to burgle his own safe on the same night that a professional criminal attempts it.

Stand Up!

Irish anti-homophobic bullying advertisement, created as part of BeLonG To Youth Services annual Up! LGBT Awareness Weeks.

Performance Anxiety

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

Inocentes

A voyeuristic journey through the homoerotic work of Alair Gomes.

Pizza and Sunshine

A former collegiate athlete and his best friend struggle with the turmoil of Multiple Sclerosis.

PNB 12-50

After Typhoon Pablo struck a barangay in New Bataan, Compostela Valley, a father was separated from his only daughter. Whether alive or dead, the father is determined to find his daughter's body to the very end.

The Boy Who Couldn't Swim

Two teen boys meet each other in Copenhagen and team up to find one of the boys' mother. Instead they end up finding themselves - and each other.

Addiction

Based on the growing drug epidemic among young people in Limerick Ireland, Dominic, a teenage boy, gets dragged into the world of youth drugs and organised crime following a night out.

Longing

When Michal finds out her husband Meir is having an affair with a man, her world collapses. Not only is she is forced to deal with sexual rejection from Meir, she also has to endure social rejection.

Lucky Fares

One of the Three Kings and Santa Claus spend Christmas in jail, talking about what their future will be like in a world like this.

Fidelity

A short comedy about infidelity, drinking too much at parties, and letting go.

Going In

Toronto, 1989. Five years ago Leslie and Reuben were inseparable best friends - until a toxic party lifestyle tore their friendship apart. Now, when their city is overrun by a deadly new drug epidemic and Reuben's kid brother is kidnapped, that same lifestyle is their only shot at staying alive.

Middle of Somewhere

After a family tragedy, a man attempts to guide his son into manhood through a series of hunting trips at the request of his overbearing and traditional father.

Gayndr II

In this short film the audience is confronted by one young man and his reaction to text messages received from other guys on different gay dating apps. It explores communication between gay men today and the use of dating apps.

What Grown-Ups Know

Teenage boy Roy and his ailing mother Elizabeth live an aimless life on the road, shuttling between gas stations, temp jobs and cheap motels. When they end up at a desolate caravan park, fractures begin to appear in Roy's relationship with his mother as he starts to fall head over heels for park manager Maurice.

In the Name of the Father

The short film depicts the life of a boy who is constantly sexually abused by his father. Leonardo Miggiorin brilliantly plays the role of this boy, who belongs to a poor and unstructured family.

The Clearing

In this short film written and directed by Alexis Bisticas, the audience sees through the eyes of a man in the woods, following the distant sound of a saxophone. In a single take, the fluid steadicam shot takes the viewer on a surreal and poetic journey, as the walker comes across everything from family picnics to men in bondage suits.

Fallen Art

Fallen Art presents the story of General A, a self-proclaimed artist. His art, however, consists of a deranged method of stop motion photography, where the individual frames of the movie are created by photographs made by Dr. Johann Friedrich, depicting the bodies of dead soldiers, pushed down by Sergeant Al from a giant springboard onto a slab of concrete.

Examination

A school physician whose son is being bullied at school finds that he must conduct a routine medical examination of one of his son's chief tormentors.