The Hard Way (2024)

Cremaster 5

Cremaster 5 is a five-act opera (sung in Hungarian) set in late-ninteenth century Budapest. The last film in the series, Cremaster 5 represents the moment when the testicles are finally released and sexual differentiation is fully attained. The lamenting tone of the opera suggests that Barney invisions this as a moment of tragedy and loss. The primary character is the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress). Barney, himself, plays three characters who appear in the mind of the Queen: her Diva, Magician, and Giant. The Magician is a stand-in for Harry Houdini, who was born in Budapest in 1874 and appears as a recurring character in the Cremaster cycle.

9th Floor to the Right

One evening, in his apartment in Paris, Lorenzo is getting ready to receive Marvin for the first time, a boy he really likes. Marvin shows up at the door with Thomas, a homeless man he met on the street in need of a shower. Lorenzo doesn’t dare say no.

Underwater

A susceptible teenager, in trying to escape the tumult of his home, drowns himself in alcohol, drugs, and parties. Based on a true story.

Sitara: Let Girls Dream

Pari, a 14-year-old girl, dreams of becoming a pilot while growing up in a society that doesn’t allow her to dream.

I'm Here

A library assistant plods through an ordinary life in LA until a chance meeting opens his eyes to the power of creativity and ultimately, love. When this new life and love begin to fall apart, he discovers he has a lot to give. This short film proves that ordinary is no place to be.

Flesh and Sand

Based on true accounts, the superficial lines between subject and bystander are blurred and bound together, allowing individuals to walk in a vast space and thoroughly live a fragment of the refugees' personal journeys.

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.

Ruth

The year 2000. Maya, a young Londoner, goes to the small village of her Spanish girlfriend, Ruth, who has just died in an accident. She wants to say goodbye, but the shock and anxiety of presenting herself as the “foreign girlfriend” to family and friends she doesn't know and who speak a different language, is compounded by the perplexity of discovering that nobody knows who she is.

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

The Basketball Diaries

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

The Karate Kid Part III

Despondent over the closing of his karate school, Cobra Kai teacher John Kreese joins a ruthless businessman and martial artist to get revenge on Daniel and Mr. Miyagi.

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.

Dead Horses

In an isolated and unknown place during a war, a child is forced to flee. Along the way, he sees horse corpses everywhere. Only dead horses. Why? Why have the horses decided to kill themselves?

Blood Sisters

"Blood Sisters", Danish filmmaker Louise Friedberg's sophomore short film, is the kind of flick that you simply can't take your eyes off of. It's a relatively simple story that has been played out time and time again: a young girl feels threatened by her best friend's new friend/neighbour, jealousy brews, and tempers flare.

Amen

Begoña, Pelayo and María are saying a last goodbye to their mother. Confusion arises when they discover she wanted to be buried in a very special outfit.

Rebel

Alex, a six-year-old boy from Quebec, is oblivious to the thousands of refugees entering Canada illegally to avoid deportation. Yet when his father takes him along to a vigilante patrol in the woods to hunt out trespassing migrants, something inside him tells him to rebel.

The Physics of Sorrow

Tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.

The Sad House

The story of a family told through objects found in junk shops and flea markets.

Decision

The film is about a college student Ashutosh life for science & innovation. His mentor Akash always guides and motivates him. Will he take the right DECISION?

Subconcious

A disturbed man enters a room and, unbeknownst to others, is having psychotic episodes.

Anime

Two hardy orphans survive upon the remains of a humanity that has left them behind.

Ocaso

Jonas, a 14-year-old teenager, takes a walk by the river that runs by his house. His friend Marina shadows him. They meet, spend the afternoon together, and as the daylight fades, so does their innocence.

It's Nothing

A recent graduate is urged by an impossibly perfect woman to start digging a hole in a nearby park, setting in motion a chain of events that threaten her emotional balance and carefully maintained routines.

Volcano

Hannah and Jess meet up at a tiki bar, seeing each other for the first time since Hannah's romantic Mexico trip. Hannah has a lot to say about it, except what really happened.

Hiwa

Jay wakes up in Manila, yet he dreamed of Athens. He has a nightmare, during which he has a special quest: to save his two daughters from a dangerous surgery. In his attempt to rescue them, he roams around Athens’ cityscape, seeing things under a very different light.

Playing

Boris and Hugo, 16-year-old friends, arrive at Hugo’s parents’ apartment. They have bought a gun. They set up a livestream video on the internet and announce that in one hour they will commit suicide. While Boris is sure about the decision, Hugo still has his doubts. In the final moments of their lives, sadism, homoeroticism, and destructive desire are released.

Brick

A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.

Stalker

A boy is haunted by his own thought, which takes physical form.

Matador

A gritty drama focusing on Street Fighter's sociopathic and self-adoring Spanish ninja, Vega. Matador details Claw's traumatic upbringing and the pivotal sequence of events that made him into the assassin he is today.

Oats & Barley

Oats and Barley follows a nervous, impressionable young boy called Jamie as he attends his first funeral. Although this isn't your average first funeral. As Jamie nervously arrives at the ceremony, it becomes clear that he is being coerced into a sinister family business.

Cuarto oscuro

After a mysterious tarot reading from a client, Mina, who works in a photographic development studio, decides to fulfill her fantasy.

Carrie

An awkward, telekinetic teenage girl's lonely life is dominated by relentless bullying at school and an oppressive religious fanatic mother at home. When her tormentors pull a humiliating prank at the senior prom, she unleashes a horrifying chaos on everyone, leaving nothing but destruction in her wake.

Johnny by Night

Leo prostitutes himself on the street under the name “Johnny”. This alter ego serves to feed his narcissism while protecting his true identity in a hostile and dangerous environment. But one night he meets a client who will make him decide between continuing to pretend or revealing himself as he is.

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.

Open

When his father passes away, Vijay is forced to return home after a 10-year estrangement and open up to his mother about his sexuality.

Snorkel

Inés and Julia are on holiday doing what they like most – snorkelling. Every night at eight o'clock the girls stand by their father and wait for their mother to call.

Tour to McWay

After 15 years of separation, two brothers confront their absent relationship as well as the recent passing of their mother.

Hangry

Expectations run high as Alicia and John get their first child-free weekend in ages.

Content is King

Nick, a striving content creator, gets the opportunity of a lifetime to join a viral challenge on the popular vlog Zane’s World, risking his own safety for the chance at online fame.

Liberated Don Quixote

Russian stop motion animation depicting the court of the Duke and Duchess as they mock and abuse the titular hero.

Alfa

Alfa, a famous porn actor, must deal with his fears, insecurities and memories when he begins work on a new film without Yerry, his former partner in life and porn. On his first day of shooting without him, Alfa tries to act as in the past but can things be like before? Javier Ferreiro's short film reflects on the difficult decision of letting someone go to move forward. ALFA is framed in the context of gay porn cinema in Cuba where pornography is banned but, little by little, it's growing up an underground industry impulsed by foreign tourism.

Deep Ocean

A boy with a secret crush struggles with his feelings as he watches the one he loves grow closer to others, sinking deeper into his own emotional turmoil.

The Sea

Gerard is 12-year-old boy who lives close to the seaside. Every day he swims far from the coast because he finds his liberty, till someday something unexpected happens to him.

Another Luna

A gap in the relationship with her mother causes Luna to seek affection from a mysterious doll.

Reminder

The phenomenon that occurs in a room full of objects from the past allows Ulises to temporarily recover his memory.

Sweet Rabbit

Jeanet, an insecure middle-aged woman, discovers one day that rabbit ears are growing out of her head. Shocked and confused, she rushes to the doctor to get rid of her ailment. But the doctor turns out to be a poor listener. Jeanets relatives seem to have attention for her. Jeanet thinks she is on her own until she knocks on her husband's door.