Taint (2024)

Cat Skin

A few weeks before Carnival, slum boys organize huntings for stray cats, whose leather can be used in Samba percussion instruments, like the Tamborim, a small drum.

Millimeterle

Measuring their power and proving themselves is part of the boys’ everyday life. Even for the 13-year-old gentle-natured Yannik. Until his best friend’s upcoming sexual curiosity suddenly puts him in a threatening situation. Where is the line between game and reality and what happens if that line is crossed?

The Park Bench

Two childhood friends reconnect, as the truths of their separation slowly come to the surface.

Going Equipped

A young man in prison is interviewed and talks about his life, how he got into prison, and what it's like doing time.

The Black Balloon

An alien in a crowded land searched for some semblance of companionship after losing all of its friends.

Sangam

Two men from South Asia meet on a New York subway train. One is seeking the American dream and in the process has abandoned his family and culture. The other, now disillusioned by material dreams of success, yearns for meaning and memories from his childhood. Prashant Bhargava’s award-winning short film was described as “an elegant and poetic evocation of immigrant angst, memory and haunted spirituality” by the Village Voice.

Sevilla

Three youngsters take a road trip to Seville that will change their lives forever.

Stanley

Two boys, one girl, one night in the Northeast of Brazil. A morning of passion and secrets revealed.

Destricted

A compilation of erotic films intended to illuminate the points where art meets sexuality.

The Opening

A gallery owner is opening an unusual exhibition: An artist who is terminally ill wishes to die in front of an audience.

Aftermath

Two characters try to getaway from an unescapable murder

Against All Odds

Younus does not give up! Fascination is glued to the strange but familiar father figure and mixed up with a growing longing for real intimacy. Cautiously testing and expanding boundaries, Younus is playing a risky game. When the tension finally unloads, he questions the deeper foundation of the fragile relationship.

The Great Artist

A gifted artist finds himself in a broken balance between creating world class art and the all too silent struggle of self care as his life begins to unravel because of his Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Answer

A seemingly innocent voicemail message left on a man’s answer machine by his ex, soon turns on its head when we learn of his dark past in their relationship. We quickly learn that our protagonist may not be as innocent as he seems, through the heart-wrenching monologue delivered to him via the tiny machine in his home.

Code_Switch

After tragedy strikes, a meek Ruby Oliver enters a broken VR game for a last chance to see the dead. Little does she know that this game treats all girls as a virus as she fights to save herself.

Vinland

Like many others, Daniil has decided to leave his native Georgia and move to Prague in search of better pay. Originally a teacher, he finds a job with Ukrainian laborers controlled by a Russian boss called Sergei and thus becomes a cog in the machinery that takes advantage of the work of illegal immigrants… Vinland looks at the lives of people who exist all around us but about whom we know so little because their identities disappear the moment they relinquish their passports to the mafia who are interested only in profit.

Safe

A woman working as a cashier at an illegal gambling parlor pushes her luck by stealing money from gamblers as a way to pay off her own debts. When one gambler realizes he’s been cheated, he returns with murderous intent and the already dismal situation spirals out of control.

Pink & Blue

Pink and Blue is a story about a husband and wife getting ready to throw a party for family and friends to celebrate the gender reveal of their baby. But there's more to this reveal than smiles and confetti.

The Passenger

Driving through the desert en route to San Francisco, Sebastian has a chance encounter with Helena, a mysterious and attractive hitchhiker. Together they embark on a journey to the unknown, testing the boundaries of reality along the way.

One Night

PROMISE ME ONE THING. DON'T LEAVE ME BEHIND. A story of 2 lonely strangers meeting up together on one lonely night in Bangkok.

Fragile in Love

Fragile in Love is an experimental short that rebels against the suppression of electronic music culture and gay house parties.

To Thine Own Self Be True

An experimental study of nature through three stories and how we have destroyed it.

Swell

Swell is a smartphone app that changes your mood through sound. When a young couple tries to control each other’s settings, they find their relationship threatened by an unintended cacophony of emotions.

The God Can

A young man grapples with addiction, recovery and a newfound sense of faith.

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.

El Triste

On the backstage of a marionette show, El Triste, a poorly crafted marionette, is going through an existential crisis and decides to do all it takes to prove to himself and his fellow poppets that he is valuable but, as in life, not everything turns out the way he expected.

Hollywood Lucifer

Plot unavailable

First Movement for Twenty Men in an Empty Room

Don Plascencio has a collection of men he uses like radio stations: in a routine aural examination each man plays a different musical piece instead of the usual heartbeat.

My Father’s Badger

After her father's funeral, Maarit plans to return to Thailand. On the day of the departure, she finds her mother Sylvi and her father’s taxidermy badger in a bar and Sylvi makes a revelation that may change Maarit’s departure plans.

Nona

This is the story of a young man being held in prison, recounting his life as a college dropout who had met and fallen in love with a beautiful girl named Nona while aimlessly hitchhiking in search of his father's tomb. He is then seduced by Nona into murdering several innocent bystanders. Somewhere near Stephen King's fictional town of Castle Rock, Nona lures the narrator to a graveyard, and, when asking the repeated question 'Do you love?' leads him to madness. It is not immediately clear whether or not the narrator has encountered a supernatural force, or if Nona is a figment of insanity until the last unexpected twist.

Tiempo

Christina wakes up in the middle of nowhere without remembering how she got there, but after a long walk she meets El Tiempo, a mysterious being who seems to know a lot about her and who, by giving her answers, will create greater questions about herself and about what she wants in life.

West in Itamonte

Plot unavailable

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.

Chipper

After receiving a mysterious letter, a wayward son returns to his childhood home to wrestle with a dark family secret.

The Last Image of Father

Dusan and Laza are traveling through Eastern Serbia to Belgrade. Terminally ill, Dusan has to find a new home for his son Laza, to whom Dusan is all he has.

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.

Blank Canvas

Two disparate strangers, a Gen Xer and a Millennial, form an unlikely bond on a rooftop after both experiencing traumatic situations.

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.

Billy Boy

In an era marked by the reign of fluid relationships, through apps and blind dates, Alejo seeks to fill his sentimental void by constantly changing sex partners.

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.