The Last Rung on the Ladder (2024)

The Woman in the Room

A man must face his inner demons when he is confronted with the decision to euthanize his mother, who suffers from an incurable disease.

Artemide’s Knee

Mourning the death of his partner and collaborator Danièle Huillet, Straub finds tender mercy in music and nature. Out of the abyss, Kathleen Ferrier sings “The Farewell” from Gustav Mahler’s “The Song of the Earth”, (which the composer wrote in 1909 after the death of his daughter) and Heinrich Schütz’s Lament on the Death of His Wife. The landscape also provides solace: the mountain grove where Endymion pines for his beloved Artemis, “a wild thing, untouchable, mortal,” appears to embody the Japanese concept of ‘mono no aware’ — a wistful acceptance of the fleeting beauty of things.

All About Eve

From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.

Common Causes for a Clinical Condition

María rehearses Antigone the same way as she criticizes the government's actions; Ismene listens fearfully just as Irving reluctantly accepts the official version of a lie. Love only has consciousness in its disappearance; in the end the causes will be known, and only the memory of those who refuse to forget will be left with no consequence.

Adam in aeternum

Plot unavailable

Little Wings

The dramatic short, Little Wings, explores the trauma of child abuse through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy named Thomas. In this emotional tale, Thomas learns about the Legend of the Butterfly from his mother, Emily. The Legend states that if you whisper a wish to a butterfly and then set it free, the butterfly will carry the wish off to the heavens to be granted. Thomas loves butterflies and seeks the escape he needs in the pages of his favorite butterfly book. Butterflies are his only true happiness while growing up on a farm with his abusive father. After Thomas saves a butterfly from a spider's web, a stranger arrives at the farmhouse. As the tale continues, Thomas ultimately finds his freedom and steps into the unknown world of "Joy".

La Jetée

A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.

We Are Not Here

We Are Not Here is a short film about a small derelict town, waiting for a road. Through a series of vignettes we take a glimpse into the life of the town and its residents.

The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands

A man believes he has been cursed after a horrific accident.

The Morning After

In post-pandemic Taipei, Tian and Jay meet for their annual fling—until a heart attack forces them to confront what they really mean to each other.

Rubber Band Pistol

Jūzō Itami's debut short film, concerning a group of unique young people in the high economic growth period who are into games with rubber band pistols.

Debut

A short film about Philip who dreams of becoming a model. At a casting he gets the chance to be photographed with the well-known model Sebastiaan; they fall in love. During the photo shoot, Philip pushes his limits more and more in order to keep the photographer's interest. Philip and Sebastiaan lose control of the situation when Philip is doing everything he can just to be able to stay in front of the camera.

Dear Mr Shakespeare: Shakespeare Lives

An evocative and imaginative exploration of the racial tensions in Othello and how the themes in Shakespeare's play still resonate today.

The Victors

Intercutting dramatic vignettes with newsreel footage, the story follows the characters from an infantry squad as they make their way from Sicily to Germany during the end of World War II.

A Tale of Yearning

This is a sad tale of a noble lady who is entranced by an opera singer. Hoping to get closer to the singer, the lady takes up lessons with her. Despite their affection, they must face obstacles.

A Search Through Nine Lifetimes

For love to travel for thousands of years, they will eventually meet.

The Fox Spirit Repays a Debt

A wife and a concubine seek freedom. In a game of seduction, together they join forces to defeat their oppressors.

Rebel Without a Cause

After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin.

Antoine and Colette

Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).

Boys on Film 22: Love to Love You

The latest in Peccadillo’s critically acclaimed series – now established as a leading showcase for new and emerging queefilm-makingng talent from around the world – features a fresh and exciting selection of the very best contemporary gay short films. Each self-contained drama in this diverse and thoughtfully curated collection offers fascinating and insightful new perspectives on the gay experience – sensual, affecting, sometimes provocative and always entertaining. The 8 short films are: Have We Met Before? (2019); The Act (2020); First Position. (2019); Winter [Invierno] (2021); The Suit Weareth the Man (2020); Infinite While It Lasts [Infinito Enquanto Dure] (2019); Melon Grab (2017); Thrive (2019).

The Mysterious Mr. Hyde

The television adaptation of Stevenson's well-known short story enriched the story with a new motif, because the good and evil in a person change not only under the influence of drugs, but also under the influence of insatiable love. We meet Mr. Hyde, who is an assistant to the elderly Dr. Jekyll, on the street when he kills a neighbor's dog. Dr. Utterson and his friend witness this when they go to visit a friend of theirs, Jekyll, who they are worried about. They believe that he is under the influence of his assistant, they fear for his life. Jekyll is the family doctor of Lady Danvers, with whom he is secretly in love. He is a talented scientist and has invented a liquid, a substance whose effect is very strange - it rejuvenates, but at the same time changes the character. And that gradually becomes fatal for him...

I Am the Doorway

After Saturn XVI crashes back to Earth, ex-astronaut Arthur struggles with an infection. Richard and his friends are blind to it's origin but his victims won't be. The Doorway is open.

The Boy

An intimate portrait of a 9 year old sociopath as he discovers his taste for killing.

In the Bedroom

Summertime on the coast of Maine, "In the Bedroom" centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. His son is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.

Marram

Marram tells the story of a family on a Scottish Hebridean island. While they are going to great lengths to understand and revive a beloved son, the marram grass they need to thatch the roof over their heads recedes from a gradually eroding coastline.

The Day I Remembered the Trip to Bicuda

I always left that memory buried deep in my mind. Until one day she came back as a movie.

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.

High Score

As his personal life unravels, a burgeoning white supremacist descends into an abyss of online radicalization and extremist conspiracy theories.

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.

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.

Hell

In the course of one afternoon, Raphael's paradise turns into a spiral of guilt and paranoia.

Fragile in Love

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

True

While he's receiving an enigmatic phone call from his girlfriend Francine, Thomas remembers the milestones of their relationship, from the very moment they met in a really strange way. A segment of “Paris, je t'aime” (2006).

The Villain Who I Love

One day, high school freshman Minzy finds a photo of herself changing clothes in the school locker room. Class leader Hyejin, who is not close to minzy, points out that the new teacher is the suspect to her. Minzy and Hyejin collect evidences to prove that the teacher takes pictures of high school girls secretly. When Minzy and Hyejin report the teacher's behavior to another teacher, Minzy realizes something unexpected.

The Space Between Us

In a motel room, a teenage boy and a much older man discuss love, sex and life in an intimate moment of honesty between two strangers.

The Perfect Gentleman

Jonathan is poised to marry the daughter of a wealthy tycoon. The couple appears picture perfect, until the eve of their engagement party, when an unexpected guest threatens to destroy Jonathan's plans for the future.

Rashomon

Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

Plein soleil

Under the leaden sky of a summer day, Eric goes to work to defend a great issue. But, blinded by stress, Eric is forgetting the most important thing...

Teach Me to Dance

In this drama, Lesia convinces her English-Canadian friend Sarah to perform a Ukrainian dance with her as part of their school's Christmas pageant. Sarah's father, angry at the growing number of Ukrainian settlers, won't allow his daughter to participate. Despite the prejudices of their parents, the girls' friendship remains strong, and they meet in Sarah's barn to celebrate Christmas Day together. Part of the Adventures in History series.

Limbus

As Alex struggles with disturbing hallucinations, his wife Vera tries to help, until they both experience their own profound revelations.