The Last Rung on the Ladder (2024)

People on Saturday

A sunny Saturday afternoon in Zurich. In the middle of a crowded square a businessman is lying on a bench, seemingly asleep. Someplace else, a teenager is longing for appreciation. A commuter is fighting the ticket machine. The film shows ten tableaux of everyday situations in the city. The people in them are confronted with small or big problems. Each one of them is a Sisyphos, endlessly rolling the little stones of daily life up the mountain.

1978

Pakistan, 1978. Lenny, a rockstar from the Christian community, is offered the chance to reinvent himself as a state-sanctioned singer. With Islamic fervor gripping the nation, he must decide if he can change along with the times.

Mishimasaiko

Mishima lives in the shadows surrounded by worms in his underground lair. Early one morning, he discovers a rose in the sun in which the beautiful Saiko awakens. Mishima will do everything he can to satisfy her needs. But worms are not supposed to live in the sun...

Shiba San and Meow Chan

Shiba San and Meow Chan, a hit children's show in which the two brothers act a dog and a cat respectively, has been sweeping through kids and thus bringing fame to the two. Though radiant on stage, they both have something on their minds. Shiba san has been secretly in love with a married man, while Meow chan miss his remarried mother and it confused him when she abandoned him. An journey later on will lead the two strays to confront their emptiness inside.

The Blanket

Shot and crewed by Riley Stearns while in quarantine, and described as "an exercise in trusting instincts and embracing limitations."

Restart

Janek is a young medical intern who struggles with financial problems and doubts about his future. Although he has been working so hard, the day before his promotion he makes a risky decision that may change his life forever.

Vétérane

Camelia, an escort with a troubled past, is newly employed at an erotic massage parlour in eastern Montreal. Met coldly by her competitive new colleagues, she struggles to establish a clientele while maintaining her dignity.

The Parallel State

Dan, a twenty-something security specialist, receives an ominous phone call. A spa resort. A high-profile client who triggers a game of unclear stakes. Dan gets a chance to go from nobody to somebody.

The Boyfriend Game

In the privacy of the Australian bush, two best friends play “The Boyfriend Game” where they each invent their ideal imaginary males. Unfortunately, one of the girls seems to want the other girl’s fantasy more than her own.

Yulia & Juliet

In a juvenile delinquent center two girls find comfort in love for each other. Once one of them gets released, they don't know how to deal with this and both seek for a solution, with tragic consequences - A contemporary love story based on the motives of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Glaadiator

After waging a lifelong battle to rid the earth of Homosexuals, Roman Emperor Marcus Aereolus has an epiphany on his deathbed. He tells his most trusted General, Maxipadimus, to return to Rome and undo his wrongs - To make Rome safe for Gays. However, upon Maxipadimus' return to Rome, he finds that the Emperor's evil, homophobic son, EMINEMUS, has taken power and will fight to the death to keep it! In a triumphant climax, Maxipadimus destroys the homophobes and embarks Rome into an Era of sexual liberation.

But Milk Is Important

A man with social anxiety gets followed by a naive and clumsy creature. Terrified the man tries to escape, unaware that the creature is actually a helper with slightly unconventional methods.

Shackled

Held captive by a circus, Malu is frantically rescued from her shackles by her husband. As she waits anxiously in the darkness for her chance to escape, a disturbing truth she's hidden away seeps back in.

Yunior

A deeply closeted teenage boy finds himself shaken when his older brother’s girlfriend shows up with an out and confident gay male friend.

Primo

On a visit to meet his girlfriend’s parents in a remote village in Tuscany, Primo is forced to prove his masculinity on a wild boar hunt.

Love, Death & Cars

In Los Angeles, Max and Haley go to a reading and book signing of Kyle, a friend of Max's from New York. Through flashbacks and conversations, we learn that they were more than casual friends, and Kyle's reappearance throws Haley and Max's relationship into question. Central to the two men's history was a Grand Canyon trip some years before. Max may need to travel that road again with renewed honesty if he's to sort out his life's conflicts and contradictions.

We Could Be Parents

Erik's boyfriend Marely left him. Now, the last chance for Erik to get him back is to make this movie to explain, that the only reason he sold sex was so they could afford to become parents one day.

Touched

What happens when two profoundly lonely men who are strangers, one older and gay, and the second younger and questioning, take one last chance at making a sincere human connection? Based on true events in the life of the writer/director.

(Some) Mortal Tales

Plot unavailable

Sea Light

An elder lighthouse keeper takes care of what has been his home for years. Old and secluded from society, he's disturbed by mysterious bottled letters. These and an unexpected malfunction make him doubt his job, his life and his existence.

Doctor Who: The Night of the Doctor

The Doctor struggles to help the only remaining crewmember of a crashing gunship. The people of the planet below offer to save his life, but at a dear cost to the life he's lived for hundreds of years.

Beauty Mark

A door-to door cosmetics saleswoman in 1986 finds a new customer.

Beauty Boxed

Young take of a girl breaking chains out of her early child marriage to pursue a dream of becoming a makeup artist.

Casual Encounters

A depressed man tries to get back with his ex while drowning his depression in meaningless hook-ups.

Todo y nada

Plot unavailable

The Magic Diner

A girl finds herself in a diner with a machine that gives her answers to any question she asks.

Nightfaces

A taxi driver kicks a homeless woman out of his car. It'll be a long night until he can make amends.

Yuxiang and Mark

Time can dilute sexual desire, but will it arouse the emotions between them?

Offline

After a presidential decree that shuts off the Internet connection nationwide, two neighbours who have never met before but have an online relationship decide to leave the big city and try out a living in the real world.

Encore Martha

Follows two women who re-encounter each other after 30 years apart. Against all odds, they fall in love once again, and despite that youth is no longer on their side, they decide to spend the remaining of their twilight years in each other’s arms, no matter how much that may be.

Hotel Paradijs

Every day Paul crosses a canal that separates the Amsterdam city center from the north side, where his lover Christiaan lives and waits for him. A dear routine for both - until one day Paul meets Claire, who starts seducing him into her very own universe, the Hotel Paradijs. Claire makes Paul the audience of her own play: a play where the roles are reversed and into which Paul is undeniably drawn.

Adoration

Based on the real life story of Sagawa, a Japanese student who killed, dismembered and ate a young Dutch girl in Paris.

El Mito

In Querétaro at the end of the 17th century, a spanish maiden has given birth to a creature.

Julian

Julian is a short film about a girl named Anna who is struggling with moving on from an abusive relationship. She enters in a therapy program where she does therapeutic exercises to confront the past and move forward.