KATHARSIS (2023)

Irina Palm

Maggie, a quiet retiring grandmother, finds herself helpless as her grandson’s health deteriorates. When one last chance appears, but money is desperately short, Maggie acts to raise the cash in a fashion that surprises everyone but her.

The Breakfast Club

Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian and Andrew, the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently -- and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same.

The Tin Drum

Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.

Aparajito

Apu and his family have moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy city of Benares. As he progresses from wide-eyed child to intellectually curious teenager, eventually studying in Kolkata, we witness his academic and moral education, as well as the growing complexity of his relationship with his mother.

Ghosts

Nina, an end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems, starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni. They fell in love with each other, but soon Toni starts betraying Nina. In the meantime, Francoise is picked up at a psychic department of a Berlin hospital by her husband, Pierre. After seeing Nina, Francoise believes that she has found her kidnapped daughter Marie, but neither Toni nor Pierre believe her. Nina is unsure about what to think...

Princesses

Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.

Notes on a Scandal

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.

Samaritan Girl

Jae-Young is an amateur prostitute who sleeps with men while her best friend Yeo-Jin "manages" her, fixing dates, taking care of the money, and making sure the coast is clear. When Jae-Young falls in love with one of those men, she suppresses her feelings towards him in respect of her friend who's jealous.

Four Minutes

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

The Virgin Suicides

A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents.

Thelma & Louise

Taking a break from their dreary lives, close friends Thelma and Louise embark on a short weekend trip that ends in unforeseen incriminating circumstances. As fugitives, both women rediscover the strength of their bond and their newfound resilience.

Ghost World

Two quirky, cynical teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives after high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls’ friendship.

Bleeding

In a world where vampire blood is harvested as a drug, two desperate teenagers on the run from a vicious dealer break into an empty house and find a sleeping girl locked inside.

Cicadas

The story of a friendship between two dissimilar women: On the one hand, single mother Anja, who tries to keep herself and her daughter afloat with various jobs. On the other, Isabell, who looks after her parents in need of care and whose relationship with her husband Philipp is put to the test.

Y Tu Mamá También

In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other.

Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn

In this sequel to Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, Alexander's story is told in both the past and the present. Alexander's parents send him away from home for being too sensitive and not helping enough on their farm. He goes to Los Angeles in hopes of going to art school, but when he can't find a job as a minor, he turns to prostitution. After being arrested, he wants to head to Arizona to marry Dawn, but he falls into a lucrative job/relationship with a gay football star.

Almost Famous

In 1973, 15-year-old William Miller's unabashed love of music and aspiration to become a rock journalist lands him an assignment from Rolling Stone magazine to interview and tour with the up-and-coming band, Stillwater.

Closely Watched Trains

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.

American Graffiti

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

City of God

In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.

Billy Elliot

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

Dirty Dancing

Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer—and unexpectedly falling in love.

The 400 Blows

For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.

American Beauty

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.

Dancer in the Dark

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, escaping life's troubles – even if just for a moment – by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

Midnights with Adam

Over the course of one night, a newly out-of -the-closet young man struggles to hold back his feelings for his straight best friend while dealing with the problems and complications of being different in a hetero-normative world.

Güeros

Set amidst the 1999 student strikes in Mexico City, this coming-of-age tale finds two brothers venturing through the city in a sentimental search for an aging legendary musician. Shot in black-and-white, Güeros brims with youthful exuberance.

Night Flight

Yong-ju, Gi-woong and Gi-taek used to be best friends in middle school, but in high school, Gi-woong becomes a member of the gang that bullies Gi-taek. As Yong-ju tries to fix this broken relationship, he realizes his special feeling toward Gi-woong.

Boys Feels: High Tide

Like tears in the rain, water is the metaphor for growing pains and so much more in these four tales about young boys coming to terms with a host of emotions for the very first time. These polished productions and festival favourites are brought to you by a host of talented directors from across Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. The short films are: Ocean [Océan] (2013); Go Daan Go! [Daan Durft] (2014); The Boy in the Ocean (2016); Beach Boy (2011).

Benji's Hour

When a lawbreaking teenager is forced to work at a wig shop for cancer patients, he meets a guarded woman who irreversibly alters the course of his life.

How to Fix Radios

In a decaying rural community in Southern Ontario, Evan, an isolated, narrow-minded teen starts a new job at a run down, decrepit bait shop that is being primed to be sold as land for a sub-division. Upon arriving for his first shift, Evan discovers that his supervisor is the pink haired, outspoken Ross. Through their tedious job the two slowly grow closer, and Evan happens upon Ross' rich but strenuous inner world, involving himself, his sister, and the shadowy figure of his boss' ultra macho son. As a result, Evan's worldview and biases are challenged as he navigates the cataclysmic changes happening in his small town.

The New Member

In his sophomore year, An faces the pressures of exams, love, and music, realizing that rock n’ roll and passion know no boundaries.

The Age of Potential

Ten young people (boys and girls) at the age at which all is possible. They meet, they love, they choose. The film comes and goes between all those people, revealing their anguish, their dreams, depicting the portrait of a generation of the '90s which has both the fury and the fear of life.

Bird

Gathered in a shelter in an Ecuadorian forest, adolescent victims of sex trafficking take their tentative first steps in their newly recovered lives.

The Male Gaze: Fleeting Glances

A release that features 7 shorts from Italy, Israel, Tunisia, New Zealand, the United States and France, exploring those furtive first steps that men take as they decide to act on their sexuality. The 7 short films are: The First Time [La prima volta] (2012); Kiss Me (2022); Nidhal [نضال] (2022); Sparrow (2016); I Am Mackenzie (2019); The Place Between Us [Il posto fra di noi] (2010); By the End of the Night [Que la nuit s'achève] (2018).

We Grown Now

In 1992 Chicago, a story of two young legends in their own right begins. As wide-eyed and imaginative best friends Malik and Eric traverse the city, looking to escape the mundaneness of school and the hardships of growing up in public housing, their unbreakable bond is challenged when tragedy shakes their community just as they are learning to fly.

Cyanide

Achille, 13, awaits, full of hope, the release from prison of his father, unknown and fantasized. His dream of living as a threesome, like a real family, will be seriously undermined by a mother exhausted from waiting and this father who is unsuitable and made irresponsible by so many years of incarceration. Will this vulnerable person with a flamboyant past be able to keep the promise he made to his son to never live apart from him again?

Hotel Pacific

Set in the early 1930s, a young man finds a job as a dishwasher in a hotel and quickly works his way up the ladder. Loosely based on the novel by Henryk Worcell.

Sofia Was

Sofia was forced to leave her home and is now homeless. The young woman spends her days wandering the alleys of the University of São Paulo campus, where she offers her services as a tattoo artist. One ethereal night, her wanderings mingle with memories of an unfulfilled love. Wrapped in a dark, melancholy atmosphere, the film contemplates the fragility of a youth left behind. In a story that transcends borders, the life of an impenetrable fictional Sofia is imbued with the experiences of the actress of the same name who plays her. As enigmatic as an oracle, the original Portuguese title evokes the impermanence and ambiguity that haunt Sofia. She is carried away by perpetual motion, her future forever unknown.

Fish

The last place Kayla wants to be is at her mom's for the summer, until she sets her sights on boyish Danny. He isn't prepared for a late-night swim with his best friend's older sister - or the game that follows.

La Puce

Marion is a 14-year-old girl who is on holiday with her family by the sea in Normandy. But she soon comes into conflict with her mother and siblings. There she also meets a man named Marc, to whom she feels attracted, who sees her and desires her. Back in Paris, she visits him again. For the first time in her life, she will make love to him.

Leave Us Alone

A group of summer camp kids, left to their own devices when their teachers stage a strike, go on a rampage of stealing and looting. A stolen boat brings them to an uninhabited island. When their boat drifts away, the marooned kids must fend for themselves.

Last Train Home

Tom Bradshaw searches for his family while riding the rails in this family drama set in the 1880s.

The Noodlepoop

Ida and her family are recovering from the divorce. She is looking forward to the upcoming dance contest. She is also growing up and developing romantic urges of her own. But she doesn't have good memories of romance. The third of Jesper W. Nielsen trilogy: Buldermanden, Lykkefanten and Ogginoggen.

Flunkyball

Father and mother are thrilled: So now their teenager son has a girlfriend. And what a fabulous young woman she is! In contrast to his older sister Milli, 17-year-old Franz was previously an introverted, quiet, shy loner. His parents are all the more impressed when he brings home the pretty, self-confident Zoe one night. Zoe quickly finds her way into the heart of Franz’s family. Or is this young woman just telling people what they want to hear because she sees their hidden desires? After an ecstatic night in the clubs of the city of Munich with a little too much drugs, Zoe has disappeared and Franz's heart is broken. He absolutely has to see her again and goes looking for his first great love.

The Favourite Game

As a kid, Leo thought he possessed, like a magician, the secret power to make things happen. As a young man, he certainly knows how to make things happen with women. But as his best friend Krantz would say to him, "Why do you always ask questions you already know answers to?" Leo believes firmly in what he invents from one day to the next. Images, impressions, stories fill his head. That's just how he is: life, for Leo, is just a game. Behind this childlike attitude, hides the very essence of his own life's quest.

Music for Millions

Six-year-old "Mike" goes to live with her pregnant older sister, Babs, who plays string bass in José Iturbi's orchestra. And the orchestra is rapidly turning completely female, what with the draft. As the orchestra travels around the country, Babs' fellow orchestra members intercept and hide her War Office telegram to protect the baby.

Nasha

A teenage boy becomes smitten with his new drama teacher and pursues her, despite the perilous risks of being found out.

Whale Valley

The film shows a strong bond between two brothers that live in a remote fjord with their parents. We look into their world through the eyes of the younger brother and follow him on a journey that marks a turning point in the lives of the brothers.

As Dreamers Do

The early life of Walt Disney is explored in this family film with an art house twist. Though his reality was often dark, it was skewed by his ever growing imagination and eternal optimism.

Hold Fast

Two teenage boys escape an unhappy home, embarking on a perilous journey of self-discovery that takes them deep into the Newfoundland wilderness.

52 Tuesdays

Sixteen-year-old Billie’s reluctant path to independence is accelerated when her mother reveals plans for gender transition, and their time together becomes limited to Tuesdays. This emotionally charged story of desire, responsibility, and transformation was filmed over the course of a year—once a week, every week, only on Tuesdays.

Mariana Mariana

The story runs in the 1940s Mexico City. A schoolboy (Carlos) falls in love with his best friend's mother (Mariana). Carlos is impressed because this family is not like the ordinary mexican families of the time, because they have many expensive American things, although they are not rich. The drama begins when Carlos gets out of school to go to declare his love to Mariana, and is discovered by his teachers.

Before I Change My Mind

1987: While the other students wonder if new kid Robin is a boy or a girl, Robin forges a complicated bond with the school bully, making increasingly dangerous choices to fit in.

The Truth About Spring

Tommy Tyler, a lazy Caribbean sailor, and his tom-boy daughter, Spring, are out to search for a buried treasure. Tommy brings aboard William Ashton, a young lawyer, to help with the search. Ashton turns out to be handy when they encounter dangerous rivals. Tommy also tries to play match maker between Ashton and Spring – a difficult task indeed.

Palo Alto

A lack of parental guidance encourages teens in an affluent California town to rebel with substance abuse and casual sex.

One's Own Shadow

A successful doctor is visited by her old friend, a famous writer. They used to be close, but their friendship ended when they both fell in love with the same man. At first, their reunion seems to be going well, but as they talk, their old grudges and resentments resurface and threaten to ruin their renewed connection.

Burning Blue

Gita, a distraught teenager forced to be a badminton player by her authoritarian father, finds a way out through a strange request she proposed to her boyfriend.

Firefly

Firefly is a melancholic, surreal journey of Vicky as he deals with lifes challenges and seeks the purpose of his life through bizarre adventures.

In the French Style

A young American art student must decide whether to stay in Paris with her boyfriend or go back to the U.S. when her wealthy father arrives to bring her back.