Taste of Ambition (2024)

Deliverance

Two monks on a mission choose very different paths

Fivesixths

Truth, Dare or Lemon is a game played by stupid boarding school kids who don't know what to do with themselves. Before Tim died he was the number one of a close-knit boarding school gang. When the friends engage in a ritual one year after his death a familiar game turns into a sadistic night...

Eros

A three-part anthology about love and sexuality: it features three different tales of passion. In "The Hand," young tailor Zhang (Chen Chang) is attracted to high-priced prostitute Miss Hua (Gong Li). Next is "Equilibrium," in which stressed businessman Nick (Robert Downey Jr.) explains his problems to unhelpful therapist Dr. Pearl (Alan Arkin). Finally, "The Dangerous Thread of Things" examines the relationship problems of Christopher (Christopher Buchholz) and Chloe (Regina Nemni), a couple on vacation in Tuscany.

Haiku

Opposites Adam and Evan live in a small village in the French countryside. They go to the same high school but have never spoken to each other. During the summer holidays a prank lands the pair in trouble, and as a result they are forced to get to know each other.

Who Leads

One couple's new intense connection is questioned in the midst of the disintegration of another couple; who leads when four men come together?

Troll

An unassuming woman meets a teenage boy's grief-stricken music teacher while sitting in a hospital waiting room.

All the Crows in the World

18-year-old Shengnan is invited to a mysterious party by her cousin. Upon arrival, Shengnan finds herself surrounded by greasy middle-aged men, with the exception of Jianguo, who is different. Shengnan and Jianguo decide to bail on the party, embarking on a night of adventures in the adult world.

Cicada

Chang-hyeon, a transgender prostitute encounters a visitor who seems both familiar and alienated to him.

Fair Play

Marie and Steven appear to be a happy couple, but Steven's secret relationship with another man begins to threaten his idyllic home life.

Where the Birds Cry

Fourteen-year-old Szymon lives in a seaside village. He's going through one of the most turbulent stages in his life - puberty. However his monotonous life is interrupted by an unexpected visit from his childhood friend. An ordinary meeting on a cliff turns into his first summer romance.

Sideral

In Natal, on the Brazilian north coast, the country is preparing to launch its first manned space rocket into space. A couple lives with their two children near the space centre, she is a cleaner and he is a mechanic, but she dreams of other horizons.

The Right Words

Kenza 15 years old and her little brother Mahdi 13 years old regularly humiliate one another on social media in cruel ways. Today, as they travel by bus, Kenza puts her naive and romantic little brother to the test: to profess his love for Jada; a girl that Mahdi loves but that does not know him. Placed under pressure by his sister, Mahdi ends up confessing.

smolder

When his ex-girlfriend asks him to water the flowers in her new apartment, David finds himself confronted with memories of their mutual past and interpersonal connection.

Nice People

Old lovers reunite, a friendship is betrayed, a pet is killed, a runaway discovered, and a co-worker comes back from the dead in these five interconnected tales about suffering from kindness. Shot over five-years worth of weekends featuring a massive cast and crew, this ambitious, feature-length, no-budget indie shows a side of Maine not seen anywhere else (no lobstermen here, sorry) and finds bleak comedy in a backwater state being dragged into a diverse and inclusive 21st century.

Nano

In the near future, nanotechnology administered into the bloodstream can sync with computer apps to augment the human genome. A new law mandating and regulating this once elective procedure meets resistance from hacktivists who are conspiring to thwart the impending roll-out of "Nano version 2.0."

Into the Night

A yuppie seeks help from two townspeople in finding his wife and daughter, during a blizzard storm. Based on the short story by Stephen King.

Erica

Erica has a secret relationship to the married Sebastian. When his wife Liv finds out, she decides to confront Erica over an evening of gin and tonics. Erica is soon being pushed to question what things in life are worth fighting for.

Amsterdam to Anatolia

Elissa's life takes a turn when she meets a mysterious man in her English class and she has to quickly decide between her family and him- and going from family-life to a life on the run is a wild choice to everyone but her.

Two Fish

Max is spending his summer on campus. A lonely place in maintenance. His best friend Taylor comes back from Europe and their relationship takes a new turn.

We Are Fine

A boy makes a discovery at the seaside.

The Atomic Dream

Set against the aftermath of President Kennedy's assassination and the era's pervasive nuclear fears, Frank and his estranged mother-in-law, Sophia, must confront the strange and otherworldly realities of their fast-changing existence.

Beast

Inspired by real events, "Bestia" enters the life of a secret police agent in the military dictatorship in Chile. The relationship with her dog, her body, her fears and frustrations, reveal a macabre fracture in her mind and a country.

Turkish Delight

Gifted but hot-headed sculptor Eric has a stormy, erotic, and star-crossed romance with a beautiful young woman named Olga.

The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood

Faustus is a clerk in St. John's at the Newfoundland Department of Education. He dreams of becoming ruler of Newfoundland and seceding from Canada. In the real world, Faustus' boss Eddie Peddle plans to indoctrinate the citizenry of Newfoundland with a cult-like geometric theory known as Total Education, but Peddle may be foiled by the revelation of a secret from his past career.

My Biker

A summer trip with his friend Motor takes an unexpected turn when Gentle’s motorcycle breaks down, revealing feelings neither expected.

Room Closet: Truth or Dare

A couple of teenagers start playing truth or dare at a party.

Hidden

Lonely and closeted, Xiao-Wei turns to the internet—until real-life feelings bring more questions than answers.

Undercurrent

On a winter evening in 1979, the arrest of anti-government protesters is underway. The city is under curfew, but a teenage student, out of curiosity, follows a mysterious young man from a riverside path into an abandoned hut. Living in Taiwan under martial law, are men constantly escaping from government, society, or the affection buried in their hearts?

May

A socially awkward veterinary assistant with a lazy eye and obsession with perfection descends into depravity after developing a crush on a boy with perfect hands.

Human Traffic

For Jip, Lulu, Koop, Nina and Moff, the dead-end jobs they endure during the week just kill the time until Friday night. That's when they cut very loose and get on the rollercoaster ride that takes them right through to Monday morning.

Peeping Tom

Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.

Tiny Death

Christian (12) and his best friend have been invited over to an older boy from school. There, he enters a mysterious world. It becomes an overwhelming experience - an essential step towards puberty.

Iceberg

A married woman falls in love with a 19-year-old girl, and she has to make a choice between her family and the one who might be the love of her life.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

A young lawyer, Jane Liu, is assigned by her mentor to help Madam Wong, a 75 years old repeated shoplifter, as a pro bono defense counsel. What seems to be an easy open and shut case suddenly takes a weird turn when Jane discovers that Madam Wong's repeated petty crimes are intentional and deliberate.

Have We Met Before?

Short docudrama exploring the history of sex in the homosexual community from the 1970s to the present day, and how the internet has changed the way gay men meet forever.

My Sweet Prince

Alcopops, VHS tapes, cigarettes, boys, MSN Messenger, Placebo - this is 2003. Set on the Isle of Wight, fragments of the director's own teenage video diaries collide with the fictional story of 15-year-old Tommy in this short film about a boy's search for connection in the advent of the internet age. Infatuated with his best friend's boyfriend and unable to truly reveal himself to anyone, Tommy feels an overwhelming sense of isolation on the small chalk island he calls home. Desperate to be seen, he logs on to family computer, clicks connect and opens MSN.

Hey You

When two men arrange a hook-up, is who's top or bottom all they should be worried about? Hey You exposes how, with the convenience of social media and dating apps, our hard-fought rights and freedoms can be taken for granted and how, for many others, that fight isn't over.

All Good Things

Road trips usually signify a beginning but for Isaac and his partner Levi, this is their last chance to spend time together before they part ways. As they drive closer to their destination, Isaac finds that maybe he isn't as prepared for his first breakup as he had thought.

Dominant Chord

Country music star Adam has to choose between damaging his career by coming out in the closed-minded world of country music or losing his long-time partner Brian.

First Position.

When a young dancer moves to San Francisco in the early 1980s, signs of a sickness test his relationships, as well as his lifelong dream in this strikingly photographed and stirring portrait.

The Last Romantics

Two young men share different points of view of the same sexual encounter in a public space.

Failure

The encounter of an ex-couple that haven't seen each other in five years. His name is Andrés and he's a film director. Her name is Lucía and she's an actress. They confront their past in a real-time conversation: a mingling of what they remember, what their dreams were, and what never happened — not even in their dreams.

On the Path

A road in the middle of nowhere. A car. A bike. Two lonely people looking for the same thing. They meet.

Thanks to the Hard Work of the Elephants

A queer love fantasy that follows two teenage boys who escape an abusive youth lockdown center while high on LSD. They steal the center’s van and drive 400 km to a big-box store parking lot, determined to start an alternative youth commune in a nearby suburban forest.

Zurück

Lena returns to Germany after spending a year in Australia. Lena's mom and boyfriend are happy about she's home. Lena herself has mixed feelings. It is difficult to adapt to life in Germany again.

The Licensed Fool

A travelling court jester, known as The Licensed Fool, begins to unravel when he learns of a sinister motive behind him being hired for an upcoming performance.

Feral

A disturbed young man pushes away his exurban family to seek wildness in the woods. The boy's urge for the primitive manifests in his bedroom at home and in a wild dog he follows through the countryside.

Strange Beasts

A new augmented reality-game is developed that allows you to create and grow you own pet. But how far are people willing to go to live in a fantasy environment of their own creation?

Hell

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

American Eid

Ameena, a Muslim Pakistani immigrant, wakes up on Eid to find out that she has to go to school. Homesick and heartbroken, she goes on a mission to make Eid a public-school holiday, and in the process, reconnects with her older sister, and embraces her new home, while her new home embraces her.

Dinner Is Served

A Chinese student at an elite U.S. boarding school realizes excellence is not enough when he tries out for a leadership position no international student has ever applied for.

Growing Fangs

Val Garcia, a Mexican-American teen who is half human/half vampire, has had to keep her identity a secret from both worlds. But when her human best friend shows up at her monster-infested school, she has to confront her truth, her identity, and herself.