Drama Shorts: BBC Introducing Arts (2021)

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.

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.

Paris Ficelle

Plot unavailable

Yo, Diablo

Joey works as a waiter for a hedonistic community of summer holiday makers in a small Mediterranean paradise. It is unclear if their exaggerated behaviors are due to the fact that the summer is coming to an end or if its just the last of their summers.

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.

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).

Instinct

After a diving excursion in the middle of the ocean, Lindsey is viciously sexually assaulted by Bruce, her instructor. She fends him of and they fall overboard into the water. Bruce grabs her and sinks her to the depths of the ocean. In this spiral of violence, she has no way to breathe.

The leak

Maria has always played the part of the caring mother and grandmother. Which is what everyone expected from her. A simple question opens her eyes, she realizes that she needs an authentic friendship. For the first time, she asks for help.

Femme

The Ysbreeker family -- mother Jolien, father Frank, daughter Roos and son Teun -- are enjoying their annual holiday on a camping site in France. Teun is at the beginning of his puberty and can't quite control his hormones. Roos, a teen girl in the middle of her puberty, is more interested in her first camping love than in her own family. Teun notices that his sister is becoming a woman, in all different ways. How does he react? Does it have any influence on the brother-sister relationship?

My Brother is a Mermaid

A short film about the experiences of a non-binary teenager, as seen through the eyes of their 7-year old brother. Set in a desolate seaside town, the film fuses social realism with fairytale, as it examines how a child's innocence and unconditional love can be a powerful and disruptive force for good.

The One You Never Forget

A 14 year old boy excitedly prepares for his first dance, but when his date arrives he's faced with a split-second decision.

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.

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.

Kiko's Saints

Kiko, a Japanese illustrator on assignment in France, gets suddenly overwhelmed by a strange new inspiration, while she realizes she's been spying on a gay couple on the beach next to the chapel where she's working. Obsessed by such a vision, she will continue spying on those men and drawing them secretly. These drawings will slowly push her towards an encounter that will change her life and break the barriers she created around her.

The Last Romantics

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

Valerio's Day Out

A sedated young jaguar dispassionately ruminates over his latest victims as well as the object of his affection in this mesmerizing video diary.

AYOR

In 1970, during the annual Dutch national commemoration of those fallen in World War II, two men try to make a statement against gay discrimination. In the moments before and after the incident, their doubt, fear and firm belief becomes clear.

Francis

Francis is a short story written by american novelist Dave Eggers. This is the story of a young boy growing up in the suburbs of chicago. He spent his vacations in Quetico Provincial Park, up on the border of Minnesota and Canada. But he won't be going back any day soon, not after what happened to a girl called Francis Brandywine.

Re \ Entry

'What happened? Where am I?' The man who wakes up alone in the woods has many questions. Is he dead and in the hereafter? The voice of God soberly answers his questions: Yep, that’s right. Traffic accident. But it’s not that bad, because everyone eventually dies. All the man’s questions, also about the meaning of life, are answered. In an equally entertaining and stimulating dialogue in English, the film evokes a comprehensive image of the universe and man’s place in it.

Nahjum

A prehistoric family's desperate search for a mythical source of life turns to tragedy when the egos and obsessions of its male members rise to the surface.

Capitán Kinesis

Sebastián is a retired superhero who lives alone in a small flat. He leads a quiet life and it's ages since he last used his superpowers, but an unexpected visit puts his world at risk and he will be forced to defend it.

Two Twenty-Three

An honest and heartfelt confession of a guy. A sharp return to reality.

Parallel Novel

A writer tries to force his character into suicide, but the character fights back.

Fifteen Love

Alexandra has been playing tennis for as long as she can remember. After years of training under the instructions of her father, Julio (a retired tennis player who intends to relive his victories through his daughter), she has become one of the most promising junior tennis players in the Spanish circuit. During one of the most important tournaments of the 1978 season, the increasing pressure from her father will exert on and off the court will begin to affect her mental health. With the arrival of adolescence and the questions it brings, Alex will realize that, perhaps, this is not her destiny.

Memoirs of a Geeza

A top lad recollects fights, friends and painting his toenails with his dad.

I Am Mackenzie

Caught among toxic masculinity, a sequin dress and a teenage crush, a teen skater, growing up in rural Texas, will have sex for the first time in the back of their dad’s truck.

Rug

A psychological thriller about a mysterious rug threatening to tear a superstitious family apart.

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?

Beyond Plain Sight

Ryan is a popular member of his community. He’s charming, helping and a social butterfly but Ryan has a secret.

Like Father

A Jewish New Yorker is bedridden patriarch dying of lung cancer, confesses for the first time to son that he was always attracted to men. Despite his long-lasting marriage and faithfulness to wife.

Killer Friends

Four friends go on a camping trip that one won't be coming back from alive...

Stay

When Ash invites his ex-boyfriend on a road trip to the Florida Keys, he doesn't mention that their weekend getaway is actually a dangerous drug deal.

No More We

Boyfriends Hampus and Adrian are in a destructive relationship. When Hampus finally works up the nerve to call it quits, he finds himself relieved. Adrian, however, is not quite ready to say goodbye. Examining the final week of a gay love affair, award-winning short film director David Färdmar begins with the end.

Faces

Ryan meets Nathan and they fall in love over the course of their first date. It's only later, as their relationship progresses, that Ryan starts to wonder: is my boyfriend who I thought he was? Am I who I thought I was? They experience joy and pain together, trying to overcome the painful fear of whether or not you can truly know another person.

Kalakalaro

Benok, robbed off his childhood, had to work due to poverty. While his mother spends time on gambling. In his eyes, the world has changed where children work and adults play. Benok finds his way to experience how to become a real kid again.

Louder Than Words

A young musician named Ansel has an unexpected encounter with Niall, an endearing, deaf dancer.

Just Me

Scott gets a visit from Connor which brings his past back to haunt him, but will it change his future?

La mort petita

Adela is a single mother, hardworking and humble. While she works, her mother takes care of her son. Immersed in her obligations that don't allow her to think about her, she will be forced to open her eyes and face a new reality when, on an early morning, her mother runs away from home and begins to show the first signs of dementia.

Life in Color

An aging, closeted Alzheimer's patient, clashing against his strong-willed daughter, struggles to hold on to the memory of his long lost lover.

Open

When his father passes away, Vijay is forced to return home after a 10-year estrangement and open up to his mother about his sexuality.

Gentleman Spa

Hao, a chubby gay man, works as a janitor at a gay spa. For him, romantic relationships are an unreachable dream. One day, an attractive customer, Kai, walks into the place, and Hao has the opportunity to massage him.

Guardian

Manuel is a gay Latino teen who lacks guidance and support. Even though his mother, Anna deeply cares for him, she is only able to prove and instill her love through video tapes made from afar. Keeping his sexuality and boyfriend a secret from his homophobic father, Manuel must decide the life he wants to live or end.

Flora

A metacinematic reflection on the nature of representation and the ongoing drug war in Mexico, Nicolás Pereda’s Flora revisits locations and scenes from the mainstream 2010 narco-comedy El Infierno, exploring the paradoxes of depicting narco-trafficking on film—its tendency both to romanticize and to obscure. To screen is both to project and to conceal.