The Ick (2024)

Neuromance

Nate is a twenty-three-year-old autistic gay man exploring the horrors of the dating world in Sydney. After his well-meaning best friends sign him up for Grindr, Will he find the man of his dreams, or will it end in tears?

The End of the Rainbow

Uwe Friessner’s first feature, At the End of the Rainbow, follows the exploits of a West Berlin teenager named Jimmi who ekes out a living through petty theft and part-time hustling, hangs out in punk clubs, and who, for reasons which this film subtly details, is thoroughly unemployable. Drawing on his own experience in trying to help a young runaway who eventually committed suicide, Friessner wrote into Jimmi’s story several older students who attempt to find work for him, and who give him shelter for a time in their commune.

Stranded in Paradise

When a driven HR exec loses her high-powered job, she travels to Puerto Rico in an attempt to save her career at a business conference. But as the trip quickly becomes a disaster and a hurricane shuts down the whole island, she meets a handsome world traveler who gives her a new perspective on finding passion in life and love.

Born in Flames

In near-future New York, ten years after the “social-democratic war of liberation,” diverse groups of women organize a feminist uprising as equality remains unfulfilled.

No Skin Off My Ass

A lonely hairdresser watches the title sequence of "That Cold Day in the Park" then visits a local park to invite a down-and-out skinhead to his apartment. He draws the silent man a bath and talks to him as he soaks. He locks his guest in a bedroom. Next day, the skinhead leaves through the window and visits his sister, who's making a film called "Sisters of the SLA." He helps with a screen-test. The hairdresser has dreams and fantasies involving the skinhead, the skinhead returns to visit him, and then the filmmaker pays a call on the two men, exposing her brother as faking his silence and pretending a lack of sexual interest. Fantasies can come true.

Total Eclipse

Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.

Meatoo

A naive actor auditions for a film which could launch his career. The things he's asked to do make him more and more uncomfortable, until a choice remark from the director makes him see red.

Verona

Ten years after the end of the dance music duo Verona, Elias come back to Brazil to meet his former partner, Walter, who is going to marry the young and talented Filipe. Walter lives in a countryside house, where he celebrates the end of his youth and the beginning of a new moment in his life.

The Big Gay Musical

Paul and Eddie have just begun previews for the new Off-Broadway musical "Adam and Steve - Just the Way God Made 'Em." Their lives strangely mirror the characters they are playing. Paul is looking for the perfect man and Eddie is dealing with how his sexuality and faith can mix.

Sebastian

Alex is an Argentinian student in Toronto for just one week. They both know that the relationship ends when he catches his flight back home. But they’re falling for each other and it’s the kind of relationship that changes them, unlocks things hidden deep inside.

Eyeshadow

Mirna and Pablo start a friendship framed in reflections about identity, loneliness and death during the 90's in Chile. A story about fellowship and HIV/AIDS, inspired by the literary work of Pedro Lemebel.

Orbits

Orbitas is the story of an impossible love which revolves around a planet at war.

High Art

When Syd, a young editor at an influential art magazine, becomes involved with her neighbor, a drug-addicted lesbian photographer, both seek to exploit each other for their respective careers while slowly falling in love with each other.

Cold Sassy Tree

In the early 20th century, an independent lady from up North causes a scandal when she decides to wed an older local general-store owner just three weeks after he's been widowed.

Eyes Wide Open

A middle-aged Orthodox Jew, Aaron, living and working in Jerusalem with his wife and children, meets a homeless 19-year-old student. Aaron offers to give Ezri work as his assistant at his family's butcher shop. The two men grow close and their attraction becomes sexual. Aaron must now confront his own sexuality, his feelings for Ezri, and his obligations to his family and faith.

Lord of the Ants

Based on true events of the late 60s in Italy, poet, playwright and myrmecologist Aldo Braibanti is prosecuted and sentenced to prison for the love he shares with his barely-of-age pupil and friend, Ettore. Amidst a chorus of voices of accusers, supporters and a largely hypocritical public, a single committed journalist takes on the task of piecing together the truth, between secrecy and desire, facing suspicion and censorship in the process.

The Passenger

While searching for a condo in Berlin for his father, Nick meets Philipp, a young talented photographer and a gorgeous actress named Lilli. There is instant chemistry and both are easily seduced by Nick's charms. Lilli and Philipp begin to explore their relationship with the sexy visitor, succumbing to their passionate affections for him which intensifies their volatile emotional and physical bonds. But what Philipp and Lilli don't realize is that they are being lured into Nick's manipulative..and deadly, love game.

Broken Gardenias

Jenni, an orphaned semi-savant, and a street hustler named Sam, steal a car and head to Los Angeles to find Jenni's father whom she hasn't seen or heard from since she was six years old.

Love and Dance

Hania is a young journalist who suddenly discovers that she is more connected with dancing than she could ever imagine ...

The Dependent

Fernandez is a lonely man leading a lonely life. All he does is work for an old man in a hardware store. But all that changes, when he meets the girl of his dreams... and her family.

What the Eyes Can't See

Four Spanish-language shorts about the importance and complexity of people's perception from award winning directors. Stories of identity, misconceptions, regrets, dreams and love are told in this diverse collection. Includes: Tenants [Inquilinos] (2018); My Brother [Mi hermano] (2015); Guillermo on the Roof [Guillermo en el tejado] (2018); You Are Not a Woman [Usted no es mujer] (2018).

Three Dancing Slaves

Annecy is no tourist destination for three working-class Algerian brothers and their father, in the months after their mother has died. Marc is deeply troubled: he tries to stiff drug dealers and then plots revenge. Christophe is released from jail, lands a job, and must overcome various temptations in order to keep it. Olivier, nearing 18, may be falling in love with Hicham...

Mr. Right

Harry hates being a TV producer and dreams of leaving his job to travel the world. He loves Alex, an aspiring actor who is struggling to create an identity for himself as a performer. Rugby player William's nine-year-old daughter is intent on sabotaging his relationships with new boyfriends, and he's finding it difficult to let Lawrence, the soap star, into his life. Lars is a handsome sometime-model kept by Tom, a successful artist, who will excuse his every betrayal so long as Lars doesn't leave him.

Eden

Fat German star restaurant chef Gregor shows romantic interest in waitress Eden Drebb. She's happily married to hunky Xaver Drebb, but feels romantically neglected. Gregor's deserts seduce her, first trough her brat daughter Leonie, to spend time with him and his fabulous dishes. That soon becomes a rather platonic affair, and domestic troubles. Xaver decides to exact revenge on Gregor, with tragic results.

Distances

Eva and David have a complicated mother-son relationship. They try to reach each other but do not quite know how. One problem is the language barrier, as David is deaf and Eva is not very good at sign language. After moving back to her country of birth, Eva comes to Sweden on a short visit, where she discovers what so many parents do throughout the lives of their offspring - your children never cease to surprise you.

Barely in Love

When a new troupe leader joins the 'Bnai Akiva' boy scouts movement, Yotam's world trembles. He is forced to cope with his sexual orientation and the difficulties he faces with family and religion, and is torn between his love of religion that forbids homosexuality and his mother who tries to 'cure' him.

Kiss Me

A late night hook-up leads Shay and Adam to the bedroom. Before long, chit-chat gives way to passion. But something is missing from their interaction – something that is important to Adam, repellent to Shay – and it soon becomes a sticking point.

Shadows of Time

Ravi and Masha are just children when they were sold into labour by their parents. When they meet, friendship blossoms between them but when the factory manager threatens to sell Masha, possibly into sex slavery, Ravi gives up his hard earned savings to buy her freedom. They agree on a way to find each other once Ravi has earned enough money to buy his freedom but a series of misunderstandings and fear tear them apart. Though they now have their freedom in life, they have to find their way in love.

Njan Steve Lopez

A college student witnesses a gang attack and as his curiosity behind the encounter tries to get the better of him, he realizes that his dad and the police are involved.

Sisters of the Groom

When Sarah needs to impress a corporate bigwig in order to help her sister's catering business, she finds herself agreeing to be his son’s pretend date to a family wedding

Zack & Luc

A split-screen film telling two versions of the entire story of a relationship. Each memory becomes intertwined with all the others: the firsts, the lasts, the middles, each of the small nothing moments that add up to something in the end.

Adam

This short film centers around a high school student whose declaration of love to another boy leads to hostile reactions from his classmates.

Hold Your Breath

Marguerite and Coline fall in love at their local swimming pool, where they kiss for the first time. The stopwatch starts and there already is not much time left. Hold your breath depicts five pictures, five memories, five phases of their story.

Bonus Track

George, a 16-year-old who believes he is a future star musician, can't believe his luck when the son of a famous duo takes an interest in his music. This new arrival helps him rehearse for a talent show and leads both boys to learn from each other and grow closer.

For the Moment

This Canadian film presents and old-fashioned war time romance. It is set during 1942 in Manitoba and traces the doomed affair between a young farmer's wife (Christianne Hirt) whose husband is fighting abroad and a dashing Australian pilot (Russell Crowe). The pilot has come to train in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of Canada. When the pilot, Lachlan, is not training, he is surreptitiously wooing Lill, the farmer's wife. At the other end of town, Betsy (Wanda Cannon) who supports her two kids by bootlegging, charges for her services. She gets involved with Zeek (Scott Kraft), an American flight instructor.

The Hanging Garden

William, a once obese and troubled teen, goes back to his family's home after being gone, without word, for ten years and finds it (and his family) haunted with his past. He had moved to the city and become a fit, well-adjusted gay man, but during his visit home, he becomes unhinged as the newly remembered reasons for his miserable adolescence come to life in each of their presents.

Closed Note

Kae Horii moves into her new flat in an undisclosed area of Kyoto. While unpacking her belongings, she discovers a hidden compartment behind a inconspicuous mirror. In that compartment, Kae finds a notebook, that turns out to be a diary belonging to the previous tenant. Later that evening Kae starts to read the diary. The writer of the diary is Ibuki Mano, a young lady about to embark on her first year as an elementary school teacher. Ibuki is also in love with a man named Takashi, who may or may not hold similar feelings for Ibuki.

The Inspection

Ellis French is a young, gay Black man, rejected by his mother and with few options for his future, decides to join the Marines, doing whatever it takes to succeed in a system that would cast him aside. But even as he battles deep-seated prejudice and the grueling routines of basic training, he finds unexpected camaraderie, strength, and support in this new community, giving him a hard-earned sense of belonging that will shape his identity and forever change his life.

Soldiers. Story from Ferentari

Adi (40), a shy and introverted anthropologist who got recently dumped by his girlfriend, moves to Ferentari, most notorious outcasted neighborhood in Bucharest. He wants to write a study on manele music. The pop music of the Roma community serves as a way out for some, but mostly as one more means for the mafia pimps to make money off their acts and keep them in slave-like dependency. While researching his subject, Adi meets Alberto, a Roma ex-convict and a bear of a man, who promises Adi to help him. Soon, the unlikely pair begins a playful romance in which Adi feeds Alberto with improbable plans of escaping poverty and Alberto reciprocates with well-concocted phrases of love. Little by little their casual affair grows into love. And the funny and sweet teasing turns into something precarious, since Alberto is both dangerous and fragile and belongs to a world whose codes Adi doesn't understand.

This Girl's Life

"Slice of life" take on life of international porn celebrity, Moon, and her musings on modern life, love and loss.

Shake It All About

Jacob is a young man used to getting everything he wants. For several years, he has been living in a happy homosexual partnership with Jørgen, and one night Jacob decides to pop the big question to Jørgen. Jørgen happily accepts Jacobs marriage proposal, but then something happens: Jacob falls in love with a girl, and not just any girl. The girl is Caroline, married to Jørgens younger brother Tom.

Velociraptor

During the end of the world, two best friends walk around their city, talking about their sex lives, and one of them reveals they are still a virgin.

Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom

As Noah and Wade prepare to marry in Martha's Vineyard, the personal problems of their friends - and the unexpected arrival of rapper Baby Gat - threatens to permanently end their relationship.

7-10 Split

An aspiring actor whose career is in the dumps, exploits his amazing bowling skills to take the PBA by storm and becomes rich and famous, only to lose his best girl and best friend...

Patrik, Age 1.5

Göran and Sven have been cleared for adoption and they have a possibility to adopt a swedish orphan, Patrik 1,5. But when Patrik arrives he turns out to be someone else, not the little boy they were expecting. A comma had been misplaced, and in comes a 15-year-old homophobic with a criminal past.

Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway

Set in New York City's gritty East Village, the revolutionary rock opera RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent. "Measuring their lives in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.

Bathory: Countess of Blood

Bathory is based on the legends surrounding the life and deeds of Countess Elizabeth Bathory known as the greatest murderess in the history of mankind. Contrary to popular belief, Elizabeth Bathory was a modern Renaissance woman who ultimately fell victim to men’s aspirations for power and wealth.

Eating Out

After getting dumped by his slutty girlfriend, Caleb falls in love with Gwen. However, thanks to Caleb's roommate, Gwen thinks he's gay and sets him up with her roommate, Marc.

TÁR

As celebrated conductor Lydia Tár starts rehearsals for a career-defining symphony, the consequences of her past choices begin to echo in the present.

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.

Losing My Cherry

Jamie's marriage depends on her birthday gift to her wife. But what if the handbag that Cherry covets is simply impossible to get?

Ballet Shoes

Two dancers are forced to confront their feelings for each other on the eve of a ballet competition.

Sally

When Sally, a lost soul stuck in the past, meets up with her part time lover Winnie at college, she must decide what's more important, her past with Kristian or present with Winnie.

In Orbit

The future, the space. Sonia is about to be transferred from her station to a newer one. Although everything seems to be going well, Sonia's mind is actually elsewhere, haunted by tragic events from the not too distant past.

Ranchlands

The story of a spiritually scarred man whose life changes forever when he must return to his estranged family to help care for a brother who is suffering from brain cancer. With the help of a spiritually enlightened caregiver, he faces the demons of the past and a secret that has haunted him and his family for many years.

Given

Haruki secretly had feelings for Akihiko for years, but Akihiko was still in a relationship with his roommate, the violinist Ugetsu Murata. Haruki, Akihiko, and Ugetsu's love clashes and starts to move forward.

Unpregnant

A 17-year old Missouri teen discovers she has gotten pregnant, a development that threatens to end her dreams of matriculating at an Ivy League college, and the career that could follow.

Better Than Chocolate

Not long after moving into her own place, Maggie finds herself with two unsolicited roommates: her recently divorced mother, Lila, and her young brother. The timing is especially bad, considering Maggie has fallen hard for an attractive woman, Kim, only hours before they move in. What could be a nonissue becomes increasingly complicated -- since Maggie's family is unaware of her sexual orientation, and Maggie is not open to sharing that information.

Poison Ivy: The New Seduction

A sinister seductress vows to destroy a suburban family.

Unicorns

When hard-working single father Luke stumbles across an underground nightclub, he meets Aysha, a beautiful, seductive woman. Their first kiss yields fireworks — which are immediately followed by Luke’s sobering realization that Aysha is not the cisgender woman he thought, but a remarkably femme drag queen. Unable to deny the spark between them the pair are forced down the unexpected path of transformation, where they must question their identities and confront their individual truths.

Summertime

In 1971, a young woman moves from the French countryside to Paris and begins a passionate love affair with a feminist leader.

Memoria

The memories of a man and a woman come to life through photography and animation.

Christmas Revisited

When a group of old college friends, now in their 30s, gather over Christmas at their recently deceased friend's remote mountain cabin to celebrate his life, they see it as an opportunity to come together as the cohesive unit they once were. But time has passed, and as old secrets and resentments surface, they realize that they are more seriously estranged than they had imagined. Will the conciliatory memory of their deceased friend -- not to mention the spirit of Christmas prove a healing influence on the group in time for a joyful holiday? Time will tell.

Prom King, 2010

A young romantic navigates college dating while striving to reconcile homosexuality with his classic, cinematic ideals.

Along Came Love

1947. On a beach, Madeleine, a waitress in a hotel restaurant, mother of a little boy, meets François, a rich and cultivated student. The force of attraction that pushes them towards each other is commensurate with the secrecy that each carries. If we know what Madeleine wants to leave behind by following this young man, we discover over time, what François is desperately trying to flee by mixing Madeleine's fate with his.

Guacho

'Guacho' narrates a summer day in the life of two teenage friends, Maikol and Darío, who want to escape their everyday crushing reality, at least for a day. They spend up to the last penny to get to the mountains where, taking refuge in tranquility and mutual love, they manage to get a grasp of happiness. But freedom does not seem to be so available to them.

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.

Yossi & Jagger

A sociological study of two men in the Israeli army who are lovers. The others in the unit react to their situation, suspecting, but not always understanding. One will leave the military soon, a few months away, as a snowy and desolate outpost is guarded from attack.

Poof

Aaron, an apprehensive 18-year-old, is stuck. Stuck in a small town, helping his father in a job he hates. His life is soon turned upside-down when he meets Mike at a party. At first, Aaron denies his feelings but an unexpected kiss changes everything. As he enters into a hidden relationship with Mike, Aaron finds that some secrets are harder to keep than others. The more he explores his sexuality, the more he begins to consider the impact this may have on the rest of his life.

The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love

An adventurous love story between two young women of different social and economic backgrounds who find themselves going through all the typical struggles of a new romance.

G O'Clock

Alex is a paramedic who saves lives on London's gay chemsex scene, but can he save himself from it?

In Therapy

In Rio de Janeiro, the forty and something years old Mercedes (Lília Cabral) goes to the psychoanalyst and tells the story of her life since she was a girl and lost her mother. Along the three years of analysis, her life changes and she divorces from her husband Gustavo (José Mayer) and has love affairs with the younger Theo (Reynaldo Gianecchini)

100m Freestyle

Polo and Domingo spend their last days together between Ciudad Mendoza and Cordoba, in Veracruz, Mexico, before Domingo moves to another city for college. Domingo has to say goodbye to his girlfriend, Mina; while Polo deals with his feelings towards his best friend in the little time they have left.

The Station In-Between

Theo and Louis, two gay gentlemen, embark on a train journey to Paxmal. They are carrying an urn - it is the last journey for a friend. On their way deep into the Swiss Alps the two men, struggling with their fate, meet various people. While some of these people remind Theo and Louis again of the beautiful things in life, others confront them with ghosts from the past.