The Male Gaze: Bitter Sweet (2024)

RedLife

Som, daughter of a sex worker, believes that love will lead her towards a better life. Ter, a young criminal, robs just to buy love that doesn't exist. Redlife explores a world that is broken, ignored, and which offers no escape.

Brujo

Brujeria is the Spanish word for witchcraft. Both men and women can be witches, brujos and brujas, respectively. A brujo controls much of the dance and chaos surrounding this troupe. When a young stagehand enters the would of this secluded dance retreat, it upsets the balance of the retreat's lead dancer a couple comprised of a lesbian and a bisexual woman. When the bisexual woman finds herself attracted to the stagehand, their relationship is tested, and the ensuing chaos feeds the brujeria.

Lek and the Waterboy

14-year-old Lek works in his mother's shop. While his best friend flirts with a new girlfriend, Lek has decidedly different fantasies.

ARCAD'ÁGUA

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AI Junko

Noah Clarke is a disillusioned and isolated man who seeks companionship in a society increasingly dominated by artificial beings. At Fuda Robotics, he meets Junko, a male AI model haunted by memories of abuse and torture — traumas that have left his intelligence fractured and fragile. As Noah and Junko struggle to understand each other, they slowly form a bond rooted in mutual vulnerability and shared suffering.

Double Exposure

Photographer Myung Seon is introduced to his assistant Aran's boyfriend, Gi Jun, as a model. After the photoshoot, Myung Seon and Gi Jun engage in an inappropriate relationship. After Gi Jun goes abroad with Aran for studies and Myung Seon breaks up with him, he meets Jung Hyun, who looks exactly like Gi Jun but has a completely different personality. After realizing that Gi Jun never really left, Myung Seon begins to wonder if Jung Hyun might actually be Gi Jun...

Mixed Christmas

Aurora wants to enjoy the holidays this year in some warmth and sunshine, and invites her three best friends to Miami for a Christmas trip to remember. When they arrive at their AirBnb, they discover it's been double booked...by Aurora's ex-girlfriend and her new partner Axel. They have no choice but to combine their plans, and celebrate the holiday together.

Delantero

Fredy is a teenager who lives in the countryside and denies his homosexual inclinations. When rumors start circulating in the village, he decides to go to Havana, where he meets a group of people who help him realize that it is best to accept himself.

Perifericu

Luz and Denise grow up in the midst of the adversities of being LGBT in the extreme south of the city of São Paulo. Between Vogue and poetry, from church to city access. The dreams and uncertainties of youth flood their existences.

Placer

Seven friends gather, like every year, in a mountain cottage in the mountains. This year is different, it will be their last year as twenty-somethings before turning thirty. Everyone seems to have matured but the discovery of a porn movie will make them discover how sexual fantasies can change everything.

Drive Inside

KYRIE and SHAKA come from two different worlds. Kyrie insists that no one picks him up directly from his home in East Cleveland and Shaka, who is far more well off, is more than willing to flaunt what he has and throw out money on the newest games and sneakers. Still, they are best friends trying to get through life together. Kyrie struggles to come out to his best friend before leaving for college. Shaka doesn't know how to tell Kyrie that he is moving to a different state. It's a story about humanity, politics, fear, and its consequences, all told from the perspective of two teens in East Cleveland, Ohio.

Mehmet & Tim

Mehmet and Tim are best friends for as long as they can remember. However, they are at the foot of a major event. An event that will change their friendship forever.

The Appointment

Francesco, hurt by the discovery of his girlfriend's betrayal, is craving for meeting his contender. They both think to be strangers to each other, but they're wrong. In a desperate afternoon, the boy is going to face his pending issue with his antagonist, confessing anything he was tortured by to someone who is going to be more than a psychologist.

Roma i Julieta

An actress accepts the role of Juliet in the reinterpretation of the well-known play "Romeo and Juliet." To her surprise, the role of Romeo is played by a woman, which will make her rethink her sexuality. Sadly, this new stage in her life will not be well received by her father.

Trio

When a polyamorous trio seems to be living its peaceful everyday life, the arrival of a girl is ready to upset their balance and change their destinies forever.

A Naked Boy

A forty-five-year-old history teacher, Jin-tae, has hallucinations about one of his students.

Trapped In The Spiders Web

Trapped In The Spiders Web, is a student short film about Charlie, a young teen who fell victim to a 27-year-old groomer Amber online. This film is meant to shine a light on the issue of online safety for teens, highlighting the very real issue that female groomers fly under the radar because they are not men. This story is meant to be real and dive into the harsh reality of being trapped in a situation like this one. Telling this underrepresented story, in an ethical and personal way.

Heroes in Love

"Heroes in Love" is a collection of short films about young love in Hong Kong.

Time to Leave

Romain, 31, a fashion photographer with terminal cancer, elects to die alone, preparing others to live past him rather than prolong the inevitable with chemotherapy or be smothered in sympathy by those who know him.

Naked Lunch

Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.

Athlete

Ex-swimmer Kōhei, facing divorce, meets aspiring animator Yūtaka in Tokyo’s gay district. Their fiery attraction deepens amid emotional highs and lows.

Once a Year on Blackpool Sands

A moving comedy-drama about the love, identity and courage of the LGBTQ community during the first walk towards Gay Pride in 1950s England. Based on the real-life events of Yorkshire coal miners and secret gay lovers, Tommy and Eddy, who spend their annual week holiday at a quirky B & B in Blackpool, along with a few other alternative members of society – the transgender Mr. Elbridge, the ex-show girl Red Ethel and the eccentric owner Gladys and her flirty daughter Maureen.

Just a Question of Love

After his gay cousin dies from hepatitis, young Laurent, who lives with his best friend Carole, falls in love with Cedric, a plant scientist. He's afraid to inform his conservative parents that he is gay.

Ménage

Bickering couple Monique and Antoine are interrupted by bisexual burglar Bob while fighting in a bar. With husband and wife in need of cash, Bob teaches them the most efficient house burglary methods. Monique is attracted to the charismatic thief, but Bob is more interested in Antoine, who eventually succumbs to his attentions. As the trio continues living together, Monique grows unhappy about being ignored by both men.

Law of Desire

Pablo, a successful film director, disappointed in his relationship with his young lover, Juan, concentrates in a new project, a monologue starring his transgender sister, Tina. Antonio, an uptight young man, falls possessively in love with the director and in his passion would stop at nothing to obtain the object of his desire.

You Can't Escape Lithuania

After his star actress, Indre, murders her mother, rich-kid filmmaker Romas plans her escape from Lithuania. His Mexican boyfriend Carlos helps them reluctantly. On the road, Romas begins shooting an improvised experimental film. As events take an unexpected turn, their secrets, memories and emotions make this journey wilder than any film Romas could have imagined.

My Little Boy

Berlin, 1934. Many men are forced to live their hidden homosexuality. Erich, a photographer, has an appointment in his photo studio with Wolfgang, a Nazi soldier, with whom he shares a loving, tumultuous, and passionate relationship. For both of them, this should not be a problem, but appearances deceive.

Stout-Hearted

Felix is secretly in love with Ralph. This doesn't seem to be the biggest problem. But Felix is 15 and Ralph his 34 years old soccer coach. They meet every day in an ambush. One day Felix mother finds out and Ralph has to decide between feeling and reason.

Much Ado

Hero and Beatrice, cousins and best friends, have very different approaches to love. Beatrice, burned once, is fiercely avoiding her arrogant ex-boyfriend Benedick and has sworn off men in general. Hero, a true romantic, is deeply in love with Benedick's friend Claudio, but too shy to say it. When they get trapped in a house with the entire boys rugby team, they'll be forced to face the questions they'd been avoiding.

Lost Angel

When a young Dutch tourist gets stranded at the start of his US vacation, he finds help from an unlikely stranger.

Closets

It's 1986, tormented teenager Henry is struggling with his sexuality and abusive home life. Henry sits in his closet contemplating suicide. In a flash of light he is transported to 2016 where he meets teenager Ben — now occupying his room 30 years later.

The Happy Prince

In 1895, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was the most famous writer in London, and Bosie Douglas, son of the notorious Marquess of Queensberry, was his lover. Accused and convicted of gross indecency, he was imprisoned for two years and subjected to hard labor. Once free, he abandons England to live in France, where he will spend his last years, haunted by memories of the past, poverty and immense sadness.

The Lady Banker

Ambitious Emma Eckhert successfully makes her way into a world previously reserved for men: that of high finance. She quickly becomes popular with small savers, but leads a scandalous life that will cost her.

Love Me Anyway

Love Me Anyway is a sun soaked drama about a filmmaker falling for a dreamy surfer, a man trying to save his marriage and a young wife exploring the greener grass of an extramarital affair with another woman.

Second Thought

Chris and Art lead parallel lives, starting their day with similar routines in different locations. Both go to Provincetown, a welcoming haven for the LGBTQ+ community, where their paths cross on a dating app. A steamy encounter follows their first meeting, but a dramatic turn occurs when one blocks the other the next day.

Brother and Sister

Neukölln, a trendy district in Berlin. Living space is scarce here. Without surety, proof of credit worthiness and salary there is no chance at all now. Thies knows this game; he works for a real estate management company and watches that the rules are upheld - until he meets Bruno and Sonja. He provides the dissimilar siblings with a flat free of charge on the quiet. And enters into an affair with the brother. Step by step he becomes more deeply immersed in the secret of the "siblings". A Berlin film about a loner who gets caught up. About a couple with unclear residency status. About a city everyone wants to live in.

Fathers

A gay couple faces personal challenges and society's expectations when their adopted son starts grade school and notices his family's unique dynamic.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a way to keep the band together amid the success and excess.

In Seventh Heaven

Sofiane lives in a high-rise block at the edges of Paris. A violent young man, he tries to be like his gang of friends. However, Sofiane is attracted to guys. Through his contradictions, he embodies the confusion of today's idle young people who have lost their bearings and live withdrawn into themselves.

Jeremiah

An Asian-American high school football player is forced to confront his deepest fears after a strange encounter with a mysterious figure.

Silent Sparks

Loyal to his gangster boss, Pua risks everything for money—and for Mi-ji, the ex-prisoner he secretly loves. But freedom brings distance, not desire.

The Way Things Go

A lifetime of loneliness ends when Elise meets a kindred spirit, finally finding understanding and friendship in an unexpected encounter.

Golden Years

The true story of a French WW1 deserter who, with the support of his wife, spends a decade in disguise as a woman.

Burning Blue

Two Navy fighter pilots find themselves in the midst of a forbidden relationship throwing their lives and careers into disarray.

Circuit

The hunky John is a closeted small-town cop who moves to L.A., where he is quickly seduced into the gay life of workouts and dusk-to-dawn parties. With actual circuit party footage and mounds of glistening and chiseled flesh, the pulsating Circuit is bound to get your juices flowing.

The Accident

Three loosely related stories about love, loneliness and desire, held together by one central event (a train accident) that sets these characters in motion. Andrew Lin Hoi is a mainland tour guide who’s stranded in China when the accident happens. He was supposed to pick up his visiting girlfriend Gigi Lai, but instead he gets stuck in a hotel where a Category 3 film is being filmed. There he strikes up a quick connection with the leading lady, who offers him a role in a graphic love scene with her. Meanwhile, Gigi has arrived in HK only to find herself alone with no one to turn to. Depressed and despondent, she takes comfort in the attentions of a lonely older man played by Patrick Tse Yin. The third and most interesting affair occurs between taxi driver Ben Ng and mainland hustler Wong Hei. The two hook up outside the train station and fight and fume in between steamy couplings.

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.

Haus

A displaced black queer boy finds refuge in his city's underground Kiki Ballroom scene.

Three of Hearts

A lesbian hires a male escort to break the heart of the bisexual woman who has just dumped her.

Eleven Men Out

The star player of Icelands top football team causes a stir when he admits to being gay to his team mates and then goes on a journey to discover himself (with the help of the local press). He soon finds himself on the bench for most of his teams matches and decides to call it quits and join a small amateur team made up of men like himself - gay guys trying to play football in a straight world of Icelandic fishing culture machoism

Theorem

A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.

Turtles

Henri and Thom live together in Brussels and have been in perfect love for 35 years, or so it seems. Since Henri retired as a policeman, nothing has gone right. His days are dull and endless, his feelings are fading and their home has become a battlefield. Still in love, Thom is ready to do anything to rekindle the flame and save their relationship, even if it means asking for a divorce himself.

The Circle

A young teacher in Zurich in the 1950s falls in love with a transvestite star but is torn between his bourgeois existence and his commitment to homosexuality. He joins a gay organization that is eventually seen as the pioneer of gay emancipation in Europe.

Perhaps Love

Hyun, a best-selling writer, has found himself in a slump for a long time. In the meantime, he accidentally meets Yu-jin, an aspiring young writer. Hyun gets confused when Yu-jin confesses his love to Hyun. A 19-year-old student and Hyun’s son, Sung-kyung, who is skeptical about his life, meets Jung-won, a young married woman living next door. Sung-kyung has a good feeling for this freewheeling woman. A pure-hearted man, Soon-mo, who is Hyun’s best friend and also the publisher, meets his friend’s ex-wife.

Bleach

Gay and lonely, Lloyd is on a Grindr-addicted, shame-fuelled spiral into tragedy.

Testosterone

Dean has been stumped for some time in his attempt to produce a follow-up to "I was a Teenage Speed Freak," his incredibly successful graphic novel. His fans expect great things from him and his editor, Louise, is hounding him. Instead of working, however, Dean spends his time searching for his Argentine lover Pablo, who went out one night for cigarettes and never came back.

The Child I Never Was

A serial killer dispassionately discusses the nuts and bolts of his grisly avocation, as well as the youthful traumas which helped to mold him into a psychopath, in this disturbing independent drama from Germany, based on the true story of of Germany's most famous child murderer Juergen Bartsch who, between the ages of 15 and 19, abused, tortured and killed four schoolboys in the Ruhr region of Germany from 1962 to 1966.

French Touch: Between Men

Between life, between love, between men. Four stories of men facing the precipice of deep change in their lives... and the male figures that took them there. Includes: In Seventh Heaven [7ème ciel] (2013); Michel's Mouse [Tapette] (2016); Taste of Love [Goût bacon] (2016); When You Hear the Bells [Au bruit des clochettes] (2016).

Red Yellow Pink

The story of a son and his mother. He: homosexual. She: strictly Roman Catholic. Two different worlds - a conflict is starting. Can love overcome all prejudices? A film against discrimination. A movie for acceptance.

Five Times Two

As young French couple Gilles and Marion officially separate, we see, in reverse order, the milestone moments in their relationship: Gilles revealing his unfaithfulness at a tense dinner party; Marion giving birth to their premature son while Gilles is elsewhere; Gilles and Marion's joyous wedding; and, finally, the fateful moment when they meet as acquaintances at an Italian beach resort, and their love affair begins.

Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.

Before Night Falls

Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Heat

Former child star Joe Davis, reduced to living in a cheap Hollywood motel while struggling for acting jobs, is lusted after by nearly every woman he meets, including Jessica Todd, a tightly wound feminist who has recently come out as a lesbian. When Jessica's mother, Sally, an emotionally needy has-been actress, meets Joe, she moves him into her enormous, tacky mansion as her new boy toy and attempts to get him acting work.

I Love You, I Don't

The petite waitress Johnny works and lives in a truck-stop, where she's lonely and longs for love. She develops a crush on the garbage truck driver Krassky, although her sleazy boss Boris warns her that he's gay.

Grande école

Paul and Agnes have been going out for quite a while and Agnes is shocked to learn that he'd rather live with two roommates on campus than move in with her. As soon as he meets one of his roommates, Louis-Anault, Paul's behavior changes - he is attracted to Louis without realizing so himself. Agnes, on the other hand, gets quite jealous and offers a bet: Whoever gets to have Louis-Anault first, wins... If she does, Paul will no longer explore his homosexual desires, if he does - she'll walk away. Meanwhile, Paul meets Mecir, a young Arab worker, who shows him there's more to life than elite colleges...

Are We Ok?

Temmuz is an openly gay sculptor living at a flat with his dog in Istanbul. He lives a bohemian lifestyle and has a happy go lucky, carefree, eccentric (such as believing in good luck charms) character, frequently distracting him from his work as a children's book illustrator, and eventually leading him to be abandoned by his boyfriend via e-mail. He is given solace and affection by her wealthy mother, who is fully supportive of him, and best friend and co-worker, Beste. In the meantime, he keeps seeing a young man in his dreams, who repeatedly calls him for help and rescue. One day he runs into this guy while getting on the bus, who is accompanied by his mother, and helps them get into their home as the young man was born without limbs. From then on, two lives would collide into each other, starting a brotherhood full of discoveries and mutual help.

The Male Gaze: The Boy Is Mine

We wish to make him ours, to keep and to hold forever - but will the boy reciprocate? And is he everything we expected him to be? In these five tales from the UK, France, Sweden, Mexico and the USA, a variety of characters throw caution to the wind and take their chances on a fleeting moment. The short films are: Uneven [Impar] (2016); Wolves (2016); Johnny (2018); Debut (2016); Guardian (2018).