"BUDKA" by George Alshevskij-Jones (2025)

Eddie

Deep underground, a lone scientist mans a discarded research facility struggling to deal with extreme boredom, a desperate voiceless companion and a mystery he'd really rather not have to solve.

Fantasy Sentences

Borrowing its title from an experimental text by Walter Benjamin. Many years ago, the cities by the river were gripped by a contagion. Things started to change and everything slowly became something else. It was not clear if transformation was a symptom of the disease or a way to escape it. The contagion touched everything and everyone: animals and plants, stones and soil, men, women and children, their thoughts, their dreams, their memories. An old woman once told me how all memories turn into trees, I could hardly make out what she was saying. She said she could hear the trees singing: To be a body, to be any body. After the years of contagion ended, the cities appeared untouched. One had to look hard to see the traces of the previous time. If one could listen to the trees, what would they say? A way out, a way out?

The Cry of the Owl

Fleeing New York City, a failed marriage and a fragile mental history, artist Robert Forrester moves to small-town Pennsylvania. There he becomes fascinated with the simple domesticity of a beautiful neighbor, watching her through the windows of her home --- until she invites him in for coffee. He is drawn into a relationship with the young woman whose boyfriend goes missing; Robert becomes a murder suspect, gradually sensing he is the target of a larger plot.

Carried by the Waves

Loïs, 22 years old, wakes up on the beach after a drunken night. In his distress, he approaches Killian, 20, who is jogging and falls for him at first sight.

Safe Word

Cesar, an emotionally stunted masochist, must confront his self-loathing after his dissatisfied-yet-caring Dom, Bear, reinterprets the rules of their game. They arrive at a paradigm-shifting result neither one of them expects.

Longing

When Michal finds out her husband Meir is having an affair with a man, her world collapses. Not only is she is forced to deal with sexual rejection from Meir, she also has to endure social rejection.

Lucky Fares

One of the Three Kings and Santa Claus spend Christmas in jail, talking about what their future will be like in a world like this.

Juliet of the Spirits

Middle-aged Giulietta grows suspicious of her husband, Giorgio, when his behavior grows increasingly questionable. One night when Giorgio initiates a seance amongst his friends, Giulietta gets in touch with spirits and learns more about herself and her painful past. Slightly skeptical, but intrigued, she visits a mystic who gives her more information -- and nudges her toward the realization that her husband is indeed a philanderer.

Cicada

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

Space Man

An agoraphobic man traps himself in an astronaut costume to avoid the disastrous consequences of his condition

Birdland

José is a boy who is living on the periphery of a true perception of reality after the death of his mother a few months ago. Meanwhile his father reminds him of his duties and obligations to help keeping the household economy and Sofia, a young girl distracts him with her invitations.

Garage

Due to a learning disability, Josie's life in a tiny town revolves around a menial job taking care of a garage that could close at any day. Things start to change, however, when David, the son of his boss' girlfriend, comes to work with him. Josie hangs out with David and his teenage friends, bringing them beer, and despite being a grown man himself, finds that the new company lifts his spirits. But his simple-mindedness blinds him to some potential legal dangers.

Requited

Nicolas, a young man in his mid 20s, struggles to decide whether or not to go to the wedding of his best friend from high school, Aaron, who he's always been quietly in love with. The two had a falling out years earlier after Nicolas inexplicably kissed Aaron's girlfriend. Nicolas clings to an idealized image of his former friend, unconsciously sabotaging his own happiness in the process. The film is a realistic slice-of-life that poses the question "How do you get over something you never had?"

The In-Between

The story or two men who fall in love and move in together.

A Grand Day Out

Wallace and Gromit have run out of cheese, and this provides an excellent excuse for the duo to take their holiday to the moon, where, as everyone knows, there is ample cheese. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

Alice: Crack of Season

Yoon-hye likes Da-joo more than just as a friend but denies her feelings for the sake of their friendship. After some events following Da-joo being introduced to a boy, Yoon-hye is not able to hide her emotions anymore.

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).

Second Round

In a world where childbirth is state-regulated, a couple applies for a license to have a child. They pass the first round of the process, but have no idea what awaits them in the second round.

Dogville

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

Boys Like You

A young man struggles with the boundaries of friendship when he finds himself in an intimate situation

The Middle of a Lake

After the cremation of his father, Vincent and his family gather relatives in the back shop of the family butchery for a final tribute. Vincent announce to his family that he leaves for some time with his boyfriend Olivier.

Mine

The non-donor father in a gay relationship struggles to come to terms with being the father to a child which is not biologically his.

Arrival

Ten girls are waiting for arrival of the train. We find out from the conductor that it is delayed indefinitely. We spy on the girls from the outside and they figure it out. While they are telling their stories, sharing their problems and concerns, we are all waiting for the train. Will the train arrive? Where are they going and what are they really waiting for?

Hairpin Double

Plot unavailable

The Frog Princess

A spoiled princess encounters an enigmatic talking frog in this twisted take on the classic fairytale.

Lalibela

On the eve of Easter, an icon depicting the Ethiopian Mother of God enters a Ukrainian village. After the icon is noticed by regular parishioners, a conflict begins between the young priest and his flock. Peasants do not agree to have a dark-skinned Mother of God in the church. One night someone makes his way to the church and cuts the icon. After the night events, the icon begins to pour myrrh.

Barely Recognizable

A movie musical about eating disorder recovery and overcoming perceptions of perfection. It follows the first couple of weeks of college for Gracie, a young woman who has (mostly) recovered from an eating disorder. As she attempts to forge a new identity on campus, her new surroundings and the challenges associated with her transition to college life cause the recovery to teeter. With the help of Isa, a drop-dead gorgeous sophomore beauty queen, Gracie ultimately discovers that recovery is not linear, but rather, takes several twists and turns along the way.

Goodbye Mommy

This horror machinima short by Alvin Soprano tells the story of little Lucy walking in on her recently deceased mother crossing over to the light.

He Won't Belong

In the midst of a storm, on a desolate strip of California's lost coast, two strangers begin to uncover each other's past.

Shoppen

An almost bombproof method of staying single is called "speed dating". 18 people participate in such an event. Nine men and nine women are sitting opposite each other in order to sell optimally under the pressure of time and to find a partner. They are looking for a date - and have nothing else in common. They talk about allergies, cappuccino, consumer behavior, buses and designer clothes: the list of serious embarrassments is long. Yet none of the lonely hearts has given up the hope of romance.

The Piano Teacher

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

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.

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.

The Little Monster

A young delivery man falls in love with a mysterious young woman living cloistered in her apartment. When he finally obtains a rendez-vous at her place, she tells him her secret ...

Carne

After a dreadful incident coupled with an ungovernable paroxysm of violence, a butcher will fall into a downward spiral that will burn to the ground whatever dignity still remained in him.

Wróbel

Remek Wróbel is a mailman and an enthusiastic member of an amateur football team. He’s pushing on forty, living the life of a bachelor. One day, everything changes – his neat, tidy life is turned upside down by the appearance of Grandpa, whom he hadn’t met before, and his new chatty neighbour, Marzenka.

Three

Tom, a young architect from Tel Aviv, accepts his partner Nimrod's offer of a threesome with Or. The meeting with Or changes the couple's relationship.

Thrive

A hook-up between two young men - they make a connection, but it quickly becomes apparent they're looking for different things.

Hollywood Lucifer

Plot unavailable

Burn After Reading

When a disc containing memoirs of a former CIA analyst falls into the hands of gym employees, Linda and Chad, they see a chance to make enough money for Linda to have life-changing cosmetic surgery. Predictably, events whirl out of control for the duo, and those in their orbit.

Afternoon

A family spends three summer days in a beautiful lake mansion close to Berlin. Together with her new lover, Irene visits her brother Alex, who still inhabits the house with Irene's writer son Konstantin. Konstantin's girl-friend pops in, too, and all of them drift away from each other more and more.

Paris Ficelle

Plot unavailable

The Trap

Maggie's friends have planned a surprise birthday party (despite it being a month away). During the party, Maggie realizes there's more to it then that.

Printed Rainbow

A matchbox collection unites a lonely woman and her cat.

Alfa

Alfa, a famous porn actor, must deal with his fears, insecurities and memories when he begins work on a new film without Yerry, his former partner in life and porn. On his first day of shooting without him, Alfa tries to act as in the past but can things be like before? Javier Ferreiro's short film reflects on the difficult decision of letting someone go to move forward. ALFA is framed in the context of gay porn cinema in Cuba where pornography is banned but, little by little, it's growing up an underground industry impulsed by foreign tourism.