What We Owe to Ourselves (2025)

Lovers of the Arctic Circle

Otto and Ana are kids when they meet each other. Their names are palindromes. They meet by chance, people are related by chance. A story of circular lives, with circular names, and a circular place where the day never ends in the midnight sun. There are things that never end, and Love is one of them.

Take My Eyes

One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. With her, she takes only a few belongings and her son, Juan. Antonio soon sets out to look for her. He says Pilar is his sunshine, and what's more, "She gave him her eyes"...

After-School Special

A man and a woman have an awkward encounter at an indoor playground.

The Spanish Apartment

A strait-laced French student moves into an apartment in Barcelona with a cast of six other characters from all over Europe. Together, they speak the international language of love and friendship.

The American Wake

A seventeen year old girl who has lived all her life on an island off the coast of Ireland is faced with the choice to remain there or emigrate to America.

Boy Saint

A sumptuous short film of friendship and adoration between boys, based on a poem by Peter LeBerge. Moments of joy, bonding and roughhousing on a school trip to the beach counterpoint one teen boy’s introspective sexual awakenings and questionings. Magnificent cinematography and editing create a visual feast that provides the imagery for a narrated poem by Peter Laberge alluding to early homosexual desires, but with Catholic overtones never directly expressed.

Paranoid Park

A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".

Cherry Tobacco

An exploration of the growing friendship between small-town girl Laura, who is persuaded onto a hiking trip by her friend Merit, and Joosep, a middle-aged guide.

Fish Out of Water

Fish Out of Water manages to unfurl its light-hearted tale of young man and the sea, without a word of dialogue. Avoiding the morning traffic jams, our man (Nick Dunbar) finds peace by rowing each day to work in the city. But when a seductive blonde unexpectedly enters the picture, he finds his morning boat ride heading in unexpected directions. Directed by Lala Rolls (Land of My Ancestors), Fish Out of Water was invited to play in the 2005 NZ Film Festival, plus another 10 overseas fests. Victoria Kelly composes the brass and banjo-inflected soundtrack.

Vacua

During an ordinary summer, Alba lives day by day trying to find the way to her future: a job, a purpose.

White Man

A white-collar South Korean man discovers a severed human finger and keeps it.

Phantom Pain

Daniel seeks catharsis by recalling with Sofía his past relationship.

Honeymoon

Sandra is travelling with Fay, helping her take the bus out of the country. A transphobic attack leaves them both stranded in the middle of nowhere. A sensitive and vibrant response to intolerance in the form of a gritty and realistic road movie.

Shot

One bullet. Three lives. Everyone pays. On an average Los Angeles day, a couple on the verge of divorce and a bullied teenager find their lives desperately changed when the boy's illegal gun goes off.

Me Without You

During a long, hot summer in seventies London, young neighbors Holly and Marina make a childhood pact to be friends forever. For Marina, troubled, fiercely independent, determined to try everything, Holly stays the only constant in a life of divorcing parents, experimental drugs and fashionable self-destruction. But for Holly, a friendship that has never been equal gradually starts to feel like a trap.

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.

Angst & Flesh

Elena loves Abel, she is drowning on the anguish of being, her subconscious manifests her urges; during the funeral misfortune sets in. Laceration and calm, devotion and fear, angst and flesh.

Sycorax

Who is Sycorax? The first character in Shakespeare's "Tempest" to set foot on the island. The problem is that she has no voice. She is barely mentioned by Prospero as a crooked, old, wicked witch who vilely locked Ariel, the spirit of the air, in a tree. But why would she do that? Here, we wouldn't believe Prospero so much.

I'm in Love With My Little Sister

Yori and his twin sister Iku used to be very close as children but lately Yori has grown colder toward Iku and is always eager to stay away from her. Iku was confused by Yori's attitude. Actually Yori is in love with Iku and that forbidden love is causing Yori sleepless nights since Yori and Iku are sharing the same room with bunk beds. Yori tried to ease his intense desire for Iku by bedding Iku's best friend. He had even applied to attend a boarding school in another city to take him far away from Iku. Yori lost his resolve to stay quiet about his feelings when Iku started to talk about having a boyfriend and going on dates. Now Yori want to have his little sister and he confessed. Iku loves her big brother and wanted them to stay together, so Iku is willing to anything to keep them together. But Yori wanted to have Iku as a lover, not as a sister loyal to her twin.

Four.

A small-town couple with big dreams of making their family complete must persevere through infertility and tragedy.

A Shade of Grey

A peaceful life on a family farm. A cold, clear winter day. Nine-year-old Noémy is about to leave the carefree world of childhood behind.

El balancín de Iván

Ana is a woman of thirty-something, goes back to the house where she spent of her childhood during the Argentine dictatorship.

Swingin'

When sixth-grader boy Qiu is bullied in school for having gay dads, his stepfather Howard, a flamboyant Jazz trumpet player, must confront his own nightmares of childhood bulling before he can provide his son a feeling of security.

Shannon Amen

Shannon Amen unearths the passionate and pained expressions of a young woman overwhelmed by guilt and anxiety as she struggles to reconcile her sexual identity with her religious faith. A loving elegy to a friend lost to suicide.

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.

Lucia, Before and After

After traveling hundreds of miles, a woman must wait another twenty-four hours before she can get an abortion.

The Music of Regret

Simmons, best-known for her photographs of miniature rooms populated by dolls and of oversized objects—such as a house, birthday cake, and pistol—balanced on female legs, both human and fake, brings these characters to life in a three-act mini-musical. The film is inspired by three distinct periods of Simmons’s photographic work: vintage hand puppets, ventriloquist dummies and walking objects enact tales of ambition, disappointment, love, loss, and regret. Working with composer Michael Rohaytn ("Personal Velocity") and cameraman Ed Lachman ("The Virgin Suicides" and "Far From Heaven"), Simmons’s puppets come to life in miniature domestic scenes that echo real life.

Chang-ok's Letter

Housewife Eun-ha is busy every day: In addition to taking care of her husband who doesn’t help out at all and her willful daughter and son, she has to care for her nagging mother-in-law, who is nearly bedridden.

Julián (Transmutación)

Julián, a 10-year-old boy, is going through a stage of change in which he cannot find peace with his surroundings. In a dream stage, a beetle becomes recurrent in his dreams.

The Sea Inside

Ramón Sampedro is a ship mechanic and part-time poet left a quadriplegic following a diving accident. Ramón fought for 30 years for the legal right to end his own life. He develops close relationships with his long-term lawyer Julia and his friend Rosa, who tries to convince him that his life is worth living. Despite his situation, Ramón manages to inspire those around him to live life to the fullest.

Laura

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

Tara Road

A grieving Connecticut mother temporarily switches houses with a woman in Dublin, Ireland.

Break Me

A young cage fighter must choose between his head and his heart after his father discovers the truth.

My Baby Bright

Pla Thong's friend, Tod dies but his unfinished business means he can't move on. Pla Thong helps Tod figure out what that unfinished business is, and they realise how each other feels in the process.

Now You Know

An uninhibited 10 year old girl discovers harsh new boundaries at her strict Catholic school.

A Simple Story

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

Fili di memorie

Plot unavailable

Tosca

Non-musical account of Puccini's opera: Tosca and Cavaradossi are in love, but the tyrant Scarpia desires Tosca and oppresses Cavaradossi who is fighting for freedom.

My Friend Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer struggles with a difficult family life as a young boy. During his teenage years he slowly transforms, edging closer to the serial killer he was to become.

Tall Girl

Jodi, the tallest girl in her high school, has always felt uncomfortable in her own skin. But after years of slouching, being made fun of, and avoiding attention at all costs, Jodi finally decides to find the confidence to stand tall.

Trying

Meg, a millennial painter with ADHD, navigates her life on the way to a job interview. What starts as a simple task turns into a race against the clock as she encounters society’s stigmas, unlikely allies, and challenges from her past.

Nothing

Bia just turned eighteen. The end of the year is coming and also the ACTs. People at school and Bia’s parents are pressuring her to decide which graduation she will apply for. Bia doesn’t want to do anything.

Christmas in August

It's a sweltering summer, but Jung-won, a terminally ill, thirty-something photographer, is already in the winter of his life when he begins a tentative romance with a young traffic cop who doesn't know about his condition. Is their relationship doomed before it even begins?

Triptych on Matter and Death

A young woman, injured and alone, desperately seeks refuge in an empty house before finding an abandoned train car. Haunted by surreal visions, she repeatedly collapses. At dawn, her motionless form draws the curiosity of local children, leaving her fate uncertain.

Run Raja Run

Raja, son of a vegetable vendor, is a simple man. His girlfriends dump him because of his honesty. However, things take a turn when he meets his true love Priya, the daughter of a police commissioner.

A Movie Made of

In Vigo, Spain, during Christmas, Ángel, a Spanish filmmaker, walks through the crowded streets while thinking about a possible movie made of…

Stand Up!

Irish anti-homophobic bullying advertisement, created as part of BeLonG To Youth Services annual Up! LGBT Awareness Weeks.

Performance Anxiety

Two straight actors must rehearse for an impending gay love scene. How will they make out?

Inocentes

A voyeuristic journey through the homoerotic work of Alair Gomes.

Tempting Hearts

Tempting Hearts is a romantic comedy that tells the love story between Zhou Qiwen (Jerry Yan), the disgraced founder of a gaming company and the creator of a blind dating app called Chen Ran (Ren Suxi). Forced into bankruptcy by the “playboy” comments about him, Zhou Qiwen confronts the instigator, an employee for a blind dating app for an explanation. Signing up to join the dating app might not have been such a bright idea, that is, until Qiwen is matched with the creator of the app herself, Chen Ran. Throughout their dating shenanigans, the pair gradually lose their hostility towards each other, thus begins the start of something that could be wonderful if only they dare to open their hearts to each other. Inspired and Based on Jeff Chang's hit song of the same name from 27 years ago.

Daybreak

After committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events that led him to the killing.

Pizza and Sunshine

A former collegiate athlete and his best friend struggle with the turmoil of Multiple Sclerosis.

Stripped to Kill

A Los Angeles policewoman's partner has her pose as a stripper to lure a killer of strippers.

PNB 12-50

After Typhoon Pablo struck a barangay in New Bataan, Compostela Valley, a father was separated from his only daughter. Whether alive or dead, the father is determined to find his daughter's body to the very end.

The Boy Who Couldn't Swim

Two teen boys meet each other in Copenhagen and team up to find one of the boys' mother. Instead they end up finding themselves - and each other.