Kara's Birthday (2025)

Sunday Girls

On October 25 1984, an afternoon for three girls takes a thrilling and rather mystical turn after following a peculiar boy into the surrounding forest of their college town.

Train Dreams

A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.

Goodbye, Don Glees!

Teen misfits Roma, Toto, and Drop call themselves the “Don Glees,” an informal name for their backyard adventures. One day, when the trio gets blamed for a nearby forest fire, they set off into the woods to prove their innocence. As disaster strikes their expedition, tensions flare between the friends as they realize that growing up has taken them on wildly different paths in life.

Hot Milk

Rose and her daughter Sofia travel to the Spanish seaside town of Almería to consult with the shamanic Dr. Gomez, a physician who could possibly hold the cure to Rose’s mystery illness, which has left her bound to a wheelchair. But in the sultry atmosphere of this sun-bleached town Sofia, who has been trapped by her mother’s illness all her life, finally starts to shed her inhibitions, enticed by the persuasive charms of enigmatic traveller Ingrid.

The Tender Bar

JR is a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie, is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father — JR begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams, with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie’s bar.

Wet Dog

Based on a provocative autobiography, this story — set in a largely Muslim neighborhood in Berlin — follows a teenage gang member who is caught between hiding his Jewish identity and saving his life.

Happyend

In a near-future Japanese city bracing for a devastating earthquake, a group of teenage friends navigate personal struggles and fractured bonds amid rising tension.

Small, Slow But Steady

A hearing-impaired woman with dreams of becoming a professional boxer due to the pandemic is threatened closure of her boxing club and the illness of its ageing president, who has been her biggest supporter, push her to the limit.

The Line

Tom, a passionate ‘brother’ of his fraternity, is charmed by the promises of high social status and alumni connections that open doors. But as Annabelle, a classmate outside his social circle, enters his life, his devotion begins to falter. Once the scheduled hazing of new fraternity members comes to a disturbing head, Tom faces the decision of a lifetime.

Practice

Trine refuses to fly. When the 18-year-old environmental activist and trumpet talent only has a few days to travel 1500 km from Lofoten to Oslo in order to reach a crucial audition at the Opera House, she is forced to hitchhike, despite great time pressure. Suddenly, her passion for music and environmental idealism is set against each other. Å ØVE (TO PRACTICE) is a film that explores resistance in passion, a deeply intimate encounter with music and the practice of listening to oneself.

Good One

On a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills, 17-year-old Sam contends with the competing egos of her father and his oldest friend.

AUGUST 13th

The story follows the encounters of Victor and Tanya at the end of their junior year. The two of them grow closer and closer during the summer vacation, despite the danger surrounding them.

Reflexes

Coming home one night, a girl discovers a strange growth inside her mouth and struggles to ask for help as it grows at an alarming rate.

JJ+E

Elisabeth and John John are raised in the same city, yet they live light years apart, separated economically, socially and culturally. That is until the day they start in the same high school class.

Pop in Q

The story begins the day before the graduation ceremony. Five middle school girls each are preoccupied with their real everyday lives. These girls meet each other in a fantasy world after being sent there through a sudden occurrence. There, they learn about the impending crisis that this world is facing. The way to avert this crisis is for the five to collaborate and bring their five hearts together as one through dance. However, the five cannot come to love the world, and cannot tell their true feelings to one another, so their hearts are unable to unite. The time limit is fast approaching. Can the dance of the five girls save the world? And will they be able to graduate?

Priscilla

When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend.

Bettys

It's midsummer in the year 2000 and when a strange girl turns up at the skate park and impresses the teenagers with her skating skills, Lily has to prove that she's more than just a groupie.

We're All Going to the World's Fair

Reality and fantasy begin to blur when a teenager, alone in her attic bedroom, immerses herself in a role-playing horror game online.

CODA

As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), Ruby is the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family's fishing business is threatened, Ruby finds herself torn between pursuing her love of music and her fear of abandoning her parents.

Like the Ones I Used to Know

December 24, 1983, 10:50 p.m.; Julie and her cousins ate too much sugar, and Santa Claus is late. Denis, alone in his car, is anxious about setting foot in his former in-laws’ house to pick up his children.

Belle

Suzu is a 17-year-old high-school student living in a rural town with her father. Wounded by the loss of her mother at a young age, Suzu one day discovers the massive online world "U" and dives into this alternate reality as her avatar, Belle. Before long, all of U's eyes are fixed on Belle, when, suddenly, a mysterious, dragon-like figure appears before her.

Kitty

After being kicked out of his strict Mormon home, 17-year-old AJ finds himself lost on the streets of Atlanta. Desperate and naive, he’s taken in by Baby Girl, an 18-year-old Black trans sex worker whose sharp instincts have kept her alive. She offers him shelter in a squat house and teaches him the hustles of survival—stealing, dealing, and navigating the unforgiving city. Under the watchful eye of Daddy, Baby Girl’s volatile pimp, AJ is drawn deeper into a world both thrilling and dangerous. The two form an intense bond—part friendship, part mentorship, part something unspoken. But when their friend Pedro contracts HIV and gets government aid, AJ and Baby Girl are forced to confront a brutal reality. As their nights blur into neon-lit highs and whispered fears, one reckless choice threatens to change everything—forcing them to decide how far they’ll go to escape a life that never wanted them.

Sixteen

Nora and Léo, 16, live in the same town, in the same suburbs, go to the same highschool, but everything opposes them: their social backgrounds, their families religions, their everyday lives. Yet, they fall in love at first sight. But from a theft accusation bringing into conflict their respective families, their love story will have to face a series of trials and dramas.

Three

19-year-old queer Slovenian Klara spends the last hot summer night with her friends Nejla and Lars before she goes to study abroad. The film is an ode to the Ljubljana queer community, young love and that last summer before adulthood.

Opening Night

A teenage boy navigates the final minutes before his first theater stage performance, which includes experiencing his first kiss. Despite his rising anxiety, he shares a romantic moment with a classmate.

Out of My Mind

Melody Brooks, a sixth grader with cerebral palsy, has a quick wit and a sharp mind, but because she is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair, she is not given the same opportunities as her classmates. When a young educator notices her student's untapped potential and Melody starts to participate in mainstream education, Melody shows that what she has to say is more important than how she says it.

Letter to You

Sheltered in her own world of music and carefreeness, a curious young girl fights against a mysterious melancholia as she whizzes on her roller-skates around the most colourful London.

You're Not Normal, Either!

Ono Yasuomi is a cram school teacher with poor communication skills. He hopes to get married but doesn't know what ordinary means and feels awkward on dates with women. He asks Kasumi, a student who knows lots of trivia about romance, to teach him the meaning of ordinary.

Estramia

Benji, a young man in his early twenties, learns to make money in a post-apocalyptic landscape after coming to terms with the murder of his father.

Alan Smithee

'Alan Smithee' is a film about a boy growing up. It delves into the darker side of what 'growing up' sometimes means: growing into your flaws, inevitably being met with the errors of your parents, and the necessity to make room for the pain. While Alan is surrounded by what is thought to be the American ideal, all the material comforts that should equate happiness, he learns that sometimes all we are is lost in the woods.

Growing Pains

Two childhood girl friends, Zoe and Nat, face the tumultuous changes of transitioning from middle to high school as their friendship drifts apart. Zoe, a cancer survivor, joins the crew team which exacerbates her body image & mental health struggles. Nat battles with her sexuality and the expectations of her parents.

I Miss You

Bai Xiaoyu meets Wang Jinjin for the first time in the summer of 2010 during their college entrance exams. However, she slips through his fingers and they don’t see each other again until an unexpected meeting during college graduation season. The pair fall in love and date, but marriage seems impossible when they come from such different worlds. Bai Xiaoyu fears he will lose Jinjin once again like before.

The Universe Where

A dramatic comedy about the struggles of young adulthood and the uncertainty of the future, "The Universe Where" takes a new twist on a coming-of-age story and the mental hurdles of following a dream.

War Pony

The interlocking stories of two Lakota boys growing up on Pine Ridge Reservation. At 23, Bill just wants to make something of himself. Meanwhile, 12-year-old Matho can’t wait to become a man. Bound by their shared search for belonging, each of the boys grapple with identity, family, and loss, as they navigate their unique paths to manhood.

Sisters

Meabh, a spirited fifteen-year-old, shields her two younger sisters, Lucy and Aine, from the ongoing neglect and abuse they are experiencing in their catholic children’s home by telling them transcendent Irish Fairy Tales. Desperate to protect them, Meabh takes the blame for her sisters’ rule breaking, resulting in severe punishment from the head nun, Sister Joan. Fearful her sisters will be adopted by another family without her, Meabh plots an escape.

Bye Bye Blondie

A love story of two women who meet up in their late forties and attempt to retrieve the romance they had in their youth.

The Damned Don't Cry

Fatima-Zahra and her teenage son Selim move from place to place, forever trying to outrun the latest scandal she’s caught up in. When Selim discovers the truth about their past, Fatima-Zahra vows to make a fresh start. In Tangier, new opportunities promise the legitimacy they each crave but not without pushing the volatile mother-son relationship to the breaking point.

Twilight

Hakubo tells the story of two young people who live in rural Fukushima: Sachi Koyama, a girl who excels at playing the violin, and Yuusuke Kijinami, a boy who loves to paint. After an awkward, chance encounter, the two meet and begin to fall in love, but Yuusuke is still living in the shadow of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Summer Ghost

An urban legend says that lighting fireworks at an abandoned airfield will beckon the "summer ghost," a spirit that can answer any question. Three teenagers, Tomoya, Aoi, and Ryo, each have their own reason to show up one day. When a ghost named Ayane appears, she reveals she is only visible to those "who are about to touch their death." Compelled by the ghost and her message, Tomoya begins regularly visiting the airfield to uncover the true purpose of her visits.

Slow Dance

During a middle school dance, a boy is struggling with his courage when experiencing his first love.

Going to Heaven

A charming story about an 11-year-old boy, Sultan, looking for innocent love after loosing his mother when he was a kid. After Sultan finds an old box with his grandma's picture and clues to her location, he decides to go all the way with his best friend, Saud, to find her in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.