On Hold (2020)

The Happiest Man on Earth

A lonely 40-year-old man sits on the balcony of a Finnish apartment building. Joonas Berghäll has learned that he will die in 14 years’ time, unless he changes his way of living or attitude towards life. Joonas wants to make a film about the state of wellbeing of Finnish men, drawing from his own experiences and mirroring the society at large. The film is built around six stories. It starts with the context of school and proceeds through the contexts of military service, custody battle, burnout and substance abuse to end on the subject of premature death caused by health problems.

Boy´s Games

Jaime and Pablo explore and work on their identity by telling us about their experiences and participating in a masculinity theatrical laboratory where we will discover the conflict that led them to question their masculinity. This conflict forced them to question the games they taught us as boys, proposing different games where we learn to care for the people we love.

Blush: An Extraordinary Voyage

For 18-year-old Finnish–Kosovan Fatu, a simple visit to the grocery store feels as nerve-racking as a lunar expedition: for the first time in his life, he’s wearing makeup in public. Luckily his best friend Rai, a young woman on the spectrum of autism, is there to ferociously support him through the voyage.

Bedwetter

Men still have a privileged position. Yet the concept of a “crisis of masculinity” is increasingly permeating the media, with a loosening of roles and a growing uncertainty about what it means to be a man today. The director Jan Hušek also asks this question. He was still wetting himself by the age of thirteen, which earned him the unflattering nickname that is the film's title. In his open video diary, he captures the physical and spiritual transformation of his journey from boy to man. He returns to the woods and the roots of his childhood trauma. In doing so, he turns the camera on himself as well as on various teachers or his father. Perhaps the mark of adulthood, after all, is not overwrought masculinity, but the acceptance of his inner “pisspants”.

Young Man on the Bar Masturbating with Rage and Nerve

Dance and prostitution play the same role for Cristhian’s body. Virtuosity, desire, technique, and sex intertwine, granting coherence to a way of life that offers many answers to few questions. A leitmotiv that reconciles opposites and contradictions. Answers that are sometimes painful, like all truths.

Boys' Home in Ahmednagar

What’s the hidden message inside this intriguing film, shot at a Salvation Army establishment in western India?

Canoe

Boys’ canoe trip on the Thames in London.

War of the Buttons

For generations, two rival French villages, Longueverne and Velrans, have been at war. But this is no ordinary conflict, for the on-going hostilities are between two armies of young schoolboys. When he is beaten by his father for having lost his buttons, the leader of the Longueverne army, Lebrac, has an idea which will give his side the advantage: next time, he and his brave soldiers will go in battle without their clothes...

Stand by Me

After learning that a boy their age has been accidentally killed near their rural homes, four Oregon boys decide to go see the body. On the way, Gordie, Vern, Chris and Teddy encounter a mean junk man and a marsh full of leeches, as they also learn more about one another and their very different home lives. Just a lark at first, the boys' adventure evolves into a defining event in their lives.

Rent

This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in late 1980s East Village, New York, USA. The film centers around Mark and Roger, two roommates. While a tragedy has made Roger numb to new experiences, Mark begins capturing their world through his attempts to make a personal movie. In the year that follows, they and their friends deal with love, loss, and working together.

The Mothman Prophecies

Reporter John Klein is plunged into a world of impossible terror and unthinkable chaos when fate draws him to a sleepy West Virginia town whose residents are being visited by a great winged shape that sows hideous nightmares and fevered visions.

Boys in the Trees

On Halloween 1997, two estranged teen skaters embark on a surreal journey through their memories, dreams and fears.

Os Santos

Plot unavailable

Inherit the Wind

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

Indiscreet

Anna Kalman is an accomplished actress who has given up hope of finding the man of her dreams. She is in the middle of taking off her face cream, while talking about this subject with her sister, when in walks Philip Adams. She loses her concentration for a moment as she realizes that this is the charming, smart, and handsome man she has been waiting for.

Rooster's Crow

Drowned in the chaos of a family reunion filled with testosterone and pig roast, Reynald will try to prove to his nephew, his family but mostly himself that he's still king.

The Dependent Variables

In a dark, velvety theatre, there is a first kiss between Pietro and Tommaso. When the lights come back on, however, the two students have different expectations of what might follow. The chaos of awakening desire in its complexity and sensuality is told and made almost physically tangible through looks and gestures, approach and retreat, hope and fear.

Blood of the Undead: The Final Chapter

Four young boys enter an abandoned house with blood-spattered walls, accidentally let a zombie out of the basement and then it starts killing them off; mostly with a chainsaw.

The Adventures of Pinocchio

One of puppet-maker Geppetto's creations comes magically to life. This puppet, Pinocchio, has one major desire and that is to become a real boy someday. In order to accomplish this goal he has to learn to act responsibly. This film shows you the adventures on which he learns valuable lessons.

The Call

Connected by phone in the same home but 20 years apart, a serial killer puts another woman’s past — and life — on the line to change her own fate.

A Serious Man

It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances Sy Ableman.

Chul-soo

Chul-soo is a twelve-year-old boy who attends an acting training course. One day, the teacher arranges for him to rehearse a "love confession" scene with the prettiest girl in class, Yeon-hee, but he is unable to perfectly portray the feeling of his heart pounding. However, when his acting counterpart gets replaced with Soo-hyun, a male classmate, Chul-soo realizes that some emotions don't need to be rehearsed...

976-EVIL II

After being bestowed with demonic powers following a phone call to Hell, a psychotic teacher begins a rampage of death and destruction in a small town, forcing a teen and her boyfriend to fight him off so that they can get away.

Fruity

Pedro and Felipe are two 11-year-old boys who are very different but fall in love with each other. However, they will have to face prejudice and their own insecurities to be together.

Sparta

Ewald moved to Romania years ago. Now in his 40s, he seeks a fresh start. Leaving his girlfriend, he moves to the hinterland. With young boys from the area, he transforms a decaying school into a fortress. The children enjoy a new, carefree existence. But the distrust of the villagers is soon awoken. And Ewald is forced to confront a truth he has long suppressed. Sparta is the brother film to Rimini (2022), and the conclusion of Ulrich Seidl's diptych about the inescapability of the past and the pain of finding yourself.

The Slender Thread

Alan is a Seattle college student volunteering at a crisis center. One night when at the clinic alone, a woman calls up the number and tells Alan that she needs to talk to someone. She informs Alan she took a load of pills, and he secretly tries to get help. During this time, he learns more about the woman, her family life, and why she wants to die. Can Alan get the cavalry to save her in time before it's too late?

Brats

Stanley and Oliver are trying to spend a relaxing night at home playing checkers, but the antics of their mischievous sons keep interrupting their recreation.

Pentaclub

The year is 1968. Five teenage boys dream of running a movie theater in which they will not show pro-war films. One summer afternoon Giò, Delfo, Max, Ricky and Paolo learn to become trusted friends, indispensable to one another.

JACKPOT

Plot unavailable

Little Men

The former Jo March and her husband Professor Bhaer operate the Plumfield School for homeless boys. One of the boys, Nat, invites Dan, a street kid, to come to the school, where the boys are all loved and well cared for. Dan is a young tough, but his heart is good, and when he is accused of theft at the school, Jo continues to believe in him and that the true thief will be found out.

Topsy-Turvy

After their production "Princess Ida" meets with less-than-stunning reviews, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan is strained to breaking. Their friends and associates attempt to get the two to work together again, which opens the way to "The Mikado," one of the duo's greatest successes.

The Genesis Children

A charismatic leader and a high-spirited student group are on holiday in Italy. The surreal adventures of these friends are a free-flowing, four-part "multi-sensual symphony," bereft of traditional story line. One national critic described the boys' anarchic revelry as a "dream-like descent from civilization into the chaos reminiscent of Lord of the Flies."

Llenos de gracia

Sister Marina, a very unorthodox nun, is sent during the summer of 1994 to El Parral, a boarding school for boys threatened to be closed soon. Even though the kids welcome Marina with all kinds of pranks, they will, little by little, become something very close to the family they never had.

Hue and Cry

A gang of street boys foil a master crook who sends commands for robberies by cunningly altering a comic strip's wording each week, unknown to writer and printer. The first of the Ealing comedies.

Playboy Cops

Two off-the-wall detectives go in search for a killer, while vying for the affections of a young woman.

Good Morning

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.

Border Street

The story of Polish and Jewish families living side by side in one Warsaw street. Everything changes once and for all with the Nazi invasion.

The Giants

Brothers Danny and Zak, ages 15 and 13 ¾, are spending the summer in their deceased grandfather's house, waiting in vain for their mother, who is otherwise busy, and running low on cash. To make some money, they decide to rent out the house to a local drug dealer, but things don't go exactly as planned...

Artun

A boy from a small town has never kissed a girl. One day he and his friends decide to go to the 'big city' to see if they have more luck there. In the city, the boys get much more than they bargained for.

Soft Rain or Another Story of Mowgli

It's post-apocalyptic future. The group of boys does not realize that one of them is not quite a person... he's the "Mowgli Project". It is also unknown whether Mowgli himself knows about this.

Pasanga 2

The frustrated parents of two hyperactive kids realise the key to unlock their kids' potential lies in them accepting the kids' exuberant nature, thanks to an understanding doctor and his teacher wife.

Buenos Aires 100 km

A remote village 100 kilometers from the city of Buenos Aires. Stephen, Matías, Alejo, Damián and Guido were born 13 years ago in this small town. They have always been friends and together they share the monotonous summer afternoons sitting on the stoop of a women's hairdresser. Anxious, restless, impatient for a change, they go through the most confusing period of experiment -- the transition from childhood to adolescence.

Soft

Three adolescent boys become captivated by the queer nightlife over summer break, but a missing person pulls them back into the reality they tried to leave behind.

Shower Boys

“Are you a man or a mouse?” asks the bandy trainer? Viggo answers with doubt but the team chant “MEN!”. After training, Viggo and Noel go home to Noel’s house and have a sauna. The friends start to compete on who is most manly, a tough competition where no-one really wants to be tough.

Kimi dake ni Motetainda.

The story revolves around five boy who each possess a trait that have negative effects on them. The handsome boys owe a monetary debt to Sakiko Horinomiya, a girl from a rich family. Wanting the money back, she makes them enter the "Motemen Koshien" contest, so they can pay her back using the prize money.

Boys on the Bridge

One day during the summer vacation before high school, Lil Fish skips the orientation and wants to hang out with his buddies. Still, to get the junior high diploma, all his friends are cleaning up the campus to remove their demerits. Only Lychee pals around with him in their fishing village, as they always do. Lil Fish thinks such kind of life will never change, but what happens that day makes him realize he and his friends have embarked on a different future.

The Sweet Body of Deborah

A newlywed couple visits the husband's hometown of Geneva, where they are subjected to threats stemming from the death of his former fiancée.

On-Gaku: Our Sound

A bored trio of high school delinquents start a rock 'n' roll band together. They have no skill, money, or even a full set of drums, but are determined to jam out and impress their only friend.

A Simple Event

The story of a ten years old Iranian schoolboy living with his mother and his father in Northern coasts of Iran. The boy helps his father in selling the latter's illegal fishing and helps his mother in shopping for her and bringing home water from a well. The three characters live together in only one room. Their life is austere. The boy eats only bread and milk every day... One day the boy's mother dies.

When Michael Calls

A woman begins to receive ominous phone calls from her nephew, who died 15 years earlier. With each phone call, a family member dies. Will she be the next in line?

Aux

When two young boys playing in the woods discover a military bunker they unintentionally release the ghost of a World War II auxiliary soldier who mistakenly believes the Nazis have landed.