As Hard As You Can (2019)

Madam Black

When a glamour photographer runs over a child's pet, he's forced to fabricate a story about its disappearance.

Toska

Flavio, immersed in the sadness of nostalgia and regret, faces his daily loneliness, seeking solace in the solitary ritual of smoking a cigarette. Each puff becomes a journey back in time, an immersion in a parallel dimension that brings to light the moments shared with Alberto. The warmth of those hugs, the echo of shared laughter and the tears that bathed their cheeks become present, as if they had just happened. Every blurry image that surfaces, every fleeting glance that materializes and every whispered word that resonates reveal the fragile nature of human balance and the profound gravity of the choices that shaped their relationship. But in that very smoke lies a strange consolation, a sense of acceptance that begins to germinate in his heart. He accepts the end of the relationship, with all its painful consequences, and launches himself into a new future, leaving behind what has been and opening his arms to the unknown that awaits him.

Eu, Minha Mãe e Wallace

The story of a photograph: A single mother, an absent father and a child.

Cold Meridian

In this short exploration of sensual audio-visual stimulation, the repeated rituals of an online performer have a transfixing effect on her viewers. What starts as an exploration of tactility, addiction and control soon descends into a nightmarish dance performance where no rules apply.

Get Real

Sensitive rural town model student Steven Carter hides his gay feelings, except with his neighbor and best friend Linda. Suddenly his desperate search for partners leads to a blind date with golden boy John Dixon, bound for an Oxbridge career.

Normal

Jim - a lonely, troubled young man who works as an apartment superintendent, is replaying his tortured past. Through a series of flashbacks, and interactions with the mysterious tenants he is surrounded by, we not only learn of his dark secrets, but also what it means to be normal. The answers he finds in his journey will shatter not only his perceptions of the past, but also his fragile grip on reality.

The Market

Danaji, a farmer from the state of Maharashtra in rural India, is accompanied by his eight-year old son Ganya to the city to sell his onions at the Mandi (market). While the child is enamoured by the sights and sounds of the place, the farmer has to fight a Kafkaesque battle to find the right price for his produce.

Margarita y el lobo

Lorenzo is a handsome, intelligent, charming, elegant and liberal man. All he asks for is total devotion. And Margarita, foolishly, falls in love with him…

Teenland

Sally, 17, is locked up at Teenland, a prison-like institution for teens who are so fucked emotionally that they have developed supernatural powers. The mission is to normalize the misfit teens and Sally accepts the premise that she is sick and abnormal. But when a rebellious girl instead encourages Sally to embrace her strength, their friendship could change everything.

Melon Rainbow

A pink neon lamp and a laptop screen illuminate the semi-naked blonde girl on the bed. Her name is Melon Rainbow and she’s working. During the day she has a different job, cleaning for people she has next to no contact with. A blind boy changes that. Melon Rainbow tries to help him and herself.

Loving You

After being saved from drowning, Hayase grows curious about quiet Noboru—and even more confused when he meets his bold twin, Ryu.

Monica

After years of estrangement, a trans woman returns home to help care for her dying mother.

The Dare Project

A popular high school hunk Johnny takes a late-night dip with cute loner Ben. Fifteen years later, these two men — who haven’t seen each other since a late-night tryst in high school — bump into each other unexpectedly.

Paris 05:59 / Théo & Hugo

Théo and Hugo meet in a club and form an immediate bond. Once the desire and elation of this first moment has passed, the two young men, now sober, wander through the empty streets of nocturnal Paris, having to confront the love they sense blossoming between them.

Love at First Sight

A day in the life of 70-year-old Arthur, who falls in love with Ruth, a new resident at his retirement home.

Rara

Since their parents split up, Sara and her younger sister live with their mother, whose new partner is a woman. Everyday life for the four of them is hardly any different than it is for other families. But not everyone sees it that way – Sara's father in particular has his doubts. As Sara’s 13th birthday approaches, she feels rather overwhelmed: her first crush, a body in the midst of changes and to top it off, conflicts over loyalty with her parents.

Nobody Loves Me

On the brink of her 30th birthday, Fanny feels the door to marital happiness closing on her. She is obsessed with death and even visits evening classes on dying, so it seems fitting that she encounters a skeleton in the malfunctioning elevator of her apartment building. The skeleton is her neighbour Orfeo, a Black, gay, self-declared psychic, who convinces her that she is about to meet "him". But is it really Lothar, the new yuppie apartment manager ...?

Spun

Over the course of three days Ross, a college dropout addicted to crystal-meth, encounters a variety of oddball folks - including a stripper named Nikki and her boyfriend, the local meth producer, The Cook - but all he really wants to do is hook up with his old girlfriend, Amy.

Oi! Warning

A young man gets caught up in a conflict between his friends, a skinhead and a gay anarchist.

Catopolis

A cat named Penny living in a desensitized, unstable world has to find a new job after she gets fired in order to make her dad proud.

An Unusual Affair

Jochen Wenzel, a young teacher, married with two kids, one day surprisingly falls in love with a young male colleague, Tom Leuthner and they begin an unusual affair (= "Eine aussergewöhnliche Affäre"). While Ina, Jochen's wife, worries about Jochen's distanced behavior without having a clue of her husband's affair, Jochen and Tom seriously fall for each other. Torn between his family and his new love, Jochen has to make a decision. Written by Smoothhoney

Likeness

For Mia, beauty is everything. A trophy, a promise, a ball and chain, a wish upon a star. A life sentence.

Jay

Jay, a 13-year-old boy, is fascinated by his toned and athletic older brother. In order to get close to him, Jay feigns an interest in basketball so that his brother will practice with him. Steadily, Jay's fascination develops into an attraction.

Cold Snap

A boy in a forest, trapping animals for a living. The woman next door, planning a fresh start. As a desolate winter sets in, their lives begin to intertwine.

Milk

The true story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man ever elected to public office. In San Francisco in the late 1970s, Harvey Milk becomes an activist for gay rights and inspires others to join him in his fight for equal rights that should be available to all Americans.

96 Ways to Say I Love You

The main narrative follows youngsters Al and Olive and their respective journeys towards saying those three words for the first time. However, the story is interspersed with inputs from different couples in evidently very different relationships.

Life After

Based in New York City, “Life After” is about Nisha, a single mother and Indian immigrant living in Queens. After her only child, Zara, passes away unexpectedly, Nisha decides to learn about her daughter’s life in Manhattan. Out of her element, Nisha is forced to examine parts of who her daughter was that she had tried to ignore. Most significantly, Zara’s sexual orientation. Only through meeting her daughter’s partner, does Nisha finally begin to grieve the loss of her child.

Yes or No 2.5

Roommates Wine and Pii find their lives turned upside down when two more ladies move in next door, bringing up past heartaches and new attractions.

The Jump Off

Nigel and Malik have been in a secret romantic relationship for several weeks. Nigel seems content with their unofficial status, but as times goes on, he longs for more. One evening, Nigel decides to take matters into his own hands before thinking of the consequences.

The Diary of Heong Yeong-dang

A historical drama based in the Joseon times about a person who falls in love with his stepsister.

Naked

'Naked' is a modern-day drama set in Sweden which centers on two young men, Erik and Anthony. They share a night of passion after a party, and as ostensibly heterosexual men with girlfriends, this event disturbs them greatly and forces them to grapple with issues of identity in every facet of their lives. The two men, increasingly agitated, hurtle toward an explosive and unpredictable confrontation.

Ruis

A young man struggles to cope with the effects of hearing damage.

Inertia

During a walk in the woods a man stumbles upon a gate blocked by a guard who refuses to let him through. Gaining entry quickly becomes his obsession and only goal, to the detriment of all else, including his own physical and mental health.

Lands of Silence

Anna is twenty-five. Her boyfriend, Louis, is a math teacher. Together, they give birth to a child, Leo. A few months later, the discovery of Leo's deafness is an upheaval.

Followers

When an elderly woman sees a vision of Jesus on the shorts of a young African man at her swimming class, she befriends him, believing he's been sent by God to free her from loneliness. 'Followers' is a dark comedy drama about faith and loneliness. The short film explores how the two intertwine and is based on Tim Marshall's feature screenplay of the same name.

Garden of Remembrance

An untidy room. Empty beer tins, empty wine bottles, a half-empty glass of whisky... A girl is getting up absent-mindedly and starts preparing herself. YOUR morning starts. Lazy and hard-to-wake-up YOU. The emoticon is ME watching over YOU. I play tricks on YOU, while YOU are playing the guitar and drinking. One day, in town, YOU walk past THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND who is buying an Anemone I liked, and remembering that I liked them, YOU rush out to buy them. THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND displays the Anemone with care. One day, years after I died, YOU hear noise from the closet. Opened, YOU see MY garden right in front of YOU. Overflowing emotions of ME and YOU. When exiting from the room with memories, a picture of the Anemone that YOU painted is displayed in YOUR new room.

My Best Part

Jérémie, a young man reaching a breaking point on all fronts, decides to leave behind Paris and return to Limosin, to the home of his intrusive mother.

Amor

Based on the story "The monster in my room" by Miguel Angel López, a girl recounts living with her mother and a monster that stalks her at night.

After Forty…

An actress in her forties is facing family and domestic difficulties and feels that her demand in cinema and theater is decreasing over time. But she doesn't want to accept this.

Miles Above, Years Apart

A young man enjoying a refreshing hike in the mountains discovers a small boy living in an ancient temple. Trapped there by an evil spirit, the innocent boy's only wish is to return to the farmhouse where he once lived with his loving family.

Being

A once harmonious pair of angelic youth are disrupted when one decides he is fed up with his simple way of life. He takes a drastic step in order to get closer to the human boys he envies.

Out of Body

Over the course of a muggy summer day in New England, two friends meander from place to place, getting high and avoiding the aftermath of a recent family tragedy.

When Jesse Was Born

Tragedy strikes a comedic blue collar family as they welcome their third son into the world.

Tiger, Tiger

Guided by their animal instinct, a clan of strange laborers seeks to take over the identity and position of privilege of their foreman without considering how the fiction is surpassed by reality.

die Expats

DIE EXPATS explores love, loss and lust, identity and modern relationships. It is a story of four people in search of reclaiming a sense of self while navigating the knotted, overlapping space they occupy. When said space begins closing in around them, they realize the only way to get out, and not be squashed by it, is to examine their own intentions, and be willing to let go of the past, and each other. The saying goes, people come to Berlin to find what they want; but for this group, Berlin is the bearer of disillusionment. Perhaps in finding out what they don't want, Vivian, Nate, Sienna and Andreas finally uncover what it is they each truly need.

Gaston's Recital

This short fiction film about a young boy torn between conflicting loyalties is resolved with humour and wisdom. Sunday, 2 o'clock, is zero hour for Gaston. He must be in two places at once: performing at a music recital and playing hockey with his teammates. What is Gaston to do?

Limbo

Killed in war, a man must overcome the various obstacles he encounters in limbo to save his life and thus meet his son, about to be born.

Lucy's Tale

Lucy begins to realize she is not like the other teens in school.

Foreign Body

Willing to prove his manhood to his handsome buddies, Marko tries to find a girl. In the encounter with a victim of a past sexual trauma he discovers an aggressive part of himself.

Yellowstone

A former couple talk with each other for the first time after their separation and one short telephone call embodies their years together.

For a Lost Soldier

In the occupied Netherlands near the end of WWII, a young teenager, Jeroen Boman (Maarten Smit) is sent to the Dutch countryside to avoid the war in Amsterdam. While living with his adopted family, Jeroen meets and becomes friends with a Canadian soldier named Walt Cook, who is stationed at the same town he is staying at. Joroen and Walt spend a lot of time playing around and eventually a romantic relationship develops between them. The boy’s sexual curiosity leads him to have a sexual experience with Walt, an encounter that is shown with some vague detail but without actually showing any nudity, even though sexual intimacy between the two of them is implied. Overall, the movie handles this difficult subject with an elegant style and feeling, without having the adult-child relationship overwhelm the viewer and thus allowing the movie to be seen as just a wartime relationship between two people that marks an important time in a young boy’s life.

Lan Yu

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, combining dramatizations of three of his novels and a depiction of the events of November 25th, 1970.