FORTEpiano (2021)

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.

After-School Special

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

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.

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.

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.

Consumed

After her mother comes back from an extended hospital stay, a young girl begins to envision an ominous monster lurking in her home.

Adult

Having enabled a loss that now torments her, a woman enters an adult store in search of redemption. Adapted from a short story by Christos Tsiolkas.

Cla'am

A dark, surreal comedy about a local man who becomes convinced that a vast conspiracy is behind the impossibly rapid gentrification in his London area. But is it all in his head, or is the truth even darker than he imagines? Cla'am is the debut short from Nathaniel Martello-White, one of the UK's leading young playwrights.

Fry Day

Set against the backdrop of the execution of Ted Bundy in 1989, the story centers around a 16-year-old girl named Lauryn who makes a little extra money by taking and selling Polaroids of the people who are camped out near the prison, celebrating the execution.

Wonder

An 11-year-old kid growing up in "the hood" secretly dreams of trick-or-treating as Wonder Woman for Halloween.

Sonja's Grill

At Sonjas Grill, Bella is sitting around waiting for her boyfriend Gabbe. An old text-message conversation between Gabbe and his ex sheds new light on their relationship.

Play / Ground

Dad fights to get grandma out of bed. But grandma can’t, she just sleeps. Love just wants to play – to be part of things and be close.

Altered Innocence Vol. 1

A vibrant anthology of LGBTQ+ short films and music videos that delve into the complexities of youth, identity, and desire. This diverse collection showcases a range of cinematic voices—both emerging and established—exploring the exhilaration, vulnerability, and confusion of coming-of-age through stories that celebrate queer love, self-discovery, and the breaking of societal boundaries. Blending narrative shorts, experimental visuals, and music-driven pieces, the anthology offers an evocative, multifaceted portrait of innocence transformed.

Paseo

Plot unavailable

Panda Syndrome

A young boy, Bjørn, discovers on his 17th birthday that his problems with the girls might not be self-inflicted.

Salvation Has No Name

A troupe of clowns gather to perform a story about a priest and a refugee, but as their misguided tale unfolds, the boundaries between fiction and reality begin to fray.

Re \ Entry

'What happened? Where am I?' The man who wakes up alone in the woods has many questions. Is he dead and in the hereafter? The voice of God soberly answers his questions: Yep, that’s right. Traffic accident. But it’s not that bad, because everyone eventually dies. All the man’s questions, also about the meaning of life, are answered. In an equally entertaining and stimulating dialogue in English, the film evokes a comprehensive image of the universe and man’s place in it.

Nahjum

A prehistoric family's desperate search for a mythical source of life turns to tragedy when the egos and obsessions of its male members rise to the surface.

A Day

Lourdes and Humberto have been married for 21 years. Edgar seeks refuge with Venus, his dog. A waterpark, an afternoon to enjoy. A day that should not be ruined.

Fili di memorie

Plot unavailable

The Doldrums or How to Cure Sadness

The tiricia is an illness of the soul when the heart is saddened. A story of three generations afflicted with being tiricientas: Ita, Justa and Alicia – grandmother, mother and daughter – who have at different times suffered, tolerated and allowed abuse, dragging on the disease. Alicia decides to break the cycle, eradicating it for future generations.

Women in Film: BBC Introducing Arts

Cultural historian Janina Ramirez presents a collection of intriguing and exciting short films by emerging women directors and artists. Each film gives a female perspective on modern-day topics from body image and new love to grief and belonging. Expect honest and refreshing storytelling that will make you laugh, make you cry and make you think. In a Room Full of Sisters; Blood Stains; Bridging the Gap; Cake; Ding-Ding, Next; Fruity; In Perpetuum; Owulide; White Dwarf; Cosmic Domestic; The Dead Are Jewels to Me; The Presence of Absence

Hiwa

Jay wakes up in Manila, yet he dreamed of Athens. He has a nightmare, during which he has a special quest: to save his two daughters from a dangerous surgery. In his attempt to rescue them, he roams around Athens’ cityscape, seeing things under a very different light.

Cherry Blossoms in March

In this mother-daughter story, a young woman explores her own mortality through art and poetry as her terminal illness holds her back from a normal life.

Beautiful Dreamer

Facing a terminal disease, a mother uses space travel and relativity to stretch her last two years over the lifetime of her baby daughter, visiting for only one night every seven years. Mother and daughter must negotiate to build a relationship despite the longing and estrangement that marks the life moments they are able to share.

Birdboy

A terrible industrial accident changes little Dinki's life forever. Now Dinki's fate may ride on the wings of her eccentric friend Birdboy, a misfit who hides in the forest lost in his fantasies.

Frozen Roads

Balthazar and siblings Christian and Lyla have been friends since childhood. As the trio struggles with coming of age in a rural, conservative Canadian town, they must confront escalating desires for one another that threaten to destroy their delicate bond.

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?"

Boys Like You

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

Revolution

A coming-of-age story about Jack, a 16-year old Iranian boy growing up in 1989 Los Angeles. With the 1979 Iranian Revolution a distant memory, the AIDS movement as a backdrop, and a haunting score by Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij, Jack learns how to stage his own much smaller revolution within the confines of his traditional family.

The In-Between

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

Pê

Pê, a man with terminal cancer, wanders through his city, Lisbon. Throughout the day, he is confronted with a reality unaware of his suffering while he prepares his imminent death by writing a farewell letter to his daughter. When emptying her father’s house, the daughter discovers the letter. It is the beginning of a new encounter.

Chelsea Girls

Lacking a formal narrative, Warhol's mammoth film follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City. The film was intended to be screened via dual projector set-up.

Tomorrow's Shame

Realizing he won't be able to pay his mortgage, Pierre faces a heartbreaking decision: to evict Micheline, his tenant and friend, who is behind on her payments.

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.

Gulis

A story about a dysfunctional father and son who are still coping with a loss, the other with a highly-stigmatized illness who are compelled to talk to one another to make ends meet and heal the wounds of their relationship.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Ulises hasn't seen his friends since they graduated from high school. But now, walking to the reunion party, he is full of hope and joy to relive his past glories and rekindle the passion he had with Paulina, the girl he was always in love with but never dared to do anything with. But that will change tonight, which will surely be unforgettable.

The Decision

A film about the divorce decision and its impact on the children.

Bulldog

Charlie and Jack find an escape from the brutality of country footy in an isolated beach, and each other.

The silent cry of the trees

To protest the construction of a new car lot, a young guy named Bernat comes to the vacant lot in order to tie himself to the only left living tree. Upon arrival, Bernat finds Joel, an unknown young man who also has decided to tie himself up.

The End of Us

After a savage breakup, two exes must continue living together when California issues its stay-at-home order for COVID-19. Now they'll try to move on without moving out.