Tales from the Rift (2021)

Isaiah vs. The Hodag

A young man living with his parents in Wisconsin comes face to face with a terrifying monster while searching for the elusive cryptic known as the Hodag.

O'Horten

Odd Horton is dependable and contained: he's a train driver retiring after 40 years of service, living a simple life. His idea of adventure is to fly from one city in Norway to another. Starting on the night of his retirement dinner, Odd has a series of dislocating experiences: a boy insists that Odd sit by his bedside while he falls asleep; misadventure causes Odd to miss his last run; he witnesses an arrest; he assists an old man and makes a friend; he takes a trip with a blindfolded driver; he adopts a dog; he takes stock late one night at the roundhouse; he revisits his mother's disappointment in him. How should he live the rest of his life?

Tokyo!

Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses.

The Tree of Life

The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Stranger

An old farmer struggles to take care of his rundown farm alone, when a stranger appears and uninvited begins to help him.

Carrie

An awkward, telekinetic teenage girl's lonely life is dominated by relentless bullying at school and an oppressive religious fanatic mother at home. When her tormentors pull a humiliating prank at the senior prom, she unleashes a horrifying chaos on everyone, leaving nothing but destruction in her wake.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.

Amarcord

In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.

Frantic Attempts

Matthias is going on a weekend course of self-discovery called “My Value on Earth,” which was an expensive gift from his girlfriend. The course is supposed to help him deal with his chronic inability to finish things that he’s started. But before Matthias leaves, his girlfriend springs a surprise on him: he’s going to be a father. And so he hopes to use the weekend, which he has no real desire to go on, to answer new and pressing questions. The “alternative” therapist, however, doesn’t inspire much trust. The tragicomedy Frantic Attempts takes aim at the field of personal development, in particular, dubious therapists who offer quick fixes. After all, what if we should answer our existential questions ourselves instead of trying to find answers from others?

Shed

An Aboriginal girl held captive and at the mercy of the station’s stockmen makes an unlikely friend and finds the courage to set herself free.

Bubble Gummed Girl

Emma is addicted to chewing gum and in the middle of puberty, but doesn't really want to admit it. She doesn't want to do anything with her sandpit friend Lasse other than swinging, playing with her father's railroad world and chewing gum - nothing should change. But Lasse suddenly has a girlfriend and, even worse, he's also interested in sex.

Soft Like Me

On a secluded prairie farm, adolescent boys labor in wheat fields for a sexually predatory warden and his farmhands, who threaten to feed them to a voracious beast if they ever disobey. The newly arrived Linus instantly catches the warden's eye, and begins to receive secret visitations from a mysterious girl. The other boys tell Linus the legend of a special boy who fled the farm and became a glorious angel that will one day return to free them all. When Linus asks the girl if she is the angel, her answer is enigmatic. After the warden's favorite boy dies, Linus is poised to become the next victim. The girl reappears and promises to help him escape, but with hope comes punishment.

The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands

A man afflicted with a curse while visiting Bombay, India at the turn of the 20th Century struggles to live life without ever touching another human being. His tragic lack of success in remaining free of all human contact causes the death of casual acquaintances and close friends alike. Ultimately, his curse turns back upon him and his story ends as tragically as those he affected with his curse.

Pittsburgh

An intimate, emotionally turbulent yet occasionally light-hearted look at a young deaf man's relationship with his boyfriend, who isn't quite ready to come out of the closet.

Two Belles in Love

She smells her fragrance, she sees her talent... The ancient love story of Cui Jianyun and Cao Yuhua. The plight of these two women is told as they fall in love due to the admiration for each other's stunning beauty and literary craft. Adapted from the Kunqu opera & story by Li Yu, "Fragrant Companion/Lianxiang Companion", this short film includes a parallel between the play and "reality." The ending has been altered from the original play.

Paquet Cadeau

Plot unavailable

Quiet

Ali must lie and say she is her wife's sister so she can be with her in the hospital. Through Ali's memories, we see the women's relationship develop as Ali faces the truth in the present.

Electric July

In the burning heat of July, Thomas and Victor, two 14 years old teenagers, are bored to death and want to escape. Victor decides to take Thomas to an abandoned bridge. He will have to confront his fears and desires.

By this River

A young boy builds a raft to reach his mother in the land of the dead, which he believes is at the end of the river that runs alongside their property.

Like a Kiss from Jesus

A boy frolicking about on the beach meets this girl who gives him his first kiss.

Yardbird

A young girl who lives in a remote wrecking yard takes on the local bullies when they travel out to torment her father.

Antoine and Colette

Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).

Pi

A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.

Spoiled Milk

When an emotionally abusive father reneges on a lifelong promise, a determined millennial is forced to choose between fighting for her relationship with her father or her freedom. 'Spoiled Milk' is about what it means to have an expiration date as a daughter and the invisible scars of emotional abuse.

Good Night, Morning

A working-class man returns to his city from a distant job and spends the night at a friend's house instead of going home to his wife.

Darkness in Tenement 45

Sixteen-year-old Joanna has been living with her overbearing Aunt Martha in a low-income NYC tenement building ever since a violent outburst left her fighting a feeling she can only describe as the "darkness." Little did she know that weeks after moving in, a biological threat from the Soviet Union would leave the building boarded up and the tenants locked inside. It's been one month since they were first sequestered. With food dwindling and Martha's controversial role as leader expanding, Joanna realizes that she must face both her darkness and her aunt in order to save the tenants. But can she take on the leadership without letting the darkness take over her entirely?

The Gift

Annie Wilson, young widow and mother of three, makes her living foretelling others' futures⁠—though her own has become cloudier than even she can see. Threatened by a client's violent husband and plagued by visions of a missing local woman, Annie finds herself pulled into a thicket of lies and deception in which her extraordinary gift may ultimately get her killed.

The Sad House

The story of a family told through objects found in junk shops and flea markets.

The Reaper's Image

Legend has it that the Delver Glass is cursed and certain souls who look into it see a reaper in the reflection, these selected people disappear soon after. (Adapted from the Stephen King short story.)

Delver Glass

A man attempts, in vain, to prevent another from suffering the consequences of a sinister curse associated with the Delver Mirror. He presents a dire warning, in the broadest possible terms, to the ill-fated central character as to the fantastical legend and insidious nature of the mirror. Slowly they advance upward through the labyrinth of sticky corridors until the attic door approaches.

Room 048

Set in a single hotel room, this film traces its history from conception to decay through an intimate look at five of its occupants, all of whom the room once knew but have since been lost in time.

Jack

Jack is a year 11 student who has totally cut himself off from his friends to the extent they don’t even try to talk to him. Except one: Oscar. Oscar’s had a hard go of it himself. But what happens when Jack gives in and talks to him?

Tickle Where It Hurts

Nicolás's irreverent night plans change when he meets up with Luka again; an attractive and carefree ghost of his past.

Hertzienne Connexion

Plot unavailable

Tbilisi, I Love You

Following "Paris, Je t'aime" "New York,I Love You" and "Rio, Eu Te Amo" “Tbilisi, I Love You” has become the next film in the “Cities of Love” franchise.

The Bible: In the Beginning...

Covering only the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis, vignettes include: Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden until their indulgence in the forbidden fruit sees them driven out; Cain murdering his brother Abel; Noah building an ark to preserve the animals of the world from the coming flood; and Abraham making a covenant with God.

Ghost Stories

Professor Philip Goodman devotes his life to exposing phony psychics and fraudulent supernatural shenanigans. His skepticism soon gets put to the test when he receives news of three chilling and inexplicable cases -- disturbing visions in an abandoned asylum, a car accident deep in the woods and the spirit of an unborn child. Even scarier -- each of the macabre stories seems to have a sinister connection to the professor's own life.