Boys on Film 22: Love to Love You (2022)

Joy

A young nurse, a visionary scientist and an innovative surgeon face opposition from the church, state, media and medical establishment, in their pursuit of the world’s first ‘test tube baby’, Louise Joy Brown.

'o Re

One of the key factors in Italian unification was the overthrow in 1860 of Francesco, the King of Naples and the two Sicilies, who went into elegant but impoverished exile in Rome with his Queen, Maria Sofia. This seriocomic drama follows the deposed royals as they adapt to their new lives. The former king has recognized the political finality of his deposition, but his queen has taken to traveling in men's clothing all over Italy trying to foment an uprising to restore them to the throne. She is also frantic to have a baby, an heir, but the king has become celibate as a kind of homage to his beloved mother; he spends all his time lobbying the Vatican to get her declared a saint.

Europa Europa

A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.

Elmer Gantry

A charismatic charlatan begins a business — and eventually romantic — relationship with a roadside evangelist to sell religion to 1920s America. Based on Sinclair Lewis' novel of the same name.

Eye for an Eye 2

The blind swordsman, skilled in martial arts, named Cheng Xiazi (Xie Miao), accidentally saves Zhang Xiaoyu (Yang Enyou), who has suffered from the destruction of his family. Under the persuasion of the orphan Xiaoyu, Cheng reluctantly keeps him by his side and teaches him skills. Xiaoyu also waits for the opportunity to seek revenge.

Riviera Revenge

François Marsault, a war veteran, makes the most of his retirement alongside his wife Annie. Authoritarian and ruthless, François rules his family with an iron fist — but when he discovers that his esteemed wife cheated on him 40 years ago, he files for divorce and confronts her former lover, who lives in the French Riviera.

Flow

A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.

Oddity

After the brutal murder of her twin sister, Darcy goes after those responsible by using haunted items as her tools for revenge.

Small Things Like These

In 1985, while working as a coal merchant to support his family, Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers truths of his own; forcing him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church.

Before the Revolution

The study of a youth on the edge of adulthood and his aunt, ten years older. Fabrizio is passionate, idealistic, influenced by Cesare, a teacher and Marxist, engaged to the lovely but bourgeois Clelia, and stung by the drowning of his mercurial friend Agostino, a possible suicide. Gina is herself a bundle of nervous energy, alternately sweet, seductive, poetic, distracted, and unhinged. They begin a love affair after Agostino's funeral, then Gina confuses Fabrizio by sleeping with a stranger. Their visits to Cesare and then to Puck, one of Gina's older friends, a landowner losing his land, dramatize contrasting images of Italy's future. Their own futures are bleak.

Theorem

A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.

Un amor

Upon settling in the countryside village of La Escapa, Nat accepts a disturbing sexual proposal by neighbour Andreas, paving the way for a self-consuming passion.

Life, and Nothing More…

After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.

Revelations

A pastor who believes in divine revelation and a detective haunted by visions pursue a missing person case — exposing their own demons in the process.

Inazuma Eleven GO vs. Danball Senki W

As Shinsei Inazuma Japan was about to have a match with Inazuma Legend Japan, a mysterious attack of a person and a swarm of robots interrupted, and another mysterious girl's power drove the world into another dimension. As the world of Inazuma Eleven Go and Danball Senki W met, the two teams must work together to find out what happened to their worlds.

Handling the Undead

On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want?

Jim's Story

Aymeric runs into Florence, a former coworker, one evening in Saint-Claude in the Haut-Jura. She is six months pregnant and single. When she gives birth to Jim, Aymeric is there. They spend happy years together until Christophe, Jim's biological father, shows up... It could be the start of a melodrama, it's also the start of an odyssey into fatherhood.

National Family

Don Poli, the patriarch of a family embedded in politics, faces the change of party in his state - after a hundred years in power - losing all his privileges. Humiliated and angry, he threatens to disinherit his family and leave to rebuild his life. This forces his children (Kippy, Ramses and Belén) to take extreme measures to ensure their future, causing everything that could go wrong to turn out worse.

Widow Clicquot

After her husband's death, Madame Clicquot flouts convention by assuming the reins of their wine business, defying her critics and ultimately revolutionizing the champagne industry, establishing her as one of the world's first great businesswomen.

Sayen: Desert Road

Sayen follows a lead to the picturesque desolation of the Atacama Desert. There, she reluctantly teams up with a young Atacameño girl, Quimal, looking to clear her father’s name and save her town from becoming an arid wasteland due to Acteon’s exploitative water usage.

Naples to New York

In the immediate post-war period, amidst the rubble of a poverty-ridden Naples, two kids, Carmine and Celestina, try to survive as best they can by helping each other out. One night, they secretly board a ship bound for New York to reach Celestina’s sister, who emigrated to America several years earlier. The two children join the many Italian emigrants seeking a new life in America and arrive in an unknown metropolis, which, after several misadventures, they will learn to call home.

Johnny Guitar

On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival, rallies the townsfolk to take revenge on Vienna's saloon – even without proof of her wrongdoing.

Cold Meat

David Petersen is passing through the Colorado Rockies. After saving a young diner waitress from her violent ex-husband during a break from driving, he hits the road again alone through a dangerous snow blizzard. One false move behind the wheel has him waking up inside a ravine, in the eye of the storm. But the cold is the least of his worries when a beast starts prowling outside. How will he survive?

Mass

Two couples meet for a painful and raw conversation in the aftermath of a violent tragedy.

iHostage

When a gunman enters an Apple Store in the heart of Amsterdam, the police face a delicate challenge to resolve the standoff.

The Silent Hour

While working a case as an interpreter, a hearing-impaired police detective must confront a group of criminals trying to eliminate a deaf murder witness in her apartment building.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

Neighborhood Watch

When a mentally ill young man thinks he witnesses an abduction and the police refuse to believe him, he reluctantly turns to his next door neighbor – a bitter, retired security guard – to help him find the missing woman.

Welcome to the Space Show

Five children save the life of a dog-like alien while at a self-run summer camp. He attempts to reward them by taking them to an alien colony on the Moon. Events take a turn for the worse when his report on that attack that injured him causes passage from the Moon to the Earth to be banned, and children are stranded in space. The children need to find a way back home before camp ends and their parents discover that they are missing. They also have to avoid the poachers that injured their alien friend, and now seem to be stalking them all.

The Son

A joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.

Madeleine Collins

Judith leads a double life between Switzerland and France. On the one hand Abdel, with whom she is raising a little girl, on the other Melvil with whom she has two older boys. Little by little, this fragile balance, made up of lies, secrets and back and forth, cracks dangerously. Trapped, Judith chooses to head forward, at the risk of losing everything.

Ashes in the Sky

In 1945, at the end of World War II, Neus Català returns to France, where she recalls her life under the Nazi yoke.

The Woman in the Window

A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.

The Six Triple Eight

During World War II, the US Army's only all-Black, all-women battalion takes on an impossible mission: sorting through a three-year backlog of 17 million pieces of mail that hadn't been delivered to American soldiers and finish within six months.

I Am Nevenka

In the year 2000, Nevenka Fernández, 24 years old, Councilor for Finance in the Ponferrada City Council, suffered relentless persecution, both sentimental and professional, by the mayor, a man accustomed to doing his will politically and personally. She never decides to report, although she knows that she will have to pay a very high price: her environment does not support her, the society of Ponferrada turns its back on her and the media subjects her to a public trial. A story inspired by real events that turns its protagonist into a pioneer by taking an influential and popular politician to court for sexual and workplace harassment for the first time.

Femme

Jules is a drag artist in London who withdraws into himself and loses his career after a horrific attack. Months later, he recognizes one of his assailants in a gay sauna and quickly realizes he has the perfect opportunity to get revenge.

Black God, White Devil

Wanted for killing his boss, Manuel flees with his wife Rosa to the sertão, the barren landscape of Northern Brazil. Thrust into a primordial violent region, Manuel and Rosa come under the influence and control of a series of frightening figures.

Maybe... Maybe Not

The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.

To Be or Not to Be

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

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).

Herrmann

Herrmann is a leftist Thirty Something, who is still politically active, despite beginning to live the usual life of having a girlfriend and a child. On the way to his weekly political meeting he is kidnapped.

Son

August has to put up with quite a lot. Ever since his parents separated, his father no longer seems to have any time for him. To console him, his Dad gives him a sweet little dog. But his mother refuses to have the animal in her house and before long there are shouting matches on the phone again. August can hear them arguing through his bedroom door – it's something he seems to have become used to. When his mother remains adamant about not having the dog, August packs his bags to move in with his father. But there’s no place for him in his father’s new family either. And so the boy makes up his mind to create a drastic wake-up call. Told from the boy’s perspective, this coming-of-age drama describes the situation for children who are caught in the middle when their parents decide to separate.

The Dam Keeper

In a desolate future, one small town has survived because of a large windmill dam that acts as a fan to keep out pollution. The dam's operator, Pig, works tirelessly to keep the sails spinning and protect the town, despite abuse from classmates and an indifferent public. When a new student joins Pig's class, nothing will be the same again.

ADA

An A.I. therapy tool helps a lonely and depressed man confront the darkest parts of himself.

Bag of Worms

A Halloween party turns south when the issue of race comes up amongst friends.

I Am the Doorway

After Saturn XVI crashes back to Earth, ex-astronaut Arthur struggles with an infection. Richard and his friends are blind to it's origin but his victims won't be. The Doorway is open.

Two Distant Strangers

A man trying to get home to his dog becomes stuck in a time loop that forces him to relive a deadly run-in with a cop.

The First Saturday of May

An Irish Traveler father struggles to raise his son, who has darker secrets than most.

Another Love Story

A dynamic young man falls in love with his own boss, a married businessman, with two children.

As Is

Story of a homosexual man who finds out he has AIDS and how people react. Ex-lovers are brought together when the former is stricken with AIDS. Often humorous and never morose, author William Hoffman doesn't pull his punches with either his portrayal of a gay lifestyle or of the emotional toll the disease takes.

Take Note

Two girls are afraid of what will happen if one of the student’s parents might discover their mutual “crushes,” as they monitor all messages on her phone. Instead, they share written notes in class. After learning this, their teacher Ms. Amado is forced to confront conservative prejudices within the school system by coming out to her entire class.

See You

When 14 year old Nete's twin brother Noah is killed in an accident, her world collapses. Months later, her parents decide to move to Copenhagen to start anew. Nete, still deeply troubled by her brother's death, begins in a new school - but the day she starts, a new boy, Jonas, also arrives. To everyone else, he is just the new boy - but Nete is in deep shock at what she sees.

God's Own Country

A young farmer in rural Yorkshire numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker.

Solids by the Seashore

In a corrupted southern Thai town struggling with its major environmental damage, a young Muslim woman is facing an inner struggle against the imposing wall of her cultural and religious background, as she develops a relationship with a female artist from out of town.

Desert Hearts

While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed literature professor finds herself unexpectedly attracted by a carefree, spirited young woman named Cay.

Mambo Italiano

When an Italian man comes out of the closet, it affects both his life and his crazy family.

Everything Is Illuminated

A young Jewish American man endeavors—with the help of eccentric, distant relatives—to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II—in a Ukrainian village which was ultimately razed by the Nazis.

Summer Storm

Tobi and Achim, the pride of the local crew club, have been the best of friends for years and are convinced that nothing will ever stand in the way of their friendship. They look forward to the upcoming summer camp and the crew competition. Then the gay team from Berlin arrives and Tobi is totally confused. The evening before the races begin, the storm that breaks out is more than meteor-logical.

Mala Noche

Walt is a lonely convenience store clerk who has fallen in love with a Mexican migrant worker named Johnny. Though Walt has little in common with the object of his affections — including a shared language — his desire to possess Johnny prompts a sexual awakening that results in a tangled love triangle.

One Good Pitch

After some time apart, Andrew hopes a game of catch will help him reconnect with his father.

The Male Gaze: Fleeting Glances

A release that features 7 shorts from Italy, Israel, Tunisia, New Zealand, the United States and France, exploring those furtive first steps that men take as they decide to act on their sexuality. The 7 short films are: The First Time [La prima volta] (2012); Kiss Me (2022); Nidhal [نضال] (2022); Sparrow (2016); I Am Mackenzie (2019); The Place Between Us [Il posto fra di noi] (2010); By the End of the Night [Que la nuit s'achève] (2018).

Fabrizio’s Initiation

In the heat of summer, Fabrizio is desperate to find the right time and place to make out with Nadia, his longtime girlfriend. With frustration building because his best laid plans are constantly getting interrupted, he comes up with a novel solution — but it will take more than just one teen boy to make it happen.

Seven Lucky Gods

An illegal immigrant from Albania infiltrates the lives of a group of Londoners with devastating consequences.

It's Still Your Bed

David comes home from college to his family’s farm to find that his parents have hired a young man named Brent, who is also sharing his room. David is still in the closet and wants to come out to his high school friend, but he finds himself drawn to his new roommate and tries to determine if he is also gay.

I'm Sorry, My Love

A solid middle American couple meet a stranger who will have a big role in history as we know it.

Sixth Happiness

Waris Hussein’s acclaimed drama is based on the autobiography of Firdaus Kanga, who stars in the lead role of Brit, a young man born with brittle bone disease, which causes him to have never grown beyond four feet tall. The film follows his sexual awakening whilst his family simultaneously disintegrates all around him. An extremely moving drama confronting stereotypes around disability, sexuality and race, featuring a powerhouse performance from Kanga.

The Male Gaze: Hide and Seek

On an Italian beach a father leaves his wife and child to reignite an old acquaintance. In London an app hookup leads to more than just a fling. Meanwhile Slovak lovers Dominik and Adam have their relationship put to the test when secrets come to the fore. Popular with children across the globe, hiding and seeking is a game we never seem to stop playing - well into our adult years. The short films are: Lolo (2019); The Den [La tana] (2015); Stanley (2017); If Only You Were Mine [Keby si bol môj] (2017); No Strings (2015).

Boys Feels: High Tide

Like tears in the rain, water is the metaphor for growing pains and so much more in these four tales about young boys coming to terms with a host of emotions for the very first time. These polished productions and festival favourites are brought to you by a host of talented directors from across Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. The short films are: Ocean [Océan] (2013); Go Daan Go! [Daan Durft] (2014); The Boy in the Ocean (2016); Beach Boy (2011).

Carmín tropical

Mabel travels to her hometown to find the murderer of her friend Daniela. A journey through nostalgia, love and betrayal in a place where transgenderism once took on an unusual dimension.

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.

Perfect Obedience

The fictional Father Ángel de la Cruz is based on Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel, whose long history of child abuse was not addressed until 2006 and only publicly acknowledged in 2009. But director Luis Urquiza chooses to structure his film through the largely uncomprehending, wondering eyes of 13-year-old Julián, who travels from the arms of his loving pastoral family into the austere, hallowed halls of the seminary. Singling out the boy as his intimate disciple, installing him in his palatial private quarters and redubbing him “Sacramento Santos,” Father Ángel begins Julian’s instruction into the mysteries of “perfect obedience,” whose cardinal rule is: Never question a superior’s actions.

Face in the Crowd

A woman on a journey through a crowd grapples with private and public revelation, repulsion, fear, personal safety, and the desire for basic human interaction.

Come Swim

COME SWIM is a diptych of one man's day; half impressionist and half realist portraits.

Feral

A disturbed young man pushes away his exurban family to seek wildness in the woods. The boy's urge for the primitive manifests in his bedroom at home and in a wild dog he follows through the countryside.

Xiao Lin

Every gay person goes through a process of discovering their own identity. Caught between their truest self and the family and societal pressure around them, which should a college student still in the middle of this process choose? Details

Fatima, Queen of the Night

Based on the short story of the same name by Miguel Barnet, in which Fatima - the Queen of the night, a young homosexual and transvestite, who is a prostitute to earn a living, and to maintain economically to the man whom he loves. While facing all the complexities arising from their decisions. Born in the provinces as Manuel García, nicknamed Manolito, to whom the Virgin of Fátima appeared as a child moves to the capital Havana where he meets and falls in love with Vaselina, who encourages him to cross-dress and start a new life in the world of entertainment and prostitution.

True

While he's receiving an enigmatic phone call from his girlfriend Francine, Thomas remembers the milestones of their relationship, from the very moment they met in a really strange way. A segment of “Paris, je t'aime” (2006).

My Beautiful Laundrette

A Pakistani Briton renovates a rundown laundrette with his male lover while dealing with drama within his family, the local Pakistani community, and a persistent mob of skinheads.

The World According to Garp

A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.

Wilde

The story of Oscar Wilde, genius, poet, playwright and the First Modern Man. The self-realisation of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas.

C.R.A.Z.Y.

A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.

The Page Turner

Mélanie Prouvost, a ten-year-old butcher's daughter, is a gifted pianist. That is why she and her parents decide that she sit for the Conservatory entrance exam. Although Mélanie is very likely to be admitted, she unfortunately gets distracted by the president of the jury's offhand attitude and she fails. Ten years later, Mélanie becomes her page turner, waiting patiently for her revenge.

Service

A struggling family owns a Filipino porn theater where prostitutes conduct their business.

Hotaru

Nova, immersed in metaphors that cross her unconscious, is guided by fate, door to door.

Label Me

Sex is power, and Waseem, a Syrian gay-for-pay hustler seeking asylum in Cologne, wields it like a shield. Keeping his johns at an emotional arm’s length while satisfying their most carnal desires in order to eke out a living, he meets his match in Lars: a kind, affluent professional with a growing personal interest in Waseem. This gripping tale of transactional identity explores the tactical exchange of trust and intimacy in a partnership, and the divisions between immigrants and their host countries in contemporary Europe.

I Miss You

Following his son Gabriel’s death, Jorge travels from conservative Bolivia to New York City to confront Gabriel’s boyfriend Sebastian. While the two battle over Jorge’s inability to accept his son, Sebastian channels his grief into a bold new play in honor of his lost love, in which Gabriel’s inner turmoil is transformed into an eye-popping gay fantasia.

Where We Go from Here

This anthology film explores three sudden acts of violence and examines the impact on the innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire: In Binghamton, New York, an ESL instructor faces domestic violence at home and even greater peril at school. Friends take a night out in Paris only to find themselves caught up in a horrifying situation. And two lovers at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando fight to survive a chaotic night of terror.

A Girl Who Loves a Girl

Valerie has broken up with the love of her life. She begins a new existence of having to adapt to a single life and is not coping well. To help ease the pain, she has a string of one-night stands, indulges in drugs and self-mutilation.

Peter Hujar's Day

A recently discovered conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz in 1974 reveals a glimpse into New York City’s downtown art scene and the personal struggles and epiphanies that define an artist’s life.

Flying Lessons

Two estranged adopted sisters are forced together by their mother's sudden death: Beatrice, an autistic Chinese high school senior who wants to learn to fly, and Talia, a queer black musician who never wanted custody of Beatrice in the first place. Starring the autistic actress the story is based on, the film blurs narrative and documentary styles and showcases a unique and underrepresented perspective on death and grief.

Noodles

A short film about love, told backwards.

Exteriors

Three gay men each find themselves in modern relationship issues through three separate coincidences. Wyatt learns that his best friend Logan is unknowingly falling in love with his ex, while Jason is shocked to learn the owner of the pool he's cleaning is the man he fell in love with over a one-night stand eight years earlier. Finally, therapist Peter Lesh has become dangerously obsessed with his client Lex who tells him he's just met the man of his dreams.