The First Emperor of China

This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.

Failure

The encounter of an ex-couple that haven't seen each other in five years. His name is Andrés and he's a film director. Her name is Lucía and she's an actress. They confront their past in a real-time conversation: a mingling of what they remember, what their dreams were, and what never happened — not even in their dreams.

What to Film...

After spending a few months in quarantine, a young filmmaker struggles to find inspiration.

Hope Dies Last

A sickly scrawny man in a striped uniform takes a shaving brush and foam, and with a sharp blade, he shaves the back of the head of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of the Auschwitz camp himself. They will never speak with one another, and Joseph (we only learn his name during the credits) will never harm Höss, will not stop the flood of horrible murders with yet another murder. This short sketch about life of a death camp makes us feel pain and grief of millions of people who had passed beyond the walls of the shaving room during the imprisonment of Joseph, the man who outlived his torturer.

On A Desolate Road

Three low-level amateur thieves, Ricky, Dom and Ralph, steal five-million dollars from a dangerous mob-boss, Tony Farkas, and his deadly hitmen. It's only once they are finally successful and return to their hideout safely, that everything spirals. Everyone wants it all for themselves.

The Atomic Adventure

Algeria desert, 1961. France just detonated an atomic bomb. A patrol of seven soldiers is sent to ground zero to take samples and measure the current radioactivity. The more they advance, the more they perceive that they are entering a dangerous uncharted territory: the future…

HABITAT

In a dead-end room lives a slave of the system, addicted to the computer mouse and a reality show that never ends. Obsessed with an illusion, his dream is to go to the paradise that he has seen in a TV commercial...with just a flick of a finger.

Creating a Scene: BBC Introducing Arts

Actor, writer and producer Chizzy Akudolu presents a collection of dramatic short films from the best of new British film-makers. Reflecting modern Britain, subjects range from speed dating, the climate emergency and school friendships to spotting UFOs. Aisle 17; Swiped; Muriid; A Conversation with My Enemy; Money Up; Blue Corridor 15; Desert Town Landings; Pub Kid; Cardiff, I Love You; Dinah; This Camera Is Broken

The Strange Strangers

Following the journey of Life as she meets the world for the first time.

Loudly, Death Unties

Exposure

Rachel is desperate to be seen. Not the way her terminally ill father sees her, and not the way her Church Support Group sees her. Not even the way her mentor, Kathy sees her. Really seen. Newly sober and ready to start her life again, Rachel (Caroline Levien) finds herself back with her father, Glen (Nicholas Hope) and languishing in the role of his primary carer. Lonely and overlooked, Rachel turns to her online persona, 'J@de' and the world of chat-room camming as a place to see and be seen. But Rachel's escapism cannot keep the real world at bay forever. As Glen's illness deteriorates, Rachel's online identity pushes up against her own, bringing her face to face with the ultimate act of exposure.

Real Artists

In the near future, a young animator is offered what should be her dream job, but, when she discovers the truth of the modern 'creative' process, she must make a hard choice about her passion for film.

Who Can Love Pikku Iso?

A lonely guardian of land, longing for a companion in life, battles uncomfortable dates and long distances in his search for love in this short puppet film.

Vogel, flieg!

Adina lives in Germany with her father and little brother after fleeing Afghanistan. War trauma and uncertainty about her mother's fate are constant companions in the family. Adina's need to dance her worries away is countered by her father's strict rules.

Gypsy Hunt

At a beautiful hotel near the beach, the Danish and Swedish operations of an international company are having a very important lunch meeting. A merger is imminent, and Karsten is under a lot of pressure from his boss Henrik; if the special entertainment Karsten has prepared for the occasion fails to succeed, he might lose his job.

Dereliction

There is a rumor that a private LEE reported the irrational incident in his platoon.

Children of the Moon

A father joins his son as he searches for Heaven in the night's sky, each hoping to catch a glimpse of his own grandmother.

Open

Jess comes into "Gay's The Word" (the first Gay and Lesbian bookshop that opened in London) where she meets Leah for the first time. They coincidentally meet by the same bookcase over three days. What sparks is a romantic awkward chemistry between the two, transpired by Jess' curiosity in Leah and the chance for an artistic and sexual liberation possibly waiting for her at the end.

Lonely Planet

A swindler returns to her hideout at night and finds a stranger.

Blind Rain

A poetic story about the first love of boy Sanya to girl Lena.

Inside Man

Based on true events. A disgraced police detective seeking redemption goes undercover to expose a violent crime syndicate. But as he sinks deeper into the mob, the price for absolution may be higher than he can afford.

The Parts You Lose

An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.

Ill Manors

Ensemble film revolving around characters living in Forest Gate, London. Over the course of a few days, six inter-linking stories explore issues of drug use, prostitution and urban poverty.

Suburbicon

In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and murder.

Mob Town

Based on the true story of the notorious 1957 ‘mob summit’ in upstate New York. Spearheaded by Vito Genovese, more than 50 leaders of the organized crime syndicates from around the country converged on the sleepy town to discuss upcoming expansion plans. Their plans are foiled when local police trooper Ed Croswell discovers their activities and, consequently, exposes the mob to the American public. Croswell’s actions shed light on the massive web of corruption and changed the face of law enforcement forever.

The Enforcer

A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to save the young girl from the deadly organization he’s spent his life building.

Snow Steam Iron

“Snow gently falls on the blood-stained streets of a seedy out-of-time New York City. Steam envelopes the nightmare unfolding within its narrow alleys. Iron is the will of the one who would dare to resist… fight… survive.”

Run

When a law student accidentally kills the son of a mob boss in a fight, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by the mob and the police.

State Property

A Philadelphia gang member becomes a drug kingpin and starts a feud with vicious rivals in his quest for the American Dream.

The System

When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.

El padrino: The Latin Godfather

In the streets of East Los Angeles, Manny is a formidable drug dealer. Impressed by his extravagant lifestyle and prowess, his young son, Kilo, yearns to follow in his footsteps. Kilo resolves to learn how to prosper in the drug world, and his new life as a dealer begins. In a world where a man wants everything, he may end up with nothing.

Reservoir Dogs

Short film made with the help of the Sundance Film Institute and serving as a proof-of-concept for the subsequent feature film.

Phantom Halo

Two brothers barely scrape by as their father continues to gamble and drink away the money they do bring home. They hatch a plan for a robbery but at what price?

Icefall

A young Indigenous game warden arrests an infamous poacher only to discover that the poacher knows the location of a plane carrying millions of dollars that has crashed in a frozen lake. When a group of criminals and dirty cops are alerted to the poacher’s whereabouts, the warden and the poacher team up to fight back and escape across the treacherous lake before the ice melts.

Five Minutes of Heaven

The story of former Ulster Volunteer Force member Alistair Little. Twenty-five years after Little killed Joe Griffin's brother, the media arrange an auspicious meeting between the two.

Hostage

The Driver is hired by the FBI to help defuse a hostage situation. A disgruntled employee has kidnapped a CEO and has hidden her, demanding $5,088,042. The Driver delivers the money, writing the sum on his hand as instructed by the hostage taker. After he is told that he holds the life of a person in his hand, he is ordered to burn the money. As he complies, the federal agents break in and attempt to subdue the man, who shoots himself in the head before he reveals where the woman is hidden. The Driver then tries to find the hostage before she drowns in the trunk of a sinking car. As a twist, the kidnapped woman is revealed to be the hostage taker's lover. She coldly taunts the dying man in the hospital.

Coldwater

A teenage boy is sent to a juvenile reform facility in the wilderness. As we learn about the tragic events that sent him there, his struggle becomes one for survival with the inmates, counselors, and the retired war colonel in charge.

Illegal Tender

After the gangsters who killed his father come to settle a score, a teenage boy and his mother turn the tables on the killers - one Latino family's quest for honor and revenge as the hunted become the hunters.

The Unforgivable

A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.

Best of the Best 2

In an underground fight club, blackbelt Travis Brickley is killed after losing to the evil martial arts master Brakus. Travis' death is witnessed by Walter Grady, the son of his best friend Alex Grady. Alex and his partner, Tommy Lee, vow to avenge their friend's death by defeating Brakus and shutting down the fight club.