'Ad Meliora' (translation: Towards Better Things) is an experimental short film about the struggles girls go through growing up in a male dominated society.
Social & External
In this innovative blend of documentary and fiction, Rosa and Paloma, two trans Latina sex workers in Queens, New York, fight transphobic violence, persecution from the police, and defend their cases of trafficking in an increasingly anti-migration political environment in the U.S.
André and Vera are a young entrepreneurial couple. They get the opportunity to pitch their female health app at a prestigious competition. Before going there, Vera tries hypnotherapy to quit smoking. From this point, her attitude changes and André starts to behave unexpectedly.
A young woman in modern day Britain facing accusations of witchcraft finds an unlikely ally in her fight to clear her name - but can he be trusted?
Simon is an eight-year-old boy who seems to have everything from life. He’s a handsome child, he’s rich yet unhappy. He senses that there’s something wrong with his life and this leads him to wander off thanks to his fervid imagination. His greatest wish is to leave the materialistic world behind since he isn’t fond of it. That’s why the only present he wants for Christmas is for Santa Claus to take him away to live in his fairyland toy factory. At the same time, a secret that his family has been keeping for a long time suddenly comes to the surface and it is feared that the worst might happen soon. The expectation for the stroke of midnight on the night before Christmas is transformed into reality for everyone on the eve of something truly different. Something terrible that might happen.
Years after the crime, three clueless investigators discuss the disappearance of a young tourist in a small French town.
Orbitas is the story of an impossible love which revolves around a planet at war.
A woman leads a tiresome life trying to make ends meet, doing housework, and bring up her children. She tries her best to save money but she feels something is missing inside of her. She cannot communicate with her husband who brings his friends home at night to drink; they all seem to be speaking in incomprehensible gibberish
Işık visits a friend's summer home to spend some time alone after growing up under the strain of her surroundings and family. Here, she reflects on her prior issues and the challenges she has encountered as a woman.
In near-future New York, ten years after the “social-democratic war of liberation,” diverse groups of women organize a feminist uprising as equality remains unfulfilled.
The 43rd edition screens Neighbors, with five segments about the theme “neighbors”: not only about physical proximity, but also about relationships. In Brazil, Olga is a 90-year-old black woman who lost her husband one year ago; her neighbors, who come from different parts of the world, interrupt her grief. In Russia, an employee tries so hard to please his boss that he becomes inconvenient. An Indian woman, with the help of her male friend, decides to learn how to drive, an uncommon practice for women in the country. In China, an elderly, owner of an old and decadent barbershop, argues with his son, who wants to change the business. In South Africa, a group of homeless fights for the right to housing.
Hélène, a woman living alone in a suburban house in 1976, is confronted by her past when her husband suddenly reappears after going away for a year and a half to write a novel.
Procedurally-generated frames slowly expand in density to visually explore the mind of a psychopathic, narcissistic teenager, up until the demise of the subject.
A film about using nature as a way to deal, cope and escape depression, a sense of melancholy and loss clouds over the film.
In 1971, a young woman moves from the French countryside to Paris and begins a passionate love affair with a feminist leader.
Germany, 1968: The priest's daughters Marianna and Juliane both fight for changes in society, like making abortion legal. However their means are totally different: while Juliane's committed as a reporter, her sister joins a terroristic organization. After she's caught by the police and put into isolation jail, Juliane remains as her last connection to the rest of the world. Although she doesn't accept her sister's arguments and her boyfriend Wolfgang doesn't want her to, Juliane keeps on helping her sister. She begins to question the way her sister is treated.
A girl discovers a Pak Pao kite on a tree and starts playing with it. Their relationship has developed; unknowingly, the addictive toxicity starts increasing during the relationship.
In metahistorical New York city electrotechnician Lafayette deals with a megalomaniac director of a wax museum of ancient Rome, an italian lonely anarchist, a group of feminist actresses - including Angelica who falls in love with him - and a small adopted chimpanzee.
In a recording studio, five mothers read the testimonies of other anonymous mothers and open up, laying bare their regret about motherhood. On an imagined island, these five mothers are locked away in an open-air prison. They are under surveillance and forced into hard labor.
A short indie film
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
A former special forces contractor is forced out of retirement as an avocado farmer in Mexico when local gangsters try to force him and his family off their farm.
A man is released from prison after 15 years. He reunites with his high school girlfriend, now a single mother of three. What follows is a lyrical take on love, regret and second chances.
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
Whitney Wolfe uses extraordinary grit and ingenuity to break into the male-dominated tech industry.
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.