2013, Taipei, a gay couple who just moved in together are forced to separate because one of them has HIV...
Social & External
The people behind it
Benjamin Tsang
Mike
Hugo Chen
Jim
Jack is the fastidious manager of a local supermarket. The harmless but disruptive actions of his customers frequently give him headaches, which he remedies by holding a can of frozen juice against his forehead. At home, however, Jack is consistently kind, loving, and patient with his wife and daughter. One day the child brings home a stray dog, and his life is turned upside down.
Anita and her children, Santa and Kristaps, live in an apartment in Riga. Every year, they celebrate New Year’s Eve with grandma, uncle Peter and a feast fit for kings…
The Family decided to reunite for one last time before the daughter moves away overseas for work. But the father unexpectedly brings his new partner along to the party.
A teenager comes to terms with his place in the world when he learns of his mother’s immoral past the day before his grandfather’s funeral.
Ruth, an elderly lady with dementia, becomes lost within her own home. As she tries to find answers, she ends up losing herself further, confusing reality with memories of her past self.
In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.
The 8th short film as part of the Magica series dealing with pre-cinema. Fictionalised documentary about Emile Reynau who invented the praxinoscope and its system of central mirrors. He then projects his paper strips into the projection praxinoscope before creating the Théâtre Optique, presented at the Musée Grévin. The perforated strips are fragile and often break. The show is cancelled. Reynaud tries to apply photography to his praxinoscope, but without success. Desperate and ruined, he throws his strips into the Seine. Only two survived.
A group of three girls meet up after not seeing each other throughout summer break, but one comes back ‘different’. This short film explores breaking away from social expectations and expressing yourself unapologetically.
The 2nd short film as part of the Magica series dealing with pre-cinema. In the 18th and 19th centuries, optical views were shown in optical boxes with magnifying lenses. The showmen organised a real spectacle, with a barker, music and sound effects. The views played with light (transparencies, perforations). A series of engravings shows the public's enthusiasm for these shows. The second part of the film is a reconstruction of such a show. First, there are views of Paris, Venice, Constantinople and Versailles, followed by various disasters: plague, floods, fires and shipwrecks.
Iran, 1984. Homeless brothers struggle to survive in a country at war.
John despises his father for being a failure in life. When John returns home to facilitate his father's funeral, his life comes to a turning point, as he discovers the true motivation of his misjudged father.
Doina, a 12-year-old girl, has her first period on the day her grandma has a stroke. Since then, their roles are inverted and Doina has to learn how to deal with the challenges of adulthood.
A writer in self-exile is haunted by the memory of his long-lost love. Mysterious events and an unexpected visitor are about to offer him a chance to relieve his pain. Based on the famous poem of Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven.
In a society where children are not heard and traditions are not to be questioned, the peaceful life of a 5-year-old is disturbed by a terrible event that forces her to find a way to recover peace and save her loved ones.
Julian is in a dilemma. He loves the person, he is in a relationship with, less than his best friend.
Two men are on an elevator when fantasy intervenes. Going up? Going down?
Summer is a permanent state of mind in Limassol, a once small seaside town in Cyprus now transforming into the oligarch paradise of the Mediterranean. Within its asphyxiating environment, Tina, a depressed food stylist is ready to give up on everything on the day of her birthday, until an extraordinary encounter changes her life.
A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.
A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.
A pregnant New York social worker begins to develop romantic feelings for her gay best friend, and decides she'd rather raise her child with him, much to the dismay of her overbearing boyfriend.
This intimate drama follows Rebecca, a woman who has kept her sexuality a secret from her friends but chooses to reveal it to a stranger. While Rebecca's revelations may not yield the results she expects, a perfect ending is still in reach.
After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.
A privileged girl and a charismatic boy's instant desire sparks a love affair made only more reckless by parents trying to keep them apart.
In the late 1990s, the arrival of elderly invalid Patrick into Marion and Tom’s home triggers the exploration of seismic events from 40 years previous: the passionate relationship between Tom and Patrick at a time when homosexuality was illegal.
In 1987, as martial law ends in Taiwan, Jia-han and Birdy fall in love amid family pressure, homophobia and social stigma.
On the outskirts of Brooklyn, Frankie, an aimless teenager, suffocates under the oppressive glare cast by his family and a toxic group of delinquent friends. Struggling with his own identity, Frankie begins to scour hookup sites for older men.
The wife of a pastor who preaches against homosexuality embarks on an affair with a female writer.
Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.
As a filmmaker and his girlfriend return home from his movie premiere, smoldering tensions and painful revelations push them toward a romantic reckoning.
Hired to spy on a philandering husband, Luo Haitao soon becomes entangled in a clandestine affair with the other man. Along with Luo's girlfriend, they succumb to the delirium of drunken nights, but how long can their tryst last?
A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.
In contemporary Los Angeles, two millennials navigating a social media–driven hookup culture begin a relationship that pushes both emotional and physical boundaries.
It's a new school year for the Truham-Higgs gang. As Nick and Charlie's relationship deepens, their thoughts turn to life after the last bell rings.
Pregnant out of wedlock, an educated young woman is pressured by her father into an arranged marriage with a lonely farmer in this drama set during WWII.
Camp Belvidere is a lesbian romance set in the 1950s about the coming of age of Camp Leader Rose and her forbidden encounter with Nurse Gin. It depicts the journey and evolution of a friendship into a romance between two women when their rapport would have been unlikely.
It is 1984. Frank is a determined English teenager who runs away from high school to find an alternative gay lifestyle in Amsterdam. He finds a home and a job at the "House of Boys", a bar-cum-brothel run by a strict Madame who has an eye for what his punters crave. Frank works his way up from barman to on-stage dancer and falls in love with some of his housemates, Jake. The first intimations of what is described as 'the gay cancer', casts a long shadow over Frank's tight-knit group of friends. Yet despite the troubles that cloud the hopes and dreams of young Frank, his perseverance, along with support from a willing doctor, will carry him through.
Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents. As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.