All Films

Wild Balkans

2009 • 53 min • Austria, Germany

Wolves hunt their prey in the valleys between high-ranging dunes, bears and lynxes wander through dense primeval forest, and the big lakes are a magnet for hundreds of bird species. That is the so-called «Balkan». Today the «Balkans» stand for a Europe that hardly exists elsewhere. The mountains of Montenegro harbour one of Europe's last primeval forests with trees over 400 years of age. In the difficultly accessible hinterland we find the Tara National Park with the deepest gorge in the Karst Mountains - the 1.300 meters deep Tara gorge. Nearby Lake Skadar is home for 270 species of birds; no other lake in Europe can claim such diversity. Europe's last coastal forest area can be found in Albania and in Bulgaria and Romania huge bat colonies live in the cave-dotted mountains. In Serbia one can cross the «European Sahara», a desert covering a surface of 30.000 hectares.

Men of the City

2009 • 58 min • United Kingdom

In Men of the City, Isaacs takes a more stylised approach to the lives of workers in the City of London during the recent financial meltdown, balancing sensitive portraits of diverse individuals striving to retain their dignity and humanity in the midst of the crisis. Strong human characters are at the heart of all of Isaacs' work, and with these films he continues to create a unique vision of modern Britain.

Heavenly Appeals

2009 • 2 min • United States of America

After many millennia of being tortured in Hell, Raymond K. Hessle has finally earned a chance to appeal his sentence of Eternal Damnation. Upon arriving at the "appeals" gate of Heaven he is greeted by the angel who will preside over his case. As Raymond waits at the edge of paradise, he will finally have a chance to prove just how worthy he is.

Dias de Greve

2009 • 24 min • Brazil

The struggle of a small group of blacksmiths trapped between keeping a long going strike with claims for better fees and the necessity of getting back to work when there's no money left for basic necessities.

Dead End

2009 • 4 min • Ukraine

He wakes up. He is naked. He is in the train. Train is in the dead way.

The Bug Trainer

2009 • 53 min • Lithuania

The Bug Trainer explores Starewitch’s creative ideas and concepts of his work, along with opinions from film critics and other animation directors to help us understand why he is considered one of the greatest creators of the animation world.

Drives

2009 • 10 min • Spain

Carlos, a man who has a doubt, and a month before his wedding, decides to hire a gigolo to satisfy his homosexual curiosity.

The Face of the Enemy

2009 • 58 min • Sweden

An anti-war film about the personal suffering behind the hard statistics, which show that more than four million Vietnamese died during the Vietnam War, as opposed to 58,000 Americans. We hear South and North Vietnamese, including émigrés to the United States, describing how huge numbers of friends met their deaths, caught as they were between government forces, the Vietcong, and the Americans; how political boundaries divided not only the country, but also families; how mothers deserted their children because their fathers were American soldiers; and how the war cruelly lingers on long after hostilities ceased, in the lives of children born crippled by chemical weapons.

Diagnosis

2009 • 15 min • Ukraine

When drug courier Petia and his pregnant girlfriend got into a militia raid, he did not suspect that his conflict with the law was not the least serious problem of his life.

Swan Song

2009 • 13 min

Short gay melodrama.

Tenement Films

2009 • 12 min • United Kingdom

A series of portraits, made for Television, of four diverse individuals brought together through shared residence. These short films were filmed in the tenement where I lived for eight years. The first is shot in our bedroom, which doubled up as my former partner's office, the three others were shot in architecturally identitical spaces owned by my then neighbours. Shot and edited on a single 16mm bolex camera using available light throughout, the films invoke reflections on the four individuals, how they occupy these particular spaces together.

Combo

2009 • 8 min • Italy

Street artist Blu animates large-scale creatures as they crawl across an abandoned Argentine cityscape.

My Monster

2009 • 30 min • Sweden

What happens if you get strong feelings for someone you just tortured and killed?

Ray Kappe: California Modern Master - Forty Years of Modular Evolution

2009 • 26 min • United States of America

Explorations in 21st Century American Architecture Series: Ray Kappe has long been a cult figure in the architectural scene in and around Los Angeles. In 1972, he founded the influential, avant garde Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC), where many of the younger-generation architects have studied or taught.

Esoterica

2009 • 29 min

"In this vignette oriented piece, a group of people discuss their own often unique perspective on life. Unlike other titles in his canon, Esoterica is completely apropos. Each sequence suggests the inner psychological struggles of seemingly normal people, the whole “private conversation in their head” thing given new and startling voice over reality. They are talking to themselves - and responding. All the standard players are here - icons from the past (Vietnam Ron, Walt Dongo) as well as new faces (Nolan Ballin, Sara Flanders) fresh and buoyant with the boy genius’s love of language. Together, their paint a stunning portrait of human frailty and mental mania." (review excerpt by Bill Gibron)

Everyday Everyday

2009 • 18 min • Malaysia

Sook Chen quit her job and decided to go to Peru. Ma could not understand why. In fact, she could never understand what Sook Chen wanted.

To Say Goodbye

2009 • 20 min • Malaysia

We often fall in love first, and then look for reasons, to justify why we love someone. To ask "why you love me?", is as silly as to ask "why you don't love me?". There is no reason, and there is no logic.

Hinterland

2009 • 49 min

70 kilometers outside of Berlin, built on an old air base, sits an immense metal dome resembling a spaceship that today hosts a striking tropical park. Through the discovery of Tropical Islands and the multiple historical layers in which it is implanted, the film proposes a singular perspective on place and history, a poetic archaeology of our relationship with time, space, and illusion.

Sea's Daughter

2009 • 56 min • Spain

Before she turned two, Haize's father, Mikel Goikoetxea, a member of ETA nicknamed 'Txapela', was killed by the GAL. With no recollection of the man whatsoever, 25 years down the line she starts asking questions. Piecing together the testimonies of those who knew him, Haize gradually discovers her father and his time.

Don't Open the Box

2009 • 2 min • France

Dear Beautiful

2009 • 15 min • United States of America

The sudden appearance of exotic flowers in New Haven spawns an unprecedented epidemic rumored to be the result of a botched experiment by cosmetics giant, V-Zone. Paul and Lauren, a married couple, are caught between the catastrophe and their own troubled relationship when Lauren encounters one of the flowers and becomes infected. As her symptoms worsen, Paul's denial of Lauren's illness puts the couple in grave danger as the city is overrun with infected people, media frenzy, National Guard, protesters and a panicked populace. Struggling to maintain a normal daily life, Paul engages in a battle of wills with his best friend and business partner, Roger, as Paul tries to deny his wife's condition and Roger tries to take matters into his own hands. As the epidemic reaches a climax, Paul must confront the reality of his situation as well as the monster his friend has become.

A Montanha Mágica

2009 • 13 min • Brazil

From having so much fun up there, he fell, fifteen meters, he ran out of air! How far does the truth go? How far does the imagination go? I would like to remember a little more. A film about childhood.

Little Red Riding Hood

2009 • 26 min • Serbia

The fable of Little Red Riding Hood is transformed into a modern and grotesque fairy tale. The baroque reflection of a dense national history in which the Roma people also have their place.

M2M Queer Fairy Tales

2009 • 54 min • Philippines

The hit M2M series brings to you a variation of the most famous childhood fairy tales that you might have read already. Bizarre and with a lot of twists. Queery Fairy Tales is a collection of short fables and tales that are campy as well as sexy and hot. What kind of a prince or princess or queen or king, or even beast are you? No matter what, love and even sex, will find its way to you. So wear your fantasy crowns and let us begin our hot tales for the queer fairies.