A summer on a leisure island in the Paris region. Land of adventure, drag and transgression for some, place of refuge and escape for others. From its fee-paying beach to its hidden recesses, the exploration of a kingdom of childhood, resonating with the tumults of the world.Read More »
Set in Paris on a hot summer day, this joyful and funny two-part film follows five young men and five young women where the boys cause trouble for the girls. In the first part, colleagues Milena and Lucie go Sunday swimming in a public pool. The incessant flirtation of lifeguard Jean disrupts their burgeoning friendship. In the second part, Hanne, a young Norwegian student, just wants to have a nice time with her friend Salomé on the national day, but she has to fend off the attention of three men while not upsetting her friend, who has taken a liking to one of the men.Read More »
Congolese democracy entrepreneur Lebrun takes us on a tangled, tender and cruel adventure to finalise a Chinese T-shirt deal which is turning sour. Between documentary and fiction, this tragicomedy sketches the outlines of a world without the West.Read More »
Synopsis
Two boys meet during a summer vacation in the late ’90s in a romanian town located on the Danube shore, a few days before the summer eclipse. They become close friends, until one of their actions will cause powerful consequences.Read More »
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High school can be horrible, especially when your classmates make you feel like a freak. But sometimes that pain only means that finding the person who gets you is all the sweeter. Loner Sara is in her last year of high school and is miserable. She is shunned by the girls in her class for being “weird” and spends her lunches smoking in a hiding place behind the school. That is, until the new girl, Andrea, invades her hideout one day. Andrea and Sara fall for each other instantly, bonding over their love of books and solitude. Things might actually start to look up for Sara, but then the world intrudes and threatens their happiness. Can their love survive homophobic classmates and parents?Read More »
Despite harsh condemnation and denunciation from society, a heterosexual female pastor founded Taiwan’s first LGBT-affirming church in May 1996. For LGBT Christians, who had been rejected by the Christian community for a long time, they finally have a church that offers them a safe haven. Though the founder has passed away, the church members continue to make their voice heard, confronting the unjust social institutions while struggling with religious conflict at the same time. Come hell or high water, they strive to make a difference in the lives of others by telling their own life stories, in hope that love will eventually trump hate and solve misunderstanding someday.Read More »
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Moon and sun are elliptically and stroboscopically conjured in Joshua Gen Solondz’s cloistered yet operatic Luna e Santur. In milky, hand-processed images, hooded figures recalling Magritte’s The Lovers enact a series of rituals in which an old trauma is remembered and exorcized.Read More »
A dying town in the lush, water-fed mountains of Japan’s southeastern Nara Prefecture inspires Mexican multihyphenate Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio to ruminate on natural wonders and the melancholy inevitability facing an aging population in “Inori.” Produced by Naomi Kawase as part of her Nara Film Fest’s Narative project, the docu adheres closely to the Kawase model of nature lensed in a minor key, and fans of Gonzalez-Rubio’s “Alamar” will find gentle pleasures in this agreeable yet slight work.Read More »
After seven years of dictatorship, a remote village in Argentina formally becomes a town with the birth of its 501st inhabitant. Hidalgo, a slick and ingratiating scion, is eager for the new post of mayor. Smelling a rat, Baldomero (a beloved natural leader with a habitually tapping digit) opposes him with his own candidacy—and soon turns up dead. His shopkeeper brother vows revenge, keeping Baldomero’s severed finger in a jar, initially as a remembrance, but eventually as an absurd icon of leadership that spurs the town to defy crooked elections, interloping powers and Hidalgo to go its own way. Based on real events, this charming dramatic comedy pokes fun at small town ways while celebrating true democratic values.Read More »