Bettiol: Il Deserto nella Cattedrale

A young couple visit a medium to conduct a séance after the death of their child.

A la mano

A short personal story touching on the impact parents have on their children and how it can reflect them in the future. Filmed, Written and Directed by Chris Villafuerte

Two friends meet and the news is given that the grandmother of one of them has died. What was supposed to be a moment of consolation ends up becoming a change of perspective on death.

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo drive a red convertible across the Mojave desert to Las Vegas with a suitcase full of drugs to cover a motorcycle race. As their consumption of drugs increases at an alarming rate, the stoned duo trash their hotel room and fear legal repercussions. Duke begins to drive back to L.A., but after an odd run-in with a cop, he returns to Sin City and continues his wild drug binge.

In a remote woodland cabin, a small town doctor discovers Nell — a beautiful young hermit woman with many secrets.

An eight-year-old girl tries to build a relationship with her absent father through a class-assigned family tree.

Two friends named Gerry become lost in the desert after taking a wrong turn. Their attempts to find their way home only lead them into further trouble.

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

This is the story of a puppy that touched hundreds of millions of people around the world. Hachiko is a cute Chinese pastoral dog. He met his destined owner Chen Jingxiu in the vast crowd and became a member of the Chen family. With the passage of time, the once beautiful home is no longer there, but Batong is still waiting where it is, and its fate is closely tied to its family.

Andrés and his son Pedro live in a working district of Caracas and hardly ever see each other. While Andrés fills his time doing different jobs, Pedro wanders the streets playing with friends and learning from the violent atmosphere around him.

Inés, Irene and Ivonne gather at their mother's house to attend their father's funeral; they will not return until a year after for the anniversary of their father's death, and it is at that precise moment that everyone will have to face another setback.

A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.

After the death of a septuagenarian woman, her three children deliberate over what to do with her estate.

Jerry (Jamie Draven) was an idealist when he served in the first Gulf War. But when he was later deployed to Iraq, Jerry was an older man, a father of three and embittered by broken promises and unfulfilled desires. When Jerry returns from Iraq he has been transformed by horrors that cannot be forgiven. He lives a life of poverty, his children afraid of him and his wife, Nora (Vinessa Shaw), unsympathetic and unhappy. When Jerry discovers that Nora has betrayed him, his anger and despair drive him to commit an act so heinous and irreversible that nothing he had experienced in combat could have prepared him for.

A young Greek woman falls in love with a non-Greek and struggles to get her family to accept him while she comes to terms with her heritage and cultural identity.

Texan Charles Farmer left the Air Force as a young man to save the family ranch when his dad died. Like most American ranchers, he owes his bank. Unlike most, he's an astrophysicist with a rocket in his barn - one he's built and wants to take into space. It's his dream. The FBI puts him under surveillance when he tries to buy rocket fuel, and the FAA stalls him when he files a flight plan – but Charles is undeterred.

When brash Texas border officer Mike Norton wrongfully kills and buries the friend and ranch hand of Pete Perkins, the latter is reminded of a promise he made to bury his friend, Melquiades Estrada, in his Mexican home town. He kidnaps Norton and exhumes Estrada's corpse, and the odd caravan sets out on horseback for Mexico.

This is the story of Isa, who grows up in a Hamburg suburb. It might be one of the world's richest cities but every beast has its belly and here, in the very underbelly, Chiko lives in a world where violence, staking and keeping a claim, and drug taking are the norm. Where down is not an option, Chiko is determined to rise to the top, whatever and whomever it costs.