Speak Up! It's So Dark

The film captures the daily duality of three young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv, caught between hometown tradition and big city abandon, and the price they must pay for a lifestyle that seems obvious to many: the freedom to work, party, have sex, and choose.

When spirited young woman, Fanny Price is sent away to live on the great country estate of her rich cousins, she's meant to learn the ways of proper society. But while Fanny learns 'their' ways, she also enlightens them with a wit and sparkle all her own.

Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity. Finally the Vietnamese have had enough and confront the skinheads in an all-out confrontation, sending the skinheads running. A woman who is prone to epileptic seizures joins the skins' merry band, and helps them on their run from justice, but is her affliction also a sign of impurity?

A young woman’s charming but overbearing father helps her move out of her wealthy older boyfriend’s apartment.

A down on their luck couple from South Georgia go on the run to get the money to repay a gambling debt, and decide to film their escapade, in hopes of selling their 'reality movie' to Hollywood for a quick buck. However, the danger becomes very real when their misguided foray into drug dealing does not go as planned, and they quickly find out they are in over their heads.

This is a passage between two faces, each the same, yet different. Bibicha’s face first appears in the dark, her eyes open and expression impassive, only her heavy breathing betraying the strain she feels. She will withstand the strain and take the vow of silence, retreating to her grandmother’s house for the 40 days to pass. The house and the landscape outside at least offer Bibicha certain sensory distractions: the taste of honey, the texture of a wall, an eye-catching bedspread, the view out over a sea of cloud, water fizzling on the stove. But it is not just her under strain, as her aunt’s frantic text messaging, her grandmother’s rueful acknowledgement of the stories of marital strife on the radio and her little cousin’s illegitimate status bear witness to. Four generations of women in the complete absence of men, yet all marked by their presence, the similarity of their fates blurring together different times and customs.

Soledad is a young woman who returns to her grandmother's house after years of having cut off communication with her family. She wants to connect with nature, her family's spiritual practices and her sister with whom she never developed a relationship. At the same time she is looking for a way to heal the duel of her mother's death years ago. Soledad will realize that the process is long and exhausting and will lead her to reconnect with the people around her and herself.

Marvin, a heavy-drinking widower meets Tige, an 11-year-old orphan. With nowhere else to go, Tige moves in with Marvin and they develop a close friendship. Marvin wants to adopt Tige but knows that he is too poor to give him a good home. Then he discovers who Tige's father is a rich suburbanite who doesn't even know Tige exists. Should Marvin, and can he, give up the boy he loves, and who loves him, in favor of a stranger with the right genes and bank balance?

After being deported to Venezuela, one of the most dangerous countries in the world, Rosa and her daughter must find a way to escape to Colombia.

The episodically connected lives of four college friends unfold throughout the incipient martial law years, as they struggle to define their sexual and professional desires and how best to attain them.

Joshua Nyaga travels to the countryside from London to spend a summer’s weekend with his girlfriend Cass’ family for the first time. Transplanted as a young boy from the violence of the Ugandan civil war to the concrete jungle of London, Joshua has never experienced the privilege that Cass’ family enjoys. Surrounded by the sea and lush natural landscape, the farm is an oasis, brimming with idealistic notions and lively debate amongst Cass’ father, stepmother and their longtime friend of the family, Michael. But Joshua’s warm welcome is short lived, when a sudden act of violent racism at a local summer concert shatters the peace forcing Joshua and those around him to confront the uncomfortable truth of their differences.

In the early 1960s, during the Vatican II era, a young woman training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, sexuality and the changing church.

Sissi and Victoria are sisters. Whereas the younger is slowly emerging from the world of childhood, the elder tries in vain to be a grown up. In the room they share, Sissi is preparing for her gymnastic competition and Victoria has boys coming and going.

Opportunus

Pussy Have the Power is the song improvised by four girls in a recording studio. When an established music producer walks in, they face the choice of selling out their work to something that could lead to success, while they risk losing their own message

An evocative exploration of a mother/daughter relationship.

Cristi has just moved to an unknown country, far away from family and friends. At first, she is happy for the challenge. But soon she begins to question her place in this new world that seems to be a lost town, made of absences, distances, silence and indifference. '4242' is the story of a young female immigrant, a story of a teenager's anguish who is trying to redefine her identity after being forced to leave home.

Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR

Micro short film directed by Portuguese multi-award winning Sara Eustáquio, 16, starring Canadian young actress Jaimie Marchuk. Student project produced at New York Film Academy, in NYC.

'How do you know that Adam and Eve weren't black?...' An awkward comedy about first dates, race, and racism.