First Taste

Amidst her own personality crisis, a southern housewife meets an outgoing old woman who tells her the story of Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, two young women who experienced hardships and love in 1920s Whistle Stop, Alabama.

A young man confesses his sexual past to an unseen phone sex operator. He reflects on his sexual identity as we follow him on a solitary excursion to a beach.

A young woman’s quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tortured her as a child leads her and her best friend, also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.

Having enabled a loss that now torments her, a woman enters an adult store in search of redemption. Adapted from a short story by Christos Tsiolkas.

Parvis, the son of exiled Iranians, copes with life in his small hometown by indulging himself with pop culture, Grindr dates, and raves. After being caught shoplifting, he is sentenced to community service at a refugee shelter where he meets siblings Banafshe and Amon, who have fled Iran. As a romantic attraction between Parvis and Amon grows, the fragile relationship between the three is put to a test.

A gay man impersonates men he has had sex with and brings this new persona with him to his next hook-up. Only by pretending to be someone else can he be truly himself.

The film follows the story of Jamie, a struggling butch lesbian actress who gets cast as a man in a film. The main plot is a romantic comedy between Jamie's male alter-ego, "Male Jamie," and Jill, a heterosexual woman on set. The film's subplots include Jamie's bisexual roommate Lola and her cat actor Howard, Lola's abrasive butch German girlfriend Andi, and Jamie's gay Asian friend David.

Johnny Minotaur is a lyrical explosion of taboos: incest, intergenerational desire, pansexuality and autoeroticism are a few of the issues Charles Henri Ford grapples with through mythopoeic, sensual imagery, recitations of his diaries and a philosophical debate featuring an impressive narration by such artists as Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Warren Sonbert and Lynne Tillman.

When a budding romance falls apart, and a scholarship to USC gets yanked out from under him, 17-year-old Salvi hits the mean streets of Palm Springs and gets swept up into an incendiary weekend of partying, gun violence and sexual ambiguity.

Strap yourself in for an exhilarating journey into darkness with these five award-winning short films from across the globe that delve into heart-pumping escapades varying from the intensely erotic to the ultra-violent to the warm-inside feels. The night has never looked so inviting. Segments: After Dawn [Passée l'aube] (2017), Poof (2018), Spiral (2018), Night of Love (2018), Floating Melon [浮果] (2015).

Daniella has recently moved to New York to pursue an art career and decides to stay in town to share the holidays with her circle of artist friends, instead of going home to see her sweet, if overbearing parents. Amelia is a talented entertainment lawyer trying to stay focused on her work after a broken engagement. When Daniella and Amelia are set up by their parents, they agree to pretend that they are dating, to appease them for the holidays. However, as they spend time in each other’s worlds, they soon build a connection that is deeper than either of them could have hoped for.

In an ever-expanding but nondescript North American city, Christophe, a middle-aged businessman, unexpectedly encounters Micha, a Russian acrobat recovering from an injury, while house-hunting. An instant attraction is quickly consummated and they embark on a torrid affair that helps each of them cope with their respective trials. A provocative, poignant drama about intimacy in an age of anonymity.

Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.

A new student, Manuela, enters a strict girls' boarding school after her mother’s death, where she finds comfort in a kind teacher, stirring complex emotions within her.

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.

Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

United Kingdom, March 24, 1954. Ten years before the decriminalization of homosexuality, journalist Peter Wildeblood and his friends Lord Montagu and Michael Pitt-Rivers are convicted and imprisoned for indecency and sodomy.

A Hong Kong drama that explores the complexities of a same-sex relationship between two young escort women. Living openly and embracing their sexuality, they navigate their love without concern for societal judgment. However, their environment soon challenges their bond, introducing external influences that test their commitment to each other.

Chen Hao-Zhi lives alone with his Grandmother who has Alzheimers and has suffered from a stroke. In order to pay the bills and his grandmother's medical expenses, he goes to work in a gay massage parlor. At first, it was just work...but Hao-Zhi soon finds that he is attracted to some of his clientele, and gets pulled into a world where he loses control of things he thought he could handle.

Eva and Kat enjoy a carefree existence on their houseboat on a London canal. Until Eva's dream of becoming a mother is reignited by the death of their pet. Kat just wants to get a new cat. But when Kat's best friend, Roger, visits from Barcelona, they decide in a moment of drunkenness that he can be Eva's sperm donor. But what are the consequences for the lesbian couple, the biological father, the child and their relationships with one another?