Friends and Lovers

Queer Boys and Girls on the Shinkansen brings together ten filmmakers and artists who consistently affirm what it means to be gay or lesbian in their work. Habakari chose ten filmmakers to make a five-minute work each, developed around a gay or lesbian theme, and compiled the resulting shorts in random order to create this omnibus film. The result is a queer film, by queer filmmakers, for a queer audience. Each short is its own short story, and the styles range from drama and experimental film and animation. (2024 complete version includes all eleven films, 65 mins.)

Cumbria, 1998. Terrified he's turned his son queer, closeted dad Rich plots to rig his local pub's Christmas turkey draw to prove what it means to be a real man.

An association takes in young LGBT people made homeless by their families. Behind the apparent comedy, the excesses, the desire to assert themselves, lie shattered lives. They all have this furious desire to exist, to find their place in society. Here, they have six months to find a job, a place to live and accept themselves as they are. It's a race against time, during which Noëlle, who runs the association, and Alex, who helps her in her mission, are also forced to face up to their own failings and question their motivation for helping others.

It took a hundred queer years for Lola Perla to be finally recognized by a government that never really took notice of the likes of her. But that’s okay, because along with the president’s anti-climactic, and in many ways, almost insincere recognition is a fat envelope containing Php100,000 (USD$2,000). For Perla, this is more than enough money to transcend her idea of a lifetime legacy. Today is the day Lola Perla confronts her long-standing personal covenant: to bail an ex-lover’s son out of jail. Meeting fifty-someting Nanding transforms into a reunion, then, a communion of her present self, with an old love.

An emotional coming-of-age drama centered around Andou Jun, a gay student who is not out. He accepts a confession from his fujoshi classmate Miura Sae and they start dating. However, Jun is also seeing Makoto, but fails to tell Sae about his male lover.

Old college chums get together for a weekend reunion that is bound to open old wounds and perhaps heal them. New romances find a spark while old ones rekindle.

A man spends 15 minutes waiting for the results of a Rapid HIV Test.

An adventurous love story between two young women of different social and economic backgrounds who find themselves going through all the typical struggles of a new romance.

Paris, summer 2019. Marcio is a young Brazilian who recently moved to the French capital, hoping to find a better life there. However, reality catches up with him when he ends up broke and homeless. Without hope of integrating the working world, he survives by joining a pimping network, until a man, much more mature than him, decides to take him under his wing.

Paris, in the early 1990s: a group of young activists is desperately tied to finding the cure against an unknown lethal disease. They target the pharmaceutical labs that are retaining potential cures, and multiply direct actions, with the hope of saving their lives as well as the ones of future generations.

Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him, but soon discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.

15-year-old Beni falls in love with Fögi, a singer in a Rock band. As Fögi seduces him, he is only willing to follow him where ever Fögi wants to. But Fögi is a drug addict and pulls Beni deeper and deeper into the hell of drug addiction.

Suffering from acute kidney failure, Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave—the birthplace of his first life.

Bin Glitter captures Midge's attempt to hold onto the memories she made with her best friend Sue in their final week together. This coming-of-age story explores female sexuality and feminine identity against the backdrop of the super eight film Midge and Sue decided to create together.

After serving time for murder, Josh Hutton returns to his home town where he meets Audry Hugo. No one can remember exactly what Josh did...

A talented, but distracted photographer, Lola, on the verge of success in both love and work, could lose it all if she doesn't make it to a crucial meeting on time. But, as usual, Lola is late. With her job and girlfriend on the line, she has three chances to make it right. In a desperate race through the streets and back rooms of San Francisco, time grows short-will Lola make it? Will she come at all? With a pop sensibility that mixes live action, animation and still photography, And Then Came Lola explores love's age old question in a fresh new way, "If you try, try again, will you finally get it right?" (Written by M. Siler and E. Seidler)

After a one-night stand with another man, a married farmer attempts to hide the affair from his family as the truth drives him to breaking point.

Jamie, a young man in a rural town, becomes fascinated by Norberto, a Spanish exchange student.

An exquisite period piece that skillfully explores the intersections of sex, race and politics takes place in 18th century South Africa, telling the passionate (true) story of two men caught in an unjust system rife with racism, homophobia and cruelty.

Gabriel, a shy boy, decides to enlist the services of Eva to help him confront his sexual desires. Although he isn't able to make love with her, their meeting takes an unexpected turn.