Inside the Chinese Closet

Sara is in crisis. Engaged for one day, she decides to call off her marriage. Quirky, beautiful, and tender, she is working on being bold. Having had a short relationship with a woman in college, Sara seeks that feeling again. How can she have a woman’s touch without giving up men entirely? This question launches Sara on a bittersweet journey filled with self discovery, sexual awakening, beautiful women and sometimes men.

The story of a lesbian, Jin-ah, who teaches a film production class at the local community center. During her first class, she meets her former high school teacher Seo-in and gets lost in old memories.

A black sheep attempts to eulogize her mother with a story about pigeons.

Since he was 5 yrs old, Jose's abuelita taught him to play chess like his grandfather who was a champion in Mexico. Now as part of the Brownsville school team, Jose has the chance to use his skills and for once in his life, finds himself in the spotlight, as he tries to help his team make it to the Texas state finals. As their coach, Mr. Alvarado, teaches his students the meaning of perseverance and team effort in the face of adversity, Jose discovers his own strengths and uses them to bring his broken family together.

Two high school girls are best friends until one dates the other's older brother, who is totally his sister's nemesis.

Recalling his childhood and relationship with his mother, a film student tries to understand the origin of his love for cinema and tragedies.

An awkward 6-footer teen is forced to learn and play volleyball half-heartedly when the Catholic school she transferred to did not have a basketball team. Everything changes when she meets their star player.

Mikaela has undergone vaginoplasty. One night at a bar, she meets a guy and takes him back to her place.

Diego, a young student, lives in the clutches of classmates who harass him daily because of his physical appearance and sexual orientation. Finally he must make a decision that will change his life forever.

Opportunus

A teenager who has only ever wanted to live a normal existence experiences an extraordinary night that makes her reassess what truly matters.

A dialogue-free film about an execution described in two scenes.

Someone You Love is a story about world famous singer-songwriter Thomas Jacob who lives in Los Angeles. He is a successful man with a lot of burned bridges. After years abroad Thomas travels back to Denmark to record a new album. There his estranged daughter Julie suddenly turns up with his 11-year-old grandson, Noa. Soon, Thomas is forced to take care of the boy. Against all odds the two of them slowly begin to connect through music. But disaster strikes, forcing Thomas to realize he has to make a choice that will change his life forever.

Detectives and best friends Andreas and Simon lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But all that changes when the two of them are called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple, caught in a vicious cycle of violence and drugs. It all looks very routine – until Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet. The usually collected policeman finds himself confronted with his own powerlessness and is shaken to his core. As Andreas slowly loses his grip on justice, it suddenly becomes up to the unruly Simon to restore the balance between right and wrong.

A gay teenager desperately attempts to hold on to the only companion he has left. A rough, dirty, and realistic take on the breaking point of a relationship between two boys living on the streets.

A band of displaced untouchables in Western Ghats of India embrace Buddhism in order to escape from caste oppression.

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.

A young man, having just finished making love, casually tells his lover that it was his first time having sex to which his lover reveals a tendency that not only ruins his after-sex glow but may change his life forever.

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