While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."
Nora, a single mother raising two teenage daughters, Shade and Trudi, waits tables at a truck-stop diner in a small New Mexico town. The beautiful and rebellious Trudi drops out of school and gets a job alongside Nora, while the younger Shade whittles away her time at Spanish movie matinees. Their lives are turned upside down when Trudi becomes pregnant and the girls' absent father returns.
Luca and his best friend Alberto experience an unforgettable summer on the Italian Riviera. But all the fun is threatened by a deeply-held secret: they are sea monsters from another world just below the water’s surface.
Thirteen-year-old Mei is experiencing the awkwardness of being a teenager with a twist – when she gets too excited, she transforms into a giant red panda.
A gay artist flees the repressive laws and war in Russia to go to Berlin, leaving his boyfriend behind. Meanwhile, life in Berlin turns out to be less inclusive he had expected.
Ellen is sleeping with her ex-boyfriend while trying to ignore the fact that he's looking for more than just sex. Her roommate, Patrick, isn't helping matters with his secretive and jealous behavior.
Alfred gets bullied. Benny is a bully. Through a series of events they become friends, but Benny keeps their friendship a secret. Benny wants to teach Alfred to hit back. But after an accident, it turns out maybe Alfred also has something to teach Benny.
When an Indian mother finds out her son is the victim of a vicious bully, she delivers her own brand of vigilante justice.
'yeah no definitely' is about a young man unable to express himself, and the danger he poses when his long-seething emotions finally explode. Cam and Kiff are students in an intense platonic relationship. At a summer party, Cam becomes intoxicated and angry. He's unwilling to admit his attraction to Kiff, and unable to release powerful feelings of grief he's holding inside. Kiff hopes having a good time might make Cam forget his pain. Both are in denial, and the truth's suppression may kill one of them before the night is over. The film is a study in self-deception, a theme worth exploring now, when Americans seem particularly desperate to avoid dealing with reality, and grasp at any diversion rather than look in the mirror.
A highly contagious incest virus induces several generations of a Japanese family to have sex in all possible constellations and across gender boundaries – and with that man in a bear costume who suddenly appears? Only in Japan!
The day after New Year's Eve in 2000. A man groggily awakes from an apparently wild New Year's Eve party to find both slumbering partners and unexpected activity.
Nathalie and Louise are friends from childhood. While studying drama at University Louise becomes hopelessly obsessed with her friend. Jealous of the male friends she has she breaks up the friendship, followed by a suicide attempt. Later, Louise marries, but finds time to see the, by now quite accomplished actress, Nathalie. They fight through the years, La Repetition following them as their friendship comes together and breaks up frequently, while never actually reaching anything that can be called a climax.
"Little Boy Big Boy" tells the story of a carefree graphic artist named Raymund and how he is filled with doubt as he is suddenly faced with the responsibility of looking after his seven-year-old nephew Zach. But while taking care of Zach, Raymund finds himself in the middle of building a relationship with his new lover Tim where he teaches him the value of acceptance and self-respect.
Two boys are talking after a bicycle accident. The older is bragging about his experience with girls, but is that just a boast?
Financial and emotional accounts are settled as a family battle to survive in an unforgiving land.
"Ruptures (or André and Gabriel)" is the last episode of this short film trilogy of love encounters. This film follows Gabriel, while introducing André, his ex-boyfriend, with whom he's meeting by chance in Paris after 10 years. This encounter happens exactly in the moment when Gabriel is filming a documentary about break-ups. Gabriel then ends up inviting André to take part of it.
An orphaned boy in a post-apocalyptic world, meets a grieving woman who is trying to find her lost daughter. Their journey leads them face-to-face with a despot who may have the daughter held captive.
A man's soul (he is in a coma) must make a lonely woman happy or he will die on Christmas day.
Bored with his simple life in Norway, Espen comes to California as a foreign exchange student seeking a deeper purpose in life. At his new high school, he joins the tennis team and quickly wins new friends, but finds himself making compromising choices in order to fit in. After his girlfriend cheats on him at a New Year's party, Espen considers an early return to Norway. He seeks guidance from his host parents and his English teacher, who convince him to stay and finish the school year. When his girlfriend apologizes and wants him back, he finds the strength to forgive her and rebuild his friendships in the remaining weeks of the exchange program. When he gets humiliated in front of his classmates at prom, Espen must dig deeper than ever before to find the truth of who he is, before his sense of humanity is shattered
From childhood to fatherhood, Piero learns things the hard way while growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Livorno.