On Becoming a Man

The Male Gaze is a new series of releases from New Queer Visions that showcases short LGBTQ films from across the world. The first instalment, First Kiss, brings together five shorts that are based around men experiencing romantic and/or sexual interaction with other men for the first time. It takes in films from Sweden, Indonesia, USA, Australia and France giving a rounded look at how similar experiences are depicted across the world. The films are: Naked [Naken] (2013); Pria (2017); Walk With Me (2018), One Night Only (2018); Michel's Mouse [Tapette] (2016).

Three separate sequences related to Christmas, animated in different styles: cutout animation of children dancing in the snow to "Jingle Bells," stop-motion animation of toys come to life, and cel animation of a man who seeks the ideal star to top his Christmas tree.

A sweet-natured charity worker finds his life turned upside down, when he falls in love with a mysterious woman.

Mater tells Lightning McQueen about his former job as a daredevil.

Daffy is supposedly a super hero and tries to show off his "super powers."

Lisbon, Portugal, 1927. The writer and journalist Fernando Pessoa accepts from his boss the commission to create an advertising slogan for the drink Coca-Louca; but conservative government authorities consider the new drink as revolutionary as it is diabolical.

Toys in a shop window come to life and visit a poverty-stricken little girl as she sleeps. She awakens to find that her shack has been refurbished and that the toys are about to throw her a party.

The iceman is in love with a pretty girl, and an old spinster is pining and cooking for him. But his dreamgirl prefers crooners like Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, or Eddie Cantor. After leaving her, he spots the sign of an imitator, and thinks he could ask him to do the crooning for him while he is trying to date his girl. The imitator accepts, and at first the trick is working, until the imitator gets too cold amid the ice in the back of the van and the girl gets suspicious.

A doctor goes to a dinner party where he's made fun of and soon afterwards returns home and sends a monster to attack the people.

You wake up in a warehouse where a bunch of degenerates is willing to execute you.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, but the pigs are up to their usual tricks. They try to get away with the Birds' Christmas presents! After bickering with each other, Red and Bomb bird mount a bold gift rescue down the steep mountain slopes.

Shot on 8mm, and featuring the introduction of Divine, John Waters' sophomore film is a plotless collage of random incidents involving sex, drugs, religion and The Wizard of Oz, it was shown with an equally random soundtrack mixing “obnoxious radio advertisements, rock 'n' roll and press conferences with Lee Harvey Oswald's mother”. It was shown three times publicly, but never released commercially.

A doctor unrelentingly tries to convince a phobic guy to come out of his isolation room.

While streetworker Mickey romances Minnie, Mickey's nephews Morty and Ferdie take control of his steamroller and it's full speed ahead on a very destructive ride.

When Fatty Arbuckle accidentally hits on the rajah, he declares, "Death to all flirts!" and hijinks ensue.

Mickey is first seen reading Gulliver's Travels while the mice orphan children are pretending to be sailors. After ruining their game Mickey tries to make it up to them by retelling the Liliput sequences of Gulliver's Travels pretending it was a real event that happened to him by portraying the role of Gulliver. The story ends with Mickey saving the town from a giant spider (Pete). However after telling the story, one of the children dangles a fake spider attached to a fishing rod which scares Mickey out of his witts.

After being rushed to a flight by her mother at the airport, a young girl loses her most prized possession, a plush toy named Daru. Awakened by the girl's tears, Daru sets forth on a grand adventure to find her, crossing continents, communicating with animals and statues alike, and even making a new caterpillar friend along the way. As time passes, will Daru ever be reunited with his beloved owner?

A Hollywood agent (dispatched to sign a "hot" new writer) and a sensitive gay man (waiting for a blind date), mistake each other for the person they were expecting to meet.

At Christmas time, Mickey Mouse, Minnie and Pluto are beset by an enormous litter of bratty orphan cats.

Oren (27) comes to his parents’ house to pack his belongings before moving with his girlfriend to their new apartment. During this day, out of seemingly simple interactions, the family dynamics reveals itself, and exposes the protagonist’s place- between child and adult, between intimacy and alienation. The house constitutes the space in which past, present and future mix into a chronicle of separation. Winner of San Sebastian International Film Festival short competition.