A nostalgic, coming-of-age story of identical twin sisters who share every aspect of their lives with one another, until one day a boy walks into their lives and puts their strong bond to the test.
SARAH is a short film centered around Ayla and her best friend Sarah as they discuss summer plans, specifically, Ayla's "sweet seventeen". All is well until Sarah doesn't pick up Ayla's messages anymore when they are supposed to hang out. As Ayla's birthday nears, the more upset she becomes with Sarah. When the day arrives, Ayla finds herself celebrating her birthday without Sarah and leads to her final straw, spending her seventeenth birthday alone.
STRANGER is a coming-of-age short film that focuses on two neighbors reconciling before one of them goes off to college in Chicago. It is based on a true event that occurred the last day that I was in town before I moved to college. The two characters, Max and Cass, discuss their past together after not talking for years, realizing that they have changed as young adults and miss hanging out but cannot because Cass is leaving while Max stays in town to fix cars. With this last interaction, they get to say goodbye officially on a good note.
Set in the landscape of a rural southern town, "George Washington" is a stunning portrait of how a group of young kids come to grips with a hard world of choices and consequences. During an innocent game in an abandoned amusement park, a member of the group dies. Narrated by one of the children, the film follows the kids as they struggle to balance their own ambitions and relationships against a tragic lie.
Three 1960s California surfers fool around, drift apart and reunite years later to ride epic waves.
Like tears in the rain, water is the metaphor for growing pains and so much more in these four tales about young boys coming to terms with a host of emotions for the very first time. These polished productions and festival favourites are brought to you by a host of talented directors from across Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. The short films are: Ocean [Océan] (2013); Go Daan Go! [Daan Durft] (2014); The Boy in the Ocean (2016); Beach Boy (2011).
Forced to leave the comfort of his middle class lifestyle at his father's behest, fourteen-year-old Ahmet is sent to an all-boys religious dormitory where he must navigate familial expectations, his religious obligations, and the childhood to which he so desperately clings.
A man partakes in an interview that reveals more than he wants to know.
Eduardo, an 18-year-old kid from a small village in Jalisco, travels to Guadalajara. In this big and strange city, away from the eyes of his parents, he experiences his first encounters in love and sex.
Private-school student Christine loves Jim. But her classmate, Jordan, is also vying for Jim's attention and trying to end his relationship with Christine. Meanwhile, Jim's friend Bubba embarks on a series of sexual escapades, including dressing up as a woman to access the girls' locker room. Despite Jim and Christine's efforts to spend some time alone, various shenanigans and schemes interfere.
A rouge news reporter looks into the murder of the District Attorney, who was killed after he started an investigation.
Lucas is a young man who lives with his religious aunt Lourdes in a quiet country town. He helps his aunt by holding religious meetings with the ladies of the area, in the living room, playing biblical songs on the keyboard. This quiet life will end as soon as the charitable aunt communicates the arrival of another nephew, Mario, just out of jail. The clash of reality between the cousins ends up causing unusual situations, and an unexpected attraction among the boys.
Simon is an intelligent and privileged young man whose family expects him to become a Princeton graduate. Crying out for attention from his reserved and cool hearted family, Simon commits numerous petty crimes and is soon sent away to boarding school where he befriends a "Deadhead," adopts the "hippie" lifestyle and dabbles in many drugs in his search for acceptance.
A Chinese New Year legend reimagined as a contemporary coming-of-age story.
A story about relationships between children and adults broken by shaky 1990s in Ukraine. The boy Tymophii befriends a weird man named Felix. He's the veteran of Afghan war, he has PTSD and he loves music.
When a young fakaleiti falls in love at St Valentine’s Highschool, she must navigate her way through a world of intolerance and bigotry to find happiness - in an unexpected place.
With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile. He propositions Howie, who declines, but the two eventually develop an unlikely and dangerous friendship.
After discovering a mysterious camera that transports him into fleeting moments of the past, a grieving photography student attempts to rewrite a painful history—only to uncover the blurred line between memory, art, and reality.
An awkward adolescent boy and his angst-ridden friends try their best to fit in amongst a cast of varied characters.
Three adolescent boys become captivated by the queer nightlife over summer break, but a missing person pulls them back into the reality they tried to leave behind.