Historias Breves I: Downhill

Charlie Simms is a student at a private preparatory school who comes from a poor family. To earn the money for his flight home to Gresham, Oregon for Christmas, Charlie takes a job over Thanksgiving looking after retired U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a cantankerous middle-aged man who lives with his niece and her family.

A distraught squatter tries to cope with his werewolf nature through drugs and music.

Alex is a passionate musician. He travels from one gig to the next with his tango band. He can't make a living from his music, but he doesn't really care. This changes when he and his bandmates steal a rocker band's tour bus and there is an accident. Alex's friend Tommy dies and the tango band is finished. Suddenly Alex finds himself without an apartment, a pile of debts and with the grim rockers breathing down his neck. There's only one thing to do: go into hiding.

After a painful breakup, Ben develops insomnia. To kill time, he starts working the late night shift at the local supermarket, where his artistic imagination runs wild.

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

A boy grows a seed into a flower while the world around him marches on.

The story of two men and a mysterious family, who repeat the same day forever in order to save the life of one of its daughters.

Overwhelmed by grief following the death of his wife, Donnelly shares a train carriage home with a troubled young man identified only as the 'Kid'. As the Kid becomes more agitated and foul-mouthed, the journey takes on a violent and dangerous hue – for the bereaved Donnelly and for other hapless passengers on the train. Academy Award Winner: Best Live Action Short Film – 2005

¡Tango! follows a formula established by Carlos Gardel with films such as Luces de Buenos Aires (The Lights of Buenos Aires, 1931) in which a melodramatic story is interspersed with tango songs. However, the film had less dialog and more music, making it more like a musical revue. This format would be copied by many subsequent films. The plot is derived from tango songs. Many of these songs tell of the seduction of an innocent slum girl by a rich man who promises her a glamorous life, but who abandons her when her looks fade. The stylized and sentimental plot of ¡Tango! revolves around a young man who is abandoned by his girlfriend for an older rich man and is heartbroken. The film follows his misfortunes.

On a trip to Paris Sally meets Pablo, a tango dancer. He starts teaching her to dance then she returns to London to work on some "projects". She visits Buenos Aires and learns more from Pablo's friends. Sally and Pablo meet again but this time their relationship changes, she realises they want different things from each other. On a trip to Buenos Aires they cement their friendship.

A girl dies in a provincial summer house and is buried by her family. By night a wild dog unearths the corpse and takes it to the woods. Under the shade of the trees, the girl wakes up and decides to return home accompanied by the dog.

Epic story of betrayal, family and money. Basically a bit like The Sopranos. Only in live action. As if Shakespeare had completed an internship at Deutsche Bank and written a comedy out of despair. People born before 1977 simply replace Sopranos with Dallas.

A kelp-horn-blowing man seems to be deeply drawn to a very particular whale. This is the story of a love triangle between the titular Whale Caller, his beloved whale Sharisha, and Saluni, the village drunk who teaches him to open his heart to people again.

An animated short based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale about a poor young girl with a burning desire to find comfort and happiness in her life. Desperate to keep warm, the girl lights the matches she sells, and envisions a very different life for herself in the fiery flames filled with images of loving relatives, bountiful food, and a place to call home.

Tita is passionately in love with Pedro, but her controlling mother forbids her from marrying him. When Pedro marries her sister, Tita throws herself into her cooking and discovers she can transfer her emotions through the food she prepares, infecting all who eat it with her intense heartbreak.

After the tragic passing of her father, Isla is trying to reconcile with his legacy by attending three completely different job interviews in one day.

Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich Argentine family, one of its two descending branches being half of French heritage, the other being half German. Following the death of the family patriarch, the man's two daughters and their families resettle to France and Germany, respectively. In time the Great War breaks out, putting members of the family on opposing sides.

An ultraconservative police officer suffers a debilitating stroke and is assigned to a rehabilitative program that includes singing lessons - with the drag queen next door.

It's Christmas night when Victor gets stranded in a deserted hotel in Baltimore. To pass the lonely hours, he decides that for first time in his life he's going to order the services of a call girl. When Victor mistakenly recognizes a beautiful young woman at the bar for the call girl, he is taken aback by her warm response to his shy approach. From this moment on, the line between real love and paid love quickly dissolves.

The story of a Soviet military serviceman and a male Georgian dancer. An anti-violence film about the awakening of human instinct in an invader