Beautiful Awakening

Mid-summer heatwave. Nikos and Alain, two male prostitutes and a female pimp, Monica, get tangled in a peculiar relationship after meeting in a dark street called POUTANA. They fall in love, play with guns and talk about card games, money and theatre castings. Is this a game of role playing the three of them have invented to pass their time in a remote, empty summer house? Have they been reading Jean Genet? Whether a mirror image of the characters’ reality or an elliptic depiction of their distorted, dream-like perception of it, I Afroditi Stin Avli, by juxtaposing disparate literary and art references, leads its isolated characters towards dissolution. And yet, in its strange language, it presents this dissolution as a triumph.

A young man is sent to live with his homophobic brother after he is forced out of the closet.

When darkness falls, temperatures rise in these six stories about late night confessions, intimacy for sale, high speed hookups and full moon frissons. But when the sun comes up and reality reveals itself, will it have all been worth it? The short films are: Thirst (2018); According to Mateo [Según Mateo] (2017); Hardcore (2016); Beast [Séptimo] (2011); Petit Ami (2017); Skai Blue (2017).

Mateo and his boyfriend, Marc, arrive home after a night out with Luke, a guy they've just met. After an argument, Mateo leaves the flat and bumps into Jon, a drug dealer they have called. Mateo convinces Jon to take him to his house where he discovers he can't feel anything if it's not through pain.

A man's dying wish is for the people in his life to participate in a 450-mile charity bicycle ride through Northern California.

After his son insists on bringing his boyfriend to practice, a rugby-mad father fears for his son’s chances of getting onto the national team.

Wayward boy punishes his mother’s lover. Beauty and horror fondle each other. Young gods callously abjure conventional morality. Death goes whoring in child’s guise.

Mathew Devassy, a retired bank manager decides to enter local panchayat elections. Unexpectedly, his wife Omana, shocks everyone by filing for divorce, claiming that Mathew is gay.

By living his entire life fearing the prejudice of others, Aksel inadvertently made himself the source of true bias. Now, the real victims of prejudice will be revealed, as his secret is laid out for the world to see.

A young inexperienced man rekindles his emotional and intimate relationship with his only love–his charming, and talking, childhood teddy bear.

Max is spending his summer on campus. A lonely place in maintenance. His best friend Taylor comes back from Europe and their relationship takes a new turn.

Ben satisfies his longing for closeness and love with strange men and sex dates. But every time he feels empty. How can he break that circle?

A romance between a soldier and country boy is ruptured by the boy’s sudden disappearance. Their story turns into a mythical venture based on Thai folklore.

Pana is a popular world from Venezuelan slang that means many things: as a noun it refers to a friend, a good person; as an adjective, it’s a positive quality, someone nice, someone friendly and enjoyable. A coming-of-age story, the short My Pana is also a tale of immigration and exile, a portrait of a teenager adapting to a new society with the few tools he knows to survive: his youth, his body and, ultimately, his own resilience. Through the point of view of a teenager we’ll understand the hardships of million of Venezuelans abroad and the consequences of corruption, exile and the fractured soul of a person who was pushed to leave his true life to adapt to a hostile new place.

Paula and Edmund are peacefully married until she meets Nicanor, a composer who happens to be their neighbor. Edmund feels troubled after seeing Paula seeing interest in Nicanor. Could it be that Nicanor is the man who will destroy their lives?

Jojo grew in the house of his wicked Lola Susana who never taught him to be a rightful person. He became an image of his grandmother--- deceitful, arrogant and very greedy. He intentionally destroys the lives of his brothers and his sister without knowing that his own actions leads to his own downfall.

When her husband, who is much older than her, dies, Hyo-jeong, a young mother who ends up living with her one-year-older stepdaughter, Joo-ah, decides to find a male helper. Each one of them brought a male helper, but the mother and daughter were fighting over which of the two they should hire. Eventually, they decided to pick both of them. Hyo-jeong and Joo-ah enjoy a pleasant sex life with their male helpers who match each other's styles. However, mother and daughter get tired of it quickly.

Noam, a young gay man, discovers that his father, who just died, had a secret affair with a married man. He follows and meets that man. He now holds his father’s secret.

After inheriting a large country estate from his late father, Peter invites his friends from college: married couple Roger and Mary, the lonely Maggie, fashionable Sarah, and writer Andrew, who brings his American TV star wife, Carol. Sarah's new boyfriend, Brian, also attends. It has been 10 years since college, and they find their lives are very different.

A married factory worker confronts his feelings as they bubble to the surface, two boxers fight for more than just keeps, a countryside coming out doesn't quite go to plan, while at the beach a boy makes an unreal discovery. Come and explore a thoroughly Dutch view on life and love. The 5 short films are: Brick [Steen] (2013); South of Heaven [Ten Zuiden van de Hemel] (2019); Lukas by the Sea [Lukas aan Zee] (2016); Dante vs. Mohammed Ali (2018); Beautiful Alexander [Mooie Alexander] (2019).