After Noon

Whether it's playing games in a military zone, cheating at school tests, crossing borders for cheap thrills or doing whatever it takes to make illicit money - these boys know that with every risk, they move closer and closer to an irreversible jeopardy. Deftly exploring masculinity and peer-pressure, these five coming-of-age tales from France, the Netherlands and Lithuania from burgeoning new filmmakers demonstrate that sometimes young hearts can run dangerously free. The short films are: Gotta (2015); The Last Day of School (2019); Tree House [Cabane] (2016); Gameboy (2014); Pollux (2018).

It's summer. Three friends meet. They will spend a few days in the mountains, camping, walking, chatting. As the days go by, so do their relationships, their misgivings, their affections. And when they return, nothing will be the same.

A youth group is preparing for what will be the summer of their life, including secrets, lies, sex, confusion, evenings and holidays.

A historical drama set in the Koryo dynasty and focused on the relationship between a king and his bodyguard.

Sex and love. Some seek it, some need it, some spurn it and some pay for it, but we're all involved in it. Set on one afternoon on Hampstead Heath in north-west London, the film investigates the minutiae of seven couples. What makes us tick?

A troubled family's problems come to a head during a stay in a seaside town.

Two troubled youths break out of their halfway house and make their way to one's home.

Max is a handsome young man who, after a fateful tryst with a German soldier, is forced to run for his life. Eventually Max is placed in a concentration camp where he pretends to be Jewish because in the eyes of the Nazis, gays are the lowest form of human being. But it takes a relationship with an openly gay prisoner to teach Max that without the love of another, life is not worth living.

A man learns that his late friend had a secret online lover who is on the way from Italy.

This is a combination coming out and first love story. The swimmer and diver Lucard is interested in attractive Martin. The film follows the characters' coming out with all its difficulties, the bitter-sweet pleasures of first love and the dreadful moment when one comes down to reality and realizes that one's beloved friend has a hard way to go yet. The positive message the film tries to transmit is the somewhat common motto "Live each day of your life as if it were your last."

14 vignettes without dialogue.

The video installation entitled Partenza (Italian for departure, and used in many of Croatia’s island and coastal dialects) express the global insecurity of contemporary society and the fragility of human existence. Metaphorically, they address a story about departure, waiting and separation, dictated by migrations. In the early 20th century, it was usual yet traumatic for men to leave Croatian islands (mostly bound for the countries of South America) due to poverty and hunger. One of these tragic stories is weaved into the author’s family history. The installation is inspired by the life story of Renata’s great-grandmother who lived on the island of Brač, whose husband went to Chile looking for work in order to secure his family’s future. Like many of the island’s women, she waited for her husband who, like many of the men, never returned.

Two monster friends decide to follow different directions. Decades after leaving, Naiana is a high school teacher in a small coastal town, where a hotel under renovation emanates a strange presence. Three thousand kilometers away, the devouring night involves Diego.

At long last, one of the most important novels in Norwegian history will be made into a film. Beatles relates the story of four Oslo boys born in 1951 and hooked on The Beatles, from the time they as seventh graders find themselves on the threshold of the adult world. The film is all about boyish pranks, hopes, disappointments, and of course about pretty girls, hopeless infatuations, drunkenness and parties. The world is changing, and so is the friendship between the boys. But the conclusion is, true friendship endures all - and no band in the world is better than The Beatles.

Out of Nature is a journey inside Martins head. A family father in his 30s living in a small town of Norway. He feels alienated in his own life and longs to get away. Away from his job, away from his family, into the woods, up to the mountains. While spending a weekend alone on a hiking trip, he is forced to confront the way he lives his life. Out of Nature is an original, funny and tender film about how to take part in your own life as a husband, father and son.

Charity, a sixteen-year-old girl from a traveling family, is forced to cope with her brother’s early release from prison.

Akamatsu was a popular actor in his youth, and now in his forties, he plays supporting roles in dramas. It is well known that he is gay, and whenever he has time, he goes to Sachi, a gay bar owned by Michiru and Takashi. One day, Wakamatsu's friend, producer Shinozaki, introduces him to Kikuo, an aspiring screenwriter. Reading Kikuo's script, Wakamatsu's desire to make him a top-notch screenwriter arises, but before long, Wakamatsu realizes that he is seriously in love with Kikuo... A slightly sad love movie.

A prep school student who has been dumped by his girlfriend is approached by a middle-aged man and goes on a treasure hunt on a remote island, and wanders into a mansion in the woods where vampire brothers are said to live.

Two's company, three's allowed? From family disputes and unexpected babysitting duties to uncomfortable high school memories, manga drawing and friendships pushed to the next level - the Male Gaze series lifts the lid on six very different gay relationships and encounters. When two become three and outsiders enter the fray, what are the group dynamics at play? The short films are: Golden Boys (2017); In Beating Cells [In Pocheden Zellen] (2017); The Middle of a Lake [Le milieu d'un lac] (2017); Gilles (2016); Kiko's Saints [Les saints de Kiko] (2019); With Thelma [Avec Thelma] (2017).