Blood and Water

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.

Young Cuban Rafael just buried his mother, and comes to Houston to meet his father John for the first time. The difficult part is that John doesn't know he is Rafael's father. John runs a dance studio, and everyone prepares for the World Open Dance championship in Las Vegas. It soon becomes clear Rafael is a very good dancer, and Ruby is the biggest hope for the studio at the championship.

From his discovery by a priest while serving time at the Missouri State Penitentiary to the infamous 'Phantom Punch' by Cassius Clay which effectively ended his career, the movie spans the years from 1950 to Liston's mysterious and untimely death in 1971.

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

A chronicle of the life of Indian boxer 'Mary Kom' who went through several hardships before audaciously accomplishing her ultimate dream.

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

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.

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.

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

In the shadows of a deep wood, in shadows of the soul deeper still, live 13 year-old Little Turcott and her mother. To their door is dragged a girl named A.D., prone to fits and wracked by visions, left to be watched for the day. As Little Turcott leads A.D. through chores, she is both repelled and drawn to the maddening, inexplicable girl who seems to have dropped from another world. When A.D. realizes that she's been brought to these women not to be watched, but to be murdered, she gives Little Turcott a vision of a marvelous "Elsewhere" and promises to take her there if she's set free. Haunted by this vision, Little Turcott must find the courage to outwit her mother when the day is done and she is set one last chore - to kill A.D.

A modern fairy tale about how distrust in the collective society divides a family and how Jill many years later learns about what there is left to trust.

“Snow gently falls on the blood-stained streets of a seedy out-of-time New York City. Steam envelopes the nightmare unfolding within its narrow alleys. Iron is the will of the one who would dare to resist… fight… survive.”

A struggling, underrated actor throws a farewell party right before he departs.

A woman is waiting for the bus. A man in a car offers her a lift but she rejects till he points that it is Sunday and the bus is not running on Sundays. In their short travel together through the streets of a deserted Paris the man tries to seduce the woman without apparent success.

Etta comes home from a work trip in Vegas with ten grand in cash and needs to explain to her boyfriend how she got it.

When the experienced guide Vic accompanies the city boy Alan and his three friends on their first wilderness experience, he not only hopes to teach the four boys lessons about the wilderness, but about themselves. Vic pushes them to the limit. Soon after alienating the boys, Vic finds himself in desperate need of help and must rely on his students in order to survive.

It is a warm afternoon in Mexico City; Cornelio and Fabiola are finishing their workday. While they pass through different points of the center and Cornelio narrates the world to Fabiola - In the spaces of silence-; a game of love and intimacy is revealed.