Star Boys

A film crew follows three aimlessly idealistic skateboarders and their families as they claw for direction in their mundane suburban lives.

It's the summer after high school graduation and Gabriela, a young undocumented Guatemalan woman, pursues her dream of swimming for an illustrious Country Club swim team. Despite her single-minded determination, Gabriela is continually confronted with her overprotective mother’s ears, limitations on her economic and legal status, and self-judgment. As she questions her self-worth against the structures of contemporary American Southern life, Gabriela embarks on a quest towards personal freedom and self-acceptance.

Isaac, a quiet kitchen porter in a countryside pub, endures the torment of a cruel head chef while falling for a kind waitress named Charlotte.

In this sequel to Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, Alexander's story is told in both the past and the present. Alexander's parents send him away from home for being too sensitive and not helping enough on their farm. He goes to Los Angeles in hopes of going to art school, but when he can't find a job as a minor, he turns to prostitution. After being arrested, he wants to head to Arizona to marry Dawn, but he falls into a lucrative job/relationship with a gay football star.

Max, a witty and brave 12-year-old, feels like he has two families instead of one. In and after school, he spends all his time with his two best friends Tom and Vivian, who are always there to make life easier for each other. Together, they are The Fantastic Three. His real family on the other hand, is messy, with a depressed single mother and a brother in jail.

Geeky teenager David and his popular twin sister, Jennifer, get sucked into the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV sitcom called "Pleasantville," and find a world where everything is peachy keen all the time. But when Jennifer's modern attitude disrupts Pleasantville's peaceful but boring routine, she literally brings color into its life.

These five award-winning coming of age short films offer a glimpse of how boys and young men tackle life's difficult desires: confronting one's demons, understanding sexual relationships, gaining the respect of one's father, or simply running away from it all. This is only the start of their complex formative years, where not every question has an answer, and not every answer makes sense. The short films are: Boys [Pojkarna] (2015); Ioana (2015); Kiem Holijanda (2017); Picnic [Piknik] (2015); Tomer & Elias [Tomer en Elias] (2016).

With problems on the home front, 15-year-old Murra is on the verge of lashing out. That is, until her policeman uncle thwarts her self-destructive behaviour with a lifeline: a “photo-safari for at-risk kids”. Murra isn’t entirely convinced, but she soon joins cantankerous Kylie, uptight Sean, happy-go-lucky Elvis, and camp counsellors Fernando and Michelle on a transformative bus trip to the Pilbara. On the trail, the teens learn about fun, friendship and first crushes, as well as the forces of ‘reality’ that puncture the bubble of youth.

A father tries to rekindle his relationship with his son after years of absence and lack of communication. He takes him on a car ride across northern Norway, hoping it is not too late.

Wild Youth is an ode to being young. A sensitive and intimate story of the first experiences of losing one's childlike innocence, questioning the imposed "masculinity" and (re)discovering yourself in the function of others.

In turn-of-the-century Mississippi, an 11-year-old boy comes of age as two mischievous adult friends talk him into sneaking the family car out for a trip to Memphis and a series of adventures.

Cairn is a dark film on adolescence in which the main character Johan (11) faces a moral dilemma after having started playing a seemingly innocent prank. The story unfolds on a l level in the turbulent transition between childhood and adulthood.

A teenage girl gets diagnosed with a reproductive condition that upends her plans to have sex and propels her into exploring unusual methods to have a sex life, challenging her relationships with everyone in her life, but most importantly, herself.

In her last year of secondary school, a bright Indonesian student is determined to pursue her education and resist getting married, despite the expectations of her community.

Rebellious teenager Natsumi arrives from Tokyo on a small provincial island in search of the treasure left by her deceased mother.

Emma approaches adulthood, she tries to live an ordinary life and keep up to her late mothers expectations. However her anxiety weighs over her, stopping her from enjoying the last few youthful years.

Simon Henderson is at boarding school in Canada while his father works in Hong Kong, and his mother lives in England. When his parents visit him in the holidays, Simon discovers that his mother has schizophrenia.

On the first day of her last year at a performing arts camp, an ambitious camper will do almost anything to win a leading role.

After his father leaves home for another woman, 16-year-old Martial has to move with his mother, Sabine, to a more modest apartment. Martial finds it difficult to fit in his new life. His mother offers to help him, but she only makes the situation worse. Martial then forms a bond with two twin sisters his own age, with whom he has a series of exciting and disturbing experiences.

A girl with vitiligo finds an unlikely friend in the school's talking goldfish, and orchestrates a jailbreak.