The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.
When Arnie Silverman, a manic-depressive novelist, begins a bout of self-harm and lies to his girlfriend about it, his best friend and sister’s ex-boyfriend unintentionally lead him on a path to a new romance that could potentially solve his problems or send him to rock bottom.
Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.
After his girlfriend commits suicide, a man becomes embroiled in gang warfare attempting to obtain a gun in hopes to kill himself.
When a school girl disappears, suicide is suspected, and one of her classmates is suspected of having goaded her into it.
Short animation by Alina Maliszewska about two lovers trying to kill themselves
Follows the fate of Lyle, a violent adolescent who, in lieu of prison, is placed in a juvenile mental institution, where he encounters a group of equally troubled teens. This motley crew—abused, sexually confused, violent, and yet hanging on by their grit and anger—becomes Lyle's last lifeline as he fights to find meaning in a world that seems to defy understanding.
In 19th-century Styria, isolated teen Lara's quiet life is upended by the arrival of mysterious, beautiful Carmilla, a female vampire with whom she develops an intense, homoerotic bond. As Lara's life slowly drains, themes of forbidden desire, identity, and the supernatural are explored, culminating in Lara's discovery of Carmilla's vampiric nature and a confrontation with her ancient lineage.
When Albert Stockwell comes home from work one day he finds a note from his wife of 15 years, Nancy, saying she has gone to see friends. After waiting several days, Albert realizes that his wife is missing. Nancy has met her salvation on the Internet in the form of Louis Farley. Nancy and Louis, both wounded souls, take comfort in one another through e-mail, pictures, and promises of perverse sexual encounters.
Antonia and Zeno struggle with their marriage during a surreal dinner - while a mysterious Aztec whistle seems to be influencing their actions.
This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.
When 13-year-old Tracy befriends Evie, the most popular girl in school, her life is turned upside down as Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, and money. But it isn’t long before Tracy’s new lifestyle begins to take a heavy toll on her and her family.
Starting his new job as an instructor at a New England school for the deaf, James Leeds meets Sarah Norman, a young deaf woman who works at the school as a member of the custodial staff. In spite of Sarah's withdrawn emotional state, a romance slowly develops between the pair.
Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.
Meg is a gifted but emotionally scarred 18-year-old who finds solace in writing poetry. Mr. Auster, her English teacher, recognizes her talent and encourages her to enter a national poetry contest. As tension at home escalates and Meg struggles to find a way to get to the poetry finals in Florida, Auster's role in her life becomes increasingly complex.
18-year-old Kathleen is fresh out of foster care. Her departure coincides with the death of her biological mother, so she returns to her hometown to take ownership of her mother’s house. She gets a job and even a friend; but the emptiness of Kathleen’s life cannot be filled by social media and reality shows. Alone and desperate for a mother figure, she sets out on a destructive path to find one.
An elderly Jewish woman, who was a teenager during the outset of the Holocaust and was forced to choose between her own life and her younger brother's, still lives with the guilt until she finally shares her nightmare experience with her own adult daughter.
A 16-year-old boy who spend summer with his grandparents falls in love with an older young man but when tragedy strikes, he falls into a dark hole of self-harm, lust, and loneliness.
A spate of robberies in Southern California schools had an oddly specific target: tubas. In this work of creative nonfiction, d/Deaf first-time feature director Alison O’Daniel presents the impact of these crimes from an unexpected angle. The film unfolds mimicking a game of telephone, where sound’s feeble transmissibility is proven as the story bends and weaves to human interpretation and miscommunication. The result is a stunning contribution to cinematic language. O’Daniel has developed a syntax of deafness that offers a complex, overlaid, surprising new texture, which offers a dimensional experience of deafness and reorients the audience auditorily in an unfamiliar and exhilarating way.
A committed dancer struggles to maintain her sanity after winning the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake".