Social & External
Unknown Role
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).
Alban lives in a ski resort with his mother. Each night, the teenager slips away to meet up with Julien – this boy who curiously has the same name as the hero of the novel Alban is devouring.
The master of a Judo dojo turns his daughter into a master of the martial art as she is growing up. But now that she has reached marrying age, he finds it difficult to find her a husband that can accept her tomboy ways.
When Ella was twelve, she had her first fight. And when she was twelve, she discovered sex. Now eighteen, Ella reflects on how her obsession with her older brother Michael's best friend Moses left her with a secret she still carries.
When a young fakaleiti falls in love at St Valentine’s Highschool, she must navigate her way through a world of intolerance and bigotry to find happiness - in an unexpected place.
An Indonesian boy and his mother bring Chinese takeout to a church potluck and pretend it’s a traditional family dish. The boy's quiet observations lead him to question his parents' behavior as they strive to find a sense of belonging in a new country.
The 12-year-old German boy, Mathias, discovers his sexuality on a sailing boat in Denmark. Surrounded by water, trapped on the boat with his parents, who still treat him like a child, his desire is to get on land to have new experiences.
Nine-year-old Daan is really excited about taking up swimming when he discovers his mother's old swimming medals in the attic. When his school teacher encourages him to join the nearest local swimming club, Daan finds out that his mother is definitely not amused. She is afraid that Daan inherited her cardiac problems. Despite his mothers fears, Daan doesn't wait and starts training behind her back.
Caleb, a South Florida teen, loves his camera, his weed and his grandmother. On the eve of his high school graduation, everything changes when he's exposed to HIV. While he waits three months for his results, Caleb finds love in the most unlikely of places.
STRANGER is a coming-of-age short film that focuses on two neighbors reconciling before one of them goes off to college in Chicago. It is based on a true event that occurred the last day that I was in town before I moved to college. The two characters, Max and Cass, discuss their past together after not talking for years, realizing that they have changed as young adults and miss hanging out but cannot because Cass is leaving while Max stays in town to fix cars. With this last interaction, they get to say goodbye officially on a good note.
After failing his university entrance exam, Yuki Hirano sets his eyes on the role of a forestry trainee. Setting off for training he doubts his decision many times, but eventually after passing the training course, he is sent to Kamusari Village for a year of work experience - where he becomes assimilated with the beauty of nature and the warm-hearted people of the village.
A maladjusted dad is trying to heal in an experimental therapy group called Infinite Beginnings. Meanwhile, his nonbinary kid is getting close with an older man. Their relationship feels both dreamy and concerning—depending on whose watching.
In 1960, a hardy group of prep school students boards an old-fashioned sailing ship. With Capt. Christopher Sheldon at the helm, the oceangoing voyage is intended to teach the boys fortitude and discipline. But the youthful crew are about to get some unexpected instruction in survival when they get caught in the clutches of a white squall storm.
Two inseparable girls forge a friendship that seemed unbreakable. But as time leads them to the crossroads of adulthood, their paths diverge, testing the bonds they thought were unshakeable.
a girl who's struggling to grasp a sense of reality, strains to feel bonded to the people surrounding her, as she falls deeper into her own illusive world. will she ever break out of her chrysalis?
When affluent executive Wayne Hayes is kidnapped by a disgruntled employee and held for ransom in a forest, Wayne’s wife is forced to reckon with the FBI agents as they negotiate with the kidnapper.
A teenager fails to find (and keep) jobs which makes his father doubt the reason might be the boy's lack of sexual experience. As all his efforts prove to be unsuccessful, the father gives up, but not the boy's aunt.
C.S. Lewis, a world-renowned writer and professor, leads a passionless life until he meets spirited poet Joy Gresham.
In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.
College coeds in New York City, Al, the son of a celebrity chef, and Imogen, a talented artist, become smitten the second they lay eyes on one another at a bar. However, the road to happiness is not a smooth one. Outside forces, including a predatory porn star who wants to lure Al into her bed, threaten to pull apart the young lovers before their romance has a chance to really flourish.
The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.
After college graduation, Grover's girlfriend Jane tells him she's moving to Prague to study writing. Grover declines to accompany her, deciding instead to move in with several friends, all of whom can't quite work up the inertia to escape their university's pull. Nobody wants to make any big decisions that would radically alter his life, yet none of them wants to end up like Chet, the professional student who tends bar and is in his tenth year of university studies.
A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?
Ryan and Jennifer are opposites who definitely do not attract. At least that's what they always believed. When they met as twelve-year-olds, they disliked one another. When they met again as teenagers, they loathed each other. But when they meet in college, the uptight Ryan and the free-spirited Jennifer find that their differences bind them together and a rare friendship develops.
The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.
Reluctant to let go of college life, a close-knit team of seven friends--irresponsible saxophone player Billy, young Republican Alec, his girlfriend Leslie, struggling journalist Kevin, drama queen Jules, lovesick waiter Kirby, and Wendy, a social worker with a heart of gold--realise the party is over. And as the burdens of maturity close in on the young dreamers, the complexities of adulthood and the daily struggle of growing up put their sacred friendship to the test. But everyone knows life is not a bed of roses. It won't be easy, but when all is said and done, what will it take for St. Elmo's clique to find its place in the real world?
Two lifelong friends navigate complex sexual encounters and emotional entanglements, wrestling with societal norms and personal desires.
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
An uptight documentary filmmaker and his wife find their lives loosened up a bit after befriending a free-spirited younger couple.
Amateur photographer Makoto and the homely but endearing Shizuru meet during their university entrance ceremony and become instant friends. Shy by nature, Makoto finds himself opening up around Shizuru, who is secretly in love with him.
A Baltimore teenager who picks up a second-hand camera starts snapping his way to stardom, soon turning into a nationwide sensation, with a fateful choice between his life and his art.
After a painful breakup, Ben develops insomnia. To kill time, he starts working the late night shift at the local supermarket, where his artistic imagination runs wild.
Rose Morgan, who still lives with her mother, is a professor of Romantic Literature who desperately longs for passion in her life. Gregory Larkin, a mathematics professor, has been burned by passionate relationships and longs for a sexless union based on friendship and respect.
Remi and Barnes, two very different teenagers, meet by chance in the winter of their senior year, then spend four days together over the course of a year that will change their lives forever.
Thirty-something Elizabeth must decide whether to salvage her disappointing relationship with Drew. Meanwhile, Bea, a worrisome teenager, reconnects with her introverted childhood friend, Andy, at their high school prom. Past and present collide as two couples explore love over the course of one night at a hotel.
A career driven professional from Manhattan is wooed by a young painter, who also happens to be the son of her psychoanalyst.
A talented young writer embarks on a creative odyssey when her teacher assigns a project that entangles them both.