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).
Tobbe (segment "Boys")
Sven (segment "Tomer and Elias")
Emir (segment "Picnic")
Based on short stories by Vasiliy Shukshin. About the life and people of the modern Soviet village. Old Yermolai lived all his life in one village. He has four sons, each with their own problems. The youngest foolishly ended up in jail and, three months before his release, greatly missing his family, escaped.
Ten-year-old Emil lives with his dad in an apartment in Taastrup. Following the death of Emil's mother, his father struggles with the role of single parent. In an effort to deal with this lack of fatherly attention and authority, Emil has come up with a set of strange rules and secret projects.
Carl Dixon decides to quit school and enlist in the Army, even though he's already run afoul of the law as a Vietnam protestor. It is our hero's intention to use love, rather than bullets, to combat the Viet Cong. Needless to say, his idealism is no match for the harsher realities of war.
The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club ride into the small California town of Wrightsville, eager to raise hell. Brooding gang leader Johnny Strabler takes a liking to Kathie, the daughter of the local lawman, as another club rolls into town.
Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.
Two 15-year-old girls from different sides of the tracks compete to see who will be first to lose their virginity while at camp.
This story of two temperamentally different brothers takes place in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku during the 1970s. The elder brother Jalil is a married postal worker who keeps bees as a hobby. Younger brother Simurg is more adventurous by nature and capable of going after his goals, not just dreaming about them. Jalil has a recurring memory: once, when he was still a kid, his mother, pregnant with Simurg, took him to a women’s sauna. When both brothers fall in love for the same beautiful girl, their differences become apparent once again.
The past catches up with a ruthlessly ambitious boxing promoter.
A 17-year old Missouri teen discovers she has gotten pregnant, a development that threatens to end her dreams of matriculating at an Ivy League college, and the career that could follow.
With a sense of strange timelessness, this fable immerses us in the daily life of a child fascinated by the elusive rays of the sun that stir life on the atypical lands of Himalia.
Attaboy champions self-love, resilience, and boldly declares that trans kids do exist, they do know who they are, and they do still need love and nurturing. It's about a child's search for their own voice and needing to be heard; about existing as who you are in this world, unapologetically.
A drama based on the true story of a college professor's bond with the abandoned dog he takes into his home.
The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.
Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.
The story of the struggle of an autistic girl and her brother trying to survive without their parents.
A group of families gather for their annual getaway at an Italian villa, but when an accusation circulates, it tests the bond of a group of friends.
Four teenagers from a rural village in South West Nigeria stumble upon a pouch of uncut diamonds — but before long, others come looking for the bounty.
Under a scorching sun, seventeen-year-old Purdey and his fifteen-year-old brother Makenzy are left to fend for themselves. While Purdey cleans houses in a hotel complex, Makenzy makes some money by stealing tourists. Between the recklessness of adolescence and the harshness of adulthood, they will have to support each other in this heartbreakingly sweet journey, which seems to be the last summer of their youth.
19-year-old Pia is an aspiring writer who is struggling to find materials for her book after being rejected by a literary agent. Desperate for fame and success, Pia starts secretly writing about Mei, her best friend and a rising actress with an authoritarian mother who confides in her about her personal struggles.
The new guy in a Los Angeles high school, Morgan, does some singing and fights hotshot Nick over disco dancer Frankie.