Why Not!

10,000 Saints

August 2015 •English

A sweeping multigenerational story set against the backdrop of the raw, roaring New York City of the late 1980s; adoption, teen pregnancy, drugs, hardcore punk rock, the unbridled optimism and reckless stupidity of the young—and old—are all major elements in this heart-aching tale of the son of diehard hippies and his strange odyssey through the extremes of late 20th century youth culture.

The Promise

August 1999 •English

Lisa's husband, Bill, abuses her. With her sister's encouragement, she takes their three kids and leaves her husband. Bill keeps interfering with Lisa's attempts at a new life. She gets an order of protection against him, but the police can't do anything else to help her. One night Bill breaks into Lisa's apartment and shoots her. As she dies in the hospital, Lisa asks her sister to promise to take care of her three children. The sister takes the kids into her home, but Bill is still on the loose, an ever present threat.

Stephanie's Image

February 2009 •English

A documentary filmmaker investigates the murder of a former model and finds that everything she's been told about her death is false.

Hendes store aften

March 1954 •Danish

Wexford Plaza

November 2016 •English

An isolated and friendless female security guard finds a glimmer of hope when a charming bartender shows her kindness.

If I Was Your Girl Again

November 2019 •English

A happily married yet utterly bored lesbian couple befriends their alluring new neighbor, who is actually a jilted lover plotting her revenge.

Rainbow Age

April 2016 •Chinese

Xiao Shuang had a difficult childhood and he has learned to fend for himself at a young age, developing a dual personality in the process. He is the catalyst that moves the entire story forward in a depiction about the motivations, hopes and dreams of young men and women in the city.

River Knows Fish Heart

May 2018 •Chinese

Genius musician An He, stuck with writer’s block, meets runaway rich kid Xiao Yu. Bonding over music, they fall in love chasing dreams.

If You Don't, I Will

March 2014 •French

A couple goes on a hike in the woods, and the woman refuses to return.

Papilio Buddha

March 2013 •English

A band of displaced untouchables in Western Ghats of India embrace Buddhism in order to escape from caste oppression.

Pierrot Lunaire

February 2014 •English

Invited by the conductor Premil Petrovic to stage Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, a musical theater work from 1912 based on the poems of Albert Giraud, LaBruce transposed a strange and tragic episode of true crime onto the composition. Complementing the original atonal score is a narrative about a trans man who is outed by his girlfriend’s father and forbidden from seeing the young woman again. Crestfallen, the protagonist decides to prove the fact of his manhood by castrating a taxi driver and then revealing his newly transplanted member to the two of them. This story, which for LaBruce “serves as a kind of allegory for all gender radicals and outcasts driven to extremes by the disapproval and hostility of the dominant order,” is rendered in a visual style that nods to the era of Schoenberg’s melodrama. LaBruce cheekily appropriates the formal vocabulary of silent cinema with black-and-white photography, irises, and intertitles like “A cock, a cock, my kingdom for a cock!”

Unfriend

February 2014 •English

On Christmas Day, 15 year old David finds out that his boyfriend, Jonathan has taken another lover. The discovery leads him on the brink of depression making him think of ways to have him back at all cost. He has invited Jonathan to see him on this day for the last time.

Land of Storms

February 2014 •Hungarian

Szabolcs plays in a German football team, as does Bernard. They are roommates, best friends, inseparable. A lost match makes him reconsider his life and he goes back to Hungary in hope for more simplicity. Yet his solitude does not last long. Soon after his arrival he meets Áron and a mutual attraction between the two boys develops when suddenly Szabolcs receives an unexpected phone call from Bernard: he has arrived to Hungary...

The Pinkie

January 2014 •Japanese

Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR

Lost in Translation

September 2003 •English

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.

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

November 2002 •Danish

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

Maybe... Maybe Not

October 1994 •German

The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.

To Be or Not to Be

March 1942 •English

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

Boys Don't Cry

September 1999 •English

A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

Andy Richter's Home for the Holidays

December 2016 •English

Andy Richter is capturing the spirit of the '70s network Christmas special, and inviting you to celebrate the Holiday Season the right way with his family and all his important celebrity friends.