Niskala
Amid the relentless pressure of looming deadlines, Nala (25), an illustrator, finds herself trapped in an art block that leaves her unable to complete her work. When she discovers a paper crane origami and her late mother's childhood sketchbook, she begins retracing the memories that first sparked her love for drawing. Through fragments of the past filled with hope, joy, and pain, Nala realizes that she has spent so much time chasing expectations that she has forgotten why she started creating in the first place. This journey leads her to embrace every experience both painful and beautiful as an essential part of who she has become. With a renewed sense of purpose, Nala picks up her pencil once again, not in pursuit of perfection, but to create honestly and reconnect with herself.
Scars
We admire beauty; we recoil from bodies that are marred, disfigured, different. Didier Cros’ moving, intimate film forces us to question what underlies our notions of beauty as we join a talented photographer taking stunning portraits of several people with profound visible scars which have dictated certain elements of their lives but have not come to define their humanity. The subjects' perceptions of themselves are dynamic, unexpected, and even heartwarming. This is an unforgettable journey to be shared with the world.
Earmark
Meet Mark. A daydreamer who has lived with hearing loss for his whole life. As his condition deteriorates, Mark must listen to his past and face the present, in order to move forward with his life. Sometimes loss doesn't mean lost. At a routine checkup with his lifelong audiologist, Mark is presented with a hearing aid and with a choice. Between the torment from his childhood - and his stigma around wearing the hearing aid - he lashes out. But he remembers his young self, loving and loved; along with the care his late mother showed him. Through courage, he is able to connect with her; as she guides him through this tumultuous time in his life. He realises he can either continue to shut himself off from the world, or open up and begin to accept himself for who he really is.
Two Black Boys in Paradise
Edan (19) and Dula (18) navigate love, identity, and self-acceptance on a journey about coming into oneself and out to the world. Confronting fear, shame, and societal expectations, the boys rediscover a sense of belonging in their own paradise, in this celebration of queer love, vulnerability, and the power of embracing who you are.
Morgan
Morgan is the inspiring story of Morgan Oliver, a gay young athlete determined that a bicycle accident that left him paralyzed will not change him. He takes a chance on love when he meets Dean Kagen on a basketball court. Dean helps Morgan train for the same race in which he had his accident. But when he sees that Morgan will risk everything to win, Dean walks out. Left alone to face the race and demons that caused his accident, Morgan teeters between what he needs and what he wants. Can he find the strength to pull himself back up again?
body
The film follows an introverted 20-year-old girl, Duna Canet, as she leads a seemingly normal life. Yet, at its roots she is trapped and consumed by an eating disorder that refuses to accept. In as little as a day, the struggle unravels to the point where she hits rock bottom and sets out on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.
Land of Silence and Darkness
Through examining Fini Straubinger, an old woman who has been deaf and blind since her teens, and her work on behalf of other deaf-blind people, this film shows how the deaf-blind struggle to understand and accept a world from which they are almost wholly isolated.
Bakmiracle
Latief, a noodle shop employee who is disappointed with his father, hopes to have a father figure like his boss, and miraculously his wish comes true after Latief eats noodles using magic chopsticks that he got from a mysterious grandfather.
Ruthful
When a Chinese-Canadian college student returns home to Toronto, she visits a Hong Kong cafe she frequented during her childhood. Through eating the food, she is suddenly able to relive suppressed memories of her deceased grandmother. Now she must confront their multifaceted relationship and her own identity to find her peace.
Red Herring
When Kit Vincent, a young filmmaker, receives a terminal diagnosis aged 24, his first instinct is to turn on his camera and document those closest to him.
Exposição
During the pandemic, introverted painter Hélio meets aspiring model Theo and begins a report that will make him face his deepest insecurities in a way he never imagined.
Impenetrable
Jules has a big goal for her birthday: get laid. But she's got a big obstacle in her way: herself. With an anthropomorphized dilator by her side, Jules learns she may need to open up in more ways than one.
PooBrain
A fragmented documentary portrait of Sammy, an adult with undiagnosed autism growing up in Jersey. Through cut-up interviews, island landscapes and black-and-white experimental sequences, PooBrain explores family, stigma, illness, friendship and the quiet ache of being misunderstood.
Meets the World
Yukari adores the manga "Meat Is Mine", but she can't bring herself to like herself. Watching her friends leave one after another due to marriage, childbirth, and other life events, she feels anxiety and impatience about continuing to live this way. One day, while passed out drunk in Kabukicho, she is rescued by Rai, a hostess harboring suicidal thoughts.
Reflejo
When Inés finds out she has three days to fit into a dress that isn't her size, she makes extreme decisions to make it happen.
Hair or No Hair
Bel Davis has been hiding behind wigs for years until her Alopecia is exposed publicly. She uses this experience as a catalyst to break free of the shame she feels towards her baldness.
DISTANCE
A chronically online, awkward young man has an unhealthy addiction of watching a small content creator every single day, disregarding vital tasks and isolating himself, but when his favorite icon misses a video upload one day, he finds himself in a sequence of psychologically conflicting events.
On Being Almost
After speaking at a literary forum alongside renowned novelist Robert Hausu, Malik dares to send his manuscript, The Anatomy of an Owl. Driven by a longing for recognition, he slips into a gathering of writers and filmmakers at a café, where his ambition slowly collides with reality.
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The Bird of Paradise
A colorful exploration into a lost girl's journey to self-acceptance as she learns to find her wings.