Boys Feels: Desire in the Dark

Like tears in the rain, water is the metaphor for growing pains and so much more in these four tales about young boys coming to terms with a host of emotions for the very first time. These polished productions and festival favourites are brought to you by a host of talented directors from across Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. The short films are: Ocean [Océan] (2013); Go Daan Go! [Daan Durft] (2014); The Boy in the Ocean (2016); Beach Boy (2011).

Whether it's playing games in a military zone, cheating at school tests, crossing borders for cheap thrills or doing whatever it takes to make illicit money - these boys know that with every risk, they move closer and closer to an irreversible jeopardy. Deftly exploring masculinity and peer-pressure, these five coming-of-age tales from France, the Netherlands and Lithuania from burgeoning new filmmakers demonstrate that sometimes young hearts can run dangerously free. The short films are: Gotta (2015); The Last Day of School (2019); Tree House [Cabane] (2016); Gameboy (2014); Pollux (2018).

During tender years, a companion can guide you through awkward moments when the heart rules the head, or be a partner in crime in the face of danger. Follow these young men through the highs and lows of early learning, when all around us is new, and peer pressure is at its most pervasive. The 6 short films are: It Was Dark [Il faisait noir] (2015); Suspendu (2015); Keep Going (2016); Headbutt (2017); Out of the Blue [Ud af det blå] (2016); Mars Colony (2020).

On the 1991 European Basketball Championship an incredible event occured. A team of some of the greatest Balkan basketball stars accepted gold and watched the flag of their country be lifted up. The flag of a country that no longer existed.

A young American is trying to find a man from her past, but he is never to be found, during the largest conflict on European soil since World War II – the battle of Vukovar. It is a search of identity and truth at a place where truth is selective, elusive, and even feared. A quest for faith, connection, and redemption simmers beneath the search.

The story of Jasna, a Croatian ex-pat who, due to her mother Anka's declining health, is forced to return to a place she has been avoiding most of her life - her home. The two haven't been in touch for years, but the proximity of death forces them to confront the ghosts of their past. It is also a portrait of life in a typical small town in the midst of Mediterranean hinterland. Plunging into the anxieties of the community, MATER subtly uncovers class, status, and gender issues that shape Anka's and Jasna's personalities - their stubbornness, strength, and tragic flaws.

“Jimmie” is told through the eyes of a 4-year old boy who has to go on a journey with his father to a safer land, leaving his mother at home in Sweden.

Sanela, a Montenegrin of Muslim background who left the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s after her father was kidnapped and killed alongside other Muslims, comes back to the Balkans after twenty years abroad. She has betrayed her origins, erased her own culture, and become a true Westerner. They say the past is a foreign land and that the one who departs and the one who returns are not the same person.

Mr. & Mrs. Lovett live out their (sex) lives in full public view in front of a permanently connected webcam, which frames their spartan living room like a human aquarium. This is all we see of their lives - but it's not so little after all. The young couple are driven business people, and they flirt, strip and screw for the benefit of the camera and the customers on the receiving end. The Croatian filmmaker Igor Bezinovic has created a surreal and funny take on a piece of avant-garde 'adult entertainment' from one of the internet's seedy corners. But he also documents a performance culture, which dissolves the boundaries between the private and public spheres and a parallel economy of images. A hedonistic and thoroughly commercialised culture, where supply and demand have taken on an entirely new and absurd meaning.

Anica (60) resists her ongoing chemotherapy while perceiving her daughter’s care as an assault on her dignity. Vlatko (60) is an alcoholic and a loner, completely written off by his work colleagues. Filled with mutual contempt, Anica and Vlatko separated long ago and seemingly no longer communicate. On their drawn-out paths toward oblivion, they search for an ally who will hear their desperate cry for the will to live.

Sarajevo, rush hour. Emir (15), accompanied by a social worker, is on his way to meet his father Safet for a weekend picnic at Igman, a semi-open penitentiary. Due to the heavy traffic they are late...

The rise and fall of Yugoslavian filmmaker Dušan Vukotić - the only Yugoslav Oscar-winner and one of the founding members of the Zagreb School of Animation - uncannily mirrors the tragic fate of his multiethnic country.