2nd Short Film Festival
Duration: 6-12th of May 2010
Location: Thessaloniki, Greece, Olympion Theater (the films have Greek subtitles)
The short films are divided into units:
- Released desires (Saturday, 8th of May, 6.30pm & Monday, 10th of May, 8.30pm)
- Women approaches (Thursday, 6th of May, 8.30pm & Sunday, 9th of May 10.30pm)
- Like attracts like (Thursday, 6th of May, 10.30pm & Tuesday, 11th of May, 8.30pm)
- It happens (Saturday, 8th of May, 11pm & Monday, 10th of May, 6.30pm)
- Overturning (Friday, 7th of May, 6.30pm & Tuesday, 11th of May, 6.30pm)
- New reality (documentaries) (Sunday, 9th of May, 6.30pm & Tuesday, 11th of May, 10.30pm)
- Feelings (Friday, 7th of May, 8.30pm & Monday, 10th of May, 10.30pm)
Unit: Released desires (78′)
| (Saturday, 8th of May, 6.30pm & Monday, 10th of May, 8.30pm)
Title: Puck not reversibel / Puck-nicht umkehrbar
Plot: Tom’s big love is music. Tom’s girlfriend is Jule. And Puck is Tom’s best friend. When Tom lets Jule down again in favour of his music, Jule meets Puck and they are racing with destiny. And at the end there is only one question left: What is larger? Sex? Love? Or death?
Director: Maren Elbrechtz
Country: Germany
Release year: 2008
Duration: 16′
Title: Daniel and Alex
Plot: Daniel and Alex are having dinner together. A film about borders, friendship and about longing to truly meet.
Director: Andreas –stlund
Country: Sweden
Release year: 2008
Duration: 12′
Title: Heiko
Plot: A seventy year old aesthete is in a relationship with a young man named Heiko. It is a fetishist relationship taken to extremes.
Director: David Bonneville
Country: Portugal
Release year: 2007
Duration: 13′
Title: The golden thread – El hilo de oro
Plot: Sometimes, mystifying bonds set connections among people. Bonds which overcome distance, unawareness and oblivion. And, when these bonds are created, they can become what we need to survive.
Director: Diego Sanchidrian
Country: Spain
Release year: 2009
Duration: 19′
Title: Smoking kills
Plot: Two young lovers decide to go on a trip. However, the presence of an ex girlfriend (?) make things complicated and leads to unexpected events.
Director.: P. Asvestopoulos, G. Vasiliou, P. Zografos, M. Manoleas
Country: Greece
Release year: 2010
Duration: 8′
Title: Canibales
Plot: Just 10 minutes away from the heart of the city, hundreds of hungry men meet by chance, by stealth. Some of them are looking for quick and easy sex, others want to avoid loneliness. Most of them are looking for themselves and … a wive too.
Director: Juanma Carillo
Country: Spain
Release year: 2009
Duration: 17′
Unit: Women approaches (79′)
| (Thursday, 6th of May, 8.30pm & Sunday, 9th of May 10.30pm)
Title: Dance into happiness / Tanz ins Glück
Plot: Anna is working as a cleaning lady. Every night she cleans Helen`s office. Helen is a high level broker working in the stock exchange. The two women live in different worlds and normally would never meet each other. However they happen to have enrolled on the same salsa course. Due to the lack of men, Anna and Helen have to dance together.
A lesbian fairytale depicting the possibility of overcoming social borders.
Director: Barbara Seiler
Country: Switzerland
Release year: 2009
Duration: 17′
Title: They tell / Dicen
Plot: A love story between two young women whose brake up offers an intense look into their inner selves, and the conflicts of their decisions.
Director: Juanma Carillo
Country: Spain
Release year: 2008
Duration: 11′
Title: Still
Plot: After a long while, Katerina, a photographer, and Niki, a model, meet each other while working. They have a chat about the way their sexual relationship ended. While one of them seems easy going the other one still feels stressed.
Director: Christos Sitaridis
Country: Greece
Release year: 2009
Duration: 12′
Title: Dandelion Fall
Plot: In New York City, a naive cowgirl from the West falls into an obsessive, destructive sexual relationship with a Manhattan socialite.
Director: Lauren Wolkstein
Country: USA
Release year: 2007
Duration: 14′
Title: Cherry red / Kirschrot
Plot: 19-year-old Marie falls in love with the 10-years-older Anna and they start an affair though both of them are already in a relationship, Marie with a boy, Anna with a woman. Soon it’s romance versus everyday life and they have to confront themselves with how much this feeling means to either of them. Is the infatuation worth risking the shelter and security of their existing relationships?
Director: Lena Knauss
Country: Germany
Release year: 2007
Duration: 25′
Unit: Like attracts like (84′)
| (Thursday, 6th of May, 10.30pm & Tuesday, 11th of May, 8.30pm)
Title: Vandals
Plot: Two young graffiti writers searching for their true identity–drawn between the love for graffiti and the love for each other.
Director: Simon Steuri
Country: Switzerland
Release year: 2008
Duration: 17′
Title: A piece of Furniture – for photos / El mueble de las fotos
Plot: The piece of furniture in the living room is my family’s shop window. But the photos of the son and his husband have a place there?
Director: Giovanni Maccelli
Country: Spain
Release year: 2009
Duration: 2,5′
Title: After everything / Depois de tudo
Plot: After farewell, the waiting. After the waiting, the return. After everything, all they wish for is to be together and one day is enough for them to wait for the next one.
Director: Rafael Saar
Country: Brazil
Release year: 2008
Duration: 12′
Title: The sad song of the earth
Plot: Gustav Mahler’s symphony. The song of the earth is the soundtrack to the daily routine of Ilan, a 65 year old gay man trying to diminish his loneliness in an alienating world that worships the beauty of youth.
Director: Yotam Ben-David
Country: Israel
Release year: 2009
Duration: 8′
Title: Dish 🙂
Plot: Emo kids Israel and Louie walk around their East Los Angeles neighborhood dishing and sexting about their high school classmates. After listening to Louie boast about his sexual escapades, Israel decides he has some catching up to do.
Director: Brian Harris Krinsky
Country: USA
Release year: 2009
Duration: 15′
Title: And thou shalt love
Plot: Ohad, who is studying in the special “Hesder” program for orthodox soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, experiences profound loneliness while he conceals from others that he is gay. When he calls a religious hotline for help, he is advised that forty days of fasting and repentance will extinguish his homosexual tendencies. Ohad takes the required steps, and after the proscribed period is convinced that he is “cured”. Then Ohad’s boyfriend Nir returns from the army, and Ohad finds he can no longer evade the difficult questions, both within himself, and between himself and God.
Director: Chaim Elbaum
Country: Israel
Release year: 2008
Duration: 28′
Unit: It happens (84′)
| (Saturday, 8th of May, 11pm & Monday, 10th of May, 6.30pm)
Title: Help! / Gevald!
Plot: Gevald tells an almost impossible love story between two women at the eve of the 2006 pride event in Jerusalem. The two were a couple till one of them, a religious woman, could not deal with it and left to be married to a man. A few months later she suddenly shows up to warn her beloved from something dangerous she knows is about to happen at the pride event the following day.
Director: Netalie Braun
Country: Israel
Release year: 2008
Duration: 16′
Title: Lapsus
Plot: Paul is gay and twenty-five years old. He is young and attractive, but he doesn’t understand the world around him. He doesn’t know who he is and doesn’t look after people he really wants. He lives by appearances and through other people’s desires. Paul is alone and cannot manage his behavior. He drives crazy.
Director: Arnauld Visinet
Country: France
Release year: 2008
Duration: 19′
Title: Mother knows best / Mamma veit havo hun syngur
Plot: A comedy depicting Nanna, a single mother in ReykjavÃk and her twenty something son Gudni Geir who still lives with her. His mother is not in awe of any of his various girlfriends and seems determined to ruin all his relationships. When Gudni comes out to her, their relationship changes drastically.
Director: Bardi Gudmundsson
Country: Iceland
Release year: 2009
Duration: 25′
Title: Sombrero
Plot: An awkward blind date in a Mexican restaurant quickly takes a turn toward the absurd. James and Raymond are two men looking for a connection in life. They meet for a blind date in a Mexican restaurant. James is extremely nervous, but Raymond is calm and collected and tries to make the most of their awkward encounter. But as the two men learn more about each other, their rocky date takes an unexpected turn toward the absurd.
Director: Nathaniel Atcheson
Country: USA
Release year: 2008
Duration: 12′
Title: The same? / Equals?
Plot: Adela isn’t the girl from a romantic comedy. Hassan isn’t the gallant hero of an adventure film. Sylvia isn’t at all like a femme fatale. And Sofia isn’t either what we can call an ideal mother. What they are and what they look for… does it matter?
Director: Javier de la Torre
Country: Spain
Release year: 2008
Duration: 14′
Unit: Overturning (86,5′)
| (Friday, 7th of May, 6.30pm & Tuesday, 11th of May, 6.30pm)
Title: 14 Degrees Eastwards / 14 Grad ostwärts
Plot: Documentary. Four young activists attempt to stage a gay pride march in homophobic Poland.
Director: Nicole Volpert
Country: Germany
Release year: 2006
Duration: 62′
Title: I’ve got something to tell you / Tengo algo que decirte
Plot: Susana is Pablo’s girlfriend but Pablo’s just realised he’s gay and he’s in love of Javi, his best friend who, at the same time, is going out with Susana. How are they going to tell to each other? How are they going to react? And how will all this end?
Director: Ana Torres-Alvarez
Country: Spain
Release year: 2009
Duration: 8′
Title: 510 meters over the see / 510 Meter über dem
Plot: A small airport in Switzerland. Simone has to attend her father’s funeral. But she misses her connecting flight. Natalie is waiting. For whom, she doesn’t know yet. In between, she collects time passing.
Two strangers, caught in a night with no morning. They hesitate. Recognize and lose themselves. In each other. In the night. Far away from time that keeps ticking. And finally catches up with them.
Director: Kerstin Polte
Country: Switzerland
Release year: 2008
Duration: 16′
Unit: New reality (documentaries) (92′)
| (Sunday, 9th of May, 6.30pm & Tuesday, 11th of May, 10.30pm)
Title: Homo baby boom
Plot: Six Spanish families with lesbian or gay parents tell how they got to have children and the reactions they have had to face. They also show how Spain’s ground-breaking legal changes in 2005 legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption rights for homosexuals have changed their lives.
Director: Anna Boluda
Country: Spain
Release year: 2008
Duration: 27′
Title: Queer spawn
Plot: There are over ten million children with gay or lesbian parents in the United States. Are their lives affected by their kind of family? From liberal New York City to conservative Texas, teenagers and their parents candidly share their experiences and insights.
Director: Anna Boluda
Country: Spain
Release year: 2005
Duration: 30′
Title: Saving the boom
Plot: When after 61 years, in 2007, The Boom Boom Room, the oldest gay bar west of the Mississippi and the center of gay nightlife in Laguna Beach, is sold, Fred Karger, makes it his mission to save The Boom from the wrecking ball and to preserve the rapidly diminishing gay heritage. As Fred rallies gays and straights in petition drives and community activism, Save the Boom explores the impact that the bar has had the town; from the early days before freeways when Rock Hudson would seek refuge in the beachfront enclave, as well as a drink at The Boom; to its pride, when he’s elected the first openly gay mayor in the country in the early 1980s. Despite Karger’s best efforts, The Boom does close its doors for good.
Director: John Keitel
Country: USA
Release year: 2009
Duration: 17′
Unit: Feelings (106′)
| (Friday, 7th of May, 8.30pm & Monday, 10th of May, 10.30pm)
Title: Pianos and bricks
Plot: A music video for Los Angeles musician Dorian Wood and his song, “Pianos and Bricks.” Dorian is both queer and Latino and is quite talented. “Pianos and Bricks” is all about his desire for another man that just won’t quit. I describe Dorian as if Nick Cave and Antony Hegerty (Antony and the Johnsons) had a big, brown baby.
Director: Dino Dinco
Country: USA
Release year: 2009
Duration: 4,5′
Title: Raw love / Amor crudo
Plot: A portrait of the last days of high school. Two friends spend all day long together, but this will inevitably come to an end. A beautiful sincere story of mixed emotions and secrets that dare not speak loud.
Director: Juan Chappa – Martin Deus
Country: Argentina
Release year: 2008
Duration: 15′
Title: The Grandfather / El Abuelo
Plot: Shot on location in San Antonio, Texas, El Abuelo is an intimate portrait of local educator and poet, Joe Jimenez.
Through the meditative process of ironing his clothes (a duty often identified as women’s work), we experience Joe in that familiar goal of finding the perfect crease. Of all domestic chores, ironing is the only one a homeboy is more than happy to master, as masterful ironing is the key to reaching an appearance of perfection. And to a homeboy, perfect creases work hand in hand with the power of attraction.
Through voiceover, we hear Joe reading his poem, El Abuelo, and learn of the potency of ironing that’s used to capture the attention of his first love of another man.
Director: Dino Dinco
Country: USA
Release year: 2008
Duration: 3′
Title: Bites of skin / Nacos de pele
Plot: The fragility of bonds of affection draws insecurity and abandonment in the human landscape. Loving produces an irreducible evil. Affection and sex establish serious and changeable tension in which uncertainties and insecurities do not find guarantees in strategies for control and predictability. Love relationships place an eternal bet on an uncertain and inscrutable future. In this tragic, though hopeful scenario, it is necessary to get to know love through your own skin.
Director: Leonardo Barcelos Helio Lauar
Country: Brazil
Release year: 2008
Duration: 14′
Title: Not yet
Plot: Documentary concerning the situation in northern Cyprus where the legislation on homosexuality, that remains active since the British occupation of the island, still causes many problems. However, gay and lesbians manage to enter into alliance with liberal forces and demonstrate for their rights.
Director: Esra Ummak
Country: Cyprus
Release year: 2009
Duration: 30′
Title: Shadows in the wind / Sombras en el viento
Plot: New York, 1905. Sue and Johnsy are two painters who share a studio. Johnsy falls sick with pneumonia and doesn’t improve. Sue notices that her friend is always looking through the window by her bed. There is only an old ivy vine climbing half way up a brick wall. It has been stripped of almost all its leaves. Is then when Sue realizes that Johnnsy is convinced she’ll die when the last leaf falls off.
Director: Julia Guillen Creagh
Country: Spain
Release year: 2009
Duration: 19′
Title: My name is Love
Plot: Love has made his decision. Tonight he’s gonna let all those hidden feelings he’s been having for all these years come out, and create a possibility to meet someone special.
It was quite a while since the last time now and Sebastian’s secret desire is getting harder to deny. His girlfriend is out of town so the timing is perfect.
Love and Sebastian meet each other by a coincidence at a street in the romantic Swedish summer night. They happen to share the same secret, but their encounter is going to cause severe consequences for the both of them when an innocent flirt soon turns in to a traumatic liaison ..
The short film “My name is Love” is tragically based on a true story.
Director: David Färdmar
Country: Sweden
Release year: 2008
Duration: 20′
