About the Beginning(2023)

What I Love About Concrete(en)

A homespun high school fairy tale comedy, What I Love About Concrete is a tour through the unbearable awkwardness, nascent cynicism, and disarming wonder that comprise the 11th grade experience, in a world where synchronized swimming breaks out in rundown motel pools, and dead swans are concealed in Mary Poppins-like bottomless book bags.

Maggie and the Monster(en)

Maggie visits a distant friend in hopes of finding solace from the bizarre terrors that plague her.

Mindflesh(en)

Chris Jackson is a taxi driver with a childhood trauma. The trauma has made him a portal for obsessions to pass from the mind to the physical world and hence disrupt the world's multiple planes of reality. Extraterrestrials that police the universe threaten to kill Chris' friends unless he conquers his past.

Toto the Hero(fr)

80-year-old Thomas recounts his childhood and middle age through a series of flashbacks and dream sequences. Thomas believes he’s been taken away from a better life at birth; following a hospital fire, he vividly recalls being swapped with another new-born, and subsequently grows up in a poorer neighbouring household.

The Future(en)

When a couple decides to adopt a stray cat their perspective on life changes radically, literally altering the course of time and space and testing their faith in each other and themselves.

The Boy and the Beast(ja)

Kyuta, a boy living in Shibuya, and Kumatetsu, a lonesome beast from Jutengai, an imaginary world. One day, Kyuta forays into the imaginary world and, as he's looking for his way back, meets Kumatetsu who becomes his spirit guide. That encounter leads them to many adventures.

Seethakathi(ta)

A veteran theatre artist who lives for his art 'enters' the world of films. Can the film industry hold on to his inimitable artistry?

Smosh: The Movie(en)

An embarrassing video of Anthony surfaces online right before his fifth high school reunion. The Smosh dudes then race to pull down the clip before it blows Anthony's chances of reconnecting with his teen crush Anna.

Miracle in Milan(it)

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

Bridgend(en)

Over a 5-year period in Bridgend in Wales, 79 people, many of them teenagers, committed suicide without leaving any clue as to why. This is the starting point for this mysterious social drama.

Un caballo en la alcoba(es)

9 Waves(gl)

'9 waves' is an independent film, produced almost entirely by crowdfunding, approaching the issue of identity in the contemporary world. It tells the story of a man (played by Dario Merlini) who forgets his memories by drinking water from a fountain at the border between Galicia and Portugal. Thus begins a journey that will take him to iconic sites - Couto Mixto, Antela, Ourense-, to engage with different stories and special situations, before finding his way towards his real identity.

Pine Tree(en)

An obsessive carpenter is forced to reevaluate his life and relationship when his latest creation, a beautifully crafted table, begins to speak to him.

Green Grass(es)

Kondo, a 30-year old Japanese entrepreneur, wakes up in an unknown beach after a great earthquake. When trying to return to his earlier routine, he meets strange characters who will help him understand where he is. Meanwhile, his father, feeling the loneliness of corporate world, will look for new ways to carry on. In spite of the distance that keeps them apart, both manage to come to terms with their past and find a new way ahead.

The Time Travelers(en)

Research scientists experimenting with time warps are accidentally propelled forward into an unbearable future.

La Malesa(ca)

Jana, a girl suffering from depression, escapes to her grandmother's country house in a desperate impulse to escape from her increasingly destructive thoughts. She is searching for the warmth emanating from her grandmother Helena and the home that saw her grow up between summers and holidays, but nothing tears her away from her unease. The forest that surrounds the house further immerses Jana in her loneliness, taking her to the limits of her own darkness.

A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree(en)

Padraig, a guilt laden and grief stricken man seeks the help of an eccentric carpenter, John, to help him build a coffin for his already dead and buried wife. As Padraig works with John he begins to discover an ancient hidden world of magic and mythology that has its sinister roots planted deep in the island of Ireland.

GOOD LUCK(en)

A surrealist short film that tells the story of a young woman navigating the whirlwind that is adolescence. Dreamlike sequences of young love, afterschool house parties, and midnight woodland rites come together in this pseudo-autobiographical tale.

Carlo and Clara(it)

In a curious-looking old hospital, an elderly couple, Carlo and Clara, is waiting for their turn tenderly holding hands. There is a choice to be made, and the woman begins to hesitate. Only the words of the loving Carlo will be able to transform fear into courage. At one point the setting makes way for animation, suggested and overlapped by the words of Clara. It leads the listener to a deep reflection on life. The brief evocation of the magic of existence is imprinted in the deeply moved smile of the woman, certain that life on Earth is nothing but a stage of eternity.

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