From the cliffs of the Isle of Wight to an abandoned swimming pool in Lambeth, Boys On Film 8: Cruel Britannia presents an eclectic mix of ten UK-set short films including: Harry Wootliff's "I Don't Care" starring Iwan Rheon; Ben Peters's "Downing" starring Jamie Brotherston and Ross William Wild; David Andrew Ward's "All Over Brazil" starring Iain De Caestecker, Frank Gallagher, and Gemma Morrison; David Leon and Marcus McSweeney's "Man and Boy" starring Eddie Marsan, Geoff Bell, and Eddie Webber; Aleem Khan's "Diana" starring Neeraj Singh; Jason Bradbury's "We Once Were Tide" starring Alexander Scott, Tristan Bernays, and Mandy Aldridge; Hong Khaou's "Spring" starring Chris O'Donnell and Jonathan Keane; Sybil H. Mair's "The Chef's Letter" starring Jonathan Firth, Ray Fearon, and Layke Anderson; Faryal's "What You Looking At?!" starring Rez Kabir, Michael Twaits, and Hussina Raja; and Dominic Leclerc's "Nightswimming" starring Harry Eden, Linzey Cocker, and Tim Dantay.
Fleur (segment "I Don't Care")
Daniel (segment "Downing")
Chloe (segment "Downing")
Lauren (segment "Downing")
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.
Hustler ERIC COYLE, 19, has secured early release from prison by informing on his drug dealer, BENNIE. He immediately begins reassembling his former life, including girlfriend, HEATHER, former pimp, DOLORES and his best john, TOMMY. Desperate to create his idea of a family, if only even for a day, he manages to trick Tommy into getting him an apartment, a used car and a job and moves Heather in with him, but things quickly spin out of control when Bennie is brought in for questioning.
The eponymous garçonne or flapper is Monique Lerbier, an emancipated French woman who leaves home to escape a marriage of convenience to a man she does not love which her parents have forced on her. She then falls into all sorts of carnal temptations and artificial pleasures previously unknown to her. These include her being seduced into a lesbian love affair by a chanteuse.
An imaginary biography of Jean Genet, poet and high priest of evil. "Revolt is something I allow myself", said Jean Genet in 1975. Born in Paris in 1910, raised and humiliated in an approved school, a pederast and thief who has been to prison 14 times and expelled from five European countries. His novels are ballads of poisonous beauty, his plays are murky rituals of oppression where each person acts out the role imposed upon him by the others.
A look at the life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from his rise to fame in the 1970s to his untimely death in 1989.
An enthralling directorial debut by the phenomenal, biting columnist and broadcaster Chip Tsao. Three elementary school pals, separated during the post-Tiananmen wave of emigration, reunite after 20 years, only to find themselves in totally different places. When each of them gets involved in an unlikely and at times illicit romance, their disparate lives intertwine and take a dire turn. The simmering ennui of post-handover Hong Kong is insightfully captured in this original and hardhitting drama about love, deceit and betrayal.
"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.
When Emma's cancer takes a turn for the worse, she presents her new wife Josie a deathbed order: find someone new while Emma is still around to approve of her choice.
Cot is an employee of Ten's house, both have arguments, but despite Ten's strong personality, he ends up arousing feelings for Cot... how will it end?
A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.
An examination on the effect of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on the lives of two longtime friends.
In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
After the sudden death of one of them a group of friends grieves trough sexual encounters.
A release that features 7 shorts from Italy, Israel, Tunisia, New Zealand, the United States and France, exploring those furtive first steps that men take as they decide to act on their sexuality. The 7 short films are: The First Time [La prima volta] (2012); Kiss Me (2022); Nidhal [نضال] (2022); Sparrow (2016); I Am Mackenzie (2019); The Place Between Us [Il posto fra di noi] (2010); By the End of the Night [Que la nuit s'achève] (2018).
Kijima and Kuzumi, showing the problems they face as they try to move forward in their lives, and how they drift apart while still yearning to be together. A story of love and life, and fantasies and failures of a novelist and his lover.