Smile Pretty

Nastalia is too young to have experienced many things in life, but as an abused child she has already experienced the darkest side of it. Now a young teen she takes it upon herself to change her life for the better, but the torment that is so interlaced with her childhood will haunt her every step forward.

Creating a Scene: BBC Introducing Arts

Actor, writer and producer Chizzy Akudolu presents a collection of dramatic short films from the best of new British film-makers. Reflecting modern Britain, subjects range from speed dating, the climate emergency and school friendships to spotting UFOs. Aisle 17; Swiped; Muriid; A Conversation with My Enemy; Money Up; Blue Corridor 15; Desert Town Landings; Pub Kid; Cardiff, I Love You; Dinah; This Camera Is Broken

Marcelo's Phantom

Marcelo's interest in writing becomes an unstoppable obsession once he meets a strange man on the bus.

When Everything Was Blue

A heartfelt short narrative film that follows a family as they navigate the emotional and physical toll of a father's 9/11-related illness, all captured through the intimate lens of a home video camera.

A Menina que Nunca Viu o Mar

Iara, a girl who is about to come of age, dreams of seeing the ocean, but lives in Rio Grande do Norte's countryside with her mother, a woman who's dreams were swallowed by the waves and who fears of losing her daughter.

Puedo Explicarlo

When Robert Met Judith

Robert, an elderly man in a nursing home, drifts through a quiet routine until fellow resident Judith reaches out with warmth and persistence.

Liberated Don Quixote

Russian stop motion animation depicting the court of the Duke and Duchess as they mock and abuse the titular hero.

Julián (Transmutación)

Julián, a 10-year-old boy, is going through a stage of change in which he cannot find peace with his surroundings. In a dream stage, a beetle becomes recurrent in his dreams.

Vogel, flieg!

Adina lives in Germany with her father and little brother after fleeing Afghanistan. War trauma and uncertainty about her mother's fate are constant companions in the family. Adina's need to dance her worries away is countered by her father's strict rules.

Pê

Pê, a man with terminal cancer, wanders through his city, Lisbon. Throughout the day, he is confronted with a reality unaware of his suffering while he prepares his imminent death by writing a farewell letter to his daughter. When emptying her father’s house, the daughter discovers the letter. It is the beginning of a new encounter.

Crash!

A surreal, moody short about the fetishisation of automobiles and auto accidents.

Blitz

An elite college athlete contemplates taking Adderall as his last chance to pass a critical exam despite previously failed drug tests.

What to Film...

After spending a few months in quarantine, a young filmmaker struggles to find inspiration.

The Decision

A film about the divorce decision and its impact on the children.

Somebody's Daughter

Because of the internet's accessibility, anonymity, and affordability, pornography addictions have risen to epidemic levels, destroying intimacy, marriages and families, while distorting our definition of sex and sexuality.

Los Montes

Los Montes de la Ermita, region of Bierzo Alto, in the province of León, Spain. Six women assist Joaquín —the only and last inhabitant of the remote village, located on the slopes of the mythical and mysterious Catoute Peak—, who is in danger of death due to an unfortunate accident.

The Atomic Adventure

Algeria desert, 1961. France just detonated an atomic bomb. A patrol of seven soldiers is sent to ground zero to take samples and measure the current radioactivity. The more they advance, the more they perceive that they are entering a dangerous uncharted territory: the future…

Double Exposure

A photographer girl enters a street to take street photographs as usual and takes a few photos that she thinks are normal. When she washes the photos and hangs them, she sees that she is actually in one of the photos and goes in search of that person.

Dereliction

There is a rumor that a private LEE reported the irrational incident in his platoon.

The Short History of the Long Road

Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.

Lovelace

Story of Linda Lovelace, who is used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband, before taking control of her life.

Deseo

Eight short stories of seduction and illicit encounters between lovers, filled with humor and eroticism, which use a circular structure located in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of a colonial city of Mexico.

The Poker House

Agnes and her two sisters struggle through a day in a home overrun by gamblers, thieves, and johns.

Speak

Freshman high-school student Melinda has refused to speak ever since she called the cops on a popular summer party. With her old friends snubbing her for being a rat, and her parents too busy to notice her troubles, she folds into herself, trying to hide her secret: that star senior Andy raped her at the party. But Melinda does manage to find solace in her art class headed by Mr. Freeman.

Thirteen

When 13-year-old Tracy befriends Evie, the most popular girl in school, her life is turned upside down as Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, and money. But it isn’t long before Tracy’s new lifestyle begins to take a heavy toll on her and her family.

From Straight A's to XXX

When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.

El Chicano

A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.

Pimp

An urban love story set on the hard streets of the Bronx. A struggling female pimp, named Wednesday, grows up learning the game from her dad. Once he's gone she's left to look out for her prostitute mother and girlfriend Nikki.

The Girl in the Book

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

Welcome to the Rileys

Years after their teenage daughter’s death, Lois and Doug Riley, an upstanding Indiana couple, are frozen by estranging grief. Doug escapes to New Orleans on a business trip. Compelled by urgencies he doesn’t understand, he insinuates himself into the life of an underage hooker, becoming her platonic guardian.

King Cobra

It’s 2006, YouTube is in its infancy, and internet porn is still behind a paywall. Taking the stage name Brent Corrigan, a fresh-faced, wannabe adult video performer is molded into a star by Stephen, a closeted gay porn mogul who runs the skin flick empire Cobra Video from his seemingly ordinary suburban home.

Violet Perfume: Nobody Hears You

Yessica is a rebellious girl who forms an unlikely friendship with quiet schoolmate Miriam. Yessica's home life is ruled by her brutal stepfather and her amoral stepbrother, Jorge, while Miriam shares a calm, loving household with her mother. The girls' friendship is shattered after Jorge arranges to have one of his friends rape Yessica.

Martin (Hache)

After having a nearly fatal drug overdose, 19-year-old Argentine Martin is sent to Madrid, where his film director father lives with his new, younger lover, Alicia, and his bisexual actor friend, Dante.

Hala

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani American teenager Hala struggles to balance desire with her family, cultural, and religious obligations. As she comes into her own, she grapples with a secret that threatens to unravel her family.

Electrick Children

Rachel is a rambunctious girl from a polygamist colony in southern Utah. On Rachel’s 15th birthday, she finds a forbidden cassette tape. Having never seen anything like it before, Rachel plays the cassette tape, and finds glorious rock & roll thereupon. Weeks later, Rachel realizes a miracle has occurred - and the cassette tape must have something to do with it. She leaves her family and runs away to the closest city: Las Vegas. There she searches for the singer of the band on the cassette tape.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.

Abzurdah

A disenfranchised 16-year-old girl connects to an older man on the internet and after a brief one-sided affair descends into obsession and anorexia.

XXY

Alex, an intersexed 15-year-old, is living as a girl, but she and her family begin to wonder whether she's emotionally a boy when another teenager's sexual advances bring the issue to a head. As Alex faces a final decision regarding her gender, she meets both hostility and compassion.

Iron Jawed Angels

Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.