FILMS IN COMPETITION: INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORT
23 films compete for the International Narrative Short Award at KASHISH 2016
1. ALL CATS ARE PINK IN THE DARK
Dir: Guillaume Renusson / 2015 / 19.45 min / France
Alice doesn’t feel comfortable with her body. As she gets ready for an internship interview the next day, her mother makes her change her baggy clothes for a tight-fitting skirt suit. Alice can’t take anymore and storms out of her house to get some air. That’s when she meets Lola.
2. BACK AGAIN (Original Title: De Vuelta)
Dir: Gabriel Dorado / 2015 / 13.02 min / Spain
Alex goes back after a while to his village with Jordi to celebrate San Juan’s night. However, because of a summer storm, they have to take cover in an old abandoned house where they used to play when they were kids. In there, they have to face problems from the past.
3. BENJAMIN
Dir: Sherren Lee / 2015 / 16.11 min / Canada
Sixth months into a dual surrogate pregnancy between two gay couples, baby Maya dies in utero. When grieving mothers Sophie and Della realize they may not be able to conceive again, they ask to keep the remaining child for themselves, fracturing the idealistic arrangement the four friends once had, and forcing the men to make an impossible decision.
4. BLIND DATE
Dir: Adrienne Lovette / 2015 / 7.19 min / USA
Two romantics spend an unexpected evening together in New York City, and find a new meaning to the term “blind date”.
5. BUDDY
Dir: Niels Bourgonje / 2016 / 11.25 min / The Netherlands
A young man agrees to support his ex lover during an HIV test. Not having seen each other for a while, they are forced to sit together in the waiting room of a STD clinic. What starts out as an awkward conversation, soon becomes something more tender. Is there still a chance for reconciliation?
6. THE CRICKET AND THE ANT (Original Title: La Cigale Et La Fourmi)
Dir: Julia Ritschel / 2015 / 15.08 min / Germany
Right before graduation, Lena is interested in only one thing: French. However, she doesn’t actually care for the language itself, her enthusiasm really lies in Katharina. Soon Lena has to face reality by asking herself where she wants to go in life and if there’s another way than the one of “The Cricket and the Ant”.
7. HE WHO HAS TWO SOULS
Dir: Fabrice Luang-Vija / 2015 / 17 min / France
They called him “He who has two souls”. He was beautiful like a woman, and he was handsome like a man. He was searching for someone who can understand and love him.
8. INNER JELLYFISHES
Dir: Marc-Antoine Lemire / 2015 / 24.07 min / Canada
A young man meets another one in a bar and their relationship winds up in a one-night stand. But under the sheets, it may be when skins touch that loneliness is the deepest.
9. IT’S NOTHING! (Original Title: No Es Nada!)
Dir: Jose Antonio Cortes / 2015 / 12.19 min / Spain
A mother finds out that her son is being bullied at the school for being gay, and she decides to talk about it with him in order to confront it.
10. LAZARUS COME OUT (Original Title: Lazzaro Vieni Fuori)
Dir: Lorenzo Caproni / 2015 / 14 min / Italy
The re-enactment of the ‘Raising of Lazarus’ has been organized at a parish; and a new boy joins in. However, for these young people “raising” can also mean transforming oneself and casting off hypocrisy.
11. LEFT TO THEIR SENSES
Dir: Cecilia Guichart / 2015 / 16.16 min / Luxembourg, Belgium
Alma and Sam live together, yet each in her own universe. Sam is the more extroverted type, a woman of action; Alma is rather withdrawn and contemplative. When it comes to love, they both agree: they long for the ultimate commitment. Full of passion, they bridge the differences in their daily life, a balance still jeopardized by their fears.
12. LETHARGY
Dir: Xavier Miralles / 2015 / 20 min / Spain
Alex is a boy who has just broken up with Marc, his partner for several years. On a cold winter night, their dog sickens and Alex brings him to the hospital. This situation forces Marc and Alex to meet again in a long night in which everything that seemed asleep awakens.
13. LOST YEARS (Original Title: Los Años Perdidos)
Dir: Alejandro Beltrán / 2015 / 20.53 min / Spain
After the death of his mother Felix, is sent to a boarding school abroad. There he meets his roommate, Leo, with whom he begins a relationship. After a tragic incident their friendship ends.
14. PINK
Dir: Marga Congreso / 2015 / 13.33 min / France
A story of two individuals from near extreme ends of the gender spectrum, who meet in a tabac, where an unexpected romance unfolds. A modern adaptation of Cinderella, just without the focus on the shoe… and the gender roles of Cinderella and the Prince reversed!
15. NO MATTER WHO (Original Title: A Qui La Faute)
Dir: Anne-Claire Jaulin / 2015 / 18.49 min / France
It’s summertime and a troop of young girls are headed to scout camp. For Marie and Lise, it is a time for their first sparks of emotion, a time to learn more about desire and how one confronts a group and their morality.
16. SAN CRISTÓBAL
Dir: Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo / 2015 / 29 min / Chile
Lucas is visiting his sister on a remote island in southern Chile before moving abroad. An unlikely romance grows when he meets Antonio, a struggling young fisherman. The intimacy they share makes them navigate towards a new horizon and to a different stage of their adulthood.
17. SAUNA THE DEAD – A FAIRY TALE
Dir: Tom Frederic / 2016 / 20 min / UK
Jacob is a jaded narcissist who stalks the bathhouse halls looking for his next hookup. When he finds himself in the midst of a zombie outbreak, his survival may depend on the one thing he didn’t come there for: a human connection.
18. TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES OF INTIMACY
Dir: Joel Moffett /2015 / 19.10 min / USA
Starring world-renowned queer icon Buck Angel, ‘Technical Difficulties of Intimacy’ is a groundbreaking new film about a man and a woman, who try to salvage their relationship by exploring new sexual horizons.
19. TRADE QUEEN
Dir: David Wagner / 2015 / 7.47 min / Germany
Day by day, Mr. Jonas and Mr. Schmidt make their way from door to door across the country, selling pots to the general public. After work, both go their own way.
20. VIKTOR
Dir: Ann Prim / 2016 / 11.01 min / USA
An American-Russian family is torn apart by a secret. Their only son Viktor grows increasingly close to his beloved Russian grandmother. Only grandmother Zoya knows his secret.
21. WE COULD BE PARENTS (Original Title: Vi Skulle Bli Bra Föräldrar)
Dir: Björn Elgerd / 2016 / 14.30 min / Sweden
Erik’s boyfriend Marely left him. Now, the last chance for Erik to get him back is to make this movie to explain, that the only reason he sold sex, was so they could afford to become parents one day.
22. WEIRD IS WHO’S NOT WEIRD
Dir: Cristopher Carballo Lerma / 2015 / 16 min / Mexico
Alex feels attracted to Samuel, and even though his best friend warns him he has a girlfriend, something makes him think he is not that indifferent.
23. YOU. ME. BATHROOM. SEX. NOW
Dir: Francisco Lupini-Basagoiti / 2015 / 17.20 min / USA
A comedy about a man who tries to forget about love, in all the wrong places. When Antonio finds out that his boyfriend of eight years is cheating on him three days before Christmas, he decides to find solace at the neighborhood bar.
