Lower Heaven

When a brilliant nine-year-old working in a sweatshop gets a chance to attend school, she must make a difficult choice for her and her sister's future.

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.

The story of a middle-aged woman with small children whose life is shaken up when two free-spirited twenty-somethings move in across the street.

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

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

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.

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

Vincent, an artist with unresolved inner demons, meets a mysterious girl who helps him come to terms with his creative legacy… and eventual death.

Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.

XOXO follows six strangers whose lives collide in one frenetic, dream-chasing, hopelessly romantic night.

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.

Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

The Mambo Kings tells the story of César and Nestor Castillo, brothers and aspiring musicians who flee from Cuba to America in search of the American Dream.

The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.

Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.

This short film tells the story of Beckett, a smart and intriguing twelve-year-old, and his relationship with his divorced parents, James and Cindy. The separation took place when James came out as gay man.

Amid a future water crisis on earth, private astronaut Cain Jarvis is stationed on the moon to find the precious material. As he works through the chain of events that led to this situation, Jarvis is left with a moral dilemma of what to do with his findings.

A father and sons solitary life in hiding is threatened by a visitor from their past.

Three boys experience self discovery at a skate park. [Made by director Hugo Esposti in his second year at Bournemouth University on the BA Hons Film course.]

A 15 year old boy remembers his friend after he was killed because of the colour of his skin. A short film set in the 1980s in the UK.

This film tells the dramatic story of the death of this famous Bible character and his trip to the witch of Endor, who forecasted his tragic end. The story is dramatic in the extreme and beautifully played.

This charming short film was shot in the Camargue, probably in the same place where Jean Durand filmed his cowboy movies. The plot is very simple. A guardian falls in love with a Parisian. Desperate, he commits suicide when she returns to the capital. But, as always with Perret, we appreciate the framing, the skilful use of the exteriors and the documentary side of life of the time. We see the young Arlesianas in traditional dress go out to collect almonds and return with their baskets to the city. The actor in the role of the guardian overreacts, imitating bombastic despair. But the finale, in which he rides a horse through the waves to find the rest of death, preserves its charm intact. Perret knows how to set the rhythm of a sequence and give it the necessary atmosphere.

After her mother’s death, a trans woman returns home to care for her sick father, who once rejected her. Amid conflicts and silences, their forced coexistence exposes old wounds and tests the limits of affection.

Two strangers develop an unexpected relationship after a chance meeting at a party. Inspired by David Ives' 'Sure Thing'.

Ariadne, a theatre actress, is seemingly trapped inside a room. Once she lets go, the room starts shifting.

Mosholu Parkway is a short film comedy about a day in the life of a raucus family during World War II, a teenaged girl's disastrous blind date and her 80-year-old aunt who runs a crap game out of her apartment in The Bronx, New York in 1942 . Director Allison Robbins Writer Allison Robbins Stars Caroline AaronMatthew BrodskyMike Cefalo

Geeky Pavan takes his ‘English Rose’ on a date to the most authentic Indian restaurant in the city. To his horror she goes off-menu, in Hindi...

Young Julian is shopping with his father when his father suddenly disappears. Julian waits for his father to come back, while coping with his fear and anxiety. The film explores the themes of childhood, abandonment, and resilience.

The boy wants to have a pigeon, but he can't afford to buy a bird. On the market for a pigeon asking for 100 rubles! Then he decides to buy a bird, bartering it for his father's album with stamps. Having caught a pigeon, the boy releases a bird into the sky. But the pigeon is returning to it's native dovecote, to it's former owner, who again demands money for it. This is a short movie about childhood and dreams, about the first life lessons that everyone has to face in childhood, when society and its laws bring changes into life, sometimes breaking the brightest dreams.