East Side Stories

A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.

A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.

The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.

Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter. After having an affair with a student, he moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.

At an isolated frontier outpost, a colonial magistrate suffers a crisis of conscience when an army colonel arrives looking to interrogate the locals about an impending uprising, using cruel tactics that horrify the magistrate.

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.

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

Inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town's source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias, a villager thought to be dead, returns and, unbeknownst to the locals, is a police informant. In a scheme, he persuades the villagers to form a commune with him.

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

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.

In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…

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.

New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.

In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Joy lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age, she marries and has a child–with an abusive thief who quickly ends up incarcerated. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure–if that.

A Hungarian family forced to flee the Communist country for the United States must leave a young daughter behind. Six years later, the family arranges to bring the absent daughter to the United States where she has trouble adjusting. The daughter then decides to travel to Budapest to discover her identity.

An equal rights crusader, journalist and activist: Gloria Steinem embodies these and more. From her role in the revolutionary women's rights movement to her travels throughout the U.S. and around the world, Steinem has made an everlasting mark on modern history. A nontraditional chronicle of a trailblazing life.

In turn-of-the-century Budapest, teenage gangs the Paul Street Boys and the Red Shirts have been skirmishing over a vacant lot. When the Red Shirts decide to drive the Paul Street Boys out, they appoint small, sickly Nemescek to spy on their opponents.

Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.

Six interlocking stories reveal Bruce Wayne's earliest adventures as Batman and the steps he took to become the grim avenger of Gotham City.

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to choose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

Commissioned by South Korea's National Human Rights Commission, If You Were Me is an innovative omnibus film project to promote tolerance and human rights and shed light on the hardships disadvantaged people face in Korea. This third installment continues the If You Were Me tradition. Directors Jeong Yun Cheol (Marathon), Kim Hyeon Pil (Wonderful Day), Lee Mi Yeon (L'Abri), Noh Dong Seok (Boys of Tomorrow), Hong Gi Seon (The Road Taken), and Kim Gok and Kim Sun (Capitalist Manifesto: Working Men of All Countries) participated in If You Were Me 3, creating shorts on human rights issues of their choosing, ranging from labor conditions to gay rights to discrimination.

Adapted from the TV and radio series of the same name, the producer of said show reads letters from three woman providing the framing story for this melodrama anthology film. The tales focus on parenting and family struggles.

A woman suffering from drug addiction is interned against her will in a clandestine rehabilitation center where she suffers many cases of abuse and fights to survive against violence, prejudice and the loss of dignity.

Five short stories: The Master and the Twentieth Disciple; Every Week is Sunday; It's Boniface's Fault; The Raggedy Song; The Spider's Web.

Athology film based on stories from House of Cockroaches, a collection of horror stories by queen of horror manga Kanako Inuki. The stories share a theme of apartment life, the troubles of women and mundane situations turning into horrifying nightmares.

Star Driver takes place on the fictional Southern Cross Isle. One night, a boy named Takuto washes up on shore swimming from the mainland. He later enrolls in Southern Cross High School as a freshman and makes new friends.

Shadowlands is an anthology series that explores love in three distinct stories: a couple renegotiating a relationship, a narcissist seeking to understand it, and star-crossed lovers mourning its loss.

The second Gulf War from 1990 to 1991 represents in the collective Arab memory a turning point in regards to the Arab nationalism’s self-perception as well as a moment of deep historical and existential insecurity. Five Arab directors discuss the events from their personal perspective.

Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses.

A year after the death of his paternal grandmother at the age of 101, filmmaker Martin Villeneuve brings her back to life using a special talent.

KKUME is an anthology film composed of three interconnected episodes, each capturing a different facet of YOUTH, PASSION and the hidden SECRET that bind the all episodes. YOUTH - Under the night sky of Seoul, three friends share beers and stargaze, drifting between laughter and longing as they navigate the uncertainty of their twenties. PASSION - Two aspiring actors engage in a candid conversation about the struggles, hopes, and disillusionments of working in the film industry. SECRET - A hidden secret emerges, subtly threading the previous stories together.

Amid an identity crisis, Fábio, 22 years old, a young black man from Cidade Tiradentes, reconnects with his past through a funk party with friends. On their way to the Fluxo, as these parties are called, he faces internal and external challenges that make him confront his feelings after his recent breakup. The film investigates the experiences of young people who live in the extreme east of São Paulo, the biggest city in Brazil and considered one of the main pillars of funk history.

In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance.

An undocumented immigrant, Roberto, seeks a way to become lawful, but all efforts are put on hold when he becomes a new father at the onset of the US government's 'Zero Tolerance' child separation policy at the US / Mexico border.

The demise of airline Swissair in 2001 was a huge blow to Switzerland's economy and to the country's morale. It was a sad day for Swiss history when the airline's fleet was grounded on 2 October 2001. "Grounding" is set during the last days of the doomed airline, and tells the story of manager Mario A. Corti's unhappy fate, the last, unlucky CEO at the traditional airline company, as well as of all those nameless people who lost almost everything in the maelstrom of Swissair's downfall: their job, home and their belief in Switzerland.

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones.

Michaela 'Traps' Sinclair is a trans sex worker trying to get by in Vancouver while also mentoring her recently-out friend Adeline and making an attempt at pursuing actual motherhood. Meanwhile, lowly production assistant Turner finds himself dangerously spiraling into inceldom as his current relationship implodes.