Short Term 12

After being caught with her partner, Natalia must take the next two days to examine the relationship between culture and sexuality.

These five award-winning coming of age short films offer a glimpse of how boys and young men tackle life's difficult desires: confronting one's demons, understanding sexual relationships, gaining the respect of one's father, or simply running away from it all. This is only the start of their complex formative years, where not every question has an answer, and not every answer makes sense. The short films are: Boys [Pojkarna] (2015); Ioana (2015); Kiem Holijanda (2017); Picnic [Piknik] (2015); Tomer & Elias [Tomer en Elias] (2016).

A betrayed wife begins to investigate her husband’s mistresses. Her jealousy is gradually replaced by curiosity.

A young girl buries in her soul a memory of a painful moment, when as a child she brought home an injured bird and her father burdened by his own weight of worries didn’t notice her feelings and longing for understanding. The girl took her father’s reaction as indifference and closed herself in her inner world longing for her father’s love and its manifestations. Since that moment she and her dad continued to grow apart, and as an adult she is no longer able to accept his endearments. The father suffers from guilt and searches for a way back to his daughter, trying to revive their lost relationship.

Professional forger Bill Butters realizes one day that the police are closing in on him, and convinces his daughter Peggy to flee.

Edo, 1863. Aisuke Kajiki, a young blind swordsman, is entrusted the son of his best friend Toramaru Sakakibara, who is about to join the Shogun's Samurai Unit and promises to train him well. However, after Toramaru's death in battle, Eisuke drowns in a river and is transported in time to present-day Tokyo. Eisuke and his descendant, Ryusei, a college student, go to meet Toramaru's descendant, Taiga, a swimmer. The blind samurai's promise to his best friend in Edo is fulfilled 160 years later in present-day Tokyo through para-swimming.

The story of two youngster girls who became the victims of female genital mutilation.

Esther watches TV and comes across a reality show where she recognizes her ex-husband disguised as a woman. Stunned, she decides to no longer entrust Charles, their son, to him for the Christmas holidays. The perfect world is more complex...

David comes home from college to his family’s farm to find that his parents have hired a young man named Brent, who is also sharing his room. David is still in the closet and wants to come out to his high school friend, but he finds himself drawn to his new roommate and tries to determine if he is also gay.

A solid middle American couple meet a stranger who will have a big role in history as we know it.

A businessman in mourning uses a special telephone booth to have a final talk with his departed wife.

She smells her fragrance, she sees her talent... The ancient love story of Cui Jianyun and Cao Yuhua. The plight of these two women is told as they fall in love due to the admiration for each other's stunning beauty and literary craft. Adapted from the Kunqu opera & story by Li Yu, "Fragrant Companion/Lianxiang Companion", this short film includes a parallel between the play and "reality." The ending has been altered from the original play.

Losing you until I lose myself, memories that were all left behind was the beauty of your eyes, me without you.

Karen is resigned to a life of suburban ennui, the dreams of her youth a distant memory. On an autumn afternoon as she struggles to get her baby to sleep she is disturbed by a door-to-door Salesman. Desperate for adult companionship she engages with the enigmatic Salesman. He claims that he can sell her something that will radically change her life; he offers Karen, an opportunity to fulfill her long forgotten dreams and ambitions.

When his father brings his new girlfriend to the seaside, a withdrawn boy is forced to share his grief with someone he doesn't want to know.