One Million Yen Girl

Like tears in the rain, water is the metaphor for growing pains and so much more in these four tales about young boys coming to terms with a host of emotions for the very first time. These polished productions and festival favourites are brought to you by a host of talented directors from across Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. The short films are: Ocean [Océan] (2013); Go Daan Go! [Daan Durft] (2014); The Boy in the Ocean (2016); Beach Boy (2011).

Even though the protagonist of the Canadian Femme De L'Hotel is a female filmmaker, one would think twice before suggesting that this effort by Swiss-born director Lea Pool is autobiographical. Paule Baillargeon portrays a well-known director who returns to her home town of Montreal to film a high-budget musical drama. At her hotel, Paule has a brief but unsettling encounter with a suicidal elderly woman (Louise Marleau). This element of the plot is briefly forgotten as we get to know the actors in Paule's current project. Then she meets the old lady again, and with mounting incredulity Paule discovers that the actual events in the woman's life mirror the fictional events in the director's film.

An American girl, Daphne, heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her bohemian mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost dad is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.

A small town waitress stuck in a lousy marriage finds love when an exciting out-of-towner enters her life.

Carla, the runaway with high aims. Lucie, the street girl. Interchanged identities and a shared baby. Collage of a fateful year.

Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.

An upcoming hand-drawn animated film about a village boy who works in a brick kiln to support his family after his father's death.

Facing eviction, the residents of a bohemian quarter of Portland, Oregon organize to collectively purchase a block of houses, only to get a crash course in bureaucracy.

A divorcee reevaluates her life after a chance meeting with another woman with a similar history.

Aetherrise (lt. Aukštynpakylėjimas) is a feature film — a experimental psychological surrealistic drama. Mija exists between silent conversations and inner stillness. Things take an unexpected change as her distant friendship with Ieva shifts. Reality slowly starts to connect with dreams, memories and what could be projections of her own mind. This is a visually sensitive and atmospheric story about inner worlds, human connections and how easily one can become lost between reality and illusion.

Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux. During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet.

The (mostly) true story of the greatest jazz drummer you've never heard of who stumbled upon a 16-year-old singer and nurtured her into a legend.

Kevin returns home with a birthday surprise for his mother, Lisa, only to discover her lost in the mundane act of cooking. But something is terribly wrong—Lisa’s irritability, her forgetfulness, her unrecognizable gaze. What starts as a simple celebration spirals into a chilling revelation of a son witnessing his mother’s mental decline. Flake is an emotional exploration of the fragile nature of memory and the profound bond between mother and son.

During a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

A New York City writing professor, Frannie Avery, has an affair with a police detective who is investigating the murder of a beautiful young woman in her neighborhood.