Le Fresnoy

Stranded along a sublime river fjord in northern Portugal, an ornithologist is subjected to a series of brutal and erotic Stations-of-the-Cross-style tests.

André Demester secretly and painfully loves Barbe, his childhood friend, accepting from her the little that she gives him. He leaves home to be a soldier in a war in a far off land. Barbarity, camaraderie and fear turn him into a warrior. As the seasons go by, Barbe, alone and wasting away, waits for the soldiers to return. Will Demester’s boundless love for Barbe save him?

In the summer of 1979, gay porn producer Anne sets out to film her most ambitious film yet, but her actors are picked off, one by one, by a mysterious killer.

Island of La Réunion, in the beginning of the 20th century. Five teenagers commit a savage crime. As punishment, a Dutch captain takes them to a supernatural island with luxuriant vegetation and bewitching powers.

The mood is heated. Demonstrations are taking place across France, also in front of the Paris hotel where an Italian named Giorgio is booking the bridal suite for him and his boyfriend Antonio. Hotel manager Diana doesn’t trust them and calls the police to get rid of the odd couple. Italians? Homosexuals? Criminals? In the charged atmosphere of the Hotel Occidental, little is needed for initial suspicions to be aroused.

In 2004 Wim Vandekeybus shot a 52-minute feature based on his successful performance Blush. Carried by the music of David Eugene Edwards and Woven Hand and with texts by the Flemish author Peter Verhelst, Blush is a dazzling voyage swinging between the heavenly landscapes of Corsica and the slummiest depths of Brussels. It is an exploration of the savage subconscious, of mythical forests, of conflicting instincts, of imagination, where the body has reasons unknown to the mind. In dance sequences of attraction, confrontation and repulsion the performers take on animal metamorphoses…

A young woman wandering around meets a young man going to a casting call for a pornographic film.

A film that comprises in itself a form of dance – rather than a film about dance; an encounter between film and dance – rather than a film about a dancer. A documentary exploring Kō Murobushi’s dance and inner worlds, with purely cinematic means.

The history of barbed wire, whose use dates back to the first settlers of the Wild West, always driven by their reckless and ruthless spirit of conquest and selfish ambition to leave their mark on wild lands; of its relationship with politics and mercantilism; of the perversion of the millenary relationship between men and animals; of the evolution of surveillance techniques. Fences and borders: the tragic tale of the enclosure of the world.

IVUL is the extraordinary story of Alex (Jacob Auzanneau), a young man who climbs on to the roof of his house and refuses to ever come back down to earth. His actions devastate his beloved family and we watch as their world falls apart. A dark and mysterious gardener (Tchili from This Filthy Earth) keeps watch over the family but is powerless to exorcise the curse that he feels has befallen them. Meanwhile the twin sisters (Manon and Capucine) provide light but sometimes macabre relief. The world of IVUL is a world of both fairytale and nightmare with the family manor house and forest landscape providing a compelling backdrop to the story.

Akerman spends a brief period on her own in an apartment by the sea in Tel Aviv. She films from the apartment and in her narration she talks about her family, her Jewish identity and her childhood. She wonders whether normal everyday life is possible in this place and whether filming is a realistic option.

The only link between the images in the film is my desire to put them together. A collection of images and emotions.

In an Argentina divided between a deep conservatism and an unprecedented momentum in feminism, the film delves into the political journey and intimate lives of Claudia and Violeta. Trans women who identify as transvestites, the fight they lead with their comrades against the patriarchal violence is visceral and embodied. Convinced of their roles at the center of an ongoing revolution that intersects with so many struggles, in defiance of the old world they redouble their energy to invent a new present, to love and stay alive.

Jean-René is a retired workman who has lived in Mâcon, France, since emigrating from Reunion Island at the age of 17. Today, for the first time ever, the quiet man recounts his story to his daughter. His journey is interspersed with enigmatic dreams and pains that are rooted in the wounds of the French colonial past.

Wang Xilin, 86, is one of China's most important modern classical composers. During the Cultural Revolution he was the target of severe persecution, enduring beatings, imprisonment and torture. With excerpts from his Symphonies, he revisits for this film some of the horrifying events that still live on in his memory as testimony to an era that saw the dehumanization of the entire Chinese nation.

Gaspard is still very much in love with Leïla. They meet in a crowded bar a month after she left him. The conversation turns awry and Gaspard seeks refuge under the tablecloth, away from prying eyes and closer to his memories.

João Pedro Rodrigues answers the question from the title with an autobiographical short-film.

The main character, Ewa, is a young woman at early-stage career of a medical professional. She is taking up training in a futuristic looking Simulation Center, where she practices her skills by participating in life-like simulations, impersonating medical mannequins and role-playing. At some point, she starts losing recognition between experience and simulation. Suffering from insomnia and paranoia, she faces situation where she has to find her way to differentiate reality from fiction.

A group of men and women have been brought together after World War II, when Italy regained its national and territorial unity. They make up a primitive community which seeks to erase not only the distress created by the war but also the hardships of life, and look to protect themselves from violence, misery and fear. Amid the ruins of this post-war period, these men and women build a new rapport between themselves, between sexes, between generations, between social and geographical origins, between political camps.