Thereafter (Después)

CompetitionFeature

SPANISH • ENGLISH ST | Argentinian filmmaker Matías is an intense perfectionist struggling to shape his autobiographical film as the past wriggles from his grip. Is Alexander—a dashing fabulist from Sweden he met in Italy as a boy—the lost love of his life? Or just a lovely, bittersweet dream? At the United World College of the Adriatic, with its diverse, exuberant student body, young Matías (Santiago Madrussan) finds a freedom he never knew in Argentina. There, he is befriended by Alexander (Oscar Morgan), whose rousing stories and bedroom eyes make the world more magical, and whose family’s vast holiday home becomes a memory palace for all that was left unsaid. In his 40s, Matías (co-writer/director Juan Pablo Di Pace) looks back at this time and, with a festival deadline looming, tries to fathom the sizzling closeness and coded interactions. A key piece of evidence lying dormant for when he least expects it. With its meta intrigues and captivating sweep, Duino is an elegiac masterwork crackling with swoon-worthy chemistry. A film that asks: how far are we willing to go for a proper conclusion, and what, in the end, remains voices in the wind?

Made au CanadaCompetitionFeatureVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

Small towns are no place for secrets. Among the churchgoing folk of a Newfoundland fishing village, Eliza leads a double-life: exploring transgressive photography while managing an unspoken romance with a shunned woman and the insistent advances of a married man. Hearsay only two steps behind. Sneaking around the neighbours, Eliza (Michaela Kurimsky) stages increasingly revealing photoshoots in locations both remote and close to home—perhaps too close. With every new post to her 318K Instagram followers, she imperils the careful balance she’s cultivated between her coexistence with fellow villagers, her burgeoning romance with Toni (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers), and the married man (Peter Mooney) whose desire for her titillates as much as it terrifies. As a church fundraiser she’s helping to organize approaches, so too does a blaze of gossip, and choices are made that could leave her forever shattered. By turns kinky and kind-hearted, Melanie Oates’ second feature explores our wildest selves with a complexity that continues to deepen through to the final striking frame. All the while, embodying a true sense of place, depicting the rough shores and spirited personalities of one of the most isolated—and spectacular—of Canadian locales.

CompetitionDocumentaryVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

Struck by “archive fever,” a gay transmasculine Iranian-American searches for the roots of his desire. Navigating with us through this steamy hybrid documentary, he comes into contact with trailblazing transcestor Lou Sullivan, the contemporary lived experiences of other queer men, and the eroticism of his own unique body. With the assistance of young non-binary archivist Kieran (Theo Germain), older transman Ahmad (Aden Hakimi) delves into Chicago’s LGBTQ+ archives and the past and present bathhouses of Boystown to explore his homosexual longing. He learns—as we do through the real-life interviews and the history of raids and radical action that nest within this fictional storyline—that there is no one answer. There are as many points of view as there are interviewees. Archival footage of Lou Sullivan, who openly identified as trans and gay as far back as the 1970s, shows that though these conversations are not new, they are still very much necessary, connecting transmasculine gay men with themselves and the larger community. Jules Rosskam’s narratively frisky and hugely affecting film is a celebration of complexity, working to dissolve rigid labels and authoritative permission when it comes to narrating one’s own sexuality.

CompetitionFeature

In a fraught exchange between Leipzig and Strasbourg, Fanny and Lena warm to each other while the situation around them heats up. As it gets harder to parse fact from fiction, too much trust and not enough, they look to protest movements to teach them what out-of-control adults cannot. Writer-director Claire Burger’s nuanced drama is bracingly of-the-moment, capturing topical issues with a foreboding sense of longing and imminent disaster, and inspiring fiery performances from her leads, including Nina Hoss as a mother undone. After an initially cold reception from Lena (Josefa Heinsius) when she arrives in Germany, 17-year-old Fanny (Lilith Grasmug) will do anything to ingratiate herself with her prickly pen pal. Chocolate-covered shrooms, sexual experimentation, bonding over Antifa and black bloc protest movements—each attempt at connection becomes more daring than the one before, their “Franco-German friendship” mirroring the heated clashes of our time. When the school exchange is flipped, and Lena is now the fish out of water in France, giving into the attraction sizzling under her animosity will mean coming to terms with a world tearing apart at the seams and the fantasies built up to survive it.

CompetitionFeature

SPANISH • FRENCH ST | Argentinian filmmaker Matías is an intense perfectionist struggling to shape his autobiographical film as the past wriggles from his grip. Is Alexander—a dashing fabulist from Sweden he met in Italy as a boy—the lost love of his life? Or just a lovely, bittersweet dream? At the United World College of the Adriatic, with its diverse, exuberant student body, young Matías (Santiago Madrussan) finds a freedom he never knew in Argentina. There, he is befriended by Alexander (Oscar Morgan), whose rousing stories and bedroom eyes make the world more magical, and whose family’s vast holiday home becomes a memory palace for all that was left unsaid. In his 40s, Matías (co-writer/director Juan Pablo Di Pace) looks back at this time and, with a festival deadline looming, tries to fathom the sizzling closeness and coded interactions. A key piece of evidence lying dormant for when he least expects it. With its meta intrigues and captivating sweep, Duino is an elegiac masterwork crackling with swoon-worthy chemistry. A film that asks: how far are we willing to go for a proper conclusion, and what, in the end, remains voices in the wind?

CompetitionShort

Hao Ling, an Asian American emergency doctor, struggles with his guilt and fear of ruining the relationship with his father after coming out. When a patient introduces him to the gaysian party scene, Hao reconnects to his true emotions and takes actions to reunite with his father while learning valuable lessons on relationships.

CompetitionFeatureIN CINEMA

PORTUGUESE • FRENCH ST | Wellington (defiantly nicknamed Baby) trades his detention centre cell for the streets of São Paulo, absorbed into the life of an in-demand “escort” with old school methods. Torn between this erotic father figure, two chosen families, and the mother who left him, Wellington must discern which link is the strongest. Against a backdrop of corrupt cops, vengeful kingpins, and Brazilian ball culture, maybe-18-year-old Wellington (João Pedro Mariano) falls for 42-year-old sex worker cum drug dealer Ronaldo (Ricardo Teodoro), who has a son not much younger than Wellington being raised by lesbian mothers. The two share a charged, teasing bond with yo-yoing power dynamics. Wellington softens Ronaldo, schooling him in voguing’s ebullience and showing him his battle scars, while Ronaldo grounds his protege, giving him boxing lessons while doling out paternal advice and setting strict boundaries. Boundaries that Ronaldo is desperate to maintain and Wellington comes to resent when youthful potential and a biological parent draw him away. Propelled by Marcelo Caetano’s stylish direction, this gritty coming-of-age tale wrestles with themes of love and coercion, considering what’s still possible for a restless heart when a ‘baby’ becomes a man.

Queerment QuébecCompetitionShort

The filmmaker aka Tranie Tronic tells the tale of the incident that inspired their latest album Transgression and brings awareness to the potential dangers of dating men online.

Made au CanadaCompetitionShort

Between loads of laundry at the corner laundromat, Cooper shares the tumultuous story of her gender reassignment journey.

CompetitionFeature

After Nino shows Iva the ropes, the two cable car drivers woo one another in increasingly ingenious ways. Day after day, the young women pass high above a quiet Georgian valley twisted with mist, cherishing each moment of connection. But when sweetness slides into sensuality, where will it send them? A man has died, his coffin carted above the village, and Iva (Mathilde Irrmann) inherits his crooked home and high-flying occupation. At first, villagers treat her with an enigmatic disdain, and she spends her days transporting customers and goods back and forth in disquiet, stealing glances at Nino (Nini Soselia). The flirtation grows as intense as their ongoing chess game, set to the rhythm of the rusted gears and their little kindnesses. Together, they will take on a surly widow (Niara Chichinadze) and lecherous boss (Zuka Papuashvili) as their courtship reaches new heights. Auteur Veit Helmer’s Gondola has the raw intensity of silent cinema and the enchanting whimsy of Amélie. Impelled by its beguiling leads and breathtaking cinematography, the film is a love letter to the countryside and those who live there, and an invitation to let your heart soar.