WE ARE FAHEEM + KARUM

Short

In a rigid manor where everyone conforms, a woman receives an orange, a fruit she has never seen before. This discovery transports her into a forested world of sensual fluidity where she must choose between returning to her old life or embracing a new, transformative way of being.

Feature

Pillion is the unlikeliest (and most enthralling) of genre shake-ups, a romantic dark comedy about the biker dom who bends a meek sub to his will—and the sub who attempts to mold him in return. Colin (Harry Melling) is an endearingly crooked-teethed traffic enforcement officer who sings with his dad (Douglas Hodge) in a pub’s barbershop quartet. Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) is a biker god who reads Knausgård’s My Struggle while ignoring Colin, who satisfies his every whim. Thus, the stage is set for a twist on ‘opposites attract’: an is-it-love story of an impassive dom and his bemused submissive. As Colin begins to feel useful, a confidence that bleeds over into his thankless job, his dying mum Peggy (Lesley Sharp) grows less impressed. How much of himself is he willing to change to fit Ray’s strict rules? Is he losing his identity or becoming his true self? It’ll take some kinky wrestling, a countryside romp with Ray’s biker buddies (including a confident sub played by the Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears), and a war waged over sleeping arrangements to find out, in this sex-positive jaw-dropper brimming with sneaky humour and heft.

Short

Vivek navigates the chronic pain caused by the pressures of advocating for diversity, finding healing and strength through weightlifting.

Feature

Frances, feeling boxed in by their Australian high school, plunges into their self-centred grandpa Jim’s queer milieu in Amsterdam. There, with their mother’s strained attempts at soft counsel, they face unfamiliar experiences and Jim’s prodding to both justify themselves and evolve, learning that what is brave is invariably uncomfortable. Jimpa (John Lithgow) may be a grandpa, but he’s also a gay activist who loves getting naked; someone who believes conversation is a “collision of opinions”; a man who needs to feel useful but keeps loved ones at arm’s length. And Hannah (Olivia Colman) is more than just his daughter. She’s a filmmaker; a mother of a non-binary 16-year-old (Aud Mason-Hyde); a woman who some consider conflict-averse. But is she? Or is Hannah’s radical acceptance and belief in “working towards agreement” a healthy approach to complexity? A way of rejecting a culture that stews in its traumas? This stance will be tested by unlikely desires and inflections of the past, which soak into the fabric of the present. Dynamized by stellar performances, Jimpa is an empathetic masterpiece that subverts expectations and cliches, illuminating the pleasures and pain points of intergenerational attachment.

Feature

A stroke upends 76-year-old Vicente’s recently charmed life in the Canary Islands, forcing him to trade his queer eden for a restrictive care home in San Sebastián—and to consider how essential his sexuality is to his identity. Among the nude forms dotting the Maspalomas dunes is Vicente (Jose Ramón Soroiz), a young man giving him pleasure. After 50 closeted years, this sensual existence is to be his reward. But three months later, he finds himself in a long-term care facility with neither income nor his beloved dog, minded by his estranged daughter (Nagore Aranburu). Paired with a motormouthed roommate (Kandido Uranga) with far right sympathies. Anonymously messaging his carer Iñaki (Kepa Errasti) but rejecting him in person. Camera sweeps and choral flourishes encapsulating a world that moves while he sits still. Then, a new manager brings changes just as he’s assimilated to the pale ghost of his days, dangling the hope of a “real home.” Taking us from 2018 Pride to the 2020 pandemic, directors Aitor Arregi and José Mari Goenaga honour those affected by health crises and the inexorable fact of time’s passage, which alters us in unpredictable ways.

Feature

The dangers of the past come in many forms. Two estranged Mi’kmaw siblings confront old animosities in an ancient forest, both in desperate need of healing. In their quest to rid themselves of the lingering evil that haunts them, they encounter the trail of their ancestors—and of their former selves. Mise’l (Blake Alec Miranda) is working a grueling shift when the jukebox warbles to life and an ominous presence from their childhood reveals itself, still capable of inflicting its wounds. Desperate, they seek out their younger brother, Antle (Forrest Goodluck). A task that requires them to part from their supportive partner and return home after many years away. Begrudgingly, their brother agrees to the journey, worried for his daughter’s safety if he does nothing, and they set out on a time-spanning mission. Elders are consulted. Strange creatures stalk them. Kinship is tested. The two heading deeper and deeper into nature at its most nurturing, and most menacing. From Bretten Hannam, the Two-Spirit L'nu filmmaker behind 2021’s acclaimed Wildhood (Opening Film I+N34, 2021), this is a ghost story of the highest order—equal parts eerie and edifying, and utterly unforgettable.

Feature

A tight-knit group of revolutionary gay filmmakers in late-1950s former Yugoslavia are shackled by the state to Emir, a communist bureaucrat conditioned to see sabotage everywhere. When the group endeavours to use the Tito regime’s ideological weapons against them, an upended system or the horrors of Barren Island await. Desire—for all of us—can be a heady cocktail. In a society that turns desire inside out, with trust shaken and lover pitted against lover, it becomes a minefield. Dancing cheek to cheek and screwing with abandon turned into revolutionary acts, art a tool for undermining authority. All tactics taken up by professional and romantic partners Lovro (Dado Cosic) and Nenad (Djordje Galic) and their fellow filmmakers (Slaven Doslo, Elmir Krivalic). The four friends determined to savour glimpses of the beautiful lives possible if defense mechanisms could safely fall—a boogie-woogie record; a secluded, seaside house in Istria—as they risk their lives for the cause of freedom. In Croatia’s official submission for the 2025 Academy Awards, the sex is explicit, the stakes and brutality intense, the cinematography stunning. A gutting and rarefied concoction immortalized by writer-director Ivona Juka’s daring cinematic achievement.

Short

When her childhood best friend falls in love, nostalgic teenager Dodo struggles to let go of the past and goes to increasingly dangerous lengths to secure her affections, threatening to spoil their idyllic lakeside holiday.

Feature

Azad is a transman and aspiring film student who lives discreetly, but happily, with his girlfriend Nora in Iran’s bustling capital, Tehran. After the long and grueling process of acquiring gender affirming care, one last step stands in Azad’s way of medically transitioning–a signature of consent from his estranged father. Farnoosh Samadi presents the heart-wrenching tale of young love strained under the confines of social oppression, where sumptuary legislation enforces dress codes and women can be subjected to ‘virginity tests.’ Even darker shadows lurk beneath the stunning scenery of the remote Iranian village where Azad hails from–a place he is no longer welcome for bringing shame to his conservative and superstitious family simply by being himself. Plagued by strange premonitions, in intermittent and surreal dream sequences, Nora soon finds herself suspicious of her partner’s true whereabouts when Azad suddenly goes missing and his family insists that he has returned to Tehran without her. A slow burn that eventually heats up with riveting intensity, Between Dreams and Hope tells a remarkable story of strength, courage, and resilience that leaves a profound and lasting impression long after the credits have rolled.

Short

In the near future, Dove, a gender fluid person, discovers the powers and perils of their Inkwo (Indigenous medicine) while defending the living against a horde of ravenous monsters, testing their courage, resilience, and connection to the Earth.