Optimale

While Sasha's mother is dreaming of her son's great career as a pianist, Sasha is left speechless for other reasons: his beloved piano teacher Mr. Weber tells him, he is leaving town forever. Sasha is heartbroken, and the only person in whom he can confide his feelings, is his best friend, Jiao. As a son of an Ex-Yugoslav family even in Germany one rarely lives outside the closet, and Sasha is grateful that his homophobic father believes Jiao is his girlfriend. But what begins as a useful lie becomes a large and complicated one, when Sasha's younger brother, begins an affair with Jiao. All lies get exposed and what appears to be a catastrophe is in fact the revelation of new possibilities in the lives of Sasha's family.

Six youngsters aged between 20 and 30 years old, stranded within the restricted values of a provincial city, constrained to live in an emotional void, lacking dreams and acknowledged values, brought together by their rage and feeling that they have nothing left to lose. Luca finds happiness with his ex-girlfriend's outgoing brother Riccardo. When a gay-bashing leaves Riccardo dead, Luca lures the perps to an abandoned factory basement, where he pretends to join in on their sadistic torture of a passerby before he turns the tables.

Eros and Thanatos. One deep breath: this is what Maël might need to cope with his partner Adam's suicide, a tragic event that, apart from great sorrow, has caused him to have a physical breakdown. He is troubled by his doubts about his lover's last drastic act, by how he put an end to his life and to their difficult relationship. But his grief turns into anger when he discovers that Adam had a secret long-term relationship with a woman called Patricia: he digs deep into his own memories, recollecting past events and eventually meeting his rival. On her part, Patricia will have to face unexpected dangers. A claustrophobic melodrama, with an unstructured and evocative narrative style. Here, South African director Antony Hickling, 34, confirms his visionary talent and ability to adopt a fresh point of view on queer cinema. All the performers are strictly gay and transgender, including Manuel Blanc, who was once André Téchiné's muse.

Anam Wagner, a bisexual Belgium-based writer, comes back to his hometown where he has a hard time coping with his family's checkered past.