Marc Thelosen

Worlds collide in more ways than one in this stunning collection. Confidence is violated, classes clash and desire is concealed, yet love still triumphs regardless of the consequences. Boys On Film 14: Worlds Collide features nine new, powerful, and dramatic short films: Lee Haven Jones's "Want It" starring Jamie Cutler and Alan Turkington; Sophy Holland and Alicya Eyo's "Brace" starring Jake Graf and Harry Rundle; Mauro Mueller's "A World For Raúl" starring Alexandré Barceló and Adrián Alonso; Dennis Shinners's "Barrio Boy" starring Dennis Garcia and Dan Leonard; Darwin Serink's "Aban + Khorshid" starring Mojean Aria and Bobby Naderi; Jan-Dirk Bouw's "I ♥ Hooligans"; Christopher Bradley's "The Violation" starring Slade Pearce, Elaine Hendrix, and Shayne Topp; Rafael Aidar's "The Package" starring Jefferson Brito and Victor Monteiro; and Søren Green's "An Afternoon" starring Ulrik Windfeldt-Schmidt and Jacob Ottensten.

Guided by the evocative narration of Charlotte Rampling, Nostalgia for the Future is a descent into the labyrinthine world of Chris Marker, the “best-known author of unknown films,” who spent a lifetime concealing himself behind a veil of pseudonyms and images of cats. Moving through a constellation of personal documents and film fragments, an archivist attempts to decode the man through the material traces he left behind. By repurposing and recontextualizing Marker’s own body of work, the film treats his images as “time machines,” transforming the archive into a landscape of living memory. Nostalgia for the Future is a meditation on memory, identity, and the power our past images hold over the futures we imagine.

Who am I? What is real? How to live in the madness of the world? These are questions posed by six people who have had psychosis and speak openly about their experience. They have in common that they think deeply, and that at particular moments in their lives, they were under intense personal and social pressure.

A football hooligan feels unconditional love for his club. However, being gay, he has to hide his identity in order to survive in this world that is so precious to him.

In FEAST, perpetrators, victims and their spectators become involved in a dramatic reconstruction of the Groningen HIV case. The film tells a story about power and surrender, the reversibility of truth and the desire to come home somewhere.

About 10 years ago, filmmaker Ton van Zantvoort got to know Stijn, an idealist with a cheerful, relaxed nature. Stijn is one of the last remaining Dutch shepherds working in the traditional way. We see the shepherd, his sheep and his three loyal dogs crisscrossing nature reserves and farmlands so the herd can graze the land in an eco-friendly way. But nowadays, little remains of the romance and peace that we associate with the centuries-old tradition of sheepherding. Tenders are increasingly hard to acquire—competition from big companies, cheap East European shepherds and smart machinery make Stijn the expensive choice.

The 12-year-old black girl Ella is deprived of safety, opportunities, and freedom. Ella discovers that she has lived multiple lives in Ghana, Curaçao and Surinam as the immortal, extraterrestrial Xoxo. In this magical realistic feature with elements of science fiction, a paralleled world is created from where the aliens observe human thoughts and feelings.

Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.

Branko dwells on the fringes of Belgrade society. Isolated and unable to sleep, he speaks to no-one. His only obsession seems to be his younger brother, whose muddy shoes, bloodstained sheets, and murky whereabouts unsettle him. As paranoia sets in, Branko realises his brother isn't the strange one. He is.

A journey at high altitude seen through the eyes of three mysteriously connected hikers. After their coincidental meeting we follow these three on their personal odysseys. The levels of concentration they exhibit in trying to avoid mistakes makes their experience of the overwhelming landscape even more intense.

A young boy pursues his dream of being a pilot and becomes instrumental to a nation's nightmare.

At a small cemetery in Zeeland, two worlds meet for Bart’s funeral: his traditional, religious family and his loving friends from Amsterdam’s 1980s gay community. When Bart, the 28-year-old brother of filmmaker Koert Davidse, died of AIDS in 1986, silence surrounded both his illness and his coming out. Forty years later, Davidse revisits his brother’s free-spirited life through childhood memories, interviews, and Bart’s drawings and paintings. Once inseparable, the brothers drifted apart when Bart moved to Amsterdam—only to reconnect shortly before his death. In retracing this bond, Davidse bridges the gap between two lives and two cultures, crafting a deeply personal yet universal reflection on love, loss, and queer resilience amid a time of fear and change.

An obsessive collector (Erik Fens) creates his own scrapbook world. The film presents analyses of the collecting impulse based on Freudian theorie and Buddhism.

Man is a cubical shaped figure who rectifies all bumps and humps in order to keep his desolate world flat. His confrontation with a little red ball, that loves to create gigantic holes, messes up his ideal of a perfect straight world.

An endless void stretches out behind the windows of a large room. Only windows, no doors. It’s empty except for five people sitting at a table that seats six. Their withered bodies adorned with lush fabrics and jewelry, they spend eternity playing with their food. A charged silence fills the air. Any violation of the strict social rules is immediately suppressed by the others. When the fragile equilibrium in the group is finally broken by the boy’s constant pestering, things start spiraling out of control. His mother tries her best to protect both him and herself from the consequences but playing this double role comes at a high price.

ZAAD tells the autobiographical story of Dries Meddens. After the death of his mother, the care for Dries' bipolar father falls on his plate. He discovers how crudely and ruthlessly society and psychiatry treat patients. His father eventually dies in solitary confinement. While emptying his parent’s home, Dries discovers an old letter from his grandfather. The man appears to have led a busy, productive life. He is the founder of an internationally renowned seed breeding company and still has time to paint, write diaries and conduct intensive correspondence. Dries finds similarities between his grandfather, his father and himself. Slowly the fear grows that his father's psychiatric illness might be hereditary. Strolling through the family’s film and photo archives, with dramatic and sometimes hilarious finds, Dries tries to find answers. He also consults a psychiatrist. Together the consultations and reviewing of his archival material help Dries look at bipolarity with new eyes.

We follow several cleaners in their daily battle against dirt. Floors are mopped, toilets scrubbed, a car washed, windows polished and a lawn cleared of leaves. These are everyday, unavoidable and universal forms of cleaning that play an obvious role in everyone’s life. Only here, the setting is highly specific: the car turns out to be a hearse, the lawn a cemetery and the interiors those of a crematorium. The everyday tragedy of cleaning is thus placed in relation to the fundamental tragedy of death.