Dancing when no one is watching, stolen kisses, a touch in the dark. Those hidden little pleasures that would set hearts on fire.

WARSHA
by Dania Bdeir, France, Lebanon 2022, 15'
Mohammad is a crane operator working in Beirut. One morning he volunteers to take on one of the tallest and notoriously most dangerous cranes in Lebanon. Away from everyone’s eyes, he is able to live out his secret passion and find freedom.

SUPREME
by Youssef Youssef, Switzerland 2021, 20'
In the euphoria at the end of one of their shows, seven drag queens are confronted with violent adversaries – a situation which puts their bond to the test. Although this community is still subject to hostile demonstrations, the film highlights gestures of tenderness and the desire for love and reconciliation through three characters: endearing, beautiful, extrovert and fragile all at once.

BEŞ
by Ayla Çekin Satijn, Netherlands 2022, 6'
Asli, a young, Turkish woman, no longer lives in the village where she grew up. She has a girlfriend with whom she lives, and has built a life of her own. Here, she doesn’t have to define herself to anyone. She desperately wants to go to Irem’s engagement party but is scared that her old friends won’t accept her. She has the prejudice that they won’t welcome her and her sexuality. When the ritual at the henna party starts, Asli suddenly sees her younger self. The encounter with the girl reminds her of her youth, when the group of friends played together without judgment and enjoyed each other’s company without a care. This memory reassures Asli and makes her realise she is safe and allowed to be who she is. And through this, she understands that she harbours the biggest prejudice and once more feels connected with her Turkish background.

FISH OUT OF WATER
by Nur Özkaya, Turkey 2021, 4'
In society – which is a social organism in itself – the prevailing emotions are order, togetherness, and similarity. Fish Out Of Water talks about being an “other” individual in this organism, where different people are perceived as a danger, and tells of the conflict in the inner and outer world of such an outsider through the means of a monologue. The aim of this experimental animation, in which I conveyed my own experiences, was to show the “incompatibility” in society.

ONE LIKE HIM
by Caitlin McLeod, Jordan, UK 2022,
Amman, 1990s. Teenage Karim rings his best friend Ramzi and asks if he wants to come over. But Ramzi’s mother has found Karim’s letter on his pillow. Ramzi tells Karim they can’t see each other anymore. The line goes dead. Present day Amman. Karim and Ramzi are meeting for the first time since that call, twenty years ago. Karim alludes to the fact that he is now engaged to a man. Ramzi, affronted, leaves the bar.