(Feature Film Competition)
O Signo da Cidade | The Sign of the City, by Carlos Riccelli (Brazil, 2008, 95’)

While asteroids and stars roam the São Paulo skyline, thrusting their magic randomly, men and women question themselves on what will be of their hopes and dreams. Gil is married and alone. Lydia plays with fire. Josialdo was born to be a woman. Mônica just wants to succeed in life. In her late night radio show in which she takes phone calls from anonymous listeners, Teca, an astrologer, finds herself lost in between other peoples’ longings and her own problems. Little by little, fate entwines them all in the same web. On the quest to overcome isolation and finding redemption, they will discover the life changing power of solidarity.

In this “filmed-in-one-shot” short film, director Nick Wauters gets inside the minds of the patrons of a gay bar. And it’s not pretty.

(Feature Film Panorama)
Patrik 1.5 | Patrik, Age 1.5, by Ella Lemhagen (Sweeden, 2008, 100’)

Göran and Sven have been cleared to adopt a Swedish orphan, Patrik 1.5. But when Patrik arrives he turns out to be someone else, not the little boy they were expecting. A dot had been misplaced, and in comes a 15-year-old homophobe with a criminal past.

22h00

(Closing Film)
Were the World Mine, by Tom Gustafson (USA, 2008, 96’)

If you had a love-potion, who would you make fall madly in love with you? Timothy, prone to escaping his dismal high school reality through dazzling musical daydreams, gets to answer that question in a very real way. After his eccentric teacher casts him as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he stumbles upon a recipe hidden within the script to create the play’s magical, purple love-pansy. Armed with the pansy, Timothy’s fading spirit soars as he puckishly imposes a new reality by turning much of his narrow-minded town gay, beginning with the rugby-jock of his dreams. Ensnaring family, friends and enemies in this heartwrenching chaos, Timothy forces them to walk a mile in his musical shoes. The course of true love never did run smooth, but by the end of this moving musical comedy of errors based on director Tom Gustafson’s prolific award-winning short film, Fairies, the bumpy ride comes to a heartfelt conclusion. With vibrant imagery, a first-rate ensemble cast and innovative music rivalling the best of pop / rock and contemporary Broadway, Were the World Mine attempts to push modern gay cinema and musical film beyond expectation.