Sweet Bird of Youth

A collection of films from an eclectic array of contributors commissioned to raise funds for the Bristol independent cinema The Cube.

Nina, an art dealer, has her weekly massage appointment and is surprised to find out her usual masseur, Douglas, has sent a replacement named Fitch. The pair develop an easy rapport during the session, with talk about past relationships. As Nina lies topless on the massage table, Fitch also takes time to explain various massage techniques, including those used by Hopi medicine men.

Powerful supernatural forces are unleashed when a young architect becomes pregnant after moving to an isolated and mysterious valley to build a house.

Alex Linden is a psychiatrist living in Vienna who meets Milena Flaherty though a mutual friend. Though Alex is quite a bit older than Milena, he's attracted to her young, carefree spirit. Despite the fact that Milena is already married, their friendship quickly turns into a deeply passionate love affair that threatens to overtake them both. When Milena ends up in the hospital from an overdose, Alex is taken into custody by Inspector Netusil.

Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aborigine boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.

Young gangster Chas Devlin seeks refuge from the mob in a basement belonging to a reclusive, fading rock star Turner.

Middle-aged Gerald Kingsland advertises in a London paper for a female companion to spend a year with him on a desert island. The young Lucy Irving takes a chance on contacting him and after a couple of meetings they decide to go ahead. Once on the island things prove a lot less idyllic than in the movies, and gradually it becomes clear that it is Lucy who has the desire and the strength to try and see the year through.

A tale of power, passion and obsession set in a politically torn Eastern European country.

Four 1950s cultural icons who conceivably could have met but probably didn't, fictionally do so in this modern fable of post-WWII America. Visually intriguing, the film has a fluid progression of flashbacks and flashforwards centering on the fictional Einstein's current observations, childhood memories, and apprehensions for the future.

Laura and John, grieved by a terrible loss, meet in Venice, where John is in charge of the restoration of a church, two mysterious sisters, one of whom gives them a message sent from the afterlife.