Ares

Everyone is worried about 16-year Lieke who has just lost her mother. But despite her grief Lieke continues her life in the swimming pool where she enjoys workouts with her coach. But then her trainer decides to train another girl.

If four bored young friends decide to sell stolen exams, the group gets in a state of euphoria. This seems to give them a feeling of freedom, but how long will it last?

Whether it's playing games in a military zone, cheating at school tests, crossing borders for cheap thrills or doing whatever it takes to make illicit money - these boys know that with every risk, they move closer and closer to an irreversible jeopardy. Deftly exploring masculinity and peer-pressure, these five coming-of-age tales from France, the Netherlands and Lithuania from burgeoning new filmmakers demonstrate that sometimes young hearts can run dangerously free.

The ugly duckling of a fraught middle-class household has her life turned upside-down by the arrival of a handsome German exchange student, in this caustic, absurdist satire of petit-bourgeois family life from Dutch director Michiel ten Horn. (TIFF)

Freshly dumped Maggie and flailing cab driver Max meet the night of a crippling transit strike, with the latter loading all of Maggie’s worldly possessions into the back of his decrepit van-cab. What should have been a simple fare becomes a wild, late-night odyssey.

Mathematics teacher Bernd comes to the conclusion that the youth's morals, values and thoughts (sexuality) are quite different than he thought they were.

The somewhat naïve teenager Alex Meulenaers leaves his hometown, to go study economics in Amsterdam. He is the first of his family to leave Limburg. However, faith has something else in store for him. The movie shows us how Alex sees Amsterdam: sometimes threathening, sometimes absurd and always with wonder.

When Ava wishes her parents would go away for winter break, the next morning all the adults are gone. Now the kids can do whatever they want! But they soon wish their parents back again.

Aanmodderfakker is a coming-of-age film, but 15 years too late. The film is about the 32-year old student Thijs who fils his life with beer, chicks and working in a large electronics store. But then something grows between Thijs and Lisa, the 16-year old baby-sitter at Thijs' sister.

An elderly man pines away in a nursing home. His family calls on him out of a guilty conscience, but they try to get away from the stuffy atmosphere as soon as possible. The old man obliges them and behaves unresponsive. But as soon as everybody is gone, he smiles contented while softly speaking to his canary Arie. The human form the bird suddenly assumes is the kick-off for an adventure.

A small boy and his retarded brother are completely dominated by their old, grumpy, angry mother. She swears, beats and doesn't seem to know how to prepare a proper meal anymore. Her embittered attitude is the result of the great emptiness she feels since her only successful son left to join the army. From that day on the two other sons have to cope with this enraged mother. Every evening dinner consist of the same boring, sticky spaghetti. Luckily the youngest son made up an ingenious plan to change all this for ever.