Playlist
<p>Near Geneva, seven girls on the verge of adulthood recall in their rooms the words and dances of TikTok that shaped their youth. Between intimate and collective memory, they drift from room to room, dancing through a final suspended night as they search for connection and identity, pushing their gestures to the edge.</p>
<p>July 14, on Bastille Day. Strained by the military cadence of the barracks, Sergeant Lafleur struggles with the silent burden of duty. A doctor grants him one night of freedom, under the condition that he shall return before dawn. Nocturnal wanderings begin in the heart of a world which gradually drifts away from reality. A night suspended between destiny and desertion.</p>
<p>One evening, my friend Alyssa confides in me: she has just started a new relationship, but it is already off to a wobbly start! Over the following months, I meet up with her to hear the latest developments. Little by little, her sister and our friends join in, each sharing their takes on the situation.</p>
<p>Otto Vidal, 14, disappeared after writing a farewell letter to his classmates. While everyone believes he is dead, Léna, a girl from his high school, spots him one night roaming the streets of the city.</p>
<p>Enzo, 19, and his sister Carla, 20, have been fending for themselves for years. When their father, Anthony, is released from prison, Enzo sees the fleeting promise of rebuilding a family, while it is inconceivable for Carla. As his past catches up with him, Enzo must confront a reality he has kept to himself for far too long.</p>
<p>Étienne is a lorry driver. Fastened to the road, his love life is reduced to fleeting, nameless encounters in parking lots. When he meets Bartosz, a Polish lorry driver, his loneliness is turned upside down.</p>
<p>In Los Angeles, AJ, a shy teenager, meets Kristen. She lives for surfing; he loves skateboarding and drawing. They fall madly in love, and a happy future seems within reach. But everything changes when Kristen faces a sudden illness. Together, they face adversity, driven by the strength of their love, their friends, and their newly shared passion for surfing and the ocean.</p>
<p>A young man decided to visit an old cinema that was said to be a place where gay men went cruising. But while he was trying to free himself from loneliness and desire, the cinema seemed to come alive. It watched him, tempted him, and stared at him in the dark.</p>
<p>Sophie organises guided tours in the exclusion zone of the Golfech nuclear power plant, in southwestern France. In the aftermath of a disaster that occurred a few years earlier, she invites curious visitors from around the world to put on hazmat suits, masks, and dosimeters to explore the irradiated land on a Segway, where decontaminators are still at work. A tour led by a local guide who has little left to lose and much to gain.</p>
<p>When German-Indonesian Yanto (mid 20s) visits his younger sister in Yogyakarta, he expects a simple reunion – until he realises she belongs more effortlessly than he ever has. As envy and dissonance between siblings surface, Yantos journey becomes a bittersweet exploration of mixed-race identity.</p>
<p>A nimble-fingered pickpocket has one more day to pay back his ex, whose trust he has betrayed. With no accomplice, he turns to his cousin Pinpin, left in his care by his aunt until the next day.</p>
<p>In a country undergoing an awakening, a middle-aged woman wanders through war-torn Damascus. Just a few weeks after Assad’s fall she is searching for herself as she has lost her memory. When her path crosses Amira’s, the two women may just change each other's lives by providing the answers each is looking for.</p>
<p>A rumbling river and the call of a great hornbill echo through the rainforest… Flora, a six-year-old mixed-race girl, is imagining a story. Suddenly, the voice of her mother, Hortensia, brings her back to reality. Their reality: a modest life, filled with tender, joyful moments shared with her Baoulé aunts. Yet, an imperceptible shadow hangs over their happiness… Hortensia’s pain, caused by a genetic disease, seeps slowly into their daily lives.</p>
<p>While revisiting his now-abandoned school, Ignas runs into a former classmate. As they wander through corridors filled with conflicting memories, they try to capture what will soon be gone.</p>
<p>On the last evening before her departure, Vera is putting her small sister to bed. To hide the real reason for her leaving, she tells her a bedtime fairy tale instead. It's the story of a city swallowed by an eternal night.</p>
<p>What Do the Maknines Dream of follows the existential drift of two young Algerians as they are about to leave everything behind to cross the Mediterranean. Over the course of a day, the film is an invitation to get lost with this unusual couple, to experience their loneliness, to wander along with them through the streets, to share their passions, their fears, and to feel their pain as they say goodbye.</p>
<p>Kidnapped by a jungle tribe to be subjected to a brutal initiation ritual, three teenage girls enter a divine dimension where taming their totemic animals – giant snakes – is the only way to adulthood.</p>
<p>After coming face to face with death, 40-year-old Nora is consumed by an urgent need to feel alive. She dives into passionate relationships with two very different men, Tom and Max, whose opposing natures reflect her own inner conflict. But when neither can fill the void, Nora is forced to face the truth: she will have to confront a deeper fear driving her hunger for life.</p>
<p>Along a long-forgotten road, the O’Reillys live in a rundown trailer stranded in the middle of the fields. Pa’, Lisa, and their ten children weather the seasons in their tin castle, heirs to a way of life on borrowed time. Under threat of eviction, their tenuous balance falters, yet – steadfast in their tradition – they resist. The children laugh, the dogs bark, the trailer holds on – but for how long?</p>
<p>Mexico, early 90s. Bruno grows up in a happy, carefree family. On his eleventh birthday, as he learns his father is ill, this zest for life takes over. Everyone keeps on singing and dancing to ward off fate, like in a salsa song. Thirty years later, Bruno films and revisits the memories he couldn’t quite fathom as a child.</p>
<p>A Chinese girl grows up from the age of 6 to 18 across three families, each giving her a new name and a different life. As she searches for belonging and the possibility of love, she must face the weight of her past and the uncertainty of her future - until she finds her own way.</p>
<p>A group of French high-school students travel to Naples on a school trip to discover the ruins of Pompeii and the bodies petrified by Vesuvius. There, they are drawn into a dizzying descent. One by one, they are swept up in desire and anger, until they surrender to them completely.</p>
<p>Prishtina, Kosovo, late 1990s. As war looms and ethnic tensions escalate, 13-year-old Dua struggles to find her place among her peers and within her changing body. After an incident shakes her community, she becomes a target herself and bonds with a fearless girl, Maki, who draws her toward an unexpected form of resistance. Between the daily violence and the growing threat of exile, there is little room for quiet awakenings.</p>
<p>Layal runs a women-only petrol station in Yemen, a safe haven in a war-torn country. There, the rules are simple: no men, no weapons, no politics. When Layal’s younger brother faces enlistment, she reunites with her estranged sister to save the one life they still can.</p>