Rock Bottom (2002)

Set during a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

1984, Sandusky, Ohio. A naive 17-year-old navigates heartbreak and self-expression as he explores his sexuality.

Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach works dead-end jobs to support his sister and her son. Questioning his life, he paints, surfs and hangs out with his best friend, Gabe. When Gabe's older brother returns home for the summer, Zach suddenly finds himself drawn into a relationship he didn't expect.

Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier, it's a little more complicated. He hasn't told his family or friends that he's gay, and he doesn't know the identity of the anonymous classmate that he's fallen for online. Resolving both issues proves hilarious, terrifying and life-changing.

The story of Nathan, a young teenager who tries to flourish in a romantic relationship with neighbour Roy. The two young men will have to face the brutal reality of the rural south of the United States in the late 1970s.

Gabriel rents a room in Juan’s House. They work together in a Woodwork place. Gabriel is a very quiet guy and has a little daughter. Juan is a party boy who has a lots of girls around. Inadvertently the sexual tension starts to grow between them. It opens a new hidden forbidden world they have to deal with.

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.

On the outskirts of Brooklyn, Frankie, an aimless teenager, suffocates under the oppressive glare cast by his family and a toxic group of delinquent friends. Struggling with his own identity, Frankie begins to scour hookup sites for older men.

The holidays get overly festive as Olaf "Gunn" Gunnunderson, an out-and-proud gay college student, crawls back into the closet to survive the holidays with his parents. But when his boyfriend, Nathan, shows up at their doorstep unannounced, Gunn must put on a charade to keep the relationship a secret. With pressure mounting from all sides, will Gunn come out before the truth does?

On Manhattan's gilded Upper East Side, a young gay painter is torn between an obsession with his infamous best friend and a promising new romance with an older foreign pianist.

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.

Four interwoven stories about love and self-acceptance: An eleven year-old boy struggles to keep secret the attraction he feels towards his male cousin. Two former childhood friends reunite and start a relationship that gets complicated due to one of them’s fear of getting caught. A gay long lasting relationship is in jeopardy when a third man comes along. An old family man is obsessed with a young male prostitute and tries to raise the money to afford the experience.

A group of New Yorkers caught up in their romantic/sexual milieu converge at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality, and loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. Here, gay couple Jamie and James meet Ceth, a young ex-model and aspiring singer.

Alex Truelove is on a quest to lose his virginity, an event eagerly awaited by his patient girlfriend and cheered on with welcome advice by his rowdy friends. But Alex, a super gregarious dude, is oddly unmotivated. A magical house party throws Alex into the presence of Elliot, a hunky college guy, who pegs Alex as gay and flirts hard. Alex is taken aback but after a series of setbacks on the girlfriend front he takes the plunge and learns some interesting new facts about himself.

In the dirtiest, funniest, most scandalous gay-teen-sex-comedy-parody ever, four young gay friends make a pact to lose their virginity by the end of the summer. The boys soon face giant sex toys, naked celebrities, masochistic teachers and an uncontrollable romance with a quiche.

Pim lives in a run-down house in a dead-end street somewhere on the Flanders coast, together with his mother Yvette Bulteel. Life here smells of cold French fries, cheap cigarettes, vermouth and stale beer. As a kid, Pim dreams of a better life, imagining princesses and beauty queens. But when Pim turns sixteen, he begins dreaming of Gino, the handsome boy next door, instead.

13-year-old Gabe Kowalski is a late bloomer who goes to great lengths to impress his classmate crush, Shane.

After a drunken house party with his straight mates, Russell heads out to a gay club. Just before closing time he picks up Glen but what's expected to be just a one-night stand becomes something else, something special.

Christian, a hunky, 20-something, West Hollywood party boy gets more than he bargains for when he tries to seduce 19-year-old Elder Aaron Davis, a sexually confused Mormon missionary who moves into his apartment complex.

When juvenile inmate Malcolm is offered a chance at parole, he is torn between his chance for freedom and protecting the one he loves.

Quim, is a 24-year-old boy who lives in Valencia, which will tell us different phases of his life until the moment he falls in love for the first time, in a society where not all types of love are correctly accepted.

A love story between skaters is crossed by a family dispute. Everything is not always what it seems among adolescents, though ambiguous areas are naturally installed and enabled. Crossing traditional gender love is strong and familiar containment imperative.

Leonard is a man of routine, as is his journey home from work. Everyday is the same. But today is an exception, when he meets a stranger who causes his fantasy and reality to collide.

On a hot summer morning, a group of friends get naked without really knowing what they want to arrive at.

Like O'Henry's Tainted Tenner this 10 peso note, found on a sink in a men's room passes from hand to hand through many lives.

To be in love is a great feeling. But if you are gay and you can't show you love as you might like. What would your parents say? How will other people react? The short film "Then you can be free" empowers young gays to be proud of what they are.

A night with a troubled stranger forces a young male sex worker to confront a haunting moment from his past that he thought he'd left behind.

Sunji worries that he may have a private problem that the guys are unwilling to assist with. Zario is reminded of the first time he met Sunji and Ellington.

They are both high school friends who are like Tom and Jerry. Constantly teasing each other. As time goes by they become closer and hang out more often until classmates start spreading the rumor that both are gay together. Qiao Ke is a person who can't handle bullying by others and rumors and thus stops talking to Yunan.

Two individuals. Two men. One location. One secret love. This short film tells the story of a secret love that takes place in an art school. A love between two individuals, both lost in their secret lives.

Sean is deaf, a high school student and a cross country runner. He's also a closeted gay teenager who's just coming to terms with his sexuality and his attraction to a fellow team-mate.

A group of Spanish boys take advantage of a high roof to ogle a sunbathing woman, but the presence of an adjacent male nude complicates matters.

When juvenile inmate Malcolm is offered a chance at parole, he is torn between his chance for freedom and protecting the one he loves.

Julian is a melancholic teenager on holiday at the family cottage. His holiday gets a twist when a mysterious neighbor confuses him. A summertime coming-of-age drama.

Fragments of the approximation between two boys shows the naive curiosity of Celio for Dario, the assumption of Sofia by this approximation and the previous interest of Dario for Celio.

When a young gay lawyer arrives on Fire Island to explore his sexuality, he becomes witness to a murder after being drugged. A stranger helps him to safety, but he soon discovers his saviour is friends with the killer.

Introverted Juan, manager of a mannequin factory, lives alone with his eighteen-year-old gay son, Pablo. Whilst Pablo blithely studies dance, Juan is hoping that, after twenty-five years at the firm, his boss will consider him for a partnership. When Pablo is badly wounded in a brutal homophobic attack which sees him hospitalised, his father realises just how far they have become estranged. A lack of witnesses and expensive medical bills force Juan to leave the quiet stability of his life for good and reposition himself in a world where there is discrimination. Time and again his efforts come to nought, until one night on the streets of Santiago he makes up his own rules in order to save his son.

The third episode of the Cities of Love franchise, Rio, I Love You is an anthology, created by 10 visionary directors from across the globe. The story line of each segment focuses on an encounter of love in a different neighborhood of the city, demonstrating the distinctive qualities and character of that location. The film serves to bridge gaps between cultures, educating and entertaining the audience, while celebrating unique and universal expressions of love.

A closeted boy runs the risk of being outed by his own heart after it pops out of his chest to chase down the boy of his dreams.