Tobias Kersloot

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 short films are: Gotta (2015); The Last Day of School (2019); Tree House [Cabane] (2016); Gameboy (2014); Pollux (2018).

A truck carrying a Dutch military convoy on a peacekeeping mission breaks down somewhere in the desert. As a group of soldiers waits for a repair team to arrive, they encounter a local boy who refuses to leave.

Kos (13) is going through the most bizarre period in his life. His mother died a few years ago and his dad is having a heart attack. While Kos’ father is in the hospital, it looks like the hotel he is running will be a big mess. But Kos and his three sisters do not intend to let that happen. After the siblings find out that father is deep in financial problems, the hotel is threatened with closure. The children however come up with a solution: someone has to win the local beauty pageant, with a hefty cash prize attached.

When a boy is framed after an act of senseless violence by his friends, they turn against him for trying to tell the truth.

1888: a luthier, Vedder, has to step aside when his home, opposite the recently completed Central Station in Amsterdam, must yield for the planned Victoria Hotel. His cousin Anijs, pharmacist in the Northern provinces of the Netherlands, has gotten into a fix after illegal medical practices, and is looking for a way out. For himself and his wife Martha, but also for a colony of poor peat cutters whom he promises a future in the United States. Committed - or is it pride? - the two of them think up a scheme from which they all will fully benefit. With tragic consequences.

A comedy about three woman working at a boring holiday resort and their criminal employer.

Sabine is looking for the truth behind the disappearance of her best friend twenty years ago. An encounter with the handsome Olaf, a man she remembers from her teenage years, and the announcement of a high school reunion turn her life upside down.

To celebrate their anniversary, a young urban couple spends a weekend on a rural island, only to find its locals don't take too kindly to strangers.

Maarten is an ordinary 16-year-old. He likes to hang around in the park, listen to music, play videogames and dance as much as possible. Preferably with his dance partner Roxanne. But almost nobody, especially not Roxanne, knows he has a metabolic disease that could end his life. Despite the concerns of his parent, Maarten wants to live life to the fullest. But with his body failing him more and more, maybe the time has come to accept he is not ordinary.

Thijs, Tobias, Sjeng, and Tarik break into a house and steal a multitude of their school exams for profit. But in time, as their gain notoriety, the jig is up! But will all four go down, will there be consequences, and will that be all that happens to these rambunctious four young men?

James leads a lonely life in a luxurious castle in which his parents run a hotel. He never goes out with friends, spends his spare time in his room and peeks at the hotel's guests out of boredom and curiosity. Chased by his controlling mother, who only wants him to finish his homework, James is more interested in the group of handsome Swedish soccer players staying at the hotel. When he finds one of the boys injured at the hotel's swimming pool, James offers his help and smuggles the boy into his room and locks the door. Locked up with a strange boy in his own room, James experiences the complexity of his own sexual feelings for the first time.