DigiCult

The story of a young, lonesome man trapped in a dystopian world who falls in love with a supermarket self-checkout machine.

13-year-old Nico is badly beaten by his brother while playing with fireworks. To gain revenge, he steals his brother's cat. Unable to return home, he meets up with some other kids, and they head to the railway track where two of the boys commit an act of mindless brutality. Nico is compelled by the frenzied horror of earlier events to join in. As the day draws to a close, the boys break up and head home and Nico is left to contemplate his actions.

Mike picks up his teenage son on his birthday so they can spend a rare day together, but soon realizes that there is a lot they don't know about each other anymore.

Girls boarding school in the remote Scottish Highlands, 1986. Reg is a lonely 15 year old girl, who stares longingly out of her dorm window at the chainsaw wielding tree surgeon working in the school grounds. Reg and her classmates have to take part in a self defense exercise - The Attack Test. Alone, Reg must walk through the woods until she is attacked by her masked teacher, Mike, at which point she must defend herself using force. This is intended as real life preparation for these privileged and inexperienced women living in an isolated world where rape paranoia was rife. Full of trepidation, Reg walks into the woods where Mike is waiting, but the test does not go according to plan.

Greer is a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Like some curious fabled creature she lives in a remote, rundown woodland farmhouse with her Dad, Ivan, a former gamekeeper whose mind has been ravaged by chronic mental illness. Father and daughter are suspected and ostracized by the nearby village. Greer spends her working days tending to elderly, failing residents of the local care-home and the rest of her time looking after her dad. But despite her loving devotion to Ivan, Greer imagines life beyond the narrow confines of her own and is troubled by the heavy burden she bears. Greer romanticises about a life lived in colour. The impossibly glamorous Francoise and Seamus crash into the care-home to visit his mother. Greer is entranced. They seem to epitomize everything she's dreamt of: beauty, success, sophistication and access to the world in all its glory. She attaches herself to them, flattered by their awareness of her and enraptured by the atmosphere of decadence they inhabit.

Ryan moves from one village to the next with a merry-go-round. It isn't easy to keep finding new friends.

A contemporary interpretation of the art of Baroque, inspired by the Italian painters of the period. Commissioned by Milan's Festival Delle Lettere and based on a letter about beauty, by Italian actor Vittorio Gassman.

A Berlinale award nominated short feature.