Life is an endless cycle of cooking, laundry, and dishwashing for New Jersey housewife Julie Johnson (Lili Taylor). But Julie’s been nurturing a secret passion: a flair for scientific theory. Taking a huge step, Julie enrolls in a night class at a local high school—a decision that her best friend Claire (Courtney Love) supports. When Julie’s domineering husband strongly disapproves, Julie finally gets up the nerve to throw him out. Claire moves in while Julie and, together with Julie’s children, they form an unconventional but loving family—but lingering issues threaten to tear them apart. A story about self-discovery and shaky potential, Julie Johnson explores one woman’s desire to break free of other people’s expectations and the bravery required to pursue her dreams.

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Winner of the Prix de Jeunesse (Youth Award) at Cannes, this sensitive, seriocomic coming-of-age film explores the fragile emotions of adolescent sexual experimentation. Best friends Dani and Nico spend ten days together at a beach house on the coast of Spain while Dani’s parents vacation in Egypt. With extraordinary tact, the film observes the friends’ exploratory sexual fumblings in the bed they share during the visit. Tensions arise as their sexual identities begin to diverge – for Nico, the nightly sessions are mere convenience, while for Dani they are fraught with emotion and romantic hope. This unflinching, yet delicate take on the rides of adolescence affectionately transports us back to those awkward days of longing, curiosity, innocence and fear.

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Audience award winner at five festivals, Crush by Phillip Bartell (2000, 29 min) is set during a long hot summer in a (very) small town in rural Illinois, as 12-year-old Tina bonds with 16-year-old Robbie over their favorite TV show. Tina soon develops a major crush on Robbie. Robbie, however, develops a crush of his own… The Mountain King by Duncan Tucker is a sensuously photographed film that depicts a relationship between a persuasive hustler and a quietly closeted young man at the beach. …lost by Dan Castle was made in response to growing complacency about the continuing threat of AIDS and captures a day in the life of a young man foundering in a world of drugs, anonymous tricks, and AIDS. When Joseph asks his lifelong partner, Caesar, to send for a priest in The Confession by Carl Pfirman, it leads to a dramatic struggle in this moving exploration of love, faith and commitment.

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