These exquisite shorts from around the globe shine a light on love, relationships, and perceptions of gender, revealing stories of courage and desire. Drama and intrigue abound in these complex and beautifully constructed shorts that demonstrate just how far one will go to live their truth.

First Love, based on a true story from South Korea, depicts two young girls who fall in love, and even though they are not out to the world, their relationship endures for forty years. They live a harmonious life, until one day something happens that challenges their long-term bond. In The Letter, Lupe, after many years of absence, returns to her small hometown in Mexico. She reencounters Rosalia, her best friend from childhood, and the letter she wrote when they initially said goodbye. The Devil Is in the Details is set in mid-19th-century France: Alexina, a trainee school teacher in a young girl’s convent, suffers from unbearable pains. After examination by a doctor who questions Alexina’s gender and subsequently decides that masculinity prevails, Alexina works to find their own path forward. In Etage X, set in Germany, an accidental meeting in an elevator that gets stuck at a department store leads two older women to their limits and forces them to improvise to extraordinary outcomes.