By watching sex workers listen to their own experiences while staring at us, Blue Boy creates a provocative triangle of power relations between camera, subject, and spectator. Manuel Abramovich plunges us into the complexities of sex trade with an inventive, superbly effective storytelling device.

Some places are haunted not by ghosts, but by history. Katharina Kastner has found one: Baron Empain’s extraordinary 1934 mansion, a marvel of period design that has seen ruin and revival. With the elegance of Resnais and Raúl Ruiz, this beguiling poem of a film conjures the magic of its existence.

We’re thrilled to see French actress Ariane Labed (Attenberg, The Lobster) jump behind the camera, and her directing debut is nothing short of explosive! Premiering in Cannes last year, this 27-minute gem subverts ideas of femalehood and immigration with style, humor, and insight to spare.

In his sinister new film, director Jonathan Glazer distills the uncanny manhunt of Under the Skin into a hellish allegory of social violence. Frozen faces, an ominous well in a dark forest, primitive rage, and an eerie score by Mica Levi reveal a cinematic sibling to Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.”

In her first feature, Battles, Isabelle Tollenaere explored humankind’s warlike nature through battered landscapes. Now, with her ingenious yet chilling short, she discovers it in young men. They roleplay as soldiers and Tollenaere films them as documentary subjects, merging fantasy with reality.

MUBI presents the online premiere of Peter Strickland’s new short film, fresh from this year’s Venice Film Festival! The British maverick director, in collaboration with London-based musicians GUO, brilliantly––and literally––deconstructs masculinity in this playful stop-motion, gay erotica reverie.

This exquisitely crafted short—made on hand-processed black-and-white 16mm—by Sofia Bohdanowicz (Maison du Bonheur) touchingly tells of the re-discovery of a forgotten female Canadian artist. Actress Deragh Campbell leads the quest in this playful, humorous, and melancholy blend of fact and fiction.

Our next “Brief Encounter” comes from Portugal and transports us to a post-apocalyptic future as exuberant as it is melancholy. At under 30 minutes, this gorgeous, lilac-hued, poetic meditation on belonging sets out to counteract historical and political injustice with the untamed power of beauty.

We’re delighted to launch Brief Encounters, a spotlight for outstanding new shorts, with two-time Rotterdam Tiger Award winner Beatrice Gibson. I Hope I’m Loud is a mesmeric and intimate whirlwind of poetry exploding as an antidote to violence, a multi-layered message of love in turbulent times.