21st Century Cinema

21st Century Cinema

126 Episodes

Explore the best of contemporary cinema from around the world.

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21st Century Cinema
  • Nine

    Episode 1

    Directed by Rob Marshall • 2009 • United States, Italy
    Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz

    A supernova ensemble cast—including Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, and an Oscar-nominated Penélope Cruz—lights up this extravagant musical take on F...

  • Somewhere a Destination

    Episode 2

    Directed by Celeste Lapida • 2021 • Philippines
    Starring Celeste Lapida

    “ . . . people who move away from the gender they were assigned at birth [. . .] want to strike out toward some new location, some space not yet clearly defined or concretely occupied; [. . .] the movement across a socially ...

  • Rocks in a Windless Wadi

    Episode 3

    Directed by EJ Gagui • 2022 • Philippines

    Three men describe their long-buried childhood traumas as mysterious, ghostly images shot around a wadi flicker before our eyes.

  • Dikit

    Episode 4

    Directed by Gabriela Serrano • 2021 • Philippines
    Starring Mariana Serrano, Mika Zarcal, Jarrett Cross Pinto

    A young woman with a monstrous secret desperately longs for a different body. When the new couple in town moves in next door, she sees her chance to finally get one.

  • the river that never ends

    Episode 5

    Directed by JT Trinidad • 2022 • Philippines
    Starring Emerald Romero, Hesus Deligero, Ron Go

    Along a river undergoing major development, Baby, a middle-aged trans woman, shuttles between her job as a companion-for-hire for strangers and her duty to her father. As the people around Baby start to ...

  • Cleaners

    Episode 6

    Directed by Glenn Barit • 2019 • Philippines
    Starring Ianna Taguinod, Leomar Baloran, Julian Narag

    At a Catholic high school in the Philippine city of Tuguegarao, a rambunctious batch of students rebel against all expectations to be clean: a germaphobe is tested by a bout of uncontrollable diarr...

  • It’s Raining Frogs Outside

    Episode 7

    Directed by Maria Estela Paiso • 2021 • Philippines
    Starring Alyana Cabral

    As the apocalypse looms, a young Filipino woman is forced to return to her childhood home in the province of Zambales. There, as frogs rain down from the sky, she confronts traumatic memories that condense into a surreal ...

  • Italian for Beginners

    Episode 8

    Directed by Lone Scherfig • 2000 • Denmark, Sweden
    Starring Peter Gantzler, Ann Eleonora Jørgensen, Anders W. Berthelsen

    Director Lone Scherfig brings the naturalistic, defiantly DIY principles of the Dogme 95 movement to a buoyant romantic comedy in this uplifting portrait of seven strangers on...

  • OctoGod

    Episode 9

    Directed by Shievar Olegario • 2019 • Philippines
    Starring Shievar Olegario

    An elusive graphic designer, who steals and retouches photos for his website, finds himself in another dimension after updating his site’s content.

  • Hito
    21:56
    Episode 10

    Hito

    Episode 10

    Directed by Stephen Lopez • 2023 • Philippines
    Starring Kyrie Allison Samodio, Jun Jun Quintana, Bor Ocampo

    Between nuclear reactors and military curfews, fourteen-year-old Jani lives in a dystopian world oppressively devoid of empathy. Together, she and her slippery new friend Kiefer the talkin...

  • The Breaking Ice

    Episode 11

    Directed by Anthony Chen • 2023 • China, Singapore
    Starring Zhou Dongyu, Liu Haoran, Qu Chuxiao

    Three lost souls find tentative connection in a frozen world in this delicate, lyrical tone poem of youthful alienation and longing. In cold, wintry Yanji, a city on China’s northeastern border, young...

  • i get so sad sometimes

    Episode 12

    Directed by Trishtan Perez • 2021 • Philippines
    Starring JC Santiago, Karl Louie Caminade, Russ Ligtas

    In the small town of Pagadian in the Philippines, a gay teenager eagerly waits for a mature man to finally reveal his face after developing an anonymous sexual relationship with him online.

  • The Gossips of Cicadidae

    Episode 13

    Directed by Vahn Leinard Pascual • 2022 • Philippines
    Starring Rolando Inocencio, AJ Benoza, Alleison Dimatulac

    Drawing on silent-film aesthetics from a bygone era, this mesmerizing monochrome short tells a story of forbidden love. A young boy struggles with feeling trapped in his inherited role...

  • Bold Eagle

    Episode 14

    Directed by Whammy Alcazaren • 2022 • Philippines
    Starring Ricky Davao, Gio Gahol, luckymaybe1923

    Trapped at home with his talking cat, a man seeks refuge in the strong arms of strange men as together they venture deep down into the nether regions of the Internet in search of true happiness. Cau...

  • About Dry Grasses

    Episode 15

    Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan • 2023 • Turkey
    Starring Deniz Celiloğlu, Merve Dizdar, Musab Ekici

  • Ennui ennui

    Episode 16

    Directed by Gabriel Abrantes • 2013 • France
    Starring Edith Scob, Laetitia Dosch, Omid Rawendah

    With a cast featuring Edith Scob and Esther Garrel, this delirious espionage farce resembles what might have happened if ZERO DARK THIRTY had been written by Georges Bataille.

  • Os humores artificiais

    Episode 17

    Directed by Gabriel Abrantes • 2016 • Portugal
    Starring Margarida Lucas, Amanda Rodarte, Gilda Nomacce

    Taking Wittgenstein’s assertion that the most profound problems can only be discussed in the form of jokes as a starting point, OS HUMORES ARTIFICIAIS (“The Artificial Humors”) combines old-Hol...

  • Godland

    Episode 18

    Directed by Hlynur Pálmason • 2022 • Iceland, Denmark
    Starring Elliott Crosset Hove, Vic Carmen Sonne, Ingvar Sigurdsson

    The struggle between the strictures of religion and our own brute animal nature plays out amid the beautifully forbidding landscapes of remote Iceland in this stunning psychol...

  • Will-o’-the-Wisp

    Episode 19

    Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues • 2022 • France, Portugal
    Starring Mauro Costa, André Cabral, Joel Branco

    A rapturously queer, ecologically minded, antiroyalist musical fantasia, WILL-O’-THE-WISP finds the ever-audacious João Pedro Rodrigues (The Ornithologist) at his most playfully and pleasur...

  • Old Man

    Episode 20

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2012 • United States

    For more then 20 years Charles Manson has refused to communicate to the outside world. Until now. These are actual never before heard phone conversations between Canadian best selling author Marlin Marynick and Charles Manson.

  • 38
    22:50
    Episode 21

    38

    Episode 21

    Directed by Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew • 2021 • United States
    Starring Curie Choi, Alicia Novella Vasquez

    Vivid interruptions of sound and images fragment the psychic landscape of a thirty-eight-year-old woman who becomes obsessed with the social-media presence of the young woman who broke u...

  • I Love You So Much

    Episode 22

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2014 • United States
    Starring Leah Shore, Jarret Kerr

    Pillow talk takes a surreal turn in a shape-shifting blend of live action and animation.

  • Puss
    08:49
    Episode 23

    Puss

    Episode 23

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2021 • United States
    Starring Sarah Ellen Stephens, Karl Jacob, Brian W. Smith

    How does one get laid in the midst of a global pandemic? A woman seeks release for her locked-down libido, with surreal results.

  • First
    11:59
    Episode 24

    First

    Episode 24

    Directed by Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew • 2019 • United States
    Starring Mae Wangmo, Anne Hanavan, Angel Cruz

    A teenager lives her life, toggling seamlessly between her physical and digital selves. She walks over a bridge at sunrise, follows a stranger through the streets of the city, and meet...