Punch, produced by Catherine Fitzgerald and Robin Murphy, will premiere to North American audiences in the Queer Cinema programme. Starring British actor and Academy Award nominee Tim Roth, Punch examines the relationship between a teenage boxer and his alcoholic father. Seventeen-year old Jim is preparing for his first professional fight but begins to rethink his life's trajectory and his sexuality after tangling with Whetu, a gay Māori boy.
And Juniper, produced by Desray Armstrong and Angela Littlejohn, has been selected to screen in the festival's World Cinema Now programme. Starring Academy Award nominee Charlotte Rampling, Juniper is about a self-destructive teenager who is suspended from school and asked to look after his feisty alcoholic grandmother as a punishment. The crazy time they spend together turns his life around.
Click the links below for more information on the films, and to see their trailers.