2023 We Make Movies International Film Festival
+ 120 Films.
+ From Around the World.
+ Something For Everyone By A Diverse Group of Storytellers.
+ Find the Films & Filmmakers Who Speak To You.
+ We Saved You A Seat.
B L O C K T W O
S T A R T W I T H A B A N G
DARCY'S GAME
After he’s scolded and pressured by his father to find a job, an unemployed college-dropout-turned-gamer is challenged by his step-mother to a battle of video games in an attempt to make him get a job.
Director/Writer/Producer: Hunter Fenoglio | Producer: Peter Das | Cinematographer: Nico Atler | First Assistant Director: Nate Rosado | Gaffer: Matt Bordman | On-Set Mixer/Boom Operator: Emerson Cole | Editor: Serge Martinenko | Colorist: Roy Sun | Composer: Chris McElroy | Post Sound Mixer: Jason Neumann
EMPTY SPACE
A suitcase tries to leave its surroundings but soon realizes that something has made it heavy.
Director/Writer: Hedieh Ataeian
ENDLICH
When a cunning double agent is caught, she’s thrown into a psychedelic journey and forced to grapple with a life of deceit and the monsters lurking in the shadows.
Director/Writer: Tristan Krebs | Producer: Myrta Vida | Writer/Producer: Tess Krebs
RAHEEL
Raheel , an Afghan national, has illegally traveled to Iran to look for her husband, but there comes up some problems that leave her no hope to move ahead.
Director/Writer: Ayat Asadirahbar | Music by: Pedram Jirawand | Edited by: Pourya Ovsati | Director of Photography: Majid Yazdani | Makeup Artist: Fereshteh Setvat
Cast: Darya Azimi & Majid Seyfi
ST. MARTIN OF TOURS
One man’s descent into confusion as he searches for connection and direction in an apathetic world. Trying to reconcile what he sees and what he believes. Where can he turn? Who can he trust?
Writer/Lead Actor/Co-Director/Producer: Tony DiMurro | Co-Director/Editor/Score: Julie DiMurro
THE PROGRAM
A combat veteran struggles as a private investigator and finds himself at the mercy of a cult-militia.
Director/Writer: Oliver T. Nguyenn | Producer: Mico Montes
B L O C K T H R E E
À L A C A R T E E X C E L L E N C E
AUTOCORRECT
*An apologetic, self-doubting actor of color strives for visibility with a harried, big-shot white director who just wants to enjoy her lunch.
Writer/Co-Director/Lead Actor/Editor: Anu Bhatt | Co-Director: Priyanka Shetty
Cast: Anu Bhatt & Elizabeth B. Bates
COINCIDENCES
Cosmic coincidence meets human tragedy.
Creator: Neil Needleman
HE MOVES UNSEEN
Abigails father, a mad scientist, has escaped from prison. And is paying her a visit.
Director/Producer/DP: Mark Hensley | Co-Producer/Set Dress: Katy Mahard
Cast: Katy Mahard & Jack Merrill
HOW LONG WILL YOU SLEEP
About consciousness, love and the filmy air of eternity, How Long Will You Sleep is a short poetic film inspired by a troubled meditation on a medieval saint and her mystical practices.
Writer/Director/Editor/Producer/Voiceover: Marilyn Freeman
LABERINTO
When two musicians face the hell of their artistic minds; anxiety, procrastination, ambition and the search for recognition will work against them to find their true selves.
Director / Writer: Jose Terreros | Director of Photography: Emilio Garcia
MONSTER IN A BOX
He did it for the role. When carnival hucksters pull their act in the wrong town they get help from the most unlikely of performers.
Director: Noah Weisel (Thomas Farm Films Inc.)
MY PARTNER GIRAFFE
A bookstore that makes money in an unusual way A person notices this unusual business and asks the bookseller for a ransom in exchange for not revealing it. The bookseller and his wife decide to get rid of him.
It should also be noted that the opening sequence of the film is a long take without a cut.
Director: Salaheddin Noori
QUARANTINE VALENTINE
A woman escapes real life by playing a VR figure skating game, "Quarantine Valentine" powered by EDM artist, "Kitteh x Kitteh". As the virtual and physical realms blur, she experiences failure, success, and falls in love with her virtual opponent.
Director: Dimitra Korri | Producer: Nicholas Kuznacic
RAINBOW
Rainbow is a fabulous film that confronts the cultural backdrop of the Chinese taboo that forbids dialog about poverty or financial want, in this tale of love, learn, enlightenment, creativity, and growth, two children discover a way to give a Mother's Day gift beyond the value of money.
Director/Writer/Character & Environmental Designer/Animator/Editor: Hui Tan
Sound & Music Creator: Walter Santucci
SUPER INAPPROPRIATE
When a group of unethical people with superpowers are forced into mandated group therapy, can they overcome their own petty needs to truly become superheroes?
Director: Tehana Weeks | Actress/Writer/Executive Producer: Dawn Grabowski | Actress / Assistant Director: Allyson Sereboff | Producer / Actor / Assistant Director: Whit Spurgeon | Writer / Actor / Editor: Michael Beardsley | Writer: Melanie Collup | Director of Photography: Phillip Darlington Music Supervisor: Keith Tyler | Actress: Meredith Thomas
UNCUT
After the New Republic Patriot Party seizes control in America , and passes a law requiring all males over 35 to have a vasectomy to keep the number of babies with birth defects down, Jamie decides to flee to Canada on the eve of his 35th birthday.
Director: Mark Hensley | Cinematographer: Srushti Kalse
B L O C K F O U R
U N T A M E D S H O R T S 1
A SOBER DANCE
After standing trial for the murder of his unit, a mentally unstable soldier is exiled to the front lines of an otherworldly war. His harrowing journey is made worse, by the constant flippancy of his mysterious companion; a macabre musician with a dark sense of humour. The pair set off to the end of the world and to the heart of a war, that has already taken so much of the soldier's sanity.
Writer/Director/Producer: Owen Hurrell | Co-Director/Producer: Ed Kitchen | 1st AD/Producer: James M.C. Weight
EELING
A discontented and apathetic young rural woman spends her days renovating the country villa she shares with her often absent husband. A regular attempt to capture eels for their dinner-plates creates an encounter between the woman and an eel. One night the eel crawls into her bed and, sensing her loneliness, makes love to her. Incapable of understanding his wife’s overwhelming connection with the eels, her husband kills her lover. Unable and unwilling to forget this mystic affair she is drawn to the eels’ riverbed, where she chooses to join them.
Director: Peter McCully | Producer: Maile Daugherty | Cinematographer: Leon Narbey | Art Director: Brent Hargreaves | Music Composer: Andrew McDowall
THE ANGKASA LEGACY
An Indonesian man discovers he has extraterrestrial abilities when a friend dies in his arms.
Writer/Director: Soma Helmi | Lead Actor/Producer: Yoshi Sudarso | Line Producer: Steven Yee | Director of Photography: Kayla Hoff | Producer: Abby Latip
UNCLE.
Set in the microcosm of a remote home, two siblings are left to live alone after being abandoned by their parents. A peculiar pair of strangers arrive, calling themselves their “Uncles.” At first the Uncles are caring, but they subtly manipulate the children until the household devolves into chaos. The children are eventually muzzled, starved, and enslaved to serve the devious desires of the Uncles. After a catastrophic event, one of the children decides to take action to attempt to overthrow the Uncles’ power.
Co-Director/Writer/DP: John Coates | Co-Director/VFX Supervisor: Steven Spencer | Lead Actor: Jimmy Doom | Producer/1st Assistant Director: Victoria Richards | Producer/2nd Assistant Director: Grace Clemmensen
B L O C K F I V E
C I N E C O P I A 1
BANANAS GIRL
Seven-year-old Bananas Girl asserts her independence, perfects the art of the non-sequitur and navigates the boundaries between herself and her mom.
Producer/Director/Editor: Shayna Connelly | Director of Photography: Justin Jones
BOTHERED - EP 2.4 "Texting 101"& EP 2.7 "All My Exes Live In Texas"
Jenn and Eddie are two friends navigating dating, social media, and political correctness in a pandemic and they are... BOTHERED!
Writer / Lead Actor / Producer: Julie Phillips | Actor / Director: Steph Martinez | Actor: Emerson Niemchick
DICK CONTROL
Richard Tye “Trigga” Simmons, a rich, promiscuous, jet-setting rapper, has a one-night stand with a beautiful groupie who happens to be a witch. When Tye disrespects her, she places a "penis curse" that cock blocks him until he learns how to respect women.
Director: Shequeta Smith | Producer: Mingzhu "Rachel" Ye | Producer/Star: Curtis Hamilton
HELPING AMY
A chance encounter begins a close relationship between two women - a pregnant, unhoused teenager, Amy, and an older woman, Marla. Trust between them starts to unravel after Amy has her child but tests positive for drugs.
Director/Writer: Sharon Mooney | Producer: Vanessa Newell | Producer: Julia Brauner
HOW TO HACK BIRTH CONTROL
‘How to Hack Birth Control,’ is a 3-segment pilot of the satire series, ‘How to Hack’ by Sassy Mohen. The pilot focuses on how to navigate and take charge in today’s contraception universe. Told through the sharp wit and perk charm of the narrator Ruth, Birth Control takes a run at ’not supposed to talk about’ scenarios and answers all the questions women truly want to know but are taught to be too afraid to ask.
Director/Writer/Producer/Editor: Sassy Mohen | Lead, Ruth the Narrator: Xanthe Paige | Producer: Steve Cubine | Actor, "Wendy", Associate Producer: Lauren Elizabeth Harris | Actor, "Noah," Executive Producer: Vince Yearly
THE BLUE CAPE
In hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, medicine can be hard to come by. A little boy has to grow beyond his limits if he is to help his grandfather.
Writer/Director: Alejandra López
WHEREVER YOU GO
When Debargo inexplicably bolts from the party where he and Kevin have just met and hit it off, Kevin gamely follows along. The two encounter (and flee) a number of antagonists - a cop, an ex, a bratty kid and his entitled mom - building friendship along the way, but when they run into Debargo's cousin and Kevin learns why they've been running this whole time, Debargo runs away from him too. Kevin follows and helps Debargo find a bit more peace with the fact that wherever you go . . . there you are.
Writer/Director/Producer: Eevin Hartsough | Co-Producer: Katie Rosin | Editor: Michael Gurfield | Lead Actor: Kevin R. Free | Lead Actor: Imran Sheikh
B L O C K S I X
B A G O F S W A G 1
D FOR DAUGHTER
D, a teenage girl used to living with her single dad, encounters his one night stand, triggering unexpected feelings.
Director/Writer/Co-Producer: Christine Zivic | Producer: Rob Harrington | Producer: Isaac Werner | Cinematographer: Leo Sfeir | Production Designer: Dorrin Shahsavari | Composer: Alexander Zhu | Post Production Supervisor: Marilyne Lamontagner | Illustrator: Valentin Nguyen | Colorist: Gabriela Spampinato
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HER FALSE SELF
While investigating an internet-based new age healer, a journalist realizes he has brought his editor into her line of destruction. She has been driving her female followers to commit suicide.
Director/Writer: Rachel Mason | Producer: Eric Kochmer | Producer: Scarlett Redmond | Producer: Amir Arison
Cast: Amir Arison, Buck Angel, Jane Cantillon, Sapna Gandhi, Juliette Jeffers, Scarlett Redmond, Eric Michael Kochmer, Rachel Mason, Isabel Monk Cade, Mishelle Moross, Destinee Stewart, Rain Valdez, Gina Wong
IMMOLATION
In a confessional booth, a troubled man confronts the priest whom he believes baptized him when he was an infant.
Producer / Writer / Lead Actor: Michael Klug | Director / Producer / DP / Editor: Neal Tyler | Producer / Audio Mixer / Asst. Camera: Greg Schmittel | Actor "Priest / Score by: Daniel Alexander | Executive Producer / Production Design: Elwood Leguillou
LOVE IS A FIRE
Soon after moving in together, a couple is forced to confront their challenges with intimacy, exacerbated by a toxic yeast infection and deep rooted insecurities, as their relationship slowly devolves.
Director/Writer: Sofie Somoroff | Producer: Ishi Metkar | Producer: Russell Goldman
Cast: Celina Bernstein & Kenny Yates
TAFETTA
Based on their play "Lavender Men," playwright-performer Roger Q. Mason explores questions of identity and vicious cycles of addiction in their short film Taffeta. As a toxic phone sex relationship spirals out of control, the titular Taffeta must confront whether they will be able to break out of the destructive habits and crippling loneliness that have haunted their life.
Director/Producer: Lovell Holder | Writer/Producer/Cast: Roger Q. Mason
THESE BODIES
In a meditative collision of sound and color, a pair of young women wander through a world beset by an ominous, omnipresent doom. A powerful bond forms as the pair flee through the woods and traverse a deserted countryside in search of refuge. As they linger on what's been lost to the end of time and profess their love for each other, everything stops…
Director/Writer/Editor: Matthew Strasburger | Cinematographer: Jordan Breedlove | Composer/Sound Designer: Alex Jacobsen
TO FONDLE NOTHING
Charles Bukowski meets Lewis Carroll in this direct-address rendering of a work of rhymed and metered, borderline-nonsense verse.
Writer, Producer, Director, Editor, Actor, Original Soundtrack: Charles Leggett
UN-TIDAL
An experimental film essay about a found (stolen?) photograph, a hurricane, and film’s inherent ability to animate and re-animate still, dead, and inanimate beings, images, and objects. The film is created using an ink-jet direct-on-film technique where the digital frame is printed directly onto recycled 16mm celluloid.
Director/Writer/Producer: Masha Vlasova
B L O C K S E V E N
F U N N Y H A H A & F U N N Y W E I R D
AU79
An experimental film essay about a found (stolen?) photograph, a hurricane, and film’s inherent ability to animate and re-animate still, dead, and inanimate beings, images, and objects. The film is created using an ink-jet direct-on-film technique where the digital frame is printed directly onto recycled 16mm celluloid.
Directot: Rafael Hovhannisyan | Producer: Narek Nazaryan | Director of Photography: Sahak Manvelyan | Production Sound Mixer: David Davtyan | Film Composer: Artur Kocharyan | Film Composer: Narek Grigoryan
Cast: Gevorg Dodozyan, Mane Minasyan, Vahagn Gasparyan
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Stream of Consciousness follows the first date of Cole and Megan. As the date progresses we watch Cole struggle with his self doubt, personified incessantly through his reflection talking to him. As the date moves forward, Cole’s insecurities put any potential relationship at risk, only to be saved by another surprising voice.
Director/Writer: Jesse Shore | Producer: Jehong (Joseph) Park | Producer: Michael Villucci | Cinematographer: Amanda Lettieri | Visual Effects: Anthony Plantyn | Composer: Jack Shore
Cast: Caleb Vasquez & Miranda LeeAnn
THE LONG WEEKEND
Brothers, Mike and Nick, spread the ashes of a dead friend on their annual camping trip. They learn more and more about each other as the weekend grows longer.
Director/Writer/Producer: David Dawson | Writer/Photographer: Kyle Owen | Audio: Brian Wilson
Cast: Mike Miller & Nicholas Stange
THE ZIP DAGGER SHOW
Things are not as they seem, nor are they otherwise. Feed your head.
Director/Producer: Mark Towns
B L O C K E I G H T
H I G H N O O N H I J I N K S
AIDA
A song before you wake. A young mother is stuck between development and decay. Desperate to connect, she strikes a chord that links to the deepest parts of our memory.
Director/Writer/Producer: Christopher W. Graham | Lead Actress/Producer: Kiko Wilson | Producer: Joseph Arney
CARRIER
Let the music tell the story. In this intense silent film, embellished with a soundtrack that is dripping with heavy bass and lyrics, watch two best friends make perilous decisions to make money for rent.
Director/Writer/Producer/Lead: Brandon Smallwood
ENJOYING A NICE LIFE
A collection of animated sketches from my sketchbook 2017-2020.
Director/Producer/Animator: Rainbow Timothy
HUNGER
A child is being tormented by a voracious well demanding food from him. But as he proves unable to satisfy its hunger, he drags himself to find another way of feeding it.
Director/Writer: Carlos Melendez | Producer: Mar Mercado | Associate Producer: Tim Luna | Director of Photography: Arturo Chu | Editor: Freddy Noriega | Music: Dan Zlotnik
LILLY
When dysfunctional Ray walks in on her perfect best friend Cora trying to kill herself, secrets are revealed and humor is found in unexpected places. A dark comedy exploring the themes of postpartum depression and female friendship.
Director/Writer/Producer: Peter McCully
B L O C K N I N E
T H E D O C S W I L L S E E Y O U N O W
BLACK DADDY: THE MOVIE
Any man can father a child, but it takes a real man to raise one.
Black Daddy: The Movie is a beautiful and captivating display of storytelling by black men as they journey through deep dialogue around experiencing fatherhood in America as well as their own experiences with their fathers. It is a very sacred space for the culture that was curated with the hopes that these type of conversations will become contagious throughout our communities and that the film will become the start of a necessary work as black men and even black women take to the forefront in their own healing.
Producer/Director/Film Score: Damon Jamal Taylor | Director of Photography/ Principle Editor: Salvatore Fullmore | Camera Operator/ Secondary Editor: Darius Riley | Operations: Leilani Amolo
HOSTAGES 3
A child is being tormented by a voracious well demanding food from him. But as he proves unable to satisfy its hunger, he drags himself to find another way of feeding it.
Producer/Writer/Director/Cinematographer/Performer/Musical Score: Bonita Oliver | Executive Producer: Hajnal Pivnick | Executive Producer: Dorian Wallace
B L O C K E L E V E N
F R I E N D S A N D N E I G H B O R S
BRANDO'S SPOON
Two brothers at odds bicycle across New York City in hopes of locating a beloved family heirloom.
Director: Mac Brydon | Writer, Actor: Jane Cortney | Cinematographer: Peter Pavlakis | Music: Askold Buk
Cast: William Tatlock Green & Earle Hugens
CHANGING LANES
Kelly Lane, a social media influencer who makes content with her husband, attempts to continue creating content after her husband leaves her for another woman. Through a series of posts, she starts to change - will her followers accept this new Lane?
Producer/Director/Editor: Carl Hansen | Producer/Actor: Jen Eldridge | Writer: Meghan Malone
MAMA WANNA
Two sisters, one terminally ill, want to live life to the fullest and bring their mother into their shenanigans.
Writer/Director/Producer/Actor: Felicia Hom | Director/Producer: Tehana Weeks
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THE CALVIN LEWIS BOBBY MAYFAIR SHOW(S)
With the glut of television talk shows, THE CALVIN LEWIS BOBBY MAYFAIR SHOW[S] imagines what would transpire if two talk shows were forced to share the same studio.
Producer/Co-director/Writer/Actor: Will Clinger | Co-director: Steve Avery
THE LOVE MONSTER
If you fall in love, it will eat your life. Michelle and Randy are at a point in their relationship where it's time to share their deepest, darkest secrets and hope they will accept each other for who they really are.
Director/Writer/Actor: David Beatty | Actor/Producer: Julie Phillips | Actor / 2nd Camera: Emerson Niemchick | Composer: Pietro Milanesi | Voice Actor: Patrick Duncan | Actor: Amy Cosby
THE SINGING WAITER
A Dean Martin "Wanna-be" lands in trouble when a Mafia/Columbian drug deal goes wrong.
Producer/Writer/Director: Anthony Di Pietro | Director Of Photography: Anthony Sherritt | Editor/Sound Design: Corey Hudson | Composer: Erick McNerny
YES, WHO, I LOVE YOU TOO
In the employee break room of A&C Sporting Goods, Heather enlists the help of her co-worker Stephanie in preparing for Music Trivia Night at her local bar. Misunderstandings between the Millennial and the Gen Xer as they discuss songs and artists from the 70's and 80's lead to hilarious confusion and frustration in this homage to Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First."
Writer/Producer/Lead Actor: Melanie Collup | Actor: Andrea Geones
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THE GAME OF GLASSES
WMM’s Smartphone Studio students from Haiti created this story about a young man named Michel who is passionate about computer science. One day he finds a box with AR glasses that force him to play a very serious game.
Writer/Director/VFX Artist: Joseph Kendy | Actor: Kenderson Chere | Voice: Magda Chery
B L O C K T W E L V E
F E A T U R E D F E A T U R E a n d a C H E R R Y O N T O P
I WAS NEVER HERE
Sofia works in cyber-security for the corrupt mayor of Los Angeles. When she receives a mysterious message from her future self, she must choose whether or not to intervene and potentially alter the fate of the city.
Actor/Writer/Producer: Sharilyn Vera | Director: Marissa High | Producer: Shereen Lani Younes
SMILE OR HUG
After being dumped on her 30th birthday, Trish Santos works through her loneliness and anxiety with help from her online art students, her two best friends, and a box of homemade self-help tapes given to her by the mysterious “mind painter” Doc Garcia. “Smile or Hug” is a dramatic-comedy with fantastical elements, absurd humor, and a deep empathy for its flawed-yet-lovable characters in the vein of early John Hughes films.
Director/Co-Writer/DP/Editor/Producer: Paul Sprangers | Lead Actor/Co-Writer/Producer: Chelsea Javier | Producer: Carlo Cosio | Producer: Selena Leoni
Starring: Chelsea Javier & Danny Trejo
B L O C K T H I R T E E N
U N T A M E D S H O R T S 2
ASUNDER
Olivia, a trainee professional, finds herself opposing the government that is seeking to criminalise her mother. Asunder offers an intricate story about family, politics and justice.
Writer/Director: Janet Marrett | Director: Marissa High | Producer: Shereen Lani Younes
CRAY
When dysfunctional Ray walks in on her perfect best friend Cora trying to kill herself, secrets are revealed and humor is found in unexpected places. A dark comedy exploring the themes of postpartum depression and female friendship.
Director: Sonia Sawkar
FOUND
Tabitha is stuck between two worlds. When the Artistic Director of her theatre company tokenizes her for his Equity, Diversity and Inclusion initiative, she faces her reality of living in two skins as a Korean adoptee.
Writer/Director: Reena Dutt | Producer/"Tabitha": Michalyn Steiner | Producer: Vincent Hoai Pham | Cinematographer: Jeanette Li | Composer: Jonathan Chau | Editor: Faroukh Virani | Production Designer: Julisa Wright | Colorist: Jesse Glucksman | Digital VFX Artist: Lex Benedict
JOAN JONAS OF ARC
A woman discovers that her is about to be devoured inside out by a plague of small lobsters. A studio audience alternatively cheers and boos as the lobsters prepare to enter her mouth.
Director/Writer/Producer/Performer/Editor: Anya Liftig
SUNFLOWER
A teenage girl struggling with self-esteem issues based on her skin color, learns to regain her confidence with the help of an unexpected friend.
Director/Writer/Producer: Elizabeth Tawose | Producer: Eddie Musa | Producer: Sarah Gray | Producer: Oluwaseyi Adeleke | Editor: Phillip Welch | Director of Photography: Christian Wilson
THE LAST KNOCK
John (Mark Banks), seemingly the last man on Earth, floats through the dreamscape that is now the world in ruination. The Last Knock sits poignantly in the space between trance-like isolation and heightened nostalgia, all disrupted by the unsettling intuition of knowing you are not alone. Often times transcending the point of delusion and human solitude; this meditation on sentimentality and purpose follows John through his bygone memories and into a poetic and dystopic reality.
Director/Writer: Miguel Moreno
B L O C K F O U R T E E N
S T A Y U P L A T E
COLLAGE 26
Video Art
Director/Writer: Luis Carlos Rodríguez
SKAGIT
Four friends leave Seattle for a weekend in a remote, rain-soaked corner of Washington State's rustic Skagit Valley. The foreboding October landscape begins to warp their minds, plunging each of them into alternate realities where they must grapple with personal demons, sexual tensions, and a sinister natural world as they claw their way back to sanity.
Writer/Director/Co-Producer/Editor: Nick Thompson | Producer: Leah Trangen | Associate Producer: Tracey Breese | Associate Producer: Hailey Williams | Executive Producer: Rachel Price | Director of Photography: Alexander Lenzi | Production Designer: Stephanie Pieper | Sound Designer/Mixer: Lorenzo Rossi | Composer: Kevin Middleton
B L O C K S I X T E E N
B A G O F S W A G 2
CROUCHING COMIC
Leila is a fledgling standup comedian rehearsing her new material on Asian fetishization, bullies turned foodies, and her immigrant mother’s overbearing expectations—but when a storm cloud of insecurities roll in before open mic night, she must confront her darkest demons and reclaim her artistic identity before it’s too late.
Writer/Director: Alberta Poon | Writer/Star: Katie Nguyen
HEMACITE
In the midst of a pandemic, a man begins building strange things in his garage.
Director/DP: Truman Hatfield
HERE & THERE
Here & There explores the universal balancing act of duty to one’s family and duty to oneself. Where does one draw the boundary between sacrifice and self-preservation? No matter one’s age, race, religion, or gender, these questions will come up in everyone’s life – whether inspired by death or less final circumstances - and there is never an obvious answer.
Writer / Executive Producer: Bill Ferris | Director: Krista Amigone | Producer: Steven LaMorte | Director of Photography: Katie Eleneke | Assistant Director: Stephanie Bates | Editor: Mathew Roscoe | Composer: Miriam Mayer | Sound Designer: Jason Stare
Cast: Bill Ferris & Jennie Fahn
HUGE
After Paloma receives a seemingly innocent drawing from a friend's kid, her self image crumbles - causing distrust and paranoia between her and those she loves.
Director/Actor/Executive Producer: Danny Farber | Writer/Actress/Executive Producer: Paloma Nozicka | Line Producer: Vance Smith | Director of Photography: Gelareh Siavash | Editor: Zoé Kraft | Production Designer: Megan Brasfield | Costume Designer: Nandi Mudiwa King
MAN DOWN
After the racially charged shooting of an unarmed teenager, an officer of color must decide whether to stand on the side of the law or seek justice for his community.
Director: Jonathan Rowan
MARILYN AND THE MANAGER
Marilyn Monroe finds herself homeless during the pandemic and hits up her old friend, an apartment manager, for some temporary shelter.
Writer/Director/Producer & Lead: Kelly Mullis | Actor: Wayne Orkline
MOUSTACHE CLUB
Hey. Sweet stache, bro. A secret society is among us. Do you have what it takes? A man weighs his fortune and future... On a club that may or may not exist.
Creator/Actor: Jack Zullo | Director: Devin Caldarone
PREGGERS
Isabella's life is flipped upside down after a chance meeting with a Bruja (Witch).
Director/Producer: Sylvia Ray | Actor/Writer/Producer: Marco Parra
SOMEWHERE IN THE MILKY WAY
When astronaut Dr. Arney wakes up from hibernation, she finds herself on the unknown planet; she starts her search for a human life-form anywhere in the Universe. Somewhere in the Milky Way is a short animation, in the genre of cosmic horror, inspired by Fredric Brown's Knock.
Director/Writer: Mariya Pyter
THAT DARN GIRLFRIEND - SEASON 3 EPISODE 2
An homage to classic 1960s/70s sitcoms! Live-in couple Valerie and Vic host a variety of Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween night.
Director/Lead/Co-writer/Co-Producer: William Joseph Hill | Co-Writer/Co-Producer/Lead: Pamela Hill
WAITING FOR THE PUNCHLINE
This short film follows Christy, a girl from the Midwest who moves to L.A. to surprise her comedian boyfriend only to find him with another girl. Now she has to find a new path for herself all while imagining murdering her ex.
Writer/Lead Actor/Producer: Christina Marie Leonard
YOU'RE EARLY
Returning home late at night after class, a woman finds her partner at the mercy of a desperate burglar. But all is not as it seems.
Director/Producer/DP: Mark Hensley
B L O C K E I G H T E E N
V O Y E U R S U P C L O S E
JACK MADE A PLAY ABOUT JOHN
Jack Zullo develops and performs about John Belushi in New York. The lines between idol and ego, life imitating art and art imitating life, and vision and delusion are blurred in this documentary that is part raw and earnest and part gritty mayhem.
Producer/Director/Cinematographer/Editor: Eric Michael Kochmer
B L O C K N I N E T E E N
C I N E C O P I A 2
CHARLOTTE
Forgotten folk singer Lena Black releases her song, Charlotte, in 1971. Fifty years later, the pop singer T.Y.M. releases a highly-successful cover. "Charlotte" follows the fall-out of this pop song on the lives of the Black family, including Lena Black, her daughter Diane, and her 11-year-old grandson, Eli.
Director/Writer/Animator: Zach Dorn | Puppet Fabrication: Oliver Levine | Assistant Production Design: Phoebe Jane Hart
COPPER & WOOL
The week before her Orthodox Jewish wedding, Elisheva escapes to a rented room in the hills outside of Los Angeles to clear her head. While dodging calls from her mother and fiancé, Elisheva begins to form a life-changing bond with Meredith, the eccentric divorcee who owns the house she’s staying in.
Director/Executive Producer/Story/Editor: Tyler C. Peterson | Cinematographer/Executive Producer/Story: Amanda Ferrarese | Producer: Mei Lin Lau Mann | Actor/Story: Molly Shayna Cohen | Actor/Story: Susan Louise O'Connor
MARY MEET GRACE
When a stranger appears in Grace's life with disturbing news about her long-lost birth mother, she must fight to untangle herself from a dangerous and sinister plan.
Writer/Director/"Grace": Faryl Amadeus | Cinematographer: Julia Swain | Producer: Nell Teare | Producer: Elizabeth Mihelich | "Dom": Clint Jordan
SELECTED MILK (ADDED FROM RECONSTITUTED MILK POWDER WHOLE PASTEURIZED HOMOGENIZED)
Not everyone qualifies as a supermarket packaged milk salesperson. Selected Milk (Added from Reconstituted Milk Powder Whole Pasteurized Homogenized) is in the form of a manual for sellers of milk cartons in supermarkets. Meanwhile, the scenes reflect the flashes of life of a potential seller who does not meet the conditions of a milk carton salesman.
Director: Jose Luis Ducid | Producer/Director/Composer: Alfonso Camarero | Director/Photography: Maria Meseguer
THE LIZARD LAUGHED
Based on the acclaimed indie comic from Noah Van Sciver (Fante Bukowski, The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln), this is the bitterly comedic story of an unreliable father doing the absolute least he can to reconnect with his estranged son during a hike to see The Laughing Lizard rock formation.
Director: Allen Cordell | Featuring: Sky Elobar & Jared Boghosian
B L O C K T W E N T Y
S A T U R D A Y N I G H T S P E C I A L S
A MADE BED
After escaped convicts hold her family hostage, a young girl learns the importance of enunciation.
Director/Writer: Elizabeth Serra | Producer: Amanda Serra | Editor/DIT/Wardrobe/Set Dresser/VFX: Victoria Serra | Director of Photography: Jennifer Hook | 1st Assistant Director: Karina Farah | 2nd Assistant Director: Diane Musselman
COLLAGE 38.2 (VERSIÓN MÚLTIPLE)
Collage 38.2 is an Intervention (construction / deconstruction), in the form of an audiovisual collage, on the film in the public domain: Of Human Bondage (1934) by John Cromwell-
Director: Luis Carlos Rodríguez
DISTANT MIRROR
Mirror is a magical realist, inner drama about a soldier who, when negotiating a minefield steps on a landmine and in his inner turmoil, he imagines he encounters a mirror that is a gateway into one very specific memory.
Director: Alican Durbaş | Producer: İpek Erden | Cinematographer: Barış Aygen | Main Actor: Emrullah Çakay
IVAR TUNNEL: SHOOK ONES
A ping from a neighborhood watch app reveals what a young black woman had feared: She is not welcome here.
Writer/Director/Producer: Akilah 'AK' Walker | Producer: Leon Pierce Jr. | Producer: Diana Gonzalez-Morett | Cinematographer: Sandra Garcia | Editor: Kristan Sprague
MAUTHAUS
A poetic trip to afterlife. When mental illness manifests itself in physical pain, a young woman's death wish comes true. Wandering in the pre-death antichamber, her soul encounters another dead one who already knows the rules of this toll house (from old German "Maut"). By activating echoes of physical senses they find her "skinsack" but the abandoned body is not ready to give up.
Director/Writer/Lead Actor/Editor: Betty Kaplan | Cinematographer/VFX/Colorist: Raphael Federer | Sound Designer: Husain Abul | Sound Recordist/Composer: Alex Acevedo
Cast: Betty Kaplan, Lena Castrup, Robin Leo Hoffmann
PART FOREVER
In the dark hall, candles flickered faintly. A body lay in the middle of the hall. Huei and her husband Wen Hsiung came to say goodbye to Huei’s dearest sister. The seemingly calm and sad farewell ceremony seemed to hide an astonishing and dark secret...
Director/Writer: Alan Chung An Ou | Producer: Juliane Lin
PRIVOKE
Stevie, a dark skinned “color obsessed” black woman, allows her insecurity to prevail and this unlocks an evil ancestral spirit to feed her darkest fears.
Director/Exec. Producer: Bernadette Speakes | Executive Producer: Sharar Ali-Speakes | Writer/Associate Producer: Yolanda T. Ross | Cinematographer: Dave Perry | First AD: Jamal Y. Speakes, Sr. | Gaffer: Ace Fillmore | First AC: Fernanda Zaragoza | Second AC: Jocelyn Vega | Sound: Timothy "TZ" Hall | Editor/VFX: Jamil Jones
SLEEP IN THE LOVE
A woman uses her last fifteen dollars to buy a ring of cocktail shrimp and glitter.
Director/Writer/Performer/Editor: Anya Liftig
SUN TEA
Dr. Allen isn't what he seems. This unassuming gynecologist is lonely. The only company he keeps is the voice inside his head.
Director/Writer/Camera Operator/Producer/Actor/Editor/Foley/Actor: Charise Sowells
B L O C K T W E N T Y - O N E
M I D N I G H T R A D N E S S
BURY ME TWICE
Los Angeles, 1954. When a washed up detective takes a case searching for a reporter’s missing sister, he discovers solving the mystery of her disappearance is the key uncovering the source of the zombie outbreak - and saving the city!
Director/Producer: Steven LaMorte
MAD CHICKEN
The narcissistic CEO of a fast food franchise is kidnapped by a sadistic under lord and forced to perform a dreadful act to become something more than he ever imagined.
Director/Writer/Actor/Producer: Moe Irvin | Producer/Actor: Aliah Whitmore Seavey | Producer/Actor: Dustin Seavey | Cinematographer: Horacio Martinez | Production Designer: Jacob Whitmore | SFX Makeup: Emma Campbell | Costume Designer: Yuan Yuan Liang
B L O C K T W E N T Y - T W O
S U N D A Y I N S P I R A T I O N S
CLOTHED MINDS
Documentary Short.
Director: Carletta Hurt
FINDING SNOW WHITE
After Ditta’s teenage son is murdered, she becomes a PhD psychotherapist. She practices to age 91 when she and a former patient inspire the boyhood friend of her long lost son, by revealing the meaning of the Snow White metaphor and how people break free of their past to achieve their inner potential.
Director/Producer: Fiona McDougall | Scriptwriter/Interviewer: Jonathan Villet | Director of Photography (DP): Eric Jackson | Illustrator: Ann Arnold | Sound Recordist & Designer: Thayer Walker
SUNNY DAYS: MEET THE FOUNDING MOTHERS OF BALL STATE PBS
Sunny Days introduces us to the founding mothers of Muncie’s public television station, which made its first broadcast 50 years ago.
Producer / Director / DP: Ben Yonker | Associate Producer: Michelle Kinsey
B L O C K T W E N T Y - T H R E E
A F T E R N O O N D E L I G H T S 1
ASHES TO LIGHT
Ashes to Light is a silent film-poem, shot over the course of a year, chronicling loss and a winter of the soul, through dreams, ceremony, and the slow death and rebirth of nature.
Director/Writer/Actor/DP: Marie-Michèle Jasmin-Bélisle | Camera: Selena Moshell | Composer/Singer/Actor: Meghan Beth Riley
BUTŌ: THE RECURRING TORMENTS OF THE PUGILIST
BUTŌ seeks to capture the intensity of the human body in motion, the lithe bodies of dancers Max Cookward and Paul Scott-Bullen colliding against the dense and forceful power of boxer Andrew Downer. Playing with the shadow and the light, ghostly movements and eerie dance, BUTŌ delves into the feverish dreams of a tormented fighter.
Director/Producer/Editor/Camera Operator: Amélie Ravalec | Cinematographer: Dimitris Mastroyiannis | Dancer: Max Cookward | Dancer: Paul Scott-Bullen | Boxer: Andrew Downer
DEAR ELSA: 10 LETTERS + 10 EXPERIMENTS
Through a series of channeling experiments and letters, filmmaker, Amanda Madden, attempts to embody and communicate with the ghost of the radical poet, model, performance artist, sculptor, and time traveler, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927) about sex, art, madness, and living and creating as a womxn artist.
Director/Writer/DP/Editor: Amanda Madden
ÍCARO
No wall is impassable, the city is a playground.“Who am I? A forgotten myth. A shadow on a wall. Still, I rise.” A short and poetic view of the art of Parkour in a modern and urban Paris.
Director: Inês Loura | Director of Photography: Thanos Liberopoulos | Actor/Athlete: Ludger Newton | Actor/Narrator: Declan Cullen | Music Composer: Hugo Ventron | Sound Recording: Emmanuel Ponty | Sound Mixing: Léo Houdry
I WROTE THIS INSTEAD OF CALLING YOU
Can we slow it all down? A music video about about the disillusionment of abusive relationships and the hope for healing, showcasing the untangling a warped sense of reality that comes from an abuser.
Director/Cinematographer/Editor: Joy Fillmore Greene | Actress/Singer/Songwriter: Alexondra O'Connell
ASHES TO LIGHT
An experimental video-game-video creating and demonstrating a transaction between subject and object’s relationships to movement, undressed by the superficial. A marketplace where gaze is bought and sold. Press any button to start.
Directors: Meg Case & Brad Porter
THE HARMONY OF OPPOSITES
This is a colorful thought about the grand scheme of things we all belong to.
Director/Visual Effects: Alessandro Nardini | Original Music: Nicola Lerra | Camera Lens FX Consultant: Oded Granot
THE PAPER CHASE
An artistic journey to present how the animator Bruce concentrates on developing his animation film 'The Paper Tree' around his character Paper Girl.
Director/Writer/Animator/Actress/Editor: Wendy Wang | Co-director/Co-writer: Luke Gilchrist | Director of Photography/16mm Camera Operator: Joseph Anning | Camera Assisstant: Vadim Gitlin | Sound Recordist: Simeon Filipov | Composer: Isaac Williams | Actor: Shea Salvi
THREE PRIDE FLAGS
A few years ago I created a 30 second loop of a permutating pride flag. Thinking about Jasper Johns in anticipation of the joint retrospective exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Philadelphia Museum of Art, I was inspired to create three pride flags permutating at different speeds.
Creator: Tom Bessoir | Composer: Matthew Fritz
'TIL MORNING
Ashes to Light is a silent film-poem, shot over the course of a year, chronicling loss and a winter of the soul, through dreams, ceremony, and the slow death and rebirth of nature.
Writer/Lead Actor/Producer: Luísa Galatti | Co-Director: Ana Moioli | Co-Director: Ryan Cairns | Actor/Producer: Giorgia Valenti | Director of Photography: Ricardo Acioli | Production Designer: Larissa Castilho | Music Composer: Kaylee Shahira
B L O C K T W E N T Y - F O U R
A F T E R N O O N D E L I G H T S 2
HARRY'S GOLD COAST: SINCE1907
A documentary short film about the historic shoe repair "Harry's Gold Coast" which has been serving the Chicagoland area for over 100 years.
Director/Writer/Producer: Dimitra Korri
MANDATORY TRAINING
What do you learn about equality, diversity and inclusion when compelled by your employer to do an e-learning module on equality, diversity and inclusion? The whiteness and gender normativity of Bolex promotional brochures and magazines from decades past is brought face to face with audio taken from contemporary mandatory training modules on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion and Health & Safety such that the two become fused in a glitch-strewn perversion. If the former medium is a record of unconscious bias and the latter seeks to redress this bias, nonetheless when jammed together one gets the distinct sense that they are more complexly imbricated than we might like to think.
Director: Patrick Tarrant
MARY ANNE & FRANK
A reclusive senior citizen seeks a release from reality as she struggles to say goodbye to a loved one.
Director/Writer: Jingjing Tian | Co-Producer: Nicola Quinn | Cinematographer: Troy Dobbertin
NOOR
A Palestinian American woman is forced to confront a ghost of her marriage, when she meets a lumber-sexaul Paul Bunyan wannabe in a rural American town.
Director/Producer: Lidiya Korotko | Writer: Christina Naime | Writer: Caitlin Davis | Executive Producer: Akiya McKnight | Producer: Cookie Walukas | Unit Production Manager: Anais
PARENTHESIS
In this lonely contemplation of a past summer, the ancient promontory becomes a parenthetical projection of frantic lines and alternating impressions.
Director: Vasilios Papaioannu
SAFE DISTANCE
The clip is based on David Avidan’s song with added words and rap by the creator, reflecting a longing for the past and for the future dovetailed by the movement of the wheelchair and the bicycle.
Director: Rona Soffer
STRESS DREAMS
A hero journeys through a strange world in order to obtain a gem from a distant mountain. A snake lurks in the shadows, woven into the landscape and determined to protect the gem. The hero will have to go through death and rebirth along the way but nothing will stop him...
Director/Animator/Designs/Storyboard/Screenplay: Grant Kolton
THE VOICE
Caught in the daily routine of a dead-end job and a fading relationship, a woman finds an unusual escape from the dull reality in the foreign voice of a language software. Based on the novel by Kristin Dimitrova.
Director/Writer: Kyusik Gam | Producer: Assya Dimova
THE WHITE ROOM - EPISODE 5
Motivated by the death of his daughter, Dr. Jason Schell invents a psychedelic drug to visit the memory of dead people for a second chance to say goodbye.
Director: David Beatty
Cast: Jacob Seidman, Whit Spurgeon & Maite Garcia
B L O C K T W E N T Y - F I V E
F I N I S H W I T H A B A N G
AN EMERGENCY
A cat lover develops a debilitating case of writer’s block. When her tea kettle malfunctions, her struggles intensify.
Director/Actor/Cinematographer: Mac Brydon | Writer/Actor: Jane Cortney
BY WAY OF WATER
A day in the life of two runaways as they navigate their world and face an uncertain future.
Writer/Director/Producer: Alexander Spenser | Director of Photography: Cody Ball | Producer: Lina Lansky | Producer: McKegg Collins | Editor: Grace Zinnel
Cast: Scout Backus & Renee Gagner
CAN'T WAIT
Illustrating humanity's ripple of existence on Earth, this is a meditation on rhythms of nature, and how we are a disruption to them. We falsely believe that humans control Earth, but our reign is ephemeral.
Director/Cinematographer/Editor: Joy Fillmore Greene
FINDING WILSON
It’s a picture perfect day as Jess, 15, walks unsteadily along a fallen tree trunk. Dog-lead in hand, she waits alone beneath the blue skies in a clearing deep in woodland. But when a stranger Nicky arrives, we slowly begin to sense that Jess’s life is as precariously balanced as her walk along the tree.
Producer: Tristan Loraine
LEGEND OF A HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER
A bumbling producer's adventures in Hollywood.
Writer/Director/Creator/Lead Actor: Vikram Chacko | Producer: Karine Emmanuelle | Director of Photography: Jack McDonald
Cast: Rachel Wolf & Chris Jupitz
SHC: FREAK ACCIDENT
A mysterious phenomena occurs during a video call, leading to a Texas resident's death.
Director/Writer/Lead Actor/Producer/Editor/Sound Design: Thomas Burke
UNSTATELY
Politics and family…it’s about running. A single camera comedy about a local political dynasty and their misadventures and endeavors to manage their lives, local government, and interactions with the odd yet lovable inhabitants of the city. It's Vice meets Arrested Development.
Producer/Writer/Actor: Paul Kouri | Director/Producer: Paul Cuoco | Producer: John Halbert | Producer: J.Scott Shonka | Cinematographer: James Brown | Music/Sound Recording/Audio Mix: Igor Kogan
Cast: Paul Kouri, J.Scott Shonka, Mina Son & Cameron Ferguson