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We are so excited to announce the first round of Official Selections for the 20th Anniversary of the Nevada City Film Festival.
This year’s festival kicking off August 24 and running through September 4th will look a little different, but don’t worry, it will still have the same fierce indie spirit as past fests. All of our programming will be available online for streaming via our online festival partner FestivalScope. We will also screen our films locally in Nevada City/Grass Valley in a drive-in movie format. Stay tuned for more information.
In the meantime, join us in congratulating and celebrating these incredible independent filmmakers and their works!
-Ship: A Visual Poem
Dir. Terrance Daye (USA, 13min)
A black boy learns contradicting lessons of manhood and masculinity on the day of his cousin’s funeral.
A Bold Experiment
Dir. Alexander Milan (USA, 9min)
In 1997 J. David Bamberger broke ground on the first ever man-made bat cave. Bamberger, the esteemed conservationist and erstwhile co-founder of Church’s Chicken, knew he was creating a spectacle, and the press ate it up. Journalists from New York to Berlin covered the story. “He’s going batty,” one headline read. 4 years after the cave was built, it stood empty. Then, on a hot summer day in August, a journalist from San Antonio followed up and scooped the story. There were no bats. As he prepared a story on “Bamberger’s Folly,” Bamberger took one last walk up to the bat cave and witnessed ten thousand bats began streaming out. It is the only successful man-made bat cave in the world.
A Half Painted House
Dir. Dom Villarrubia (USA, 12min)
In contemporary Los Angeles, a building manager, Ted, enters a tenant’s apartment after receiving a complaint of a leak coming from the downstairs neighbor’s ceiling. Ted enters the apartment to find a deceased Father Brennan whose suicide note reveals his relationship with his former wife, Louise, and the sudden death of his father-in-law while on their honeymoon, along with his decision to withhold this information from Louise. After the funeral, Father Brennan digs in the backyard for the gold Krugerrands his father-in-law was rumored to have purchased, looking both for financial stability and his identity as a husband, son, and patriarch of the family. The 1970’s-Iowa set flashbacks offer ruminations on Father Brennan’s struggle to act and react in response to a departure from life, his role within his newfound family, and the ways in which he attempts to pick up, or find, the pieces to hold a house together.
Aliens Aya Us
Dir. Kenneth Adams (USA, 3min, 8sec)
What are Aliens? Why does Aya? Who are Us?
ALINA
Dir. Nora Mariana Salim (USA, 24min, 51sec)
As Nazis separate children from their parents in the Warsaw Ghetto, a gang of women risks everything to smuggle their friend’s three-month-old baby to safety. Inspired by true events. Starring Alia Shawkat (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, SEARCH PARTY), Edin Gali (MAD MEN), Erika Soto (VIDA), and Mark McCullough (LOGAN LUCKY).
ANNA
Dir. Dekel Berenson (UK, 14min, 59sec)
Cannes Official Selection 19′ – Living in war-torn Eastern Ukraine, Anna is an aging single mother who is desperate for a change. Lured by a radio advertisement, she goes to party with a group of American men who are touring the country, searching for love. Nominated for a short Palme d’Or, TIFF, AFI Fest + dozens of selections and awards. Currently, BAFTA shortlisted. BIFA award for Best British Short Film.
AUTOSCOPY
Dir. Claes Nordwall (UK, 13min, 32sec)
AUTOSCOPY is about a lonely guy (Ulrik Munther – ‘The here after’ 2015) who escapes the noise of a distracted city life to record deep, ethereal music using sounds of the wilderness. The discovery of an old abandoned floatation tank and experimenting with psilocybin mushrooms evokes a strange alchemy of deep-rooted memories, taking him on a disorientating voyage deep into the heart of nature and ultimately; deeper into himself.
The film features an original score from Los Angeles based Evan Caminiti, also part of doom guitar duo ‘Barn Owl’ who has conjured a soundtrack of deep guitar drones and analog synths, both intriguing and quietly terrifying. It was shot in anamorphic in a remote forest location of Varmland, Sweden 2019 by award-winning Swedish cinematographer Max Larsson.
Bite the Hand
Dir. Nolan Goff (USA, 14min, 55sec)
It’s July 1997. The Sojourner Rover has landed on Mars and Janet Leigh can’t find the damn dog.
Black Lips
Dir. Adrian Chiarella (Australia, 15min)
A lonely abalone trader is awakened by a longing he’s never explored before.
Blocks
Dir. Bridget Moloney (USA, 11min)
An existential comedy about the mother of two young children who begins to spontaneously vomit toy blocks.
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Dir. Bill & Turner Ross (USA, 98min)
In the shadows of the bright lights of Las Vegas, its last call for a beloved dive bar known as the Roaring 20s. Its regulars, a cross section of American life, form a community—tight-knit yet forged in happenstance, teetering between dignity and debauchery, reckoning with the past as they face an uncertain future. That’s the premise, at least; the reality is as unreal as the world they’re escaping from. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is a mosaic of disparate lives adrift in a failed society—disillusioned and reeling, singing while their ship goes down.
Filmmaking duo Bill and Turner Ross return with an elegiac portrait of a tiny world fading away but still warm and beating with the comfort of community. Their beguiling approach to nonfiction storytelling makes for a foggy memory of experience lost in empty shot glasses and puffs of smoke.
BOOK OF WEIRDOS
Dir. Brook Caballero (USA, 7min)
Brook Caballero’s Book of Weirdos is a hand draw animation. Drawn with a pen on a light box traditional animation style. The initial inspiration came from Brook’s sketch books which are full of what he calls “Weirdos”.
Each Weirdo is an automatic drawing, a quick freestyle doodle. Some of the best Weirdos from the sketch books have now been brought to life in the first installment of the animated Book of Weirdos. Enjoy.
BROOKLYN PARK
Dir. Duravcevic (USA, 14min 49sec)
Alone in New York, Somali rideshare driver Abdi begins his nightshift with the news of a tragedy back home. The faces in the backseat change as he wrestles, unable to connect, with whether the unthinkable can be true until a vision provides the clarity he seeks. Poetic and lyrical, BROOKLYN PARK is a modern-day immigrant tale that explores alienation, grief, and transcendence.
Busking
Dir. Timo Vergauwen (Belgium, 70min)
Folk musicians Anna and Joel (Handmade Moments) built a solar-powered stage on the roof of their veggie-oil-propelled tour bus. Their dream of driving the bus from Arkansas to Argentina comes to an abrupt end when two cars smash into them head-on: Joel ends up in a wheelchair for months and the bus is reduced to scrap metal. With the financial support of fans, friends and family the couple tries to rebuild their life, relationship and music career.
Charon
Dir. Cullen Parr (USA, 12min)
CHARON is a short documentary about Myron Dyal, a California artist who has temporal lobe epilepsy. Myron creates striking paintings, drawings, and sculptures inspired by the visions he has during his seizures. For decades, Myron faced abuse and hardship because of his epilepsy, and discovered art as a powerful way to work through his pain. As reality starts to unravel around him, Myron struggles with accepting his epilepsy as both a terrifying illness and his only chance for survival.
Circus Movements
Dir. Filmes do Gajo (Portugal, 15min)
Circus culture is a space of diversity, cooperation and integration. A magical space with real people. “Circus Movements” was shot with circus kids from Ethiopia – Liya and Beza, doing the hula hoop; Habtamnesh, doing the aerial hoop; and the Beniyam, only 5 years old, performing acrobatics. Collectively, they are great circus artists performing in the magnificent landscapes of Ethiopia.
Coffee Shop Names
Dir. Deepak Sethi (USA, 8min)
Three Indian people imagine their personas as their “coffee shop names,” the names they give baristas because their real names are hard to pronounce.
Colette
Dir. Anthony Giacchino (France, 25min)
World War II. Not all warriors wore uniforms. Not all warriors were men. Meet ninety-year-old Colette Catherine who, as a young girl, fought the Nazis as a member of the French Resistance. Now she’s about to re-open old wounds, re-visting the terrors of that time. Some nightmares are too terrible to remember. But also, too dangerous to forget.
Cosmic Fling
Dir. Jonathan Langager (USA, 10min)
Cosmic Fling is the tale of Stan, an intergalactic garbage man who lives alone on an asteroid. To feed himself, he harpoons space debris and converts it into nourishment. To feed his soul, he dreams only of love. One day, he spots Beatrice, a fellow astronaut stranded on a passing comet. He falls instantly in love…but must wait for her comet to return. In order to be with her, he will need to resort to extreme measures.
Current Sea
Dir. Christopher Smith (Malaysia, 1hr, 30min)
A feature-length, environmental thriller that follows investigative journalist, Matt Blomberg, and ocean activist, Paul Ferber, in their dangerous efforts to create a marine conservation area and combat the relentless tide of illegal fishing. Along the way a new generation of Cambodian environmentalists are inspired to create a better life for their people.
Dinners
Dir. Ana Vijdea (Romania, 20min)
Eight families of Syracuse, NY, all from different ethnic backgrounds, let us join the intimate moments of their dinner time trough an immersive video experience. With snapshots of household dinners from across cultural backgrounds, economic circumstances and family arrangements, this 360-degree VR documentary gives us an unseen place at the table, where so much of family life plays out. Told with a light touch and sense of humor, this short documentary is comprised of snapshots of household dinners from across an array of cultural backgrounds, family arrangements and economic circumstances. Meals are prepared, tables are set, children are fed and entertained, and exhausted adults chat in snippets. The unique capacity of 360-degree VR filming allows us to take a place at the table, where so much of the inner workings of family life play out. There, prayers are said and conversations turn to topics such as daily routines, money and missing parents, and wishes and plans for future celebrations. The film also draws attention to the unseen work of the care that’s involved in the sustenance of a family, as well as to the significance of those familiar exchanges we all have around food that we might otherwise take for granted. (IDFA 2019)
Dead Woman’s Pass
Dir. Lali Houghton (PERU, 27min)
Following the rise of the #NiUnaMenos and #MeToo movements, Maxi Manuttupa decides to confront her past through an epic journey in the Peruvian Andes.
Dive Bar
Dir. Dorothy Xiao (USA, 8min)
A grieving woman coping with her husband’s death and a strained relationship with her daughter receives a special visit.
DREAM of PLACE
Dir. Graham Robert (USA, 19min, 11sec)
In Tokyo, a small nature is breathing in overflowing information and huge crowds of people. It is like a small cosmos. For Suishou No Fune, continuing their music is like a trip to find the small cosmos.
Each Other
Dir. Sarah Tabibzadeh (Iran, 16min)
People are living with their personality layers, and they take them to a Layeromata just like their clothes. A young man who works in one of these Layeromatas and accidentally loses one of his layers. Despite his long search, he couldn’t find it. But through an inner revolution during his searching, he reaches a new understanding of his being.
Eat the Rainbow
Dir. Brian Benson (USA 19min, 31sec)
EAT THE RAINBOW is a musical fable about an odd yet kind man named Bayani who moves into a conservative suburban neighborhood and disrupts the otherwise comfortable homogeny. He doesn’t look or act like anyone else which causes fear and panic and eventually a demand for him to leave the neighborhood. Cousin Wonderlette befriends Bayani and together they take on the opposition led by manipulative and unscrupulous realtor Lobelia Gerber.
Feels Good Man
Dir. Arthur Jones (USA, 1hr, 32min)
When Matt Furie first created Pepe the Frog, a character in his indie comic Boy’s Club, Matt was an easygoing San Francisco artist and Pepe was a chill frog dude. Through a series of unforeseen events and bizarre connections driven by the internet, Pepe came to be a symbol of hate for the far right. How that exactly happened is a wild journey into the heart of online life today and the memeification of our shared collective culture, where the meanings of images change moment to moment and cannot be controlled even by their creators.
Furie decides to fight to take back Pepe from the dark forces that have turned him from a silly comic-book character into their own symbol. But is it already too late? Debut director Arthur Jones takes us through a modern-day saga of the internet that must be seen to be believed or understood. Feels Good Man shows us how a character meant to provide joy and fun can slowly morph into something else—but just maybe can change again.
FREELAND
Dir. Kate McLean, Mario Furloni (USA, 1hr, 20min)
An aging pot farmer suddenly finds her world shattered as she races to bring in what could be her final harvest, fighting against the threat of eviction as the impact of the legalization of the cannabis industry rapidly destroys her idyllic way of life.
FREEZE
Dir. Maya Albanese (USA, 14min, 30sec)
When Joy’s fairytale romance crashes and burns on the eve of her 35th birthday, the deafening TICK-TOCK of her biological clock pushes her into a series of romantic misadventures and provokes wild hallucinations. Pressures stack up against her, and everybody seems to have an opinion about what she should do with her dwindling egg count. As a last resort, she ends up at Dream Life Lab & Clinic, where an angry mob battles to get inside to see an eccentric egg freezing doctor who offers peace of mind in exchange for top dollar.
FUKRY
Dir. Blackhorse Lowe (USA, 1hr, 26min)
FUKRY is a doom rom com set in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The feature film follows a group of artists, drug dealers, musicians and stoners as they go through the ups and downs of love.
Furthest From
Dir. Kyung Sok Kim (USA, 19min)
In 1999, Novato, California, an 8-year-old girl named Jessie is enjoying what little time she has left with her best friend, Lucas. The two of them have difficulty conveying it, but they’re both aware as to what is about to happen. The trailer park they live in will be closed, and the whole community will be forced to evacuate, as a result of the MTBE water contamination. For Jessie, this means facing an unwanted change and learning to say goodbye to that which tethers her to her little pink trailer.
Gold for Fools
Dir. Rene W. Solomon (USA, 13min)
After a sheltered Hasidic man’s obsession with a magazine advertisement comes in conflict with his Grandma’s traditional values, he is kicked off his farm and forced into the secular world.
Grab My Hand
Dir. Camus Johnson (USA, 5min)
This animated love letter from son to father to friend reminds us that there’s no good reason to let affection go unspoken.
Groundless
Dir. Soroor Mehdibeigi (Iran, 15min)
On the day when the end is near, the earth is barren, the moon is buried in the darkness, the graves have brought out bodies on the ground, mothers flee from their children and there is no refuge, a childless woman adopts a dead child.
Hayseeds
Dir. Martha Magruder (USA, 9min)
A couple of rural gals decide to run away from their husbands, and set out on the road together. They try to rob the one convenience store in town to finance their escape, but it doesn’t go quite as planned.
Higher Love
Dir. Hasan Oswald (USA, 1hr, 20min)
~WINNER: SLAMDANCE GRAND JURY AWARD~ Daryl Gant is a Camden native, father of eight, and printing press operator. He was raised by a single mother and strives to be a better father than his own, who abandoned him at birth. His girlfriend, Nani, is the love of his life, but struggles to cope with a crippling crack and heroin addiction, and the nefarious lifestyle to support it. More troubling is that Nani is pregnant with their new baby boy, Darnez. It becomes Daryl’s new-found purpose to forge a better future for the both of them. Nani’s dealer, Iman, was once a drug dealing kingpin in Camden in the 1990’s. He was also a father and factory man, until he caught a dealer’s habit selling dope. He embodies the spirit of many disaffected residents of Camden, taking the viewer on a tour of post-industrial American decay. His own quest to sobriety will eventually force the hand of Nani to make a change, as they forge parallel paths to recovery.
How To Stop A Recurring Dream
Dir. Edward Morris (UK, 1hr, 22min)
Faced with a split custody break up, a family’s older daughter kidnaps her hostile sister to embark on a journey to reconnect before they part.
How To Fall In Love in a Brothel
Dir. Sunhui Chang (Korea, 11min)
Set in 1960 Incheon, South Korea. As a young country is struggling through rebuilding after the Korean War, two young Koreans struggling to find their place in a hard world, find love in an unexpected and unlikely setting. Showing what is possible in life when two people happen to cross paths.
Immortal
Dir Natalie Metzger & Robert Allaire (USA, 10min, 30sec)
A brilliant geneticist is on the verge of a breakthrough that could change humanity, but when her experiment is discovered, she will have to make an impossible choice.
Ionut and Calin
Dir. Sorin Poama (Romania, 17min, 44sec)
Feelings change quickly. Love becomes loss only to become love again. Ionut and Calin have recently broken up. When they accidentally meet again, their feelings resurface, along with the tensions that drove them apart. Two men coming from different worlds, a relationship that takes them beyond their own limits.
Jacob’s Ladder
Dir. Rupert Clague (UK, 7min, 28sec)
The Machiguenga tribe of Peru prize a rare plant known for its ability to create intense, lucid dreams. Made entirely on location in the Amazon jungle under the guidance of Werner Herzog, Jacob’s Ladder invites you to cross over from the black and white waking world into this phantasmagorical realm.
Kama’Äina (Child of the Land)
Dir. Kimi Lee (USA, 15min)
A queer sixteen-year-old girl, Mahina, must navigate life on the streets in Oahu, until she eventually finds refuge at the Puâuhonua o Waiâanaeâ Hawai’s largest organized homeless encampment.
Kindling
Xinyi Zhu (USA, 14min)
When a young woman drivers her estranged childhood best friend to get an abortion, the two are forced to confront each other about who they are and what they have become.
L’EAU EST LA VIE (WATER IS LIFE): FROM STANDING ROCK TO THE SWAMP
Dir. Sam Vinal (USA, 24min, 17sec)
On the banks of Louisiana, fierce Indigenous women are ready to fight to stop the corporate blacksnake and preserve their way of life. They are risking everything to protect Mother Earth from the predatory fossil fuel companies that seek to poison it.
Let the Blonde Sing
Dir. Rachel Knoll (USA, 13min, 14sec)
An intimate look into a small community in Alaska through the eyes of Beverly Sue Waltz, the bartender of the only bar open all-year-round. Born in Texas, Beverly had dreams of becoming a country singer and traveled around the US performing at a young age. Pregnant at 15 and escaping a troublesome relationship, Beverly found herself in a small Alaskan town where she cares for her community that gathers in the Anchor Inn bar, occasionally singing on the bar’s stage that was built for her.
Like A Woman
Dir. Gail Mooney (USA, 52min, 17sec)
A film about women who are breaking barriers in male-dominated professions.
Like Holy Wine
Dir. Leonora Pitts (USA, 11min)
Heartbroken and unable to leave after a breakup, a woman speaks her final words to her lover, through dance.
Lili
Dir. Yfke van Berckela (Netherlands, 8min, 35sec)
Lili (Lisa Smit – Netflix’s Ares) knows she has to nail this audition. The Man (Derek de Lint, Soldier of Orange/The Unbearable Lightness of Being) she auditions for, knows this too. Thus starts an uncomfortable cat and mouse game in this single-shot #metoo horror, about power, the misuse of power and female empowerment.
Love From Santiago
Dir. Inti Rowland (Argentina, 26min)
A semi-autobiographical telling of the director’s own mothers experience at the hands of his father, a story of escape, survival and love.
The film, documents the immediate days after a girl escapes an abusive relationship. Creeping out in the early morning she flees into the open desert. Heading as far as she can get, anywhere, just not there, not anymore.
‘Love From Santiago is a a homage, to how the strength of a mothers love can overcome the most traumatic circumstances. A portrait of a young woman travelling across Latin America, taking back her power as she breaks away from a violent life and begins to start again’ – Inti Rowland (Writer/Director)
Having co-written and performed the songs that feature in the film, this project brings together for the first time, Inti’s work in both the mediums he has given his life to – film and music. Through this unique approach to storytelling, he unites the emotional language of these two incredibly powerful art forms.
The film was shot entirely guerrilla, on a shoe string budget, with a skeleton crew in Chile in January 2018.
A debut – created by musician and filmmaker Inti Rowland.
Maggie Dave – I’m Not Ready
Dir. Cassie Shao (USA 2min)
A man waits for a continuously late train in an animated, mixed media dreamscape.
Metro6
Dir. Geoff Hecht (USA, 8min, 12sec)
Today is an important day for Zak, but everything is going horribly wrong. (When his car won’t start), he has no choice but to use public transportation. During his 8-minute bus ride, Zak goes through a deeply personal metamorphosis and comes to realize the true value of human interaction. Metro6 takes place in a world in which all necessities can be delivered without any human interaction. Digital convenience has eroded the need for day-to-day human connections even ride share drivers are being replaced by autonomous driving solutions. Below the comedic surface of public transportation lies a warning for all of us living in the convenience-uber-alles 21st century to not lose the importance of human connections. As Zak becomes more socially aware and appreciative of his diverse community, so do we.
Moneybag Head
Dir. Patrick O’Brien (USA, 15min 20sec)
Dennis, a lonely sad sack with an unfortunate cranial deformity, finds himself romantically entangled with Catherine, a charming political cartoonist. After the two share an intensely intimate night together, Dennis is happier than he’s ever been until he sees Catherine’s latest cartoon.
My Dinner With Werner
Dir. Maverick Moore (USA, 17min, 49sec)
Based on real events, real people, and real things they actually said, MY DINNER WITH WERNER is a wildly bizarre and wacky farce about a 1987 dinner date with a murder plot as the main dish.
My Hero
Dir. Logan Jackson (USA, 12min, 49sec)
As last-minute plans for a babysitter fall apart, eight-year-old Brandon is left alone to oversee his younger brother Mason.
New Henry
Dir. Nick Paonessa (USA, 7min)
A son helps his mother prepare for her first date since her husband’s passing.
New Hire
Dir. Ted Marsden (USA, 5min)
Hiring your significant other is a bad idea.
Originate
Dir. Cameron Sylvester (USA, 15min)
An icon in big-mountain skiing, Michelle Parker has proven her talent and grit on big lines again and again. In Originate, Parker takes us back to the beginning to show how hard work and dedication drove her to the top of her game.
Pharmacopeia
Dir. Tania Taiwo (USA, 5min)
The story of a quirky, Black Pharmacist drowning in student loan debt, who rebels against the system and becomes the drug dealer Pharmacy School never taught her.
Public Trust
Dir. David Garrett Byars (USA, 1hr, 36min)
One of the most important documentaries of the year, Public Trust is a film that needs to be seen by everyone who enjoys getting out in nature. Although many of us take the 640 million acres of America’s Public Lands for granted, these lands are endangered by powerful forces that are attempting the largest land grab in modern history. By focusing on the eminent destruction of the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota, the downsizing of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, and the wholesale appropriation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, director David Garrett Byars enlists a slew of journalists, land historians, tribal leaders, and government whistleblowers to present a highly persuasive argument that is impossible to ignore and vital to hear. Above all else, as executive producer Robert Redford tells us, “Public Trust is the story of citizens who are fighting back. It’s a much-needed wake-up call for all of us who want to preserve our unique and wild cultural heritage.
Reclamation: The Rise at Standing Rock
Dir. Michele Noble (USA, 22min)
In 2016 from the summer through the harsh winter at Standing Rock, North Dakota, the youth of many tribes unite the Native Nations for the first time in 150 years and rise up in spiritual solidarity to non-violently fight for Unci Maka (Mother Earth) against the 3.8 billion dollar Dakota Access Oil Pipeline (DAPL). These young Native leaders known as water protectors join together to honor their destiny as they pray and protect Mother Earth by leading a peaceful movement of resistance which awakens the world.
Sh_t Happens
Dir. Michaela Mihalyi (USA, 13min)
The caretaker exhausted by everything, his frustrated wife and one totally depressed deer. Their mutual despair leads them to absurd events, because… shit happens all the time.
Sisters Rising
Dir. Willow O’Feral, Brad Heck (USA, 58min, 20sec)
Native American survivors of sexual assault fight to restore personal and tribal sovereignty against the backdrop of an ongoing legacy of violent colonization.
So What If the Goats Die
Dir. Sofia Alaoui (France, Morocco, 23min)
Abdellah, a young shepherd living in the mountains, is forced to brave the snow blocking him in order to get food and save his cattle. Once he gets to the village, he faces a supernatural phenomenon.
Sonnie
Dir. Samuel Mirpoorian (USA, 10min 45sec)
For Deon “Sonnie” Casey, life has not gone according to plan. Raised by his grandmother after the death of his parents, Deon is now a single parent himself, working over 60 hours a week. Despite setbacks, Deon is determined to provide a better life for his son. Finding strength and solace in competitive weightlifting and his work at the YMCA, Deon pushes onward in hope that things will get better. SONNIE is an intimate, verite documentary short that illuminates determination, redemption, and fatherhood.
Stay Awake, Be Ready
Dir. Pham Thien An (Vietnam, 14min)
A motorcycle accident, a boy who eats fire, three friends perched by a street stall. The night is buzzing. Stay awake. Be ready.
Sunday Dinner
Dir. Kevin Mead (USA, 15min)
After the recent death of their parents, a passionate Italian-American family reunites to enjoy their customary Sunday dinner. But one of them has a major confession that threatens to unravel their beloved tradition.
Symbiosis
Dir. Nadja Andrasev (USA, 13min)
A betrayed wife starts to investigate her husband’s mistresses. Her jealousy is gradually replaced by curiosity.
The bird I made
Dir. Space Zinza (Korea, 15min)
It’s a VR film based on a boy’s natural observation journal, The Bird I Made. After the fourth nuclear explosion, all humans and creatures perish. In the world, only the souls of birds and the plastic sculptures made by humans are floating in the sky. You will become one of the pieces and join the process of combining the souls of the birds with the pieces to create a new world of birds. From now on, the feast of wonderful birds awaits you.
The Birds Sing Too Loud
Dir. Jack Kenny (USA, 15min)
In an effort to mend old washed out bridges, Mitch invites his two bitter, complaining aunts for a visit to his fancy home in Hollywood. It doesn’t go well.
The Devils Harmony
Dir. Dylan Holmes Williams (UK, 14min)
A bullied teenage girl leads an a cappella club on a trail of destruction against her high school enemies.
The Fabric of You
Dir. Josephine Lohoar Self (UK 11min)
‘The Fabric of You’ is a short stop motion animated film written and directed by Josephine Lohoar Self. It stars Iain Glen as the voice of ‘Issac’ and Damien Molony voicing the character of ‘Michael’.
Set in the Bronx, in the era of 1950s McCarthyism, everybody wants to look the same. Michael a gay, twenty-something-year old mouse, hides his true identity while he works as a tailor. When Isaac enters the shop one day he offers the escapism and love Michael craves. In Michael’s confined apartment, he becomes tormented by the memories of Isaac’s tragic death. Michael’s memories and flashbacks are triggered when he notices Isaac’s jacket draped on the back of a chair. Haunted by the solace Isaac once offered, he struggles to come to terms with his loss.
The Midsummer’s Voice
Dir. Yudi Zhang (USA, 15min)
During a summer vacation, Lei, a young Chinese opera student, beings to experience changes in his voice.
The Other
Dir. Saman Hosseinpuor (India, 25min)
A religious and traditional man after his wife death suspects her and he thinks his wife had a relationship with another man.
The water spring
Dir. Carlos Ignacio Trioni Bellone (Argentina, 20min)
Bernado, a 9 year-old boy, lives in the mountains with his family. One day, he meets a little girl. Then together, they discover a secret in a nearby forest.
Then comes the evening
Dir. Maja Novakovic (Serbia, 27min, 30sec)
The documentary depicts life of two grannies living isolated on the hills of Eastern Bosnia. Nature is the entity with which grannies speak, listen to and respect. The film emphasizes the intangible cultural heritage, through the presentation of chants and rituals for taming the adverse weather, hail, and storm. It reflects the simplicity and purity of their way of life, as well as their painstaking work. In the daily activities that they perform, the excellence and distress of these displays is revealed and revived. Everyday life shows the caring and intimacy of the grannies, both in their mutual relations and in relationship with nature. Poetic tone of the frames relies on references from genre scenes of realism paintings, creating documents of bittersweet everyday life in the countryside.
This Land
Dir. Faith E. Briggs (USA, 10min)
Runner and advocate Faith E. Briggs used to run through the streets of Brooklyn every morning. Now she’s running 150 miles through three of our National Monuments that lay in the thick of the controversy around public lands. She will be accompanied by running companions – who represent diverse perspectives in what it means to be a public land owner. Conservationists are no longer reading Walden and hanging on the words of John Muir. Women, people of color, indigenous peoples and their knowledges and perspectives have been ignored in the conservation conversation. That is changing. The face of conservation is changing. The voices involved are changing. Those voices are speaking a new language and this is a new story. A story about land access told through a journey of empowerment. It is also a story about love – love for community, love for our country, and love for the spaces that have miraculously transformed the lives of these runners. This short film is meant to act as both a powerful encouragement for those in the fight to find their place in the conservation effort and a tool to start these much-needed connections and conversations around public lands across our country.
Viktor on the Moon
Dir. Nicolai Jorgensen (Denmark, 28min)
Viktor Leth has never been on a date. When going on his first date ever, he accidentally sits down at the wrong table with the slightly older and married Rebekka. So begins their weird and wild night.
Volunteer
Dir. Allonzo Armijio (USA, 15min)
92-year-old Howard Henry chooses to stay busy and avoid aging by going to work every day.
Welcome Strangers
Dir. Dia Sokol Savage (USA, 21min)
Every night at 6pm, just outside of Denver, Colorado, detained immigrants are legally released from an ICE facility onto unfriendly, industrial streets. Most of the men and women are asylum-seekers. They have little idea where they are and have nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Welcome Strangers is a short documentary that tells the story of Sarah Jackson, a young woman who searches the streets for these immigrants and invites them into her home. She is assisted by Oliver, the lead host, and over a thousand volunteers as they provide hospitality and help reunite the guests with their families.
WHEN MOM IS GONE
Dir. Zeynep Gulru Kececiler (Turkey, 28min, 36sec)
When Mom is Gone is the story of a father and his six children trying to hold on to life. Mohammed is left alone with his six children, the oldest of whom is 11 and the youngest is 2, in the mountain village of Sumara, in the city of Bamyan in Afghanistan. 9-year old Masume has quit school and is trying to be a mother to her siblings. 11-year old Jumahan, the eldest son, is working far away from his family. What has happened to leave Mohammed and his children in this condition? Why is Masume taking care of her siblings? Why is Jumahan working as a shepherd at a distant village away from his siblings? Yes, a father and his six little children in Afghanistan have to struggle hard. Filmed in 35 days, the documentary demonstrates the micro-scale reflections of the devastation caused by the war in Afghanistan that has been going on for a decade.
White Eye
Dir. Daniel Gad, Dawit Tekelaeb (Israel, 20min)
A man finds his stolen bicycle and it now belongs to a stranger. In his attempts to retrieve the bicycle, he struggles to remain human.
Woman of the Photographs
Dir. Takeshi Kushida (Japan, 1hr, 28min)
A misogynic photographer discovers for the first time in his life the joys of loving a woman, this one confused about her self-identity and self-esteem, by helping her in her perceptions of herself with his photographic retouching skills. One day, middle-aged photographer and retouching artist Kai encounters Kyoko, a beautiful woman and model with a huge and ugly scar on her body. She asks Kai if he can erase the scar in her photographs of herself and create a perfect and flawless body by his retouching skills. Kyoko is fascinated by her new perfect looks in her photographs. At the same time, she is hesitant to show the world and her fans her ideal figures as in her photographs or to show her real self, scars and all. She is torn between the two selves and falls into confusion. Kai feels that only he can salvage Kyoko from her anguishes, and he is determined to love her at all costs, even if it means death to him. “WOMAN OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS†is a film that depicts the fascination and the passion in this encounter between two people awakening for the first time, to love and empathy.
Zoro’s Solo
Dir. Martin Busker (Germany, 1hr, 30min)
A 13-year-old refugee from Afghanistan living in an emergency shelter in Germany joins a Christian boys’ choir to save his father who was left stranded in Hungary, and clashes with the strict choir master.
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