A week after a school shooting, a grieving mother must find a burial dress for her daughter.

Filmmaker Bio: Writer/Director Ally May attended the UCLA writing program, The Academy of Film Writing and SF Film School. Ally tells stories that speak to the human experience. Though they are not always stories with happy endings or pretty pictures, there is always an element of rising above in the arc of her stories, which are often about family. She is an Athena Finalist, Austin Quarter-finalist, ScreenCraft Finalist, Page Finalist, LA/Live Read Finalist, Scriptapalooza Finalist, and Austin Revolution Finalist among others.
 

Cast: Hannah Gavagan, Veronica McPharlane -  Director: Ally May - Writer: Ally May - Cinematographer: Taiowa Osceola Cordts - Editor: Taiowa Osceola Cordts - Composer: Miriam Mayer

Carving and whistling through visual palimpsest, this video piece constructs an alternative logical reality. The video art composition is built as a seesaw in a random shift manner, on the edge of abstract moving images by a dynamic and constant struggle between narrative and inner nonlinear meaning.

 

Filmmaker Bio: Milos Peskir was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1976. He was educated in Visual Art, Intermedia, and is active in the field of time-based and non time-based 2D Visual Art. He has participated in numerous local and international events/festivals/exhibitions/art projects as an artist, author/co-author/curator/art director, in cooperation with other visual artists and artists from different art disciplines, as well.
 

Director: Milos Peskir

Comedian Andy Dick stars in this irreverent music video from Andras Jones, directed by Mischa Livingstone. When Andras played his new song ‘Absolutely No Sense of Humor’ for his friend Andy Dick, Andy insisted the song was about him. It's NOT. It’s actually a true story about something that happened to Andras at a Radio8Ball show he hosted in Olympia a couple of years ago. But maybe now, because of the video, it kind of is about Andy. 

Filmmaker Bio: Director Mischa Livingstone’s award-winning films have screened at festivals worldwide and been added to the Smithsonian permanent collection. Born in Glasgow, Scotland and immigrating to Israel as a child he now calls Los Angeles home, where he teaches film production at Loyola Marymount University.

Cast: Andy Dick, Andras Jones, Sylvia Black, Marisa Carter, Erica Russel, Tuesday Thomas - Director: Mischa Livingstone -  Cinematographer: Lei Deng - Editor: Mischa Livingstone - Composer: Andras Jones

A video about suicide.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Mark Hensley was born in Streator, Illinois but moved to the Netherlands when he was 6 with his family. At 23, he moved back to the United States and enrolled in a 1-year program at the College for Recording Arts in San Francisco. Upon graduation, he started interning at the world-renowned Plant Studios in Sausalito, where he soon was hired as a staff assistant engineer. Mark also started producing local bands, which resulted in a platinum record for engineering the 4 Non Blondes hit single What’s Up. During a trip to Vancouver, BC, Mark met his wife Peggy resulting in his decision to relocate there. It was in Vancouver where he was introduced to audio post-production for film and TV which sparked a new interest. Within a few years he was hired as staff Re-Recording mixer at one of the top studios in Vancouver, Post Modern Sound. His work there resulted in 8 Canadian Sound Award Nominations and 3 wins. In 2008 Mark moved to Los Angeles. Since his move to LA he has been nominated for 3 CAS awards and 3 Emmys. He won an Emmy in 2018 for his work as Lead Re-Recording Mixer on Genius: Picasso. With his wife Peggy, Mark produced a musical they created together called London Calling, inspired by music of The Clash, which premiered to acclaim at the Hollywood Fringe festival in 2017. In the last year as a new filmmaker he has directed 4 short films and 3 music videos, all of which have made it into festivals around the world.
 

Cast: Lauren Tannenbaum  - Director: Mark Hensley - Writers: Lauren Tannenbaum and Vincent Jones

Several films at the same time intersect, generating one and a thousand new stories. They will never see and never see a movie. The audiovisual arts do not need the story. We became non-narrative what was done to be narrative. With the technique taken from the Fine Arts, and as an audiovisual collage, we make narrative and ecological animations and hacks about films in the public domain. A collage of moving images, conveniently treated, generates a new animated reality. The narrative, in the public domain and suitable for recycling, now become the purely visual in the purity of moving images.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Luis Carlos Rodríguez García resides in Valladolid, Spain. He is licensed in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country, and is currently a professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Valladolid. He has made individual and collective exhibitions of painting, photography, video art, installations and audiovisual performances in Avila, Alicante, Barakaldo, Bilbao, Granada, Madrid, Salamanca, and Valladolid (Spain); Toulouse, Nice, Aquitaine and Aveyron, and Decazeville (France); Monterrey, Guanajuato y México DF (México); London, Morecambe, Walthamstow and Cambridge (UK); Atlanta, Burbank, Venice, Tampa, Asheville and Los Angeles (USA); Roma, Forlí, and Bari (Italy); Warsaw, (Poland); Berlin, (Germany); Kyoto (Japan); Lisbon (Portugal); Guangzhou (China); Sofia (Bulgaria); Timisoara (Romania); Belgrado (Serbia); Cusco (Perú); and Bengal (India).

Director: Luis Carlos Rodríguez García - Editor: Luis Carlos Rodríguez García - Composer: Berthelot

Lanie Burroughs has spent her entire school career focused on academics. Now in her senior year she decides to take that focus and apply it to dating in an attempt to lose her virginity before she graduates. Banging Lanie is a coming of age romantic comedy that seeks to highlight the struggle young women face while maturing and exploring their sexuality.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Allison Powell's motto is "Make it Happen." Since moving to Los Angeles from North Carolina, Allison has been involved in projects as an actor, writer, director, producer, and resident tea drinker. Her short film, Black Widow: Origins, got rave reviews from Movie Pilot News and toured the country with Geek Film Fest. She recently completed her first feature, Banging Lanie, as producer/director/lead. Allison is an avid runner and just completed her first 50 mile trail run.

Cast: Allison Powell, Lisa Kaminir, Virginia Reece, Damian Alonso, George Whitaker, Daniela Rivera, Grant Terzakis, Brandon Ruiter, Lydia Folckomer, Juan Felipe Restrepo. Carlos Tejada, Gerald McGrory, Lola Noah, Heaven Gallegos, Lauren C. Brooks  - Director: Allison Powell - Writer: Allison Powell - Cinematographer: Joshua Andersen - Editor: Liz Arnaud - Composer: Charlotte Partt

Best friends Mia and Dez tackle the bucket list of a lifetime.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Ambika Leigh has worked for over a decade as an editor, director, producer, and writer, creating hundreds of hours of film and digital content. She has worked with Apple, Sony Pictures, PBS, RED Digital Cinema, CNN, National Geographic, DirecTV, LEGO, Nu Boyana Studios, New Form Digital Studios, and the DGA Women's Steering Committee, as well as with Emmy-nominated director Stephen Gyllenhaal, actress/producers Lisa Kudrow, Gabrielle Anwar and Catherine Oxenberg, and Grammy award-winning musicians India.Arie, will.i.am and John Legend. In addition to freelancing and running her production company, she teaches editing and post-production workflow. Ambika mentors filmmakers and youth, and is perpetually in development on a myriad of film, TV & new media projects.

Cast: Bri Giger, Megan Davis, Kayla Burchatz, Heidi Schooler, Ryan Murphy, Allyson Sereboff, Steve Brock, Mandy Bics, Kevin Pollard Jr, Dominic Olver, Lauren Simon - Director: Ambika Leigh - Writer: Bri Giger - Cinematographer: Valentina Vee - Editor: Ambika Leigh

A music-filled narrative film that follows Avery Jenkins, a 35-year-old singer/songwriter/bartender in L.A., as he struggles to come to terms with his lack of commercial success. As he navigates the terrain of strained relationships and a search for love, Avery is forced to examine his heart and ask himself: How do you learn to believe in yourself when the rest of the world doesn't? Featuring performances by real-life Los Angeles musicians.

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Filmmaker Bio: Lysandra Petersson hails from Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. She attended Hampshire College in Massachusetts, graduating with a degree in creative writing. She produced, directed and edited a documentary about the American Shakespeare Center - Thunder at a Playhouse - which premiered in Virginia in 2006. A year later she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. As a member of Monday Night Writers Group in Hollywood, she wrote more than a dozen feature-length screenplays, as well as writing and directing Deep Structure's second feature film, Bell Canyon, two short films, and a web series, Conversations in Cars. She produced Deep Structure's first feature narrative film, Bobbi & Gill.

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Cast: Zach Laliberte, Gena Shaw, Nikki Nemzer, Jack Zullo, Chris Bonno, Diego Garcia, Joe Burke, Ray Laliberte, Jack McLaughlin, Josh Staman, Mark Elias, Nicole Calloway, Shelley Mitchell, Aaron Lyons, Kelly Jean Badgley, Elle Soleil Pepin, Nikki D’Amico, Jacob Chattman, Lidia Porto, Angel Cardenas, Tony Swansey, Jessica Intner, Kevin Oestenstad, Jannic Olin, Keith Biondi, Harwood William Gordon, Jaime Saginor, Chris Bradley, Blaine Tyler, Melissa W. Bailey, Andrew Collie, Matt Ukena, Christina Aimerito, Lillie Fischer, Rodney Smith, Dustin Arth, Evan Michael Hart - Director: Lysandra Petersson - Writer: Lysandra Petersson - Cinematographer: Zan Gillies - Editor: Lysandra Petersson - Composer: Barbara Shucko

A woman and a man sitting in a coffee shop toy around with the idea of a simple kiss between strangers.

Filmmaker Bio: Vito Lyles has been creating and envisioning films for as long as he can remember. His dedication towards film is unruly, stopping at nothing to bring his vision to life. Vito has won multiple awards for his films, and has been on countless professional sets. He is an 18-year-old filmmaker looking to create until the end of his time. 

Cast: Charlotte Williams, Tony DeCarlo - Director: Vito Lyles - Writer: Deanna Alisa Ableser - Cinematographer: Nick Sherman - Editor: Hunter Lopp

Time to go to work! But first, kitty has brought home another "gift"....

Filmmakers' Bios: Whit Spurgeon and Steve Newman are a filmmaking team who have collaborated on several short films, including Present Tense and the award-winning Thump. Newman generally writes, Spurgeon generally directs, both produce, and both act. Spurgeon spent 20 years in Chicago acting in multiple award-winning theatre productions and over two dozen TV commercials before moving to Los Angeles in 2009, where he’s appeared on TV and in films including Fresh Off the Boat, Liza On Demand, Cougar Town, Victor Crowley, and Chastity Bites. He is Co-Director of the We Make Movies International Film Festival.

Newman is from Pittsburgh. And Chicago. There's a bit of Boston in him too. He doesn't have much interesting film work to include in a bio so instead he likes to talk about Star Wars, literature, and pizza. Pizza without pineapple that is. If you try to talk to him about pineapple on pizza he won't be responsible for what happens next.

Cast: Deb Reed, Steve Newman, Bug - Director: Whit Spurgeon - Writer: Steve Newman - Cinematographer: Whit Spurgeon - Editor: Yu Jung Hou

Bystander came about in a stream of consciousness. It was tailored to mirror the absurdist play “No Exit” by the existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. In the film, and in the play, there are four characters: Joseph, Ines, Estelle, and Boy. The play is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked into a room together for eternity. A bellboy, named Boy, is the one who led them into their room. “No Exit” is the source of Sartre's especially famous and often misunderstood quotation, "Hell is other people." It is a reference to Sartre's ideas about the perpetual struggle of being caused to see oneself as an object from the view of another person. Without the ability to blink, sleep, or turn off the lights, the devouring gaze of the other is eternal suffering for the characters. The film’s ties to the play are incredibly subliminal, and the impact is minimal. It is the state of Boy’s hellish existence. His psychological entrapment. The incessant nightmare that plays out in his mind. The short film seeks to show Boy’s feeling of being seen as an object. He is observed fully by the camera, by others, and now by you, and is unable to escape these voyeuristic stares.

Filmmaker Bio: Dominic Guidry is a writer/director who seeks to write and create pieces that promote dialogue around untouched topics. As an alumnus of UCLA, he has spent most of his career in academia, where he has done research, work, and writing in the disciplines of Philosophy, Civic Engagement, and Film. Bystander is his directorial debut. The film portrays shame and trauma, from a male perspective, around instances of sexual assault. He utilizes both film and poetry to make his stories accessible, while also challenging the viewer to think critically within surreal and non-linear frameworks. 

Cast: Austin Taylor, Rachel Siegel, Olivia Doskey-Mulvaney, Jeffrey Winthrop - Director: Dominic Guidry - Writer: Dominic Guidry - Cinematographer: Jeffrey Chu - Editor: Kevin Klauber, ACE - Composer: Julia Kent

Two seemingly dissimilar women, Danielle and Mary, have a chance encounter and happen to be on opposite sides of the same coin.

Filmmakers' Bios: Tehana Fatima Weeks is an artist, entertainer and business woman who serves, uplifts, inspires, and empowers people to make our communities, societies, and world better. A graduate of the iO West Theatre Training Center, she helped create and produce the web series Shrink Wrapped for which she was nominated Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy (2017 L.A. Web Fest). Tehana loves nature and the outdoors, delights in all things food, and takes pride in her particular sense of style which she calls her swag.

Whit Spurgeon is an actor, director and producer, and the Co-Director of the We Make Movies International Film Festival.

Cast: Tehana Fatima Weeks, Christine DiTillio, Lynette Coll, Michelle Loucadoux, Sapna Gandhi - Directors: Tehana Fatima Weeks, Whit Spurgeon - Writer: Tehana Fatima Weeks - Cinematographer: Kevin Sambells - Editor: Eric Michael Kochmer - Composer: Jeffrey Gold

Several films at the same time intersect generating one and a thousand new stories. You will never/always see and not watch a movie. The audiovisual arts do not need the story. We became non-narrative what was done to be narrative. With the technique taken from the Fine Arts and as an audiovisual collage, we make narrative and ecological hacks on films in the public domain, musically unified with the theme “Inside Your Body (ID 1009)”, from the album Habitable Sferes (2018) by the musician LOBO LOCO.

Filmmaker Bio: Luis Carlos Rodríguez García resides in Valladolid, Spain. He is Licensed in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country, and is currently a professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Valladolid. He has made individual and collective exhibitions of painting, photography, video art, installations and audiovisual performances in Avila, Alicante, Barakaldo, Bilbao, Granada, Madrid, Salamanca, and Valladolid (Spain); Toulouse, Nice, Aquitaine and Aveyron, and Decazeville (France); Monterrey, Guanajuato y México DF (México); London, Morecambe, Walthamstow and Cambridge (UK); Atlanta, Burbank, Venice, Tampa, Asheville and Los Angeles. (USA); Roma, Forlí, and Bari (Italy); Warsaw, (Poland); Berlin, (Germany); Kyoto (Japan); Lisbon (Portugal); Guangzhou (China); Sofia (Bulgaria); Timisoara (Romania); Belgrado (Serbia); Cusco (Perú); and Bengal (India).

Director: Luis Carlos Rodriguez - Editor: Luis Carlos Rodríguez - Composer: Lobo Loco

Jessica is recently separated and looking for some sexual intrigue. She brings home Dan, a stranger who may have gotten more than he bargained for when her soon-to-be-ex husband Jeff pays her a surprise visit. The couple airs their grievances as Dan remains on, a captive witness to a scene of potential pending domestic violence. "Compel" is about those impulses that are too big for you to handle ... you better be careful, you don't want it to carry you away.

Filmmaker Bio: Patrick Coleman Duncan is an Actor and Award Winning Filmmaker. Originally from Louisville, KY, where he was a charter member of the Walden Theatre, a preparatory training program for professional-bound actors. He currently resides in the Los Angeles area. Patrick attended Southern Methodist University and received a BFA in Acting there while also studying writing for stage and directing. After college he moved to NYC and began his filmmaking career with a short film So, What's In Jericho? After completing that, he moved to California and wrote, directed and appeared in several short films including Hollywood the Hard Way, The Shabbos Bigfoot, and A Mock Time: A 'Star Trek' Wedding. Patrick co-founded a filmmaker support group called the Los Angeles Filmmakers Network and contributed to several short films and a feature film with the group. He has served in the past as Program Coordinator for the NewFilmmakersLA screening series. He is a current member of the Hollywood Filmmaking Collective We Make Movies, and hosts their monthly Test Screening Workshop for films-in-progress. As an editor he assisted on the Feature Documentary Carbon Nation and edited the narrative feature Assisting Venus starring Michael Steger and Julian Sands. He appeared as Dobson's Father in the web series Project Hollywood, and also acted in his own script Misery Date as well as many other sketches for We Make Movies. He recently appeared on NBC's Parks and Recreation. Patrick has also appeared on network television shows Days of Our Lives, Guiding Light and Law and Order. His short films Jes and Lora and Life's a Pitch have screened at over three dozen festivals around the Globe and won multiple awards.

Cast: Jessica Rothert, Travis Stanberry, Patrick Coleman Duncan - Director: Patrick Coleman Duncan - Writer: Patrick Coleman Duncan - Cinematographer: Sam Rosenthal - Editor: Patrick Coleman Duncan - Composer: John T. Mickevich

Country of Hotels tells the stories of the desperate souls who pass through the doors of 508, a room on the fifth floor of an anonymous, decaying hotel. We are taken on a surreal and blackly comic journey down its lonely corridors and behind its out-dated furnishings and stained surfaces. The story plunges us into the ever-turning carousel of haunted lives who check in and check out of the establishment. Adulterers, lonely businessmen, and hustlers grapple with their demons whilst a prying, occasionally sinister hotel staff always seems to be within earshot. Inside this hotel the mundane transforms into an implement of threat; a faulty light fixture appears to contain a hidden camera; a heating unit whispers to guests with increasing menace; a television set randomly flips channels, displaying TV shows which reveal a guest's secret paranoid fantasies; and a stray look into the bathroom mirror becomes the quickest way to disprove your existence.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Julio Maria Martino has directed plays in the UK, Europe and America. His long-running production of Steven Berkoff's Kvetch has played in Edinburgh (1998), Vienna (1999), Milan (2002, 2004 & 2010) and most recently at The King's Head in London in 2011 for the 20th anniversary of the play's UK premiere. During this time, the production has featured a diverse cast, including Benedict Cumberbatch and London-based performance artist Dickie Beau. Since the early 2000's Julio has also directed seven plays by Chicago playwright David Hauptschein. These include US productions of When the Walls Have Ears (2003), The Gurney (2008) and The Ballad of Johnny 5 Star (2004), which premiered in Chicago before transferring to Edinburgh and The Library Theatre, Manchester. London productions of Hauptschein's work include The Playactor (2007), which was Time Out Critics' Choice, An Alchemy of Flesh (2008), and In Memory of Edgar Lutzen (2010) -- all at the Old Red Lion for Secret Life Theatre. Other new work includes Terry Hughes' Life's a Gatecrash, which was awarded an Edinburgh Fringe First in 1997, and Behind Closed Doors (Contact Theatre, Manchester 2001). Since 2002 Julio has also collaborated regularly with Teatro Della Contraddizione of Milan, teaching and working on a number of productions as director and co-director. These include WOP! (2003) and The Jew of Malta (2003-2005). Since 2012 he has co-curated the event Milano Calling with Teatro Della Contraddizione, bringing UK music acts to perform in Milan, including Lazy Habits, Louis Barabas and The Bedlam Six, and The Great Malarkey. As co-chair of The Foxrock Foundation, dedicated to the promotion of Samuel Beckett's legacy, Julio produced the London transfer from Off-Broadway of Krapp 39 in 2010.

 

Cast: Siobhan Hewlett, Matthew Leitch, Michael Laurence, Sabrina Faroldi, Ben Shafik, Olegar Fedoro, Mia Soteriou, Eugenia Caruso, Adam Leese, Colm Gormley, Robert Shannon, Anna Tobart, Christopher Adlington, Robert Rinder, Richard Wellings-Thomas, Dickie Beau, Charlotte Pyke, Maria Golledge, Emily Corcoran, Alan Ross, Don Magnus Fraser, Charles Pike - Director: Julio Maria Martino - Writer: David Hauptschein - Cinematographer: Stefano Slocovich - Editor: Peter Allinson - Composer: Christos Fanaras

A young man struggles to survive and avoids using violence to do so. But as a black man in America, violence finds him.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Evan Kyle hails from Las Vegas, NV and has been a writer-director since graduating college in 2016. Before making films, Evan was a college basketball player and editor for various indie films and music videos. Crossroads marks his directorial debut and runs alongside his current career as a writer for the CW show, Riverdale.

Cast: Thomas Copeland, Sun Park - Director: Evan Kyle - Writer: Travis Gunn - Cinematographer: Danny Salazar - Editor: Evan Kyle - Composer: Sugi Dakks

A young woman gets emotionally caught in a voyeuristic game on the dark shades of Tokyo only to reveal a darker past of her own.
 

Filmmaker Bio: With over 12 years of experience -- 3 feature films, 5 short films, a dozen music clips and more than 70 world nominations -- Ayoub Qanir has a scientific spirit and depth in the choice of his filmic thematics, making films where psychology and science are the main actors. Original and thoughtful, the young director expresses himself with a cinema where philosophy and symbolism make perfect sense. Qanir likes to create realities where the thrill is cerebral and psychological. His films ponder existential questions and show his admiration for the power of neorealist cinema.

Cast: Mika Hijii, Lee Murayama, Shingo Ippongi, Keisuke Ishida, Naoyuki Miyahara, Kôhei Mashiba, Kiyozumi Honda, Atsuko Shikata, Shigeki Terao - Director: Ayoub Qanir - Writer: Ayoub Qanir - Cinematographer: Roman Kuznets - Editors: Kenji Kanai, Roman Kuznets, Ayoub Qanir - Composer: Si Begg

A long distance couple meet at an isolated desert motel to give their relationship one last shot.

Filmmaker Bio: Gerardo 'Gerry' Maravilla is a Mexican-American independent filmmaker and photographer living in Los Angeles, CA. His short film, Cross, the story of a Filipino-American backyard boxer in the San Fernando Valley, has screened at festivals across the country including the Newport Beach Film Festival, San Antonio Film Festival and Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. He currently works as Seed&Spark's Head of Crowdfunding, where he helps filmmakers reach their audience building and crowdfunding goals.

Cast: Sachie Alessio, Marc Fajardo - Director: Gerry Maravilla - Writer: Gerry Maravilla - Cinematographer: Steven Yee - Editor: Gerry Maravilla - Composer: Jessica Simes

Business and the homeless clash in Harbor City, California

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Filmmaker Bio: Mico Montes is a horror writer & producer based out of Long Beach, California.  He loves the dark creatures that scurry in the night.  With all their mystery they feed his appetite.

Cast: Business owners and homeless citizens of Harbor City, CA - Director: Mico Montes - Cinematographer: Jack Rabbit Photo - Editor: Mico Montes

'Fa Fu' (translation: 'Skin and Hair') is a story about a timid woman who begins to lose her hair due to stress, only to find her personality undergoes a transformation as a result.

Filmmaker Bio: Born and raised in Taiwan, Yu Jung Hou grew up a self-conscious girl who escaped into the world of novels and manga, giving her the perfect storytelling roots for her present-day career. Discovering her BA in Linguistics and Literature wasn't what she really desired, she decided to relocate to Los Angeles and pursue a career in filmmaking. During her three years at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, Yu developed a reputation as an editor/director. One of the films she worked on, Drone, was a Student Academy Award finalist in 2015. Yu is interested in writing, directing, and editing narratives that convey the world in a unique light that reveals itself once you give it a chance.

Cast: Jessica Lee, Brittany Fiola, Jimmy May, Todd Hansen, Talbott Lin - Director: Yu Jung Hou - Writer: Yu Jung Hou - Cinematographer: Ivan Bordas - Editor: Tarik Polansky - Composer: Tao Liu

After turning on her television, a young woman fears she may not be home alone.

Filmmaker Bio: Will Lee is an L.A.-based writer and director. Growing up in Nashville, TN, classic 2000s horror films like The Strangers and The Descent proved to be unforgettable theatrical experiences for him. He’s cut his teeth in the music and concert video world, but horror filmmaking has become a lifelong aspiration. His short, FEED, has taken reviewers at Horror Buzz and Indie Shorts Mag on a suspenseful ride, and most recently has earned a spot on Crypt TV’s roster of “Featured Creatures." His favorite horror films include The Blair Witch Project, The Shining, and John Carpenter’s The Thing. Off-set and post-quarantine, you can find Will enjoying live music and a good beer or on the tennis courts, trying not to embarrass himself.

Cast: Noelle Filippone, Braian Rivera Jimenez, Alexis Clayton, Julia Müller - Director: Will Lee - Writer: Will Lee - Cinematographer: Travis Torok - Editor: Will Lee - Composer: Marc Giguere

Throughout the four seasons of the year, these four stories are just a simple glimpse with no words through the life of four couples that meet, live, split and meet again in the cities of Madrid, Chicago and New York. Viewing the different stages of a relationship is a voyeuristic exercise, embodied in a wide range of couples and set in different cities. Because we all share the same feelings, no matter who you are or where you come from.

Filmmaker Bio: Miguel Gabaldón graduated in Audiovisual Communication at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and Directing at the Film and Audiovisual School of the Community of Madrid (ECAM). He is the director and scriptwriter of several short films in digital video and 35mm, such as Pasajero (present in more than 50 international festivals) and Ha(r)d to say, winner of several national and international awards.

Cast: Malia “Bambi” Santiago, Michael Bradley Cohen, Ana García, Daniel K. Isaac, Apollo King, MariNa, Rut Santamaría, José Troncoso, Mason the Dog  - Director: Miguel Gabaldón - Writer: Miguel Gabaldón - Cinematographer: Miguel Gabaldón - Editor: Miguel Gabaldón 

Anxiety unseats the narrator in time and place as she tries to rewrite the story in search of a less violent ending. FUCKED UP POINT BLANK is a glitched found-footage film about anxiety interfering in storytelling. To unravel the truth, an anxious person struggles to rewrite with set structure, characters and tone. With each attempt to alter the narrative, the potential for violence escalates while the raw materials degrade and actions fragment, stutter or overlap.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Shayna Connelly is a filmmaker based in Chicago whose work explores hauntings, liminality and the boundaries between documentary, experimental and fiction filmmaking. Inspired by a book on haunted houses shelved in the non-fiction section of her childhood library, Connelly’s lifelong obsession with ghosts led her to explore trauma, place, identity and the link between fear and desire. Her hybrid approach to cinema questions the strict categorization of film modes and genres. She enjoys breaking cinematic rules regarding character, action and structure while exploring subjectivity, surrealism and abstraction. Her films have won awards at Big Muddy Film Festival, Berlin Short Film Festival, Cinepocalypse, Women in Horror Film Festival, The Artists' Forum Festival of the Moving Image, Milwaukee Women's Film Festival, Columbus International and IC Docs. FUCKED UP POINT BLANK is the 7th in an eight-film series called A MEMORY PALACE FOR GHOSTS. Films in the series have screened at over 200 festivals including Palm Springs International ShortsFest, Chicago Underground, Sydney Underground, San Diego Underground, Brooklyn Film Festival, Antimatter, Chicago Feminist Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival and Athens International among others. Newcity Magazine named her one of Chicago's 50 Screen Gems in 2016 and 2018.

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Director: Shayna Connelly - Sound Mix: Travis Duffield

Her Type opens with my mother loading a selfie of me into FaceApp—a smartphone application that generates realistic transformations of photographic portraits. She adds a “male” filter to the picture. With the “male” filter, my selfie resembles a portrait of my Russian father, now deceased, when he was my age. The image creates an opportunity for my mother to express her desire for me (via the image of me as my father), while my camera frames my mother’s image, fetishizing it. Her Type explores the submerged desire between me and my mother, an immigrant and professional actress, who is my subject and collaborator. Through interviews, reenactment, and cinema-verité narration, the film explores sexual tension between camera and subject, viewer and image, American daughter and Russian mother.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Masha Vlasova is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker. She holds an MFA from Yale School of Art. As a recipient of the Fulbright Fellowship in Filmmaking she conducted research for her multi-disciplinary project Monuments and Other Things that Change. Several Attempts at Titling a Photograph. A Film in the Works. Her forthcoming essay based on the project will be published in "Monument Culture: International Perspectives on the Future of Monuments in a Changing World" in March 2019. Vlasova has been a recipient of the Alice Kimball Fellowship and the JUNCTURE Art and Human Rights Fellowship at Yale Law School. Her photographs, sculptures, and films have been exhibited and screened at Smack Mellon, Anthology Archives, Abrons Arts Center, the Border Project Gallery in New York, and Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, among others. Her curatorial project, Women Filmmakers at the Intersection of Documentary, Video Art, and Avant Garde, premiered at Indiana University Cinema in the Fall of 2018.

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Cast: Inna Yesilevskaya, Masha Vlasova - Director: Masha Vlasova - Writer: Masha Vlasova - Cinematographer: Masha Vlasova - Editor: Masha Vlasova

Female empowerment. Song: music lyrics composed by Raffaela and the InRage Entertainment Label team.

Filmmaker Bio: Raffaela Capp was born in Smithtown, NY and raised in the small town of Sayville, New York on Long Island. At an early age it was obvious Raffaela wanted to perform; she could sing before she could talk. Raffaela has formal education and training with the Berkshire Theatre Group and the CAP 21 acting conservatory. She graduated from the Long Island Performing Arts and Technical High School and attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied liberal arts. Raffaela has also trained at the studios of Susan Batson and Ivana Chubbuck, and has been involved in over 50 community and regional theatrical productions as an actress and singer. In 2011 Raffaela wrote and recorded her first EP with Grammy award-winning producers Frank and Christian Berman. The music video for her original track So What was accepted into the Dances With Films festival (2015), Rahway International Film Festival (2015), was a jury selection at the International Family Film Festival (2015), and won best song in a music video at the Hollywood & Vine Film Festival (2015). She wrote and starred in the short film Taking A Chance on Love in 2014, which was nominated for Best Short Film at Dances With Kidz (2015) and received an audience choice award at the Hollywood & Vine Film Festival (2015). Raffaela was in development with InRage Entertainment and Sony/ATV producers/songwriters, Automatic and Ebony Vanderveer, with whom she released her music video and single, HURRICANE, featuring artist Chris Redd (SNL), written by the Vanderveers and Elise Legrow. She starred in the feature film Reach alongside Garrett Clayton and Jordan Doww. Most recently, Raffaela's Pizza and Whine, which she co-wrote and starred in, ran at the New York Theatre Festival and Hollywood Fringe Festival. Pizza and Whine is now being adapted to the screen.

Cast: Raffaela Capp, Natasha Capp, Emily Rose Attridge, Veronica Kelly - Director: Candice Dalsing - Writer: Raffaela Capp - Cinematographer: Candice Dalsing - Editor: Candice Dalsing - Composer: Raffaela and the InRage Entertainment Label team.

This collaboration between ambient music artist Theda and filmmaker Collin Kluchman represents Paris as a place of simultaneous beauty and chaos. A play between raw sense data and meditative clarity drives an abstract narrative. The camera is never forgotten as the mediating factor between body, environment, and representation.

Filmmaker Bio: Collin Kluchman, 23, is an experimental filmmaker and video installation artist. He received his MFA in transdisciplinary new media at Paris College of Art, France (2018-2020), and completed an undergraduate degree in English Literature and Film Studies at Colorado College (2014-2018). He has worked in documentary post-production and created projections for dance and musical performances as well as multi-channel video installations. He has received multiple grants for his documentary work and commissions for collaborations with musical artists. His visual work always centers around the natural world and the medium of video with a conceptual emphasis on the philosophies of phenomenology and critical theory. 

Director: Collin Kluchman - Cinematographer: Collin Kluchman - Editor: Collin Kluchman - Composer: Theda (Thibault Nascimben)

A detective, a missing girl and lots of voiceover. C'est noir, amigo. A comic romp.

Filmmaker Bio: Born and raised in Southern California, Gregory Blair has pursued acting and writing for many years, winning awards for both. Recently, he began directing. His first film, Deadly Revisions, earned him the EOTM Award for Best Director of an Indie Horror Film and the L.A. Movie Award for Best Narrative Feature. It Ain't All Black And White...Unless It Is is his first short film.

Cast: Mikhail Blokh, Valerie Ross, Gregory Blair - Director: Gregory Blair - Writer: Gregory Blair - Cinematographer: Nate Cornett - Editor: Gregory Blair

The first part of a 6-part essay film series attempting to explain why my life has turned out the way it has.

Filmmaker Bio: Eric Michael Kochmer is a writer/director/producer with a background in experimental theater. A graduate of Marymount Manhattan College, he mentored under Elizabeth Swados at LaMama Theatre. Upon relocating to LA, he produced and starred in avant-garde filmmaker George Landow’s film DIALOGUES (2009). Kochmer’s directorial feature film debut WAY DOWN IN CHINATOWN (WMMFest) found distribution through 366WeirdMovies and Amazon. 2018 saw the release of his second feature film, ABOUT STRANGERS: Road Series Volume I (Best Picture Award, Innuendo International Film Festival), as well as the first phase of the project I'VE SAID AND DONE THINGS THAT NO-ONE WILL EVER REMEMBER (over 100 episodes). He is currently in development on a live, multimedia version of the series, adapted for galleries and other art spaces. His third feature film, HER AND HIM, as well as his fourth feature, the documentary JACK MADE A PLAY ABOUT JOHN, are both slated to premiere in 2021. Kochmer serves as the Chief of Production for the film collective and production company We Make Movies, as well as Co-Director of the We Make Movies International Film Festival.

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Cast: Eric Michael Kochmer - Director: Eric Michael Kochmer - Writer: Eric Michael Kochmer - Cinematographer: Eric Michael Kochmer - Editor: Eric Michael Kochmer - Composer: John Arroyo

The sixth part of a 6-part essay film series attempting to explain why my life has turned out the way it has.

Filmmaker Bio: Eric Michael Kochmer is a writer/director/producer with a background in experimental theater. A graduate of Marymount Manhattan College, he mentored under Elizabeth Swados at LaMama Theatre. Upon relocating to LA, he produced and starred in avant-garde filmmaker George Landow’s film DIALOGUES (2009). Kochmer’s directorial feature film debut WAY DOWN IN CHINATOWN (WMMFest) found distribution through 366WeirdMovies and Amazon. 2018 saw the release of his second feature film, ABOUT STRANGERS: Road Series Volume I (Best Picture Award, Innuendo International Film Festival), as well as the first phase of the project I'VE SAID AND DONE THINGS THAT NO-ONE WILL EVER REMEMBER (over 100 episodes). He is currently in development on a live, multimedia version of the series, adapted for galleries and other art spaces. His third feature film, HER AND HIM, as well as his fourth feature, the  documentary JACK MADE A PLAY ABOUT JOHN, are both slated to premiere in 2021. Kochmer serves as the Chief of Production for the film collective and production company We Make Movies, as well as Co-Director of the We Make Movies International Film Festival.

Cast: Eric Michael Kochmer Director: Eric Michael Kochmer - Writer: Eric Michael Kochmer - Cinematographer: Eric Michael Kochmer - Editor: Eric Michael Kochmer - Composer: Benjiman Gili & Franz Schubert performed by Alessandro Moreschi

A thief in the throes of an existential crisis turns a hostage interrogation into a violent, philosophical story-telling competition. Set in an abandoned theatre and based on a first-time screenwriter’s original stage play, the film is a dark comedy for the post-truth era.

Filmmaker Bio: Daniel Hart Donoghue received a BA and MFA in Literature and Creative Writing, attending both the University of Massachusetts Amherst in America and the University of Limerick in Ireland. Daniel began his artistic career as a professional stage actor in America and has performed in over thirty stage productions throughout the country, along with numerous appearances in television and film. He is a member of AEA, SAG and AFTRA. Having written several stage plays throughout his career, Daniel is both thrilled and honored to be bringing the craft that is closest to his heart from the stage to the screen with Jimmy's Tale. Daniel currently resides in Oregon with the wellsprings of his gratitude and inspiration: his loving wife Anna and their wonderful newborn son, Aidan.

Cast: Gabe Fonseca, Daniel Hart Donoghue, Luke Bishop, Anna Artemenko Donoghue, Zander Schauss - Director: Daniel Hart Donoghue - Writer: Daniel Hart Donoghue - Cinematographer: Mko Malkhasyan - Editor: Daniel Hart Donoghue - Composer: Thomas Chabalier, Jonathan Hamrick

Up and coming artist Madison Park has just moved to LA from short stints in New York, Berlin, and Moscow. Her work is in demand and a showcase is being discussed with the cIty’s biggest art dealer, when a box arrives at the door. The unexpected gift alludes happily to a night of sexual adventure. When Madison leaves for her tryst, a masked man attacks her in the apartment. Unbeknownst to the perpetrator, Madison is more formidable than she appears and knocks him out. He quickly rips off his mask to reveal that he is her date for the evening and was only trying to spice things up. Madison soon forgives the intrusion and begins to reward his brave attempt at romance. When he is fully in her grasp, Madison gives him back a gift he won’t ever forget.

Filmmaker Bio: Frank Tran was born and raised in San Francisco to immigrants of the Vietnam War. He developed his love for films from an early age watching Kung Fu movies with his whole family around the old tube set. It was the only time the blue-collar family was able to spend together as they worked their jobs religiously in pursuit of the American Dream. For Frank, this feeling of home and happiness was ingrained in him from an early age and motivated him to move to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of being an actor. Frank has been a SAG Actor for 12 years and still enjoys the pursuit of the craft, but has recently been inspired by the artistry to work behind the camera as director, and believes he has found his true calling in life. KINK is his first short film in which he wrote, produced, and directed.

 

Cast: Hannah Tamminen, Christopher Lusti, Du’ Ana Speights - Director: Frank Tran - Writer: Frank Tran - Cinematographer: Pongsakorn Khamhangngam - Editor: Andrea Porter - Composer: Thomas Corkran

In pre-war Nazi Germany, projectionist Hermann Winkler is forced to screen propaganda films before the main features. But the rats of the cinema have been disrupting the screenings and Hermann is given a final warning by the SS. While the latest Nazi film is being projected, the rats cut the film and use the projector beam to perform a shadow play cabaret on the big screen.

Filmmaker Bio: Peter McCully has worked in visual effects for the film industry for over 25 years. Since 1999 he has run visual effects company Albedo VFX, overseeing work for numerous feature films, television films and series. He has several awards and nominations to show for it. Peter directed the NZFC funded short film Eeling (2009) and wrote and directed the short film The Gully (in post-production). He was associate producer of the telefeature Jean (2016) and Kiwi Christmas (2017). Peter’s visual effects work for Jean earned him a New York Festival's silver medal.

Cast: John Leigh, Emmett Skilton, David Aston - Director: Peter McCully - Writer: Peter McCully - Cinematographer: Donny Duncan - Editor: Ryan Mullany - Composer: Andrew McDowell

A camera-less Fluxus film - made in my kitchen sink. (Direct animation) A playful celebration of light, color and abstraction. Hand-processed, hand-painted, hand-scratched, baked, and edited 16mm film. Hand-painted films are moving paintings, not unlike psychedelic stained glass windows.

Filmmaker Bio: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is an artist whose experimental films and videos have been screened internationally at museums and festivals. Her works are often made from found footage, and she also works in Super 8mm and 16mm, and hand-painted direct cinema. She is a Willa Cather Professor Emerita in Film Studies. She is a filmmaker, video artist, professor, author, composer and programmer/curator.

Director: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster - Editor: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster - Composer: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

An animated short about a trip from the LAX International Airport to Vancouver and a pair of worn American Apparel underwear.

Filmmaker Bio: zach dorn is a theater-maker and animator based in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was selected as the inaugural Julie Taymor World Theater Fellow. He premiered Let's Prank Call Each Other at Ars Nova in 2017. His latest show, Sponge Hollow, opened at REDCAT in Downtown L.A. in 2019. He is currently an MFA candidate in Experimental Animation at CalArts.
 

Cast: zach dorn - Director: zach dorn - Writer: zach dorn - Cinematographer: zach dorn - Editor: zach dorn 

When the past interrupts their present, married couple Johanna and Bryce have no choice but to face their recent loss head on and confront each other's silence.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Catherine Black (AKA Cat Black) is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker, actress and artist. Catherine has been in continuous dedication of the craft of acting since childhood, studying various acting techniques, dance and classical singing, and working as an actress in Toronto, England and Los Angeles. She is best known for American Psycho, starring opposite Crispin Glover in The Donner Party, and multiple guest-starring roles. Catherine currently teaches acting in Los Angeles and continues to act in TV and film. Catherine’s surreal figurative paintings have exhibited internationally since the late 1990’s. She approaches her visual art much like she would prepare for a role or a film, each painting a story and character study. Catherine's extensive practice as an actor and artist has rooted her vision in filmmaking. She is a member of the Alliance of Women Directors (AWD) and has shadowed film directors at the National Film Board of Canada. Catherine’s directing debut, the 'sexy and surreal' short film, DE PUTA MADRE A LOVE STORY, won Best Director (London IFF), Best Actress (Madrid IFF), and Best Cinematography (Columbia Gorge IFF) along with multiple Jury Awards, Special Mentions and nominations internationally. Her latest, GIRL TRIP, a pilot episode in the horror genre, won Audience Choice at Hollyshorts, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Twist at the Independent Horror Movie Awards, as well as receiving multiple award nominations at various festivals internationally. Catherine has several projects in development.

Cast: Pilar Holland, Jeremy Andorfer-Lopez - Director: Catherine Black - Writers: Katina Nikou, Daniel Tuttel - Cinematographer: Senda Bonnet - Editor: David Hopper - Composer: Ryan Rapsys

Our lead character is told he has to be religiously observant and get married, but the first time we see him is in bed with five women at the same time. Can Marcus live la vida kosher?
 

Filmmaker Bio: Marcus J Freed is an actor, filmmaker, award-winning author of The Kosher Sutras and The Kabbalah Sutras. He’s a former presenter for BBC National Radio in the UK and writes the Satirical Semite column for The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Marcus has two British university degrees in English Literature and Drama/Theatre Studies, trained in acting at Webber Douglas Academy for Dramatic Arts in London, created and taught Bibliyoga - a form of Kabbalistically-infused yoga practice & philosophy, and is a secret Rabbi but is incredibly humble and doesn't like being addressed by titles other than 'His Holiness', 'His Radiance' or 'His Eminence'. He hasn't breakdanced for a while but looks forward to getting back into it. Follow his adventures at @marcusjfreed and sign up for his teachings & events at www.marcusjfreed.com. Day-to-day, Marcus most certainly lives la vida kosher. 

Director: Marcus J Freed - Cinematographer: Yehoshua Zepeda - Editor: Marcus J Freed - Composer: Marcus J Freed

Mama Knows will help you find true love and get your relationship going. Mama gives guidance on who initiates communication, where to find a good man, who pays for the first date, how to keep your man away from those dating apps, how to predict when your man is gonna pop the question and many juicy tips on keeping him in love.

Filmmaker Bio: Guy Kapulnik is an actor and assistant director, known for Room 514 (2012), The Call of the Wild (2020) and Hacked (2020).

Cast: Guy Kapulnik, Jaime Avera, Yael Maftsir Botser - Director: Guy Kapulnik - Writer: Guy Kapulnik - Cinematographer: Guy Kapulnik - Editor: Guy Kapulnik

A father and daughter meet at their favorite diner to reminisce.  But when dad's memory isn't what it used to be, can she hold on to the man he once was before dementia steals his memories forever?  Share a post-meal moment that celebrates life, love, joy and heartbreak, with a side of the best fries in town.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Amy Schumacher is a Los Angeles based actor, producer and stunt performer. She grew up in Seattle, where she attended the University of Washington, earning a BA in theatre. She went on to earn her MFA at the prestigious Ilkhom Theatre School of Drama, a Russian acting conservatory in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Amy's production company, AmyRose Productions, focuses on female-driven entertainment that makes an impact. With the help of some amazing collaborations, these productions have gone on to be nominated and win various industry awards. Having proudly presented productions such as Luck, Light/Less, and GPS Misadventures within the We Make Movies Community, this year she’s excited to screen both Nightwatch and Memory Lane at We Make Movies International Film Festival! Amy can be seen around L.A. performing improv, hosting, and wielding a sword!

Cast: Amy Schumacher, Donald Watson, Allyson Sereboff - Director: Steven LaMorte - Writer: Flip Kobler & Cindy Marcus - Cinematographer: Valentina Vee - Editor: Mathew Roscoe - Composer: John T. Mickevich

Mercredi’s Monde: Instacorpse - The first episode in the web series Mercredi's Monde.

Filmmaker Bio: Jill Tenney is an actress, writer, director and producer with two original web series online to date: Zen Rage and Mercredi's Monde.

Cast: Kristin Mothersbaugh, Stefan Anthony - Director: Jill Tenney - Writer: Jill Tenney - Cinematographer: Gil Ben-Harosh - Editor: Jill Tenney - Composer: Alexander Meade

My grandfather learns how to cope with my grandmother's death.

Cast: David Blackwell - Director: Martin Krafft

Moving on from Medfield is a senior thesis documentary that explores the history of mental health treatment in America through the lens of Medfield State Hospital, a former insane asylum open from 1896-2003.

Filmmaker Bio: Julia Bergdoll is a senior cinema production major at Ithaca College. She minors in anthropology and is extremely passionate about documentary work. She was born and raised in a suburb just outside of Boston, MA. Julia is currently spending her last semester of college working and studying in Los Angeles.

Cast: John Thompson - Director: Julia Bergdoll - Cinematographer: Julia Bergdoll - Editor: Julia Bergdoll - Sound Design: Quin Stocks, Julia Bergdoll

Handyman Oscar Pita has one night to prep a realtor's new listing. The house is without electricity, but Oscar has a lantern and is ready to work. An orange jumpsuit-wearing, comb-over coiffed criminal has just escaped from a nearby penitentiary. Will the horrifying lunatic on the loose prevent Oscar from getting his job done?

Filmmaker Bio: Garrett Brown is a writer and filmmaker from Tampa, FL. He thinks it's too hot to go outside 90% of the time, so Garrett typically stays indoors and watches movies. Sometimes he makes movies, too. Garrett's movies are usually typified by a sardonic macabre sense of humor tinged with surrealist undertones and a dash of irreverence thrown in for good measure. His award-winning first feature The Lost Digit is like if David Lynch directed a Charlie Kauffman script (his words). His favorite gas station treat is gummy worms.

Cast: Chiko Mendez, J.J. Crowne, David E. McMahon - Director: Garrett Brown - Writer: Garrett Brown - Cinematographer: Lucas Searles - Editor: Garrett Brown

A sci-fi extravaganza that is as pointless as the lyrics. Over 40 classic movie references are featured in this epic music video.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Jonathan Lawrence is an accomplished director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor, and special effects wizard. He has been hired all over the world including most of Europe, India, Ecuador, U.S. and China, where he directed one the biggest Chinese/American co-productions of an epic, special effects film ever produced there. He is currently working pre-production and development on a multi-picture deal with a Chinese/UK contract, as well as educating producers on international filmmaking. 

Tommy Mack is a musician/filmmaker/multimedia artist/horrible-bio-writer.

Cast: Tommy Mack, Andrew Elkins, Irena Violette, Kat Walsh, Jeff Cote, Robert Magness, Toby Fulp, Michael Speights, Eric Schrecengost, Michael T. Coleman, Jonathan Lawrence, Theresa Ireland, Tally Briggs, Matt Valle, Joe Ansalvish, Greg Finsley, Bob Teichmann, Kevin McMahon, Gilbert Feliciano, Chad Littlepage, Jeremy Glenn, Patrick H. Breen, Ross Johnson, Bert Rotundo, Jerry Pokracki, Lucius Mack - Director: Jonathan Lawrence - Writer: Tommy Mack - Cinematographer: Jonathan Lawrence - Editor: Jonathan Lawrence - Composer: Tommy Mack, Bowman Ashe

Two astronauts-beekeepers hire a professional pointer dog to help them to find some objects that they have lost in the middle of nowhere.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Giorgos Efthimiou is a filmmaker, writer, stage director & curator. He has been filmmaking since 2011, and has made several short films and one feature film. His films have been screened and awarded in several international film festivals. In theater, he directs and sometimes acts in performances with the group MetATiLIthi. He also collaborates with the group Anosia. He makes visuals for live music shows, dance shows, and performances. He has written two books: Pikrofeggara (poetry) & Deyteri Yli (short stories). He is the founder & curator of the Pugnant Film Series, with whom he organizes screening events that focus on independent cinema. Also with Pugnant Film Series he has collaborated with many festivals, including Syros International Film Festival and Bideodromo International Film Festival. He is curator and also a member of the underground Athenian collective team of Chimeres. He has also curated a seminar about short films & filmmaking in the Cinema Section of Athens University Club Cultural Society.

Cast: Pithagoras Kotsoulas, Dimitra Aggelou, Boro, Katerina Kleitsioti, Giorgos Efthimiou - Director: Giorgos Efthimiou - Writer: Giorgos Efthimiou - Cinematographer: Giorgos Efthimiou - Editor: Giorgos Efthimiou 

When a lonely female police officer discovers an alien boy at a crime scene, they must band together to protect him from the government and get him home.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Steven LaMorte was born in New York City. During his studies at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Steven majored in Film and Television Production. After studying under Czech cinematographers and directors at the 35mm Film Production Program at Prague’s film conservatory, FAMU, Steven moved to Los Angeles to make his feature film directing debut, Never Leave Alive, starring WWE Superstar John Morrison and Joseph Gatt (Dumbo, Thor). His other features include One Stop Away starring James Boland (HBO’s Vinyl) and Bury Me Twice starring Theodus Crane (The Walking Dead). Steven also directed WWF legend Rowdy Roddy Piper’s final film in 3D, Fighting with Fire. In 2019, Steven directed Miss World America in Las Vegas, Nevada, which aired for a global audience of over 100 million people in over 30 countries. Steven has been nominated for various industry and festival awards for his numerous commercial and new media productions. Working with some of the world's biggest brands to develop innovative content, Steven specializes in taking productions from the smallest idea through their final delivery, supervising every facet of production from preparation all the way through post production and sale. Steven's work puts the story first, with emphasis on content filled with heart, humor, and spectacle. 

Cast: Amy Schumacher - Director: Steven Lamorte - Writer: Krista Amigone - Cinematographer: Steven Russell - Editor: Stephanie Sheffield & Mathew Roscoe

An experimental documentary of memory, made from Super 8mm diary film that I shot long ago and recently found in the basement. I hand-baked, re-photographed, hand-processed, re-edited, and otherwise distorted my footage. I shot this footage many years ago, when we moved from the West Village in New York city to the Midwestern part of the USA, which was very much like moving to the 1950s. "I live here, but this is not my home."

Filmmaker Bio: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is dedicated to making highly personal poetic films in 8mm and 16mm, and also films made from found 35mm footage. Her films and videos have played around the world and are held in the UCLA Film Archive and The Museum of Modern Art.

Director: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster - Cinematographer: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster - Editor: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster - Composer: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

A letter of grief across the solar system.

Filmmaker Bio: Laura Herman is an educator and artist working in scenic Cincinnati, Ohio. Her artwork explores narrative frameworks and dream-like imagery. Her work has been shown internationally and is held in the Robert Shiffler Foundation Archives.

Director: Laura A. Herman - Writer: Laura A. Herman - Cinematographer: Laura A. Herman - Editor: Laura A. Herman

A young jobless man rents an apartment where nameless apparently dead bodies lie. The landlord appears to be a suspicious old man planning insurance murder.

Filmmaker Bio: Katsuhide Yamago started creating 8mm films in college. He has been working on numerous TV shows in a production company since graduating from college. For the last two years, he has been streaming short films on YouTube.

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Cast: Yoshiki Saito, Shinichi Usui, Daiju Tamayose, Miyu Matsushita, Shintarou Matsubara - Director: Katsuhide Yamago - Writer: Katsuhide Yamago - Cinematographer: Daiju Tamayose - Editor: Katsuhide Yamago - Composers: Ryo Honda, Azell, Kokoro Majima.

Hugh, a fiftyish widower who lost his wife to the sea, searches for answers and meaning, when he stumbles across an Internet advert by Oceane, a stay-at-home wannabe mystic. When they meet, will Hugh find the answers to life's problems, or merely get a little wet around the ears?

Filmmaker Bio: Chris Mack is a Paris-based acting coach. He directs and writes plays and films in Paris, where he resides. Directing credits include The Race of the Ark Tattoo, Paris Doll, Seventy Scenes of Halloween, and The Varian Fry Project. Chris teaches/has taught acting for stage and screen for Blanche Salant, EICAR, Les Ateliers du Sudden, Bilingual Acting Workshop, New York Film Academy Paris, and Paris Meisner Studio, as well as for episodes of some TV series, like the French series The Bureau Des Legends. Chris is also a Paris-based voiceover artist, doing voiceovers for numerous documentaries, commercials and films.

Cast: Kester Lovelace, Marine Tuja  - Director: Christopher Mack - Writer: Christopher Mack - Cinematographer: Christopher Mack - Editor: Louis Lovelace - Composer: Dinty Slop

Two nameless strangers overcome their expectations while on the hunt for a rental apartment in Los Angeles.

Filmmaker Bio: Director Mischa Livingstone’s award-winning films have screened at festivals worldwide and been added to the Smithsonian permanent collection. Festival screenings include the Berlin Intl. Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Seattle Intl. Film Festival, and Cinequest (Viewers’ Voice Award winner). Mischa was born in Glasgow, Scotland and immigrated to Israel as a child. He studied at the Thelma Yellin School of the Arts before serving in the Israel Defense Forces and later moving to the United States. Studying at UCLA, he received a BA in Film Production (summa cum laude) and an MFA in Screenwriting. He is also an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus. In addition to filmmaking, Mischa teaches film production at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Cast: Ben Faigus, Nalini Sharma  - Director: Mischa Livingstone - Writer: Mischa Livingstone - Cinematographer: Charles Swanson - Editor: Mischa Livingstone - Composer: Dean Harada

A violently British (and utterly useless) real estate agent lands a starring role in a student documentary. We learn more about this weird English bird than how to sell a house.

Filmmaker Bio: Michael Muncatchy is a Michigan-born photographer, cinematographer and director based in Los Angeles. After a stint working in the music business in Nashville, he moved to LA, and expanded his work in film and photography. Five years later he has worked with some of the most notable talent in the world, and directed web and television series. Michael shoots in a fluid, loose manner and loves to sculpt visuals that reflect the true nature of the subject.

Cast: Georgia Dolenz, Daniel Acker, Johnno Wilson, Burl Mosely, Ruth Connell, Sheila Carrasco - Director: Michael Muncatchy - Writer: Georgia Dolenz - Cinematographer: MIchael Muncatchy - Editors: Kelly Soll, Jenn Bubb

PANDA is a Neo-Noir short film about a man who hides from the world behind a mask. Falling down the rabbit hole, he is thrust into a world of violence, blue acid, a mysterious woman, and an angry shadow. Soon he realizes that the decisions we all make affect everything more than we think.

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Filmmaker Bio: After more than 10 years as a Professional Dancer and Choreographer with artists such as Chris Brown, Ludacris, Stevie Wonder, Justin Bieber, Joe Jonas, and many more, Trent Dickens has returned to his first love of filmmaking. Born and raised in Biloxi, Mississippi, Trent knew that he wanted to make films after seeing the Steven Spielberg picture Jurassic Park. Two years later, at the age of 10, a trip to Los Angeles with his Mom's dance team gave him a chance to tour the Paramount Pictures backlot, and that sealed the deal. After attending the Los Angeles Film School, Trent transitioned to filmmaking when his friend and mentor, Director Kevin Tancharoen, offered him a job as a production assistant on his new show for the revival of the popular video game franchise, Mortal Kombat. That led him to working on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., where he had the opportunity to learn from one of his long-time inspirations, Joss Whedon. In addition to directing several successful music videos, Trent has also worked on film and television shows such as Thor Ragnarok, The Disaster Artist, Doctor Strange, Ray Donovan, Bones, Angie Tribeca, Scandal, Colony, and many more.

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Cast: Jordan Salloum, Krystal Ellsworth, Ed Moore, Jeremy London, Jason Edwards, Michael D. Anglin, Frank Acierno, Ayden Ladner - Director: Trent Dickens - Writers: Trent Dickens, Terence Dickson - Cinematographer: Rafael Leyva - Editors: Trent Dickens, Derek Thomason - Composer: Tyler Banks

A boy confronts his fear of telling his parents about his failing grade.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Ondine Bader  is a student of film and arts at the Crossroads School in Los Angeles. She has made movies with the New York Film Academy for the last four years.  She was the youngest artist, as well as a finalist, with her piece Dairy Queen in the Adelphi Gala Art Show in New Jersey in 2013, which raised money for Breast Cancer research.  She has studied at Otis and RISD to learn animation techniques and Concept Art to further her knowledge of the filmmaking process. Ondine is a 14-year old sophomore majoring in Film Studies, with a focus in directing.

Cast: Diedrich Bader, Dulcy Rogers, Sebastian B. Bader - Director: Ondine Bader - Writer: Ondine Bader - Cinematographer: Ondine Bader - Editor: Ondine Bader

A widower finds himself alone in the silence of his monotonous daily routine, and sorrow without his beloved wife. Visiting her gravesite to experience the unknown pathway through heaven and earth, searching for peace as he questions his faith and the afterlife.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Maria Cappricielli has been actively involved in entertainment and the arts for over 20 years. Her multi-disciplinary expertise includes work as a director, producer, entrepreneur, and acting coach. She has served as an advocate, speaker, committee and board member for such organizations as the Youth Biz Alliance, NYSTEA, EdTA, Breaking Into Hollywood, BOCES - Arts in Education, Kids for Kids Productions, Cinema At The Edge, Sundance Film Festival panel speaker and much more. Maria hopes to be an example to other females entering the entertainment industry, specifically that age and gender DO NOT matter. As a woman over 40, she has been able to write, direct, and produce her own content along with getting hired to take projects from development through post production and sales in various roles. In 2012 Maria formed Cappricielli Inc., a multi-faceted production company that creates a wide array of entertaining and socially conscious film, video, theatre, and music content. Through Cappricielli Productions, she has co-produced the award-winning music video, SO WHAT (International Family Film Festival, Dances With Films, Rahway Film Festival and The Hollywood and Vine Film Festival) and the feature film THE BANDIT HOUND, starring Lou Ferrigno, Cathryn Bell, and Judd Nelson; written her own web-series, AND BROTHER MAKES THREE; and directed and produced the short film, TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE, which was accepted into the esteemed Dances With Films Festival. Recently she produced the award-winning music video HURRICANE performed by artist RAFFAELA and featuring Emmy award-winning rapper CHRIS REDD (Saturday Night Live). HURRICANE won for Best Music Video Award and Grand Jury Award for an Artist Performance in the 2016 Hollywood & Vine Film Festival. In 2018, Maria returned to the stage -- directing and producing PIZZA & WHINE which had its world premiere at the New York Theatre Festival and the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Returning from a successful stage premiere, in 2019 Maria co-wrote, directed, and produced PIZZA & WHINE the feature film starring Terri Polo, Nicholas Turturro, Robert Davi, and Jared Sandler. In addition to her own film, Maria also Produced DIVOS! Starring Nicole Sullivan and Marissa Jaret Winokur, and released and co-wrote the feature film REACH starring Garret Clayton, Jordan Doww, Corbin Bernsen, and Kevin Sizemore. REACH won Best Screenplay at the Hollywood and Vine Film Festival.
 

Cast: Tom D’Agostino, John Cerrito, Amanda D’Agostino, Gianna D’Agostino, Bernard D’Agostino, Matt Mottola, Mary Ellen Kurtz, Lucy Mottola, Charles Duplessis, Janet Duplessis, Carmela Cassara, Joanne Cerrito, Veronica Kelly, Madeline McGee, Jim McGee - Director: Maria Cappricelli - Writer: Maria Cappricelli - Cinematographer: Candice Dalsing - Editor: CD Creative - Composer: Daniel McNamara & Luke Fischer

Elisabeth catches her son James kissing a young man. She now faces a life struggle. She decides to fight against what she believes to be a sickness and cure her only son from his presumed homosexuality. During the process of the conversion therapy, which she believes to be the cure, things get clearer. She begins to realize that appearances can be deceiving…
 

Filmmaker Bio: Michael Guillod’s background is a mix of creativity and filmmaking combined with several years of solid experience in the digital world. Having started a career as a Visual Arts Designer, he followed his passion for technology by working at Apple in Geneva/Switzerland, and later on in Cupertino/California, as a Creative Instructor. Since 2011 he has  participated in numerous projects within the film industry as a Cameraman, 1st AD and Production Assistant. In 2017 Michael co-founded CORNLAND STUDIO, a film production company based in Switzerland.
 

Cast: Nathalie Sabato, Yann Philipona, Remy Boileau, Axel Fernandez, Claudia Melanjoie-Dit-Savoie, Ilona Barbera, Victoria Duquesne, Alban Giacobino, Marion Reymond, Loubna Chatta - Director: Michael Guillod - Writer: Michael Guillod - Cinematographer: Benoit Perret-Gentil - Editor: Pierre Belli - Composer: Michael Boga

The Cold War is in full swing when a bumbling accountant invites the sweet new neighbors for dinner, only this sad sack hasn't accounted for his darling wife's appetite.
 

Filmmaker Bio: An Arizona native, Matthew Emery studied Still Photography at Arizona State University before moving to California to serve as the Creative Director of Blinking Peacock Productions, Inc. A graduate of Loyola Marymount University, he was named Outstanding Scholar of the Film and Television Graduate Production Program for the class of 2019. Matthew has written and directed several short films, most recently garnering a Remi Award at the 51st Annual Worldfest-Houston Film and Video Festival for his 2018 horror film, No Monkey, and multiple awards including Best Indie Short for his dark comedy, Pâté. Prior films include the 2016 award-winning thriller BAIT.
 

Cast: Jim Holmes, Deborah Vancelette, Ryan Patrick McGuffey, Shelby Wilson - Director: Matthew Emery - Writer: Matthew Emery - Cinematographer: TinNGai Chan - Editor: Matthew Emery - Composer: Ryan Dow

A hand-made reflection on the underconscious and on the illustration of ideas on plastic. This collage film comes about after the discovery, in my university office, of a thousand overhead transparencies used for teaching biology. A chemically induced gaze looks out over this archive while a light shines down on obsolete treasures, buried ideologies and the science of life. Patient's Copy focuses on the capacity of these acetate transparencies to not simply allow light to pass through them, but also to allow light to reflect off them. This suggests a new function for images that have not only been excavated from their pedagogical and technological moment but which, in their new fluorescent form, are both less plastic, and more plastic than ever before.

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Filmmaker Bio: Patrick Tarrant (Melbourne, 1969) is an Associate Professor in filmmaking at London South Bank University who has written on the feature-length portrait films of Pedro Costa (Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?), Ben Rivers (Two Years At Sea) and Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez (Manakamana). Patrick has made video portraits and observational city films, while developing a hybrid filmmaking method that brings HD video and a 16mm film projector together (in The Take-Up, The Trembling Giant & Another Self Portrait). Patrick has had films screened at the Hong Kong, London and Melbourne International Film Festivals, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the 2016 London Film Festival.

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Director: Patrick Tarrant - Writer: Patrick Tarrant - Cinematographer: Patrick Tarrant - Editor: Patrick Tarrant

Inspired by true events, the film addresses the theme of dementia as a way to travel through time. This special gift has the protagonist, PEGGIE, on a quiet Californian afternoon, moving from one room to another in her home, crossing different epochs of her life. Her husband struggles to support her. These time-travel jumps of a few meters often lead her into a blind alley from which only a person who is apparently a stranger to her will be able to pull her out and bring her home.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Rosario Capozzolo is an Italian film Director and screenwriter based in Rome. With his works he explores the feelings of love in its higher meaning. His short films have been shown internationally. Peggie is the second one, a very lucky multi-awarded film.

Cast: Thaine H. Allison Jr., Sarah Carson, Sam Rodd, Joseph Michael Harris, Marina Bakica, Deidre Martin, Helena Claussen - Director: Rosario Capozzolo - Writers: Rosario Capozzolo, Ludovica Isidori - Cinematographer: Nich Musco - Editor: Lorenzo Muto - Composer: Alessandro De Florio

A short documentary that highlights a young talented baseball star with a great past and a bright future.

Filmmaker Bio: Ben Hamer is a 17-year-old filmmaker from the suburbs of Chicago. This year (2020) he has won the National Academy of TV Art and Sciences competition for “Sport Feature” with the documentary Phase One. He also had 3 projects place in the Midwest Media Educators Association competition. He often works with D1 athletes across many sports and plans on pursuing a BFA in Film and TV production starting this fall at DePaul University. 

Director: Benjamin Hamer - Writer: Benjamin Hamer - Cinematographer: Benjamin Hamer - Editor: Benjamin Hamer

Pop Culture, Festival DJ World, and News Media Spin come together as we follow the lives of Burning Man DJs, Healing Seminar Junkies, and Youtube News Activists who fatefully cross paths on the dance floor.

Filmmaker Bio: Serene Zloof is a writer, actor, and creator of the rave culture comedy series Pop & Spin on Amazon Prime. She writes and produces DatgirlTV, home to the mythological mystery comic book comedy show Girlcules and the Jewel Net, and also tours internationally as the electronic music producer MC “Datgirl”. Visit her on the inter-webs at www.Datgirl.tv
 

Cast: Datgirl Serene, Zapper Jones, Madison Dylan, Roxanne Ferrara, Kinyumba Mutakabbir, Ryan Wink, Joey Niemeier, Jack Zullo, Ramona DuBarry, Tehana Weeks, Christopher Thomas, Kreature LeStrange - Director: Curtis Bechdholt - Writer: Serene Zloof - Cinematographer: Sam Rosenthal - Editor: Serene Zloof - Composer: Zapper Jones and Serene Zloof

An interrogation of a suspected murderer turns surreal.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Shun Lee Fong is a writer, director, and producer based in Los Angeles. He has produced and directed a number of films, including The Secret of Time and The Layover, and wrote the award-winning film Harvest. He is the president & creative director of The Greenhouse Arts & Media, a nonprofit company that works with the arts & entertainment industry in creating workshops and content, and also teaches entertainment law at a number of universities across the country.  
 

Cast: Trevor J. Davis, Jai Sahai - Director: Shun Lee Fong - Writer: Timothy Rex Moss - Cinematographer: Paul Mandolin - Editor: Tim J. Lim - Composer: Kevin McLeod

Against all odds, Sophia Baker just scored her dream interview at the world-famous Semaphore Animation Studios -- who’d have thought a fan edit of one of their hit films could land her a shot at a job? But when she meets arch, mysterious executive Anne Palladon, she soon learns all is not as she expects behind the curtain. Every instinct Sophia has ever had about art in filmmaking is about to be challenged. Based on Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning author Ken Liu’s short story of the same name, Real Artists asks a poignant question: In a dystopian near-future where big data, AI and natural language processing learn and create quickly and at massive scale, what role can a single artist play? Is Sophia a creative rebel who can make a difference? Or is the situation more serious than that?
 

Filmmaker Bio: Cameo Wood is an EMMY® nominated filmmaker. Her most recent film, Real Artists, is available to stream online. She is working on her first feature. In 2018 she was a co-winner at the AT&T Film Awards for the Best Emerging Artist award, presented by Ava DuVernay. Real Artists has won over 35 awards and has been nominated for dozens more, including a regional EMMY® nomination, and has continued to enjoy screenings at festivals, museums, and television stations throughout the world. Cameo produced and co-directed episodes of The Alternative Guide to Secret Beijing which was featured on Atlas Obscura. Her first film, Dukha in Summer, premiered at the St. Louis International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Short at five others. Cameo is a member of Cinefemme, Women in Film, the Alliance of Women Directors, Film Independent, WomenNMedia, and she is the co-founder of the SF chapter of Dinner with Dames. She also co-founded the COVEN Film Festival, a showcase of films made by women. She is a regular speaker at the Camp Reel Stories' Girls Day Workshop and has participated in the inaugural Sundance Co//ab Screenwriting, Episodic, and Fiction Directing programs. Cameo has completed courses in Medical Neuroscience at Duke University, Futurism at Stanford University, Witchcraft & Magic at Bennington College, Aerospace Engineering at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and recently completed courses in Egyptology at University of Pennsylvania. From 1995-2008 She was an engineer at GTE Labs, Sprint, Lucent, and Cisco. In 2008 Wood founded Her Majesty's Secret Beekeeper; the first urban beekeeping store in America, and she serves on the board of the beekeeping non-profit SF Bee-Cause.

Cast: Tamlyn Tomita, Tiffany Hines  - Director: Cameo Wood - Writer: Cameo Wood - Cinematographer: Kimberly Culotta - Editor: Russell August Anderson - Composers: Meredith Yayanos & Ryan Coseboom

10-year-old Trevor Schott is introduced to the thrilling world of roller hockey by his older cousin, James "Penney" Carver.

Filmmaker Bio: Jason Kurth is a writer/director based in Los Angeles. In 2015, he co-founded a production company and produced several award winning short films. His passion for moving pictures continues to burn bright and he stays determined to tell his stories, with the help of his wife and dog.
 

Cast: Harper Frawley, Jason Kurth, Tara Frawley, Amanda Spinella, Coach Ron Smith  - Director: Jason Kurth - Writer: Jason Kurth - Cinematographer: Jarrett Keisling - Editors: Jason Kurth, Matt Neimy, Jarrett Keisling - Composer: Ian Lecheminant

She gets a haunting visit from a ghost with an ulterior motive.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Thomas Tulak began his career at age 6 as a child actor. He is most known for his role as the youngest Lost Boy in Steven Spielberg's 1991 family adventure film, Hook. After studying video production at the Art Institute of Los Angeles, Thomas became an award-winning director, having won multiple guerrilla filmmaking competitions. Since 2009, he has been creating multiple web shows on Youtube.com. He has directed more than a dozen short films, some of which have screened in multiple festivals and won multiple awards.

Cast: Sarah Williams, Aaron Pressburg - Director: Thomas Tulak - Writer: Thomas Tulak - Cinematographer: Thomas Tulak - Editor: Thomas Tulak - Composer: Kevin MacLeod

Eris, a young tormented woman, goes into an introspective path as her depression grows, forcing her to question the reasons for her existence. The darkness within her tempts her to put an end to the depression and pain once and for all.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Antonio Chavez Trejo is a Mexican filmmaker, writer, producer and entrepreneur. His films are noted for their surreal feel, dark undertones, sense of humor and visually appealing cinematography, and have been featured in many film festivals internationally -- including Cannes Film Festival and the AT&T Film Awards, among many others. Antonio was born and raised in Mexico City. In 2005, he received his bachelor's degree in Science of Communication from the Universidad Anahuac del Sur, where he met his screenwriting mentor -- Palme d'Or Winner and Oscar-nominated writer and producer Guillermo Arriaga -- with whom he still has a great friendship. He also possesses an associate degree from Spanish Radio TV - RTVE in Screenwriting and as a Television Anchorman, and a master's degree from the New York Film Academy as a Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking. In 2014, his dark comedy short film Killer Tango world premiered at Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, Antonio's short action/drama Bloody Luck premiered at Cannes Film Festival, and in 2016 it got 6 nominations and won Best Short Film award at WIND International Film Festival. It was also an official selection at HBO's Urban Action Showcase International Action Film Festival in New York, where it was nominated for Best Short Film. Shortly thereafter, Antonio wrote and directed a dystopian post-apocalyptic short drama,  MIRA Protocol. The film premiered at Glendale Film Festival where it was nominated as Best Short Film. Antonio also won a Best Filmmaker in Burbank award, and got recognition from the Legislature of the State of California in 2017 as a result. The film ended up in dozens of festivals around the world, winning 5 more awards. Antonio co-directed the feature film El Freeman, which premiered recently in Los Angeles, and has already secured distribution in Soviet countries and the U.S. In 2018, Antonio announced that he is working on a project called Howlers and creating a unique script-writing narrating structure which allows one to follow multiple story lines at the same time.

Cast: Melissa Celikovic - Director: Antonio Chavez Trejo - Writer: Melissa Celikovic - Cinematographer: Antonio Chavez Trejo - Editor: Antonio Chavez Trejo - Composer: UNIQ & Arn Andersson

After a gregarious stranger asks him a personal question during his lunch break, Doug grapples with how he can ever enjoy lunch in his favorite spot again.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Ambika Leigh has worked for over a decade as an editor, director, producer, and writer, creating hundreds of hours of film and digital content. She has worked with Apple, Sony Pictures, PBS, RED Digital Cinema, CNN, National Geographic, DirecTV, LEGO, Nu Boyana Studios, New Form Digital Studios, and the DGA Women's Steering Committee, as well as with Emmy-nominated director Stephen Gyllenhaal, actress/producers Lisa Kudrow, Gabrielle Anwar and Catherine Oxenberg, and Grammy award-winning musicians India.Arie, will.i.am and John Legend. In addition to freelancing and running her production company, she teaches editing and post-production workflow. Ambika mentors filmmakers and youth, and is perpetually in development on a myriad of film, TV & new media projects.
 

Cast: David Beatty, Jeff Elam, Amy Jennings, Tony Mouleart, Ambika Leigh, Eva-Marie Fredric, Brent Scott Davis, Lauren Simon, Allyson Sereboff, Heidi Schooler - Director: Ambika Leigh - Writer: Jason Lesner - Cinematographer: Casey McBeath - Editor: Ambika Leigh - Sound Design/Re-Recording Mixer: Kendall Kanoa Kukahiko

A rape victim finds she now has scars that only she and other survivors can see.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Robbie Barnes grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in the neighborhood of Slavic Village. It was after watching The Terminator, she knew from a young age that she wanted to be in movies when she “grew up.” She started theater and film classes in college where she wrote and directed several projects, as well as booked her first lead role as Estragon in Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot. The next few years were devoted to stage work and honing in on her abilities. She performed in plays such as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, MacBeth, Dracula, Our Town, and The Crucible. Then she signed with Docherty Talent Agency in Cleveland and has been in numerous commercial spots both nationally and locally. Robbie has also been in several independent films and was able to share the screen with stars such as Gillian Jacobs, Dee Wallace, Busy Philipps, Addy Miller, R.A. Mihailoff, Parrish Randall, Kevin Sizemore, and Keith Coogan. Robbie is now the CEO of her production company, Perfect Holiday Productions, where she writes, directs, and edits horror, thriller, and fantasy films. She has won several awards for her work at various film festivals. Her thriller feature film, Whatever It Takes, is available on Amazon Prime and her horror short, Beyond Repair, will be available on a Women in Horror anthology DVD being released soon - both available through Meridian Releasing Group. Her fantasy-romance short, Dream Come True, has just begun its festival run, while her team finishes production of the feature horror film, FUN.

Cast: Johanna McGinley, Julia Langholt, Mary Beth Synk, Shawn Knox, Mario Beverly, Christopher Joseph Meigs, Kris Ryan Inniss - Director: Robbie Barnes - Writer: Nonie Shiverick - Cinematographer: Paul Moore - Editor: James Neyman - Composer: Eli Manos, Michael Anticoli

A dog waits for his best friend's return so they can celebrate his 86th birthday.

Filmmaker Bio: zach dorn is a theater-maker and animator based in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was selected as the inaugural Julie Taymor World Theater Fellow. He premiered Let's Prank Call Each Other at Ars Nova in 2017. His latest show, Sponge Hollow, opened at REDCAT in Downtown L.A. in 2019. He is currently an MFA candidate in Experimental Animation at CalArts.

Cast: Jeff Higgins - Director: zach dorn - Writer: zach dorn - Cinematographer: zach dorn - Editor: zach dorn

In the final days of the American Civil War, Ishmael prepares to leave his life as a slave for freedom. However, before he departs, he has to end the problematic sexual relationship with his master, Mr. Charlie, in order to fully survive in the new world as whole as he can be. Adapted by queer black-Filipino playwright Roger Q. Mason from his original stage play, SOFTER uses a historical lens in order to explore contemporary issues of consent and race within the LGBT community.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Roger Q. Mason (he/they) is an award-winning writer, performer and educator known for using history's lens to highlight the biases that separate rather than unite us. Mason's films have screened at Outshine Film Festival and the Pan African Film Festival.  They've been recognized by the AT&T Film Awards and the Atlanta International Film Festival. Mason's queer Civil War short Softer is now streaming on Revry TV. As a playwright, his work has been seen on Broadway at Circle in the Square (Circle Reading Series); Off/Off-Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, New Group, American Theatre of Actors, Flea Theatre, and Access Theater; and regionally at McCarter Theatre, Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, Steep Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, EST/LA, Son of Semele, and Skylight Theatre. He/they are the recipient of the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award, the Hollywood Fringe Festival Encore Producers Award, a Kilroys List honoree, and a finalist for the Lark Playwright's Week and the Screencraft Play Award. He/they hold degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. Mason is the subject of the Iris-prize nominated documentary Our Skin.

Cast: Rick Cosnett, Terrell Carter - Director: Lovell Holder - Writer: Roger Q. Mason - Cinematographer: Matt Plaxco - Editor: Morgan Halsey - Composer: Matias Moreno-Bunge

Two women encounter one another across dimensions, each perceiving the other as if a ghost. As they make contact, the structures of their dimensional cells begin to flicker and wane, and a possible transcendence presents itself.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Ed Carter is a British filmmaker based in Boston, MA. Filmography:

2012 - The Funeral Director (UK, 5 min, S16mm)

2018 - Letters From Eniwetok (USA, 12 min, Digital)

2019 - Spring II (USA, 10 min, Super 8mm)

Cast: Hazel Rodes, Ashley Wood - Director: Ed Carter - Writer: Ed Carter - Cinematographer: Ben Masi - Editor: Ed Carter - Composer: Donovan Sierra

For the people. For the planet. For the pretense. In this "mundane documentary," an unassuming man reveals the activist hero within himself. Winner - Best Mockumentary at Los Angeles CIneFest 2020

Filmmaker Bio: Brian Wallace began his adulthood as a stage actor in NYC and moved to Los Angeles in 2015. Once shortlisted for a Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship, he produced the "play without a play" Kinsherf's Coat (Hollywood Fringe Producer's Award); wrote and produced the short film The Briefcase (Semi Finalist - L.A. CineFest; Honorable Mention - Fifteen Minute Film Fest; Honorable Achievement in Ensemble Performance - Independent Cinema Showcase); and wrote the pilots for M.A.R.S. (Finalist - Inroads Screenwriting Fellowship & Oaxaca FIlm Fest) and #TiredOfWinning (Finalist - Seoul International Film Festival). He played a small but pivotal role in the film Relish, which won Best Feature at the Madrid and Burbank International Film Festivals in 2019. Brian reads a lot, writes a little more, and slathers himself in sunscreen the rest of the time.

Cast: Justin Dray - Director: Brian Wallace - Writer: Brian Wallace - Cinematographer: Matt Mitchell, Evan Shields - Editor: Brain Wallace - Composer: Pictures of the Floating World, Ross Bugden, Michael FitzGibbon

Feeling nostalgic for a sense of family, a suburban housewife prepares a lavish family dinner for her husband and two sons. However, each family member continues to derail her plans, and as they do, a latent darkness within her bubbles up to the surface. As the night goes on, it seems the harder she tries to get the dinner back on track, the more her dream of a night turns into a waking nightmare.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Within 0.25 of seconds of encountering Tommy Hallal, you will know he is from Cleveland, Ohio, if not from his clothing (down to his socks), then from his obnoxiously loud Cleveland accent. Tommy made his first film when he was eight, called Ninja Baby Assassins 4, using a software called “3D Movie Maker” and hasn’t looked back since. His films often focus on the art of repression, a phenomenon he is all too familiar with from growing up as a man in America, and is something he is always trying to work through.
 

Cast: Mary Beth Synk, Alex Jennings, Cody Kilpatrick Steele, Andrew Gordon, Taylor Anne Parker, Marina Lauff, Bill Hallal, Mary Beth Hallal  - Director: Tommy Hallal - Writer: Tommy Hallal - Cinematographer: Dominic Arcelin - Editor: Tommy Hallal - Composer: Peter Xiong

Still Plays With Trains captures one man’s passion to share the joy of childhood. By recreating his 10th birthday with a 3000 square foot replica of the old Lackawanna Railroad in his basement, he gives us a nostalgic glimpse of what it was like growing up in the 1950’s.

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Filmmaker Bio: Ross Kauffman is the Academy Award winning Director, Producer and Cinematographer of Born Into Brothels, winner of the 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary. His newest documentary feature, Tigerland, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. He is Co-Director of E-Team, a documentary about the high-stakes investigative work of four human rights workers and winner of the 2014 Sundance Cinematography award. He served as Executive Producer on the documentary feature In A Dream, which was short-listed for the 2009 Academy Awards, and as Consulting Producer on the Academy Award nominated Postergirl.

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Cast: John H. Scully - Director: Ross Kauffman - Cinematographer: Henry Roosevelt, Ross Kauffman - Editor: Hypatia Porter, Mark Becker, Natalia Iyudin

A lonely killer clown turns to online dating when ax murder just isn’t enough anymore.

Filmmaker Bio: Michael Paul studied film and animation at Columbia College in Chicago in the early 90s before joining legendary arcade game company Midway Games as an artist. There he developed the look and feel of multiple game projects over the next decade. While at Midway he met his wife and future filmmaking partner, Anne. After Midway Michael and Anne moved to Los Angeles, where he joined Hollywood visual effects house Digital Domain. Later Mike and Anne founded Dead Weeds Pictures and began production on their first feature film, while Mike returned to school for his MBA. He has since directed two independent features, and produced and/or directed several short films.
 

Cast: Wayne Lyter, Anne Paul, Todd Willhite, Mac DeVille, Nick Beckius, David Vasquez, Frida Rocha, Suzy Q. Rutherford,  - Director: Michael Paul - Writer: Anne Paul - Cinematographer: Joe Zerull - Editors: Michael Paul, Joe Zerull

Isabel lives with an older lover and his eight-year-old daughter Lola, to whom she is closer in age and possibly more attached. Amidst an impending breakup, Isabel is grappling with the responsibility of explaining how love ends.

Filmmaker Bio: Most recently Madeline Mack was accepted into Ryan Murphy's HALF Initiative, a mentorship program where she will be paired with an established TV director on one of Murphy's Netflix productions and shadow pre-production through post-production. Madeline won Best Narrative Short at The Key West Film Festival for Hot Water, a film that explores the nuance of power and the banality of misogyny. The film was nominated for Best Drama at Sydney Short Film Festival and for Young Australian Filmmaker of the Year by the Byron Bay Film Festival. Her absurd dark comedy short Six Pack, starring George Basil, won its category at Hollywood Comedy Shorts Festival, Portland Comedy Shorts Festival and more after screening at over a dozen festivals around the world. Her latest film, Sweet Heart, has been selected for a Post Production grant through The Future Of Film is Female, and had its world premiere at Hollyshorts Film Festival.

Cast: Ivy D’Orsogna, Mary Marsland Teare, Christopher Amitrano - Director: Madeline Mack - Writer: Madeline Mack - Cinematographer: Michael Lincoln - Editor: Ariel Shaw, Andrea Bottigliero - Composer: Merryn Jeann

A child comes face to face with a fear of the dark and the unknown. Shot entirely with 35mm film using a Lomokino (hand crank) motion film camera.

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Filmmaker Bio: Ethan Kogan is a writer/director/editor and native Los Angeleno. His award winning projects include In Absentia (Amazon Prime), Poor Man's Mermaid and Problem of Evil. As an editor, he recently wrapped the sixth and final season of the hit show Empire (FOX).

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Cast: Lex Kornelis - Director: Ethan Kogan - Writer: Ethan Kogan - Cinematographer: Ethan Kogan - Editor: Ethan Kogan - Composer: DesperateMeasurez, Kevin MacLeod

New in town, Carol reaches out to her neighbors by starting a book club. However, one member has his own idea about how to participate.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Curtis Bechdholt began his acting career as a teenager in Vancouver. After a few roles and many years later Curtis found himself in Los Angeles where he has been an acting coach ever since. Along with coaching Curtis has started directing film. His first project was a short, Tony and Louise, that premiered at the 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival. He is very excited to be on the The Book Club team!

Cast: Christine DiTillio, Robert DiTillio, Tehana Fatima Weeks, John Bigham, Sean Michael Boozer, Sharon Spence - Director: Curtis Bechdholt - Writer: Christine DiTillio - Cinematographer: Josh Andersen - Editor: James Hecht - Composer: John T. Mickevich

2.3 billion years after the extinction of all humans, a computer runs a simulation of a man in a room, but the man turns out to be so dumb and boring that the computer intervenes, telling him that he needs to do something valuable with his life by the end of the day, or else he and all memory of humanity will be deleted.

Filmmaker Bio: Derek Silvers is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and animator from Wisconsin. In addition to writing, directing, and editing three short films and a web series, he also does 3D modeling, animation, and compositing. He studied technical communication at James Madison University, and is currently a freelance script reader for various screenplay contests.

Cast: Kory Getman, Anthia Gillick - Director: Derek Silvers - Writer: Derek Silvers - Cinematographer: Tanisha Moreno - Editor: Derek Silvers - Composer: Derek Silvers

A struggling cartoonist finds a magical pen. When he draws with the pen the pictures come to life.

Filmmaker Bio: Tony Mouleart is an award-winning filmmaker who graduated from UCLA. He began his career on the production side of the entertainment business. His TV work includes Iʼm with Busey, starring Gary Busey, and the first two seasons of South Park for Comedy Central. He also worked on promos for TBS, Sony, and Warner Bros. Tony received awards for his entries in a nationwide commercial contest for Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a short film contest sponsored by L.A. radio station KROQ. His short Winter Olympics Renegades was featured on the FunnyorDie.com home page. Several of his films have gone to film festivals, including Bike Helmet Harry, which is in development as a feature. As an actor, Tony has appeared on TV in FOX’s comedy Traffic Light and NBC’s Crossing Jordan. In film, he’s worked with Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Tony also appeared in features that aired on Comedy Central and played the South By Southwest Film Festival. He's acted in several national commercials including a memorable Embassy Suites spot shot by Oscar-nominated writer/director Roman Coppola. Additionally, he taught an acting class for four years at UCLA. Tony is a Southern California native from Orange County.
 

Cast: Kayla Eva, Tony Mouleart, Aaron Norvell, Whit Spurgeon, Alan Shinkman, Heidi Schooler, Jodi Dennithorne, Katie Taub, Ernie Charles  - Director: Tony Mouleart - Writer: Tony Mouleart - Cinematographer: Valentina Vee - Editor: Tony Mouleart

Two young gangsters try to outwit their father in order to get out of the criminal business he is leading.

Filmmaker Bio: David Raphaël Kramer was born and raised in Bern, Switzerland. Although film has always been fascinating to him, it wasn’t until after a three-year apprenticeship as a sheet metal worker that he finally decided to follow his dream of being a filmmaker and started the bachelor degree course “Digital Film Making” in Zürich, which he successfully finished three years later. During the last few months of the degree course he had already begun working at two companies – one operating in the event business, the other one producing corporate films. David is currently doing the Graduate Film Course at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in New York.

Cast: Vincent Leittersdorf, Ilja Baumeier, Jeroen Engelsman - Director: David R. Kramer - Writer: David R. Kramer - Cinematographer: Simon Von Niederhäusern - Editor: David R. Kramer - Composer: Andy D. Winkler

It’s true that he wasn’t aware of it yet, but when Julio woke up that morning, he was already spiritless. Bruna, the clever lady from the department store, on the other side, knew at the moment she laid eyes on him what was going on. Across town, it was already nighttime when a handful of lost spirits met in a pub, and a little girl just wanted to go back home. Somewhere between those places, a gypsy was waiting for the arrival of her niece accompanied by a spiritless man…
 

Filmmaker Bio: Marcella C. De Finis is a screenwriter and director based in Brazil. In 2016 she co-directed the short film If You Were Dead, acquired by the Nigerian streaming platform Nvivo TV, and in the following year Ana’s Home, funded by Elipse Grant and winner of the Popular Jury Prize for Best Student Film at the prestigious Festival of Brasília. Ana’s Home later was acquired by Canal Brasil TV Channel, as well as by Cardume Streaming platform. Marcela is currently distributing her latest short film The Incredible Tale of the Spiritless Man, as well as working on pre-production for her first feature film, Agridoce.

Cast: Joana Caetano, Tarcius Guedes, Rebeca Pieroni, Vilma Melo Shaefer,  Flávia Espírito-Santo, Aníbal Trindade, Sophi Saphirah, Ane DiLei Marcelino, Beatriz Lima - Director: Marcella C. De Finis - Writer: Marcella C. De Finis - Cinematographer: Fil Pedroso - Editor: Felipe Gabriel Romero - Composers: Beto Mejía, Manuel Mendes and Esdras Nogueira.

The Lives of Hamilton Fish is a story told through song. Two men, both named Hamilton Fish, were pronounced dead on the front page of a newspaper in 1936 -- one was a famous statesman, and the other a notorious cannibal.

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Filmmaker Bio: Rachel Mason is a multimedia artist, director, musician, and a 2020 Emmy Nominee. Her work has appeared at museums, galleries, and festivals internationally. She most recently directed the Netflix Original Documentary Circus of Books, Executive Produced by Ryan Murphy. The film details her own biographical story, growing up the child of pornographers at the center of the gay community. Mason also wrote and recorded the film’s end credit song, “Give You Everything.” In 2019, she was named one of Indiewire’s “25 LGBTQ Filmmakers on the Rise.”

Cast: Theodore Bouloukos, Bill Weeden, Rachel Mason, Sarah Baskin, Vincent William Cooper, Shana Moulton, Geo Wyeth, Leana Vincente, Chip Abbott, Shelby Bass, Krystina Burton, Paolo Cervellera, Tiffany Griffin, Chika Hanioka, Yuko Ikeshita - Director: Rachel Mason - Writer: Rachel Mason - Cinematographer: Jon Beanlands - Editor: Rachel Mason - Composer: Rachel Mason, with additional music by Michael Durek

Two sisters wishing to have each other’s lives fight for the attention and love of their mother in a house full of magic, and family secrets. Can they reconcile their differences, and live the lives they were intended to?

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Filmmaker Bio: Director Candice Vaughn grew up in the Southern United States and is based in Los Angeles. She honed her storytelling skills at NYU Tisch School of the Arts while getting her MFA. She has worked in key positions on films all over the world from SE Asia to Europe. Her latest short, The Night Comes On, has screened in over 5 festivals. She is currently working on a feature about a busker, train hopping, and a love story, and also an episodic story about sex work. Both projects are set in the Deep South.

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Cast: Kamille McCuin, Ariadne Joseph, Sanaa Albert - Director: Candice Vaughn - Writer: Candice Vaughn - Cinematographer: Eugene Koh - Editor: Thomas Baumgardner - Composer: Mark Wind

When you find true love, you feel it in your bones.

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Filmmaker Bio: David Beatty is based in Los Angeles and known for his work on The Wasteland, Get Spy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Lien On Me, Criminal Minds and his directorial debut feature film, Surviving New Year's. He’s a multidisciplinary artist who works in film, theater, TV, online media, ceramics, photography, woodwork, painting, and more. He embraces DIY creativity and DIY entertainment, and believes artists have the power to change the universe. He’s drawn to matters of the environment, social justice, human rights, feminism and gender equality, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, civil rights, non-violent protests, global responsibility, sustainability and the simple philosophy that forgiveness, love and understanding will make the world a better place. As an actor, filmmaker and artist you can learn more about David at his website: www.davidbeatty.net

Cast: David Beatty - Director: David Beatty - Writer: David Beatty - Cinematographer: David Beatty - Editor: David Beatty

Separated as children, Lorraine is on a lifelong search for her former foster brother. After a tense encounter with a stranger named Marcus, the two embark on a road trip, each searching for something. Their pasts and their futures blend, time becomes fluid and dream-logic takes over. During their journey, bits of conversation hint at an intimacy, and possibly a subconscious bond. Are they strangers at all? Will they find what they are looking for? The Story of Everything is a surreal journey where the emotional connection between two children allows them to communicate through fever dreams throughout their lives.

Filmmaker Bio: Sharon A. Mooney is a filmmaker who works in experimental, narrative and documentary portraiture, all focused on investigating desire and the human condition. Mooney’s short videos and installations have screened internationally in festivals and galleries. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Film and Television at Loyola Marymount University.

Cast: Suilma Rodriguez, Rob Michael Hugel, Evelyn McDonnell  - Director: Sharon A. Mooney - Writer: Sharon A. Mooney - Cinematographer: Pete Soto - Editor: Sharon A. Mooney - Composers: Brandon Evans, Alan Siegler

The Silence of Memory examines the power of memory between two people, especially when someone close to us passes away. How do you recall the memory of a life together when the only other person to experience those memories isn't around any more to help remember the details?
 

Filmmaker Bio: Curtis Bechdholt is a veteran actor. His early career was spent in Vancouver, working in TV and film such as Outer Limits, Highlander, Millennium and Rhino Brothers. After moving to Los Angeles, Curtis pursued other interests before returning to acting as a coach. Watching actors achieve success by booking work or nailing auditions is one of the most satisfying life moments that he could have. While coaching, Curtis has also returned to the stage, playing Raul in Extremities and Jacob Marley in David Lynch’s Unauthorized Christmas Carol. Directing has become his new passion -- with shorts like Tony and Louise, and The Book Club. Curtis has also directed the web series Pop & Spin (available on Amazon Prime). Curtis is thrilled to collaborate with David Beatty on his incredible web series The Wasteland with this episode.

Cast: Krista Amigone, Sean Michael Boozer, David Beatty - Director: Curtis Bechdholt - Writer: David Beatty - Cinematographers: Curtis Bechdholt & David Beatty - Editor: David Beatty - Composer: Jeffrey Gold

A Desert/Noir Comedy about Allen Gravely, an unemployed Millennial with mounting student loan debt, who accepts a gig for Jerry Schrap, a GenX upcycler in the high desert. The job turns out to be a scheme to commit insurance fraud by robbing Jerry's vacation rental property.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Ross Kolton is an editor and director, known for Aldo (2014), Bury Him Here (2012) and Off the Grid with Jesse Ventura. Bill Tangradi is an actor and writer, known for Argo (2012), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012) and Free State of Jones.

Cast: Bill Tangradi, Alex Urbom - Directors: Ross Kolton, Bill Tangradi - Writers: Ross Kolton, Bill Tangradi - Cinematographers: Ross Kolton - Editor: Ross Kolton  

An Afro-Russian teenager must make a life or death decision after having his first sexual encounter with a white Russian pastor's daughter.
 

Filmmaker Bio: Skinner Myers is an award-winning filmmaker who resides in Los Angeles, California. Skinner made his feature film debut as the writer and director of the documentary Drinking From The Well, which screened in film festivals domestically and internationally. Skinner wrote and directed four short films: Chimera, The Last Supper, Obscured, and Nigger, while studying film at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His sixth film, La Tierra Del Exodo, played in over 90 festivals worldwide and garnered a ton of awards including Best Screenplay and Best Short Film. His film Frank Embree took home the Grand Jury Award at Hollyshorts Film Festival and was in the Oscar competition for Best Short Live Action. His most recent film, Nightmares by the Sea, premiered at the Art Film Festival in Cannes. Skinner has a handful of projects in development with his production company One Hand Clapping Pictures.

Cast: Eugene Alper, Justin Wiggins, Melanie Neilan, Liana Giniatullina, Samantha Beckey  - Director: Skinner Myers - Writer: Skinner Myers - Cinematographer: Peter Soto - Editor: J.A. Conway - Composer: Hammock

That conversation you had with a baby.
 

Filmmaker Bio: zach dorn is a theater-maker and animator based in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was selected as the inaugural Julie Taymor World Theater Fellow. He premiered Let's Prank Call Each Other at Ars Nova in 2017. His latest show, Sponge Hollow, opened at REDCAT in Downtown L.A. in 2019. He is currently an MFA candidate in Experimental Animation at CalArts.

Cast: zach dorn, a baby - Director: zach dorn - Writer: zach dorn - Cinematographer: zach dorn - Editor: zach dorn

TOUCHED presents a new take on the love-filled relationship between Arabs and Jews as a Jewish woman asks a Muslim doctor to help her in her uniquely morbid quest to discover the spiritual world.

Filmmaker Bio: David Jakubovich directs and edits films, documentaries, TV shows, and all forms of video content. Recent credits include directing and editing a 2-hour National Geographic special on World War II, Heroes of the Sky: the Mighty Eighth Air Force, and directing and editing the feature documentary CBD Nation. For PBS's Live from the Artists Den he directed a one-hour concert show for British pop icon Charli XCX, and edited dozens of concerts for amazing artists, including a 2.5-hour Soundgarden concert film that premiered in IMAX theaters around the world. Two half-hour documentaries David made on quantum physics, What Is Reality? and Hacking Reality, have been watched by millions of people online.  Short films have and will always be a passion of David’s, and a wonderful science lab for fun artistic experimentation. 

Cast: Allyson Sereboff, Ammar Daraiseh - Director: David Jakubovich - Writer: David Jakubovich - Cinematographer: John Schmidt - Editor: David Jakubovich - Composer: Daniel Jakubovich

A woman with a dark secret attends a speed dating event with an unusual twist. Will she find love, or will she scare off the man of her dreams?
 

Filmmaker Bio: Phillip Darlington is a film director and producer with a background in practical effects and digital effects. He began to make his living in film production in 1988 on The Abyss as James Cameron’s underwater assistant where he also received Union status when he performed a stunt. Since then, Phillip has worked on over 72 films and television shows and has also worked in feature film development for Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Feature Films, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. During the past 14 years, Phillip has worked as an Art Director for various clients, including Lockheed Martin, Sun Microsystems and Modular Wind Energy, providing artistic input for their photographic and promotional video needs. Phillip presently owns DarlingtonImages.com and since 2010 has been producing marketing projects and materials for a variety of clients in Los Angeles and Orange Counties of California.

Cast: Shelley Parke, Derrick Zonca, Nonie Shiverick, Cody Kilpatrick Steele, Guy Kapulnik, Michael Beardsley, Ricky Borrego, A Monnie Aleahmad, Marcus J. Freed, Matthew James LePage, Trip Langley, Jim Martyka, Troy Peterson, Vivienne Sievers, Amethyst Brigham, Julia Garland, Te’Juana Johnson, Lindsay Kimber, Jessica Marie Taylor, Faith McCann Walston, Tehana Weeks - Director: Phillip Darlington - Writer: Nonie Sheverick - Cinematographer: Michael Muncatchy - Editor: Phillip Darlington

After three thieves succeed in a dangerous heist, their loyalty is tested when gangsters show up to reclaim the loot.

Filmmakers' Bios: A New York native, Nelson Estevez is an actor and a mixed martial artist who pushes boundaries and isn't afraid of a little sweat. Estevez's career has evolved over the last decade. Beginning in New York City, his training at Terry Schreiber Studios provided him with strong fundamental skills in theater. He has become adept in slipping into the shoes of his characters and with empathy reliving their stories. Nelson is best known for playing the role of Casey in Tyler Perry’s Acrimony, starring Taraji P Henson, and in TLC’s Too Close to Home. 

Nell Teare is an award winning director, producer, actress and writer. Her success on the festival circuit led to her signing her first directing deal with Netflix in June, 2019. In March of 2017, Nell started shadowing in network television on CBS’ NCIS with Bethany Rooney and NCIS New Orleans with Jimmy Whitmore, Jr. She has directed over 80 book trailers for New York’s top publishers. Nell has helmed multiple pilot presentations over the years including Parannoyance and The Hunt. She is attached to direct three features and a feature length documentary over the next three years. Nell is a native Texan and graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Originally trained as a stage actor, Nell was a member of the original cast of Memphis, which went on to win the Tony award for Best Musical, and was in Center Theatre Group’s original production of Randy Newman’s Harps and Angels. She became a company member at The Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles and, eventually, their Director of Development from 2011 to 2012. Nell is the founder of Harmon Creek Press, through which she published her children’s book, Celia and the Witches, and is dedicated to mentoring teens and young people.

Cast: Nelson Estevez, Emmett Hughes, Malachi Mutakabbir, Caroline Morahan, Darren Keefe Reiher, Harper Brooks, Michael McIntyre, Cheryl McQueen, RJ Howard, Blake Harbour, Steve Basile, Thomas Connally - Directors: Nelson Estevez, Nell Teare - Writers: Nelson Estevez, Rudy Solis III - Cinematographer: Julia Swain - Editor: Casey Nimmer - Composer: Matthew James

With her senses overloaded by technology, a woman seeks some peace and quiet.
 

Cast: Lauren Hernandez - Director: Ricardo Mendoza - Writer: Ricardo Mendoza - Cinematographer: Ricardo Mendoza - Editor: Ricardo Mendoza - Composer: Ricky Knox

UNCANNY VALLEY is the story of Kim and her trusty gay best friend, Ira. Ira is the most perfect friend anyone could ask for. He's there when you need a shoulder cry on, he's there when you just need a laugh. He always comes prepared with the perfect catty quip. Above all, Ira is fiercely loyal and will never leave your side. Their close friendship is put to the test when Ira meets and falls hard for the handsome Louis. Secrets are revealed, leading up to a shocking twist. "Uncanny Valley" was shot entirely using green screen technology, a campy sci-fi satire about gay men and the women who love them. Think "Sex & the City" meets "Black Mirror" by way of John Waters.

Filmmaker Bio: Jensen Rule Tierra was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. Jensen studied film theory and production at Los Angeles City College, though he considers his true film education clerking at the famous Rocket Video in Hollywood, CA. Film credits as director include: Harmful Sensations (2015), which screened at Screamfest Horror Film Festival, Hollywood, CA, Famous Monsters' Silver Scream Fest, Santa Rosa, CA where it was awarded "Most Cringeworthy," and Cinema Diverse in Palm Springs CA, where it took home an Audience Favorite citation. Secret Eater (2017), co-directed with visual artist Shaun Johnson, played many festivals including Famous Monsters' Silver Scream Fest, Outfest Screening Series, West Hollywood, CA, Independent Filmmakers Showcase, Los Angeles, CA and Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival, where it won Best Experimental. Jensen has worked on the crew of numerous projects, short films, features, and music videos, in a variety of positions. He is a longtime member of the DIY independent filmmaking community We Make Movies, based in Hollywood CA, and is the host of the collective's official podcast We Talk Movies. Currently Jensen is in pre-production on his latest short film The Seance, a supernatural screwball melodrama slated for a 2020 release.

Cast: Andy Úr, Aubrey Mozino, Chris Mollica, Shaun Johnson, Whit Spurgeon - Director: Jensen Rule Tierra - Writer: Jensen Rule Tierra - Cinematographer: Michele Prymicz - Editor: Eric Michael Kochmer

Reeling from his brother’s death, an artist goes to the beach to find solace in his painting. He’s struggling to get through his creative block, and seeing an old man having a wonderful time frolicking and drawing in the sand only makes him frustrated and resentful. When the man leaves, the artist goes to see what on earth he was up to. At first he sees only a huge collection of random squiggles and lines. As he gains perspective, he realizes instead that what he’s looking at is Picasso’s Guernica in the sand. Was that old man Picasso or his spirit? The artist marvels over his discovery and explores the piece, enjoying it as his own. But soon a wave crash reminds him the tide is coming in and it will all be lost. Desperate to save it, he tries to hold the ocean back only to realize the absurdity of his efforts. Finally as the sun sets, he makes his peace with it all and watches as the art is washed away.

Filmmaker Bio: A graduate of UCLA’s screenwriting program, Heidi Hornbacher has written numerous features, treatments, and TV pilots for various independent producers. She’s judged for the Slamdance Film Festival screenwriting contest and co-founded the Slamdance Script Clinic. She and her husband founded PageCraft Writing in 2008 offering script coaching and writing retreats in LA and Italy. Her clients have gone on to find representation, win contests, and become working writers. Heidi has written, directed, and produced numerous commercials, music videos, and electronic press kits for various artists. She’s currently making a documentary about British artist Paul Whitehead.

Cast: Darren Jacobs, Paul Whitehead  - Director: Heidi Hornbacher - Writer: Paul Whitehead - Cinematographer: Kyle Bart Reid - Editor: Cyndi Trissel - Composer: Jeff Rona

An ambitious Asian adopted mother attempts to balance her rising pre-pregnancy theatre career and raising a toddler. However, she continuously compares his youth to hers, which invites eager ghosts that torment her.

Filmmaker Bio: Kristen Johnson is a director and actor from West Texas, now working in Chicago by way of Minnesota. Most recently, she directed the world premier of Night Safari by Tracy Letts for The Gift Theatre’s TEN Festival and Vaclav Havel’s Protest for Haven Theatre. A lover of new plays, Kristen has worked on half a dozen world premieres and directs almost exclusively works by living playwrights. Be it through the playwright, casting, or framing of a piece, bringing under-represented voices to the stage is a core value of her work. In Chicago, Kristen has had the privilege of working with Steep Theatre (Bobbie Clearly), Gift Theatre (Grapes of Wrath, A Long Arduous Journey), Route 66 Theatre (The Downpour), Rasaka Theatre/Victory Gardens (A Nice Indian Boy), Redtwist Theatre (Look Back in Anger), Step Up Productions (Christmas Armaments), Broken Nose Theatre (Options), Commission Theatre (Clearing), No Passport Festival (Archipelago), and Sankofa Theatre (American Beauty Shop, Fifth Planet) among others. Kristen is a graduate of Carleton College, School at Steppenwolf, NTI, and BADA. She is a recipient of the Director’s Haven Fellowship, winner of the Ann Goodson Weiner Award in Dramatic Arts, and semi-finalist for the Directors Inclusion Initiative at Victory Gardens. When not working on stage or backstage, Kristen is directing, acting, and dabbling in film.

Cast: Marissa Lichwick, Nathan Glesne, Laike Glesne, Jin Park, Cindy Chang, Dwight Sora, William Shaw, Hanah Chang - Director: Kristen Johnson - Writer: Marissa Lichwick - Cinematographer: Victor Tan - Editor: Kathryn Skrundz - Composer: Ben Van Vlissingen