As a technology company uses human spies to generate suggested content, one data analyst struggles with a matter of musical taste. Eli Speigel directs “Tastemaker,” a satire set in an alternate reality dystopia where a man finds it hard to believe that a fan of the musician Tim Buckley would not ...

A woman’s gift transforms into something darker when reality picks up the phone. Josie Charles directs “Blue Violet,” a found-footage snapshot of a volatile ex and the self-mutilating extremes they take. Speaking directly to their camcorder, Blue addresses Violet—a thought-to-be girlfriend. It’s ...

A young man's car breaks down in the woods and he finds himself in the home of a lonely woman. Matthew Francescani directs “Lord’s Valley,” a lo-fi thriller, slowly building on its surrealism over the course of an evening. Off an unknown backroad, the young man sets foot in search of help. It’s a...

Stuck in Zoom meetings all day, a programmer daydreams about the stranger next door. Marissa Goldman directs “Max Distance,” a romantic comedy where questionable attempts to court a crush backfire. Erica spends most of her day sitting in work calls and watching slideshows for her remote job. In h...

This recently discovered footage shows a controversial psychological simulation going awry. Jeff Braun’s “The Bowdoin Library Experiment (1972)” is a playful, liberal arts parody of the infamous “1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.” A muffled narration outlines the study. The undergraduate students ...

A newly-turned, teenage vampire struggles to keep her violent nature a secret from her overbearing mother. Lida Everhart directs “Something’s Wrong With Kit,” a slow burn coming-of-age drenched in gloom and grim, momentarily bursting with blood red. With heavy eyes and pale skin, Kit doesn’t seem...

Isolation echoes through a young woman’s webcam. Directing trio Arryana Jocelyn Walls, Nadia Freitag, and Nel Jesiak present “Keeping Company,” a post-internet horror piece where a 20-something disintegrates into pixel noise. Robbie keeps her webcam going on record almost all of the time. We watc...

To help his struggling sister, a young man sells his belongings retrieved by visiting women he’s wronged in the past. Darius D. Dudley directs “Skid Marks,” an off-kilter afternoon with a meandering, SoCal slacker. Missy just got dumped and kicked out by her boyfriend. She goes to Malcolm, her br...

A young woman tries to reconnect with her half-sister at their uncle’s donut shop. Written by and starring Sam Spoll, “A Reconciliation at the Donut Shop” (directed by Zach Tavel) is a playfully anarchic vignette about healing an estranged relationship. Spoll plays a woman who speaks in sputters,...

A young woman discovers that her late father is actually alive and living in Mexico. Luna Garcia directs “They’ll Know You When You Call,” a coming-of-age drama with a multimedia approach. Unnamed, the “Girl” goes about her daily job at a corner store in the L.A. area. Later that afternoon, she h...

A young woman descends into madness when her girlfriend, a sex worker, becomes entangled with the wealthy patron funding their life. Mia Daniela Alejo directs “Teeth of Fawn,” a relationship drama confined to a grimy motel room exploring a young woman’s fragile psyche. As Laura attends to one of ...

His dad is dying, but a young man has a mouse to catch. Grayson Goga directs “Field Mouse,” a heavy drama where a 20-something wades through impending grief in a cold, upstate New York town. In his dimly-lit basement apartment, Leonard fiddles between his guitar and French horn. He sips liquor, p...

A young man has second thoughts about the nudity in his film. “I'm Going Full Frontal For My NYU Student Short Film,” directed by and starring Elliot Connors, is a comedy about youthful vulnerability and trying to maintain an uncompromising vision, even if questionable. Ahead of the shoot, Elliot...

After being emasculated in front of his wife and friends at a dinner party, a man confronts an unwelcome neighbor about peeing on his fence. Paul Villenave & Dylan Posgate direct “Nice,” a dramedy exploring a backyard predicament with sociopolitical undertones. Anthony and Liz get ready to host f...

A man tries to explain why he likes looking at power lines. In Jack Galvin’s “Power Lines,” men return back to boyhood with a yearning for elementary-era antics. Jack and Elizabeth take a stroll during sunset and something catches Jack’s eyes, putting him into a trance. To Jack, the electrical to...

A twenty-something seasonal worker on Fire Island navigates the tempestuous waters of pleasure and connection. “Subject of Desire,” directed by Benett Holgerson, is a documentary character study oozing with confidence with a naturally vivid aesthetic and bold subject. Flexing vocal-range and smal...

A filmmaker is ready to be old. Carly Lieberman directs “Old Fantasy,” a charismatic essay film appreciating the elderly and the joys of aging. Lieberman narrates over a series of simple animations. She recounts when an old man approached her at a restaurant to compliment her toenails, and a movi...

What if a day could be a year for a day. Maxwell Blanche directs and animates “Ten Thousand,” a comedic confrontation of calendar days and metrics for time. Blanche makes his proposal for a shift in temporal perspective, stating “no one knows that, four months and 25 days after your 27th birthday...

A reflection on the intimacy of being seen and our perception of time. Shereen Lani Younes’ “no one has seen me naked in a long time” is an audio-visual journal made of existential realizations and peculiar scenes from her everyday life. We hear the filmmaker’s train-of-thought as a sequence of s...

Two siblings try to sell a mounted deer head. Zach Strum directs “Beefmastor Inn,” a quick snapshot of a charismatic brother-sister dynamic in the American South. On a patch of grass off to the side of the road, she practices her dance moves while he holds the taxidermy deer head. They go back-an...

In the aftermath of a near-death experience, a young woman finds herself stuck in limbo between two worlds. Izzy Aghahowa directs “Fires of Katherine,” a story-book-like animation featuring fantastic landscapes and pulsing streaks of color. The rules of the world are outlined—there are three live...

A film crew and a nervous young director craft an expressive dance scene. A quietly observant exploration of a film set, “Proscenium,” directed by Georgia Evenson, portrays the filmmaking process with a shifting POV. The crew settles into place and “Action!” is called. We linger on behind-the-sce...

An elderly man spends his days watching livestreams as his upstairs neighbors quarrel. “Rolling By,” directed by Nicholas Facchini, is a poignant portrait of loneliness that slowly creeps towards an emotional wallop. Toggling between livestreams on a dated desktop computer, the man checks in on b...

An international student moves in with Americans and gets the lay of the land. Luis Figueroa Caunedo directs “…And You Had Tourette’s,” a playfully obscure series of vignettes shot on 35mm film. A young man arrives as a kid with Tourette’s watches a strange television show. The new tenant is show...