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 to an apartment as a kid with Tourette’s watches a strange television show. The ne...

In a seaside town in Maine, a group of young skateboarders go about their normal lives—skating, smoking weed, and shooting the shit. A slice-of-life snapshot directed by Gideon Baeza, “Hope is Hip” tracks the lifestyle and personalities of an outsider subculture just beyond a quaint tourist distr...

An American living in Rome takes a trip to Umbria after a spontaneous invite from a childhood friend. Daniela Garza directs “A Place Between us,” a stylish summer excursion that portrays a couple of days of warm weather pleasures mixed with nostalgia and ennui. When Fiore decides to leave a work ...

Faced with infinite possibilities, a profoundly indecisive woman attempts to buy a new couch. Lily Citrin directs “Phoebe Getting a Couch,” a comedy about the burden of choice and the battle to define oneself with home decor. Phoebe can’t even decide what she wants at the drive-through fast food ...

In a city where the sun never shines, a young skeptic helps his scientist uncle conduct an experiment that could give his people hope. Made in Kazakhstan by Batyrkhan Jussipov, “Helios” is deadpan dystopian sci-fi with an inventive DIY spirit. Nurseit is a disaffected young man living in a remote...

In need of a place to stay, a young man poses as the son of a woman with Alzheimer’s. Sam Severin directs “Niko & Eleanor,” an understated drama about an unlikely relationship that fleetingly forms between two people with different struggles. Niko enters the home of Eleanor wearing a safety vest ...