A very unfunny family history is spun into brilliant comedy from co-directors Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik. They begin with a doozy of a premise and keep pushing. When it all comes together, it feels like a wallop, but it’s largely packaged as a deadpan farce about a group therapy session. Bev is...

Young revelers, Jean and Jacob, vow to stop their crazy lifestyle holding them back in life, but first they must live it up for one more night. An infectious short film about partying in your own world no matter what it looks like from the outside. Waking up hungover by a pool, two friends decide...

Alex’s upscale co-workers think she’s going on a beach vacation. Instead, she descends into New York City in search of the vile. From director William Welles comes this pitch black comedy or tragedy (depending on your squeamishness) about perversity and compulsion. Her motivations aren’t spelled ...

An alternate history, or impending future, that imagines a catastrophic meteor strike in Kansas triggering odd disorders for those who breathe in a mysterious green mist. We're given three such stories, one of a Texas man who finds himself with superhuman strength, another, of a Brooklyn photogra...

After the death of their father, siblings Jeff and Amber hike to one of his favorite spots in the Tehachapi Mountains. A restrained piece about grief, in its various forms, set against the same gorgeous vistas that once provided their dad a prime train-watching spot. Starring indie heavyweights A...

Two teens in a small desert city earn cash standing on the side of the street holding signs for cheap loans. They make a game of it, spinning the signs like they’re doing skateboard tricks. “More tricks, more money, dawg,” says the baller white kid teaching a newbie the ropes of the street in a g...

On the streets of Los Angeles, a group of young hustlers spend a night partying and stealing. It's a visceral collection of scenes with a pulsating natural energy and soft-focus gaze on lost innocence. The film centers around Gabriel, a handsome young man, and a gender-fluid set of friends maneuv...

2014 NoBudge Award winner Jeremy Hersh (Best Screenplay, “Natives”) returns with another story of women in love confronting their maybe-irreconcilable differences. Where that earlier film expanded to embrace ideas about place, culture, and identity, what we get here is a marvel of concentration. ...

Jeremy Hersh's impressive short fresh out of NYU is remarkably mature & whip smart. Coming off a strong '13, featuring festival appearances at SXSW, Frameline, and Outfest, etc, the film is off to a running start online, recently selected to Vimeo Staff Picks & featured on Short of the Week. The ...

This intimate glimpse at two teenage girls in a Moscow locker room is a simple but rich exploration of burgeoning sexuality and a search for expression. Alice can’t help but steal some glances at her teammate while she changes, catching flashes of skin, reflected in searching close-ups. The teamm...

Shot in New York, L.A., Moscow, and Paris, this portrait of the young and free is an appealingly raw glimpse into the joys and struggles of love. The mixed-format filming keeps the visuals fresh and the perspective deeply personal. Structured around four stages of a relationship — the meeting, th...

The Itching is a short horror film about two girlfriends whose cozy social life turns ugly when one of them contracts a mysterious illness. Beginning with a tiny itch, she rips a ragged hole in her own leg, a pooling landscape in which some terrible urge is reflected. I won’t reveal any more of t...

Wandering the dappled grounds of an old farmhouse, Henry plays schoolmaster at an open-air painting retreat, where his instructional duties seem to involve holding forth at candlelit dinners in the garden and sucking down endless cans of Budweiser on the lawn while the work of painting and posing...

A young woman imagines what life could be if she completed everything on her to-do list. Directed by Efe, “to-do” is a brightly colored satire in the form of a cheerful video tutorial. Running through an overwhelming list of things to accomplish each day, the woman (played by Lorelei Ramirez), wa...

In her mid-twenties, Fanny moves back to her hometown to attend the local University but struggles to bond with other students and reckon with her past. This short dramatic feature from Norway is a beautifully-made character study about a young woman at a vulnerable time. During student orientati...

In a future where women are dying rapidly, a female psychologist counsels orphaned children to find answers. A stunningly achieved dystopian tale directed by Blake Salzman, “Midwife” is notable for its melding of genre and art-house sensibilities, and a powerful lead performance by Jules Willcox ...

A male stripper has an unusual experience on the job in Mary Dauterman’s “Unfinished Business.” From a script co-written by Jenny Donheiser, the film is an awkward comedy that uses 1980’s costuming and choreography to highlight its dingy tableaus and expressionless ladies. When he arrives to a mo...

After the 2016 presidential election, a young woman moves to Washington D.C. to start what she hopes will be the next American revolution. “The Apocalypse Will Blossom” directed by Courtney Jines is a spirited response to a mixed-up world, notable for its concoction of youthful enthusiasm balance...

A young woman experiences strange hallucinations while going about her daily life in Los Angeles. Directed by and starring Shereen Lani Younes, “Fall” is an unsettling psychological drama about dealing with a reality that appears to be crumbling. Words are jumbled on menus, the ceiling warps as i...

In the early ‘90s, a 14-year-old girl and boy mysteriously switch bodies and spend the rest of their lives haunted by the event. “emotion 93,” directed by Oz Davidson, is a singular experimental film about identity, memory, and transience. A mixed-format collection of paraphernalia from 1993 — dr...

When the night fish arrive, their job is to feed on your sanity. Presented in second-person point of view and comprised primarily of crudely animated fish floating across a cosmic starry black landscape, “The Night Fish” directed by Albert Birney is a poetic rumination about the fears that keep u...

Setting out to “make a movie” on the streets of NYC, a man recruits strangers to act alongside him in “movie scenes”. Using a hidden camera prank show format, “Cinema Brut” is notable for capturing the strange ways people respond when asked to perform, and for the highly committed performance by ...

The story of a drug-fueled weekend in a Brooklyn apartment propelled by grief and loyalty. Lee, reeling from the death of his mother, visits the home of his old friend, Monty. Given his present state of mind (and body), it’s not a pleasant visit, at least from the perspective of Monty’s well put ...

Identical twin sisters, Ani and Ale, are addicted to the popular teen-soap, ‘Runyon’, in particular, the dreamy star of the show, Johnny. But when they’re not binging, they’re drifting apart. “Binge,” created by Kevin Rios, is a short comedy about obsession, celebrity worship, and decaying sister...