A troubled teen ventures into an unfamiliar city seeking a bond with his estranged father. With “K.I.N.G.,” director Rashad Frett delivers a energetic drama shouldered by powerfully raw & real performances, including from the quietly expressive Jadiah Bailey as King. The film is set in Hartford, ...

Sarah gave Ezra a soul crystal, and that may have been a mistake. “I Love to Wait,” directed by Harrison Atkins, is an imaginative, free-roaming vision of an on-and-off relationship in Los Angeles, a rare melding of the mundane and the mystical. In a world where couples communicate via crystals (...

Jack returns home to find his family has sold their house without his knowledge, perhaps because he’s no longer the Jane they all know. Lio Mehiel directs and stars in “Disforia” (Heidi Hartwig co-directs), a psychological horror about coming out as trans, a haunting vision of alienation and dist...

A YouTube Yoga tutorial. A collapsed body. “My Expanded View,” the latest experimental oddity from NoBudge favorite Corey Hughes presents a peaceful instructional video that derails into a meta deconstruction on digital realms and cultural trends. | Directed by Corey Hughes.

A struggling actor in L.A. goes in for an audition. It doesn’t go well. Presented as an eight minute single-take, “Everything Happens to Me” is a funny and painful glimpse into chasing your dreams well past the point of no return. When he arrives, he’s frazzled and unprepared, having just got off...

A retired CIA agent fakes being abducted by aliens so that he can abandon his family. Taylor Cohan directs “Vibrations,” an absurdist sci-fi comedy stuffed with ludicrous plotting, off-key performances, and a child-like silliness. The ex-government worker, Vincent, lives with his wife and son, a ...

A screenwriter tries to pitch his project but must endure an egotistical producer and his elusive schedule. “Big Money Flicks” is an absurdist satire on the pains of trying to make a movie, the desperation, power plays, et al. It’s delivered with madcap energy and intentionally disorienting editi...

Through his parents’ VHS-recorded journeys following the fall of the Iron Curtain, the son of two Ukrainians embarks on a meditation of roots, memory, and culture. Max Rykov’s “Hindsight” is a poignant piece of personal documentary with historical insights on heritage and the effects of geopoliti...

wormgirl plays darts.

wormgirl was inspired by the time-bending isolation that came out of lockdown. with nothing to do and no one to see, the scope of the day shrank from a full life of work commitments and relationships to a lonely, worm-like crawl. wormgirl shows the highs and lows of worming...

A frustrated, out of work actor turns to medical acting to pay his bills, offering intensely committed performances to students who are simply trying to diagnose symptoms, not evaluate believability. The actor, Paul (played by Alex Karpovsky) wants to be great but without a traditional audience i...

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. ...

The internet in Cuba is very slow. Movies, television, and information are exchanged through a black market system known as “el paquete semanal.” In “Armageddon 2,” director Corey Hughes combines documentary, experimental and narrative elements as he follows one young man involved in the makeshif...

A young man drives across the vast exteriors of Kansas in anticipation of a lover's rendezvous. Darron Carswell’s “Villa Mink” is a contained, slow-burn look at a young man’s night in solitude. Rudy Ford rides the interstate, taking a rest at a road-side motel where there’s the possibility of mee...

A young woman reflects on her youth in Queens during the early 90s. Swetha Regunathan directs “Wire & Cloth,” a second gen, coming-of-age account with the feeling of re-enacted memories aided by a meditative narration. Anika, the child of Indian immigrants, spends the day with her mother. The you...

Rachel’s daily ritual is her only defense against profound boredom.

On the outskirts of a Mexican village, a former elementary school teacher emerges badly bruised on the shore of a remote lake and must find her way back to town. “La Oscuridad,” directed by Jorge Sistos Moreno, is a visceral portrait of Marina, a woman left for dead. She somehow survives the orde...

After a breakup, a young woman pays an online psychic to draw a portrait of her soulmate. Stella Gatti directs “Twin Flame,” a tone poem on the feeling of being adrift after a relationship. When Ofelia receives the drawing, she discovers that it eerily resembles her ex-boyfriend. Unsure how to mo...

A group of friends go to the beach, but Nora isn’t having fun. This anxious drama from director Ryan Martin Brown throws us into the interior life of a young woman who’s starving, dehydrated, and perturbed about the lack of plans amongst her friends. A film about group dynamics — being stuck on o...