Twentysomething J. and two of his close friends are in the process of realizing their utopian dream: turning an abandoned cathedral into a grant-powered, environmentally sustainable art space. A film that moves in small steps. Viewers are given little in terms of plot but are rewarded with though...

A filmmaker documents his grandfather’s reflections on time and the environment. Elijah Guess’s “Wise River, MT” embarks on a brief, but meditative piece of portraiture documentary. As we observe the 86-year-old man’s spry interactions with his remote Montana surroundings, we listen as he reckons...

What begins as a documentary about surfing evolves into a tale of a guy trying to get rid of a surfboard. Jack Galvin’s lengthily-titled “NADIR: A documentary about surfing in Newport, Rhode Island in the summer and most of the other times as well” is a comedic look at a New England town and a ma...

The dad and step-dad of Branson, a 13 year old boy who loves Skippy peanut butter, try their best to connect during a visitation exchange. Directed by Tynan DeLong (our unofficial ‘18 resident filmmaker, prolific output here), “Dad & Step-Dad,” merges the mundane and absurd, call it cinéma vérité...

When Silvia mysteriously goes missing in Chinatown, tension rises between the two people closest to her. Jacqueline Sir directs “Sacral,” a fragmentary drama about the messy relationships and social life of a group of young NY city kids. Told with blurred low-fi imagery and a constant sense of un...

The humble beginnings of the photograph used as the default background of Windows XP, one of the most seen images of all time, becomes a playful rumination on culture, aesthetics, and impermanence. “Bliss,” directed by Zachary Loren Jones, tells the story of a man named Charles, the photographer ...

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, two friends on a FaceTime call experience a dispute with a neighbor. Entirely presented as a video screen capture, Tanner Jarman’s film becomes an inadvertent tour through the racist viral videos of the day as we follow a young black man walking down the str...

Two friends spend the day together, one is a floating orb. “Digital Fortune Teller,” directed by Cooper Vacheron, is a homemade sci-fi vignette that follows a human and a digital assistant through a typical day in L.A. Tracking their exercise routines, water intake, general health and well-being,...

Two gay men struggle with depression in a ruined environment, and a botanical glassblower mourns his wife. “Flora Borealis,” directed by Casey Friedman, is a striking animated film that uses a post-apocalyptic setting to explore themes of destruction and perseverance. The young couple survives in...

After a decade away, a stripper returns to her conservative hometown to interrogate her past. “A Forgotten Place,” directed by Alice Leigh Barrós, is a sci-fi drama considering one’s relationship to home and the traumas that linger. Upon news of her mother’s illness, Kat returns to the rural outs...

On a bender through the clubs, poetry readings, hotel rooms, and bars of NYC, the self-proclaimed ‘Audrey Hepburn of the Lower East Side’ hops around in search of love, cigarettes, wine, or whatever else keeps the train moving. The edgy video blog, “A New York Muse,” directed by Nicole Crowley, t...

In a remote cabin in the redwood forest of Northern California, a Buddhist teacher and his son are thrown together after years of estrangement forced to make peace with life’s inevitabilities. “For the Coyotes” is a remarkable film about connection, pain and mortality. It was made by a two person...

A young man with vision problems deals with his caustic friends and a bizarrely ominous influence. “Eyeballs,” directed by Cooper Herzog Olson, is an experimental oddity, a stream-of-consciousness DIY tone poem about learning to see, but not too much. Wandering around a small beach town, Dennis e...

A man finds himself at a sketchy 24 hr dental clinic after having his wallet stolen and his tooth knocked out. “Central Dental,” directed by Lindsay Thomas Robinson, is an exercise in surreal atmosphere building, a noir-ish vignette, darkly clever and carefully composed. After getting mugged in a...

Lucy and David's 8 year relationship has survived a distance of 2700 miles, but the events of one night tests their decision to stay together. Director Allegra Oxborough has crafted a complex and remarkably realistic docu-fiction drama about a long-distance relationship, equal parts sensitive, bl...

A woman fantasizes about a romantic night at a bar, including a fling with her bartender. “Queendom,” directed by Nat Gee, is a lighthearted music video shot on 16mm and filled with colorful production design and costuming. A woman and a man make eyes, he makes her a drink and offers her a rose, ...

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...