A performance art film centered around a young woman as she explores her body and how she perceives it. Performance and Concept by Elijah Echo. Directed and Photographed by Ryan Henry Knight.

A constable, young officer, and dysfunctional family try to get to the bottom of a murder. Jonah Bergman directs “Music for the China Doll,” an eccentric murder mystery shot entirely on broadcast television tube cameras. The dead body of Madame Charlotte Dubois lies in the middle of a living room...

Wally’s surprise birthday party turns weird after an existential reaction. Jordan Michael Blake directs “Birthday Boy,” an unsettling portrait of emotional whiplash shot with a family camcorder, which contains years of unrelated home videos that occasionally bleed through. Everything seems rather...

A naked body moves a stranger to empathy in this experimental film by Frank Mosley, in one of two scenes investigating body, movement, and connection. “Parthenon” is carried by the transfixing presence of Lily Baldwin; the film around her is largely wordless, and divided into two loosely connecte...

Left behind by the same loved one, two Asian American youth search for connection in their small Midwestern town. This tender coming-of-age drama from director Dan Chen expands beyond small, ordinary moments into a deeply felt portrait of alienation and nostalgia. Ella, a brash, cigarette-smoking...

A rapper goes missing after a music video shoot and the director tries to track him down. “The Trick,” directed by Neal Wynne, is a comedic, lo-fi quest where a young man must wade through his dissociative state in order to find his missing friend. Steve, played by Jake Squire, tries his best to ...

Lovers on the run are forced to take solace in each other when home is not an option. “Lola and Dallas” is a mini-tale of doomed love set in a dingy motel room filled with cigarette smoke and fantasies about a dangerous, glamorous life. Directed by Alessandra Mesa and Daniel Sorochkin, the film w...

A bizarre ‘systems-comedy’ that channels Pynchon as much as Stillman and Ferrara, a chamber-piece in varying shades of beige and taupe that nevertheless expands beyond the confines of its anodyne Wall Street office-space where a conspiracy-non-conspiracy surrounding something called “the Benson f...

Emma Pillsbury is a filmmaker based in New York City who graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in Cinema Arts & Sciences - concentrating in directing and experimental film. From the Metro - Detroit area, she grew up figure skating for Team USA.

A man reconnects with an old friend from his days in the theater. “My Breakfast with Barf,” is an animated comedy directed by Peter Javidpour, a lighthearted send-up of the 1981 film, “My Dinner with Andre.” Leonard, a man of culture and intellect (whose head is shaped like an egg), meets up for ...

A woman searches for meaning in her life, where all days seem to blend into one. Varya Rootwood directs “Groundhog Year,” an experimental film poem rendered with striking, darkly funny compositions and sarcastic monologue. She spends her day gardening, drinking coffee, and reading. Except, she’s ...

Rachel attempts much needed introspection while juggling school work and running a small business.

In a church-run town, a young woman experiments with new desires and role-play as she prepares for a Purity Ball. Gabrielle Carrubba directs “Down by the Water,” a small-town drama observing early explorations of queerness through the intimacies of female friendship. We first meet Susannah as she...

Lessa and Cass are young lovers in a small town who dream of moving to Florida in this impressionistic portrait directed by Monica Lek. “And She Hisses” is a pulsating snapshot of the beauty and recklessness of young love, a fantasy that could last forever or be gone tomorrow. Cass gets a job at ...

Following her friend's unexpected death, a young woman travels to the mountains to deliver the news to her reclusive brother. Blake Hunter directs “The Last Best Thing,” a sibling drama on grief and a fraught reunion. Julie loads her car and drives into the countryside where her brother, Steven, ...

A new relationship leads to big changes and a big announcement.

A wanted cybercriminal lays low at the Jersey Shore. Patrick Boehmcke directs “Jessie the Ghost,” a docu-fictional portrait following a young individual on the run. We meet Jessie meandering through Jersey Shore environments — getting a tall slushee at the gas station, hitting the boardwalk arcad...

*Online Premiere* In Los Angeles Chinatown, a lonely teenager tries to help her parents keep their seafood restaurant afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Sorry for the Inconvenience,” directed by Jane Chow, is a tender portrait of an immigrant family from Hong Kong which builds warmhearted char...

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...

The small apartment of a young woman making a film: laundry piles on the desk chair, tender karaoke in the living room, and a needy cat that makes life worth living. Nande Walters presents “Something That Means Nothing (October),” a vérité look at apartment living, moments alone, and in between. ...