After three influencers spend a weekend living off tequila and tainted taco meat, their behavior starts to inexplicably change. Boni Mata directs “Bitches,” a satire weaving absurd drama into an influencer eco-system during the days that follow a comped vacation. On her Instagram story, Kayla giv...

A high school actor seeks to remove his sister with a mental disability from the audience when she begins shouting his name. A student project, “For The Rabbits,” is notable for its ambitious one-take maneuvering, and for its tackling of tricky subject matter. Directed by and starring Lincoln Rob...

Bonus footage from "The 15"

A harmless driving lesson quickly turns into a survival lesson on police encounters. “Ten & Two,” directed by Travis Wood, is a vignette about a mother and teenage son in the suburbs preparing for the inevitability of racial profiling. On a test drive, the son misses a stop sign and rattles the ...

Fran is thinking about dying, but a man in the office might want to date her. Directed by Stefanie Abel Horowitz. Writers: Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Katy Wright-Mead, Kevin Armento. Cast: Katy Wright-Mead, Jim Sarbh.

Two Midwesterners take a panoramic tour of the gas stations, strip malls and fast food restaurants of their lives. An experimental documentary that turns ordinary, prepackaged American suburbia into a surreal haze, “Going to the Store,” directed by Andrew Lewis, approaches the familiar with such ...

A troubled teen girl spends her time trolling men online and bowling with her grandfather while becoming increasingly medicated. “Bowling 4 Eva,” directed by Aelfie Oudghiri, is a bracingly original portrait of depression and pharmaceuticals rendered with satirical bite and punctuated by animated...

In the summer before leaving home, Cece is eager to get her first time over with. “TEEN DAZE,” directed by Brigette Lopez, is a coming-of-age drama, which digs into the psyche and behavior of a self-assured teenage girl living with her single father. She spends her days lounging in the pool and p...

A young couple heads home for the holidays to find themselves trapped at a family dinner where awkward tension boils into rage. Avant-garde filmmaking based on a poem by Bob Holman, “Boiler” marches to its own beat, a weirdo vision directed by Nicholas Motyka. This isn’t your average meal — for s...

An entrepreneur pivots with the market. “Trash Scab,” directed by Philip Steiger, is a scarily plausible, bitingly funny vision of a dystopian nightmare. The circumstances have been exaggerated from our current reality but not by much: a pandemic rages on, a citywide curfew in place, police have ...

Two stoner BFFs engage in an unusual routine to accrue the capital needed to sustain their lifestyle. “Salesmanship,” directed by and starring Brooke Bundy and Helen Rogers, is a stylized snapshot of being broke and aimless. Minimally plotted but energetic, it’s built with flashy musical sequence...

When a wealthy white man’s young black escort stops seeing him, he tries to find a replacement. “The Rentals,” directed by Nicholas Andre, is a darkly comedic snapshot of an aging man’s demand for desire and intimacy. The picture begins slightly unclear. Fred seems to be dozing off as James, his ...

When Cass’s expectations about her first time aren’t met, she confronts the boy who took her virginity. Connie O’Connor directs “In Your Sheets,” a coming-of-age snapshot that captures a complex set of feelings pre and post first-time sex. Early in the evening, Cass is filled with jitters and exc...

A man films a woman describing patterns. “Usually I’m Very Supportive of Delusion,” directed by Nic Murphy and written by Jessica Garrison (winner of the NoBudge Audience Award in January for her recent directorial effort, “DIME”), is a hard-to-describe experimental film which uses a simple struc...

A found footage compilation of a young drifter’s Mini-DV adventures. Michael Santos’s “trash moth” offers a series of vignettes discovered from a young man’s handycam that becomes progressively darker. Felix makes friends with a group of hooligans in hopes they will give him a beer. Next, he has ...

A disoriented man tries to feed a fish in the desert. “Blue Berries,” directed by and starring Sam Millstein, is an allegory on addiction, a vividly shot dramatization of losing track of one’s basic responsibilities. His task seems simple — walk 30 yards to feed a fish swimming in a fish tank. Th...