VENUE: CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY
321 Wyandotte St.
DRAMA BLOCK – TIME: 5:20PM
GUTS
Director: Margaux Susi
2023 | 10 MINUTES
Desperate for help, a woman in recovery asks an unlikely stranger on a dinner date.
THE MASTERPIECE
Director: Alex Lora
2023 | 20 MINUTES
Leo and Diana, a rich couple, bring a broken TV to a recycle point. They meet Salif and his son, two scrap dealers. Diana asks them to come to their house to get more objects. Once there, Leo looks at them collecting objects with mistrust, until they see the scrap dealers have an expensive painting.
A DEAD MARRIAGE
Director: Michał Toczek
2023 | 18 MINUTES
Filip works as a professional movie extra and he always plays roles of dead bodies. On the set of a historical film, he meets Lucy, who happens to be also an extra, playing a role of a dead woman. When laying on top of each other during long film making hours a bittersweet relationship develops between them in the unusual circumstances.
ADDENDUM
Director: Peter J. Harrison
2023 | 8 MINUTES
An experiential piece sharing moments with a young woman as she returns to the cleared out home of a recently passed family member and though the apartment is all but bare, memories and lives once lived permeate the space.
FUNNY FACE
Directors: Jude Hope Harris
2023 | 15 MINUTES
When country singer, Randy travels to take care of his sister Sophie as she recovers from facial feminization surgery, he meets her girlfriend, Morgan, for the first time. The three bond over family history, love, and an extremely chaotic home nurse.
VENUE: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
602 E. 2ND ST
TIME: 5:20PM
RECOVERY CITY
Director: Lisa Olivieri
2023 | 96 MINUTES |
A raw exploration of what it means to be in recovery as seen through the eyes of four women whose lives share a common thread: addiction. In the working class city of Worcester, Massachusetts, Christine fights to regain custody of her young children while grappling with a traumatic past, and battling stigma from the very systems that are designed to help her. Bridget, who found recovery while in prison, now facilitates peer-led support meetings for women. On the frontlines, recovery coaches Janis and Rebecca navigate the city’s toughest corners offering support and trying to save lives. In this portrait of resilience, grit, and camaraderie, the women use their lived experience to lift up those still struggling while refusing to give up hope.
VENUE: TOUCHSTONE THEATRE
321 E. 4th St.
COMEDY BLOCK – TIME: 5:20PM
CHAUNCEY
Directors: Reilly Anspaugh and Daniel Rashid
2023 | 10 MINUTES
Zoe is afraid to introduce her new boyfriend to her old stuffed animal, Chauncey.
LOVE HURTS
Director: Paddy Thunder
2023 | 10 MINUTES
A complete idiot tries to win the heart of a paramedic by getting himself into a series of accidents.
RHAPSODY FOR PIANO AND LID
Directors: Kevin Kiernan
2024 | 6 MINUTES
An ambitious soloist delivers a unique concert hall experience.
A WEDDING DAY
Director: Brendan Beachman
2022 | 21 MINUTES
For newlyweds Brad and Jill, it seems the honeymoon is over before it even began. When an eccentric stranger stumbles into the couples first argument as man and wife, the day takes an abrupt turn and changes their lives forever.
THE MOVE
Directors: Eric Kissack
2023 | 9 MINUTES
A couple moving in together for the first time learn new things about each other, their apartment and the universe.
GRAMPY
Director: Graham Burrell
2023 | 14 MINUTES
A grief-stricken woman dates a similarly mourning man, only to discover that he keeps the stuffed corpse of his late grandfather taxidermy-style in the bedroom of his remote farmhouse where she is now trapped by a storm and forced to spend one terrifying night with “Grampy.”
WHIPPY
Director: James Rooke
2024 | 5 MINUTES
Rivalry, greed… and calippos. A messy turf war has erupted between warring ice cream firms in 1980s Glasgow after one rogue vendor is caught crossing county lines.
WE JOINED A CULT
Director: Chris McInroy
2023 | 4 MINUTES
The story of two friends who just wanted to play kickball.
VENUE: CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY
321 Wyandotte St.
TIME: 7:20PM
NAKED AMBITION: BUNNY YEAGER
Director: Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch
2023 | 71 MINUTES
She popularized the bikini, invented the selfie, discovered Bettie Page and slyly snuck feminist agency into the most unlikely of spaces—men’s magazines. Her creative contributions were both unabashedly delectable and ahead of their time. Miami photographer Bunny Yeager (1926-2014) made an indelible mark on US popular culture yet today she remains largely unknown.
VENUE: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
602 E. 2ND ST
DOCUMENTARY BLOCK 3 – TIME: 7:20PM
SAVE THE CAT
Director: Jordan Matthew Horowitz
2023 | 24 MINUTES
After a Ukrainian refugee family is forced to flee their home, a group of strangers from around the world come together to help their daughter reunite with her beloved cat, Arsenii.
CHICKEN STORIES
Director: Jonathan Pickett
2023 | 17 MINUTES
On a start-up farm outside Oakland, various chicken flocks surmount daily obstacles while the newbie farmers attempt to Google their way to help.nce they’ve existed.
SAVI THE CAT
Director: Bryan Tucker and Netsie Tjirongo
2023 | 18 MINUTES
When a devoted Kenyan husband surprises his new Black-American wife with an adorable kitten, neither are prepared for the destruction it wields upon their home, their life, and ultimately, their marriage.
ECO-HACK!
Director: Josh Izenberg and Brett Marty
2021 | 17 MINUTES
An unconventional field biologist wages a high-tech war against ravens in the Mojave — think laser cannons, exploding tortoises, and autonomous drones — in a last-ditch effort to save the last of the desert tortoise from extinction.ased family member.
YOU CAN’T SHRINK LOVE
Director: Veena Rao
2022 | 5 MINUTES
An artist gives life to the memories of our most beloved companions.
THE SCHOOL OF CANINE MASSAGE
Director: Emma D. Miller
2024 | 11 MINUTES
The Ojai School of Canine Massage provides professional training in the art and science of dog massage therapy. With a mix of whimsy and tenderness, The School of Canine Massage offers a portrait of this unique school and its dog-loving participants — revealing how people heal dogs and dogs heal people.
VENUE: TOUCHSTONE THEATRE
321 E. 4th St.
TIME: 7:20PM (INCLUDES SPECIAL PERFORMANCE BEFORE SCREENING)
SUB CONSCIOUS
Director: Mel Halbach
2013 | 57 MINUTES
This is a war story told like no other. Through personal experience, filmmaker Mel Halbach takes us on a journey on a nuclear missile submarine during the cold war days of Mutually Assured Destruction. Through interviews, stock footage and animation Halbach brings forth tales from the underworld where 140 shipmates lived underwater, seventy days at a time. Their mission: to participate in the destruction of the world, if ordered to do so. Mel’s personal journey is woven with the contemporary stories of his shipmates – some reluctant to push the button. During patrol Mel describes how he and others smoked marijuana to keep their sanity under the cloud of launching an all out nuclear attack.
VENUE: CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY
321 Wyandotte St.
ANIMATION BLOCK 2 – TIME: 9:20PM
A COW IN THE SKY
Director: Darren Press and C. Fraser Press
2023 | 12 MINUTES
On his first solo flight as a pilot, a young immigrant finds himself wrestling with his identity when his engine fails and his plane free falls. Based on the true story of Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian college student killed in Portland, OR in 1988 by skinheads in a crime inspired by white supremacist Tom Metzger, A Cow in the Sky is a film about the pain and personal triumph of a son left behind.
THE OLD YOUNG CROW
Director: Liam LoPinto
2022 | 12 MINUTES
An Iranian boy befriends an old Japanese woman at a graveyard in Tokyo.
ABSOLUTION
Director: Jill Yapsuga
2023 | 3 MINUTES
Eike Granford discovers what happens to good men who do bad things.
LOVE OF THE LAND
Director: Travis Van Alstyne
2024 | 9 MINUTES
A short animated film based on the true and tragic story of Vermont farmer Romaine Tenney. His farm was in the construction path of Interstate 91 in the 1960s and the State of Vermont seized his land through eminent domain. 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of his passing.
AIKĀNE
Director: Daniel Sousa, Dean Hamer, and Joe Wilson
2023 | 14 MINUTES
A valiant island warrior, wounded in battle against foreign invaders, falls deep into a mysterious underwater world. Everything changes when the octopus who rescues him transforms into a handsome young man.
STARLING
Director: Mitra Shahidi
2023 | 9 MINUTES
The spirit of a little girl shoots down from the heavens to spend her birthday with her family.
VENUE: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
602 E. 2ND ST
TIME: 9:20PM
TWITCH: THE LIVE AND TIMES OF DANIEL FRANCO
Director: Sterling Hampton IV
2023 | 77 MINUTES
A professional Latin-American boxer almost loses his life during the biggest fight of his career competing for the I.B.F championship. After being in a coma for 10 days, Daniel “Twitch” Franco must learn how to talk, eat, walk and live from scratch all over again.
VENUE: TOUCHSTONE THEATRE
321 E. 4th St.
DOCUMENTARY BLOCK 1 – TIME: 9:20PM
Warning: contains nudity
THE PUZZLE PALACE
Director: Jenny Schweitzer Bell and Brian Bell
2023 | 12 MINUTES
In a Boca suburb, a couple retire to a second marriage of freedom, play, and the world’s largest puzzle collection.
BOB’S FUNERAL
Director: Jack Dunphy
2023 | 18 MINUTES
Searching for the root of generational trauma, the director sneaks a camera into his estranged grandfather’s funeral.
MERMAN
Director: Sterling Hampton IV
2023 | 11 MINUTES
A 58 year-old black queer man speaks about his life as an emergency nurse, leather title holder and civil rights advocate.
DICKS THAT I LIKE
Director: Johanna Gustin
2022 | 13 MINUTES
Visual artist Daniela Torres creates colorful ceramic dick sculptures inspired by the men who have been dicks to her. In this intimate artist portrait, Daniela shares her struggles, anger and catharsis as she creates a sculpture modelled after a series of unsolicited dick pics. She also shares her process with a diverse group of women who come together in one of her popular Berlin-based dick sculpting workshops. It’s a hands-on approach to healing that yields beautiful results.
DUMPSTER ARCHAEOLOGY
Director: Dustie Carter
2023 | 14 MINUTES
Self-proclaimed “Dumpster Archeologist” Lew Blink embarks on thrilling expeditions through dimly lit alleys where every item holds a story waiting to be brought to life. Through his eyes, the trash-strewn landscapes transform into an endless playground of mysteries waiting to be unraveled inviting us to ponder the value of privacy and the impact of excessive waste while marveling at the wondrous stories within the refuge left in the alleyways.
KRUSH THE WRESTLER
Director: Alex Megaro
2023 | 14 MINUTES
Exploring the innate intimacy of submission wrestling, a lifelong wrestler turns his talents into an on-demand fetish video service.
