SHORT FILM 🎬 The Diner

Written and directed by David Shih

Cast: James Gioia, Lauren Norch

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Koreatown Ghost Story

 

Based on a Korean ritual during Chuseok, the autumn festival, Koreatown Ghost Story centers around a woman who is presented with a rather macabre marriage proposal from an old family friend who is particularly good at acupuncture. 

Director: Minsun Park, Teddy Tenenbaum 

Writer: Minsun Park, Teddy Tenenbaum 

Stars: Margaret Cho, Lyrica Okano, Brandon Halvorsen

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Philosophy

 

Director: Yanis Politov 

Writer: Andei Sorokin 

Stars: Dmitry Balabanov, Ellada Meshveliani, Elena Pandzharidi

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Any Sign at All

 

This raw, unvarnished short drama is essentially a brief but vivid portrait of a woman at a precipice in her life. Jessie is pregnant and set to give up her baby for adoption; she's on the way to the meeting with the agency. But when her car runs out of gas and her phone dies, she's forced into a pause that allows her to confront her feelings and wants. 

Written and directed by Faryl Amadeus 

Stars : Jeanine Mason, Katy Sullivan, Clint Jordan

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Medical case

 

Set in 1989 this Russian film was directed in 2022 by Mikhail Kukushkin.

Stars: Aleksandra Vlasova, Alexander Rapoport and Georgiy Ratishvili.

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Alone Time

 

Trapped in a drab world, spending her life in a small office cubicle, young Ann is fed up, yearning to break free from the shackles of her modern and hectic lifestyle. Under those circumstances, Ann takes the decision to get away, in need of some time alone in the bosom of the rugged and undisturbed forests of the Adirondacks. Only there, before the eternal nature, man becomes whole again. 

Director: Rod Blackhurst 

Writers: Rod Blackhurst, David Ebeltoft 

Stars: Rose Hemingway, David Chokachi, Jonathan Gundel

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 If You Knew

 

Robin is a young Finnish-Swedish man living in Sweden with his mother. But as a male citizen of Finland, Robin must leave his home and travel to Finland, where he is to report for national military service, which is required for all male citizens. He does not want to go, desperately searching for information on how to avoid it, even up to the hour of his departure. As Robin reaches the point of no return, he takes drastic action to avoid service, later facing questioning. But as he gets closer to leaving Sweden, his expressive eyes convey a growing storm of feelings: anger, sadness and fear. As he answers questions during his interrogation, he faces his most complicated memories, where great pain is intertwined with genuine love and immense heartbreak. 

Directed by Christoffer Tambour and Viktor Wiberg 

Written by Filip Slotte, who also plays the lead role of Robin

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 The Bus Stop

 

Angela, an elderly woman is bullied by a group of teenagers. She crosses paths again with, Carter, one of the bullies. Their confrontation leads to an unexpected outcome. 

Director: Magalie De Genova 

Writer: Magalie De Genova 

Stars: Kerry-Lee Finkle, David Knoll, Jovan Kocic

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Wash

 

Being a mother is supposed to be joyful. Being a child is supposed to be fun. Having a family is meant to be life-affirming. But nothing in this home is like it's supposed to be. 

Director: Kristofer Kiggs Carlsson 

Writers: Kristofer Kiggs Carlsson, Amelia Clay 

Stars: Amelia Clay, Ida Ljungqvist

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Lunchbox

 

Shirley is a Taiwanese-American woman preparing a meal from her childhood. Using her deceased immigrant mother’s recipe book, she makes zongzi, turnip cake, and hand-cut noodles. Each dish she makes evokes a childhood memory, tracing a history of growing up balancing the pull of two cultures -- and growing more distant from her Taiwanese culture and mother as Shirley gets older. Shirley assimilates as she gets older, culminating in her election to Homecoming Court in high school. But when Shirley’s mother makes a mistake and embarrasses Shirley, Shirley lets loose the resentments and grievances of many years, culminating in cruel words that have haunted her since. 

Directed and written by Anne Hsu (who plays the lead role of Shirley as an older teen and adult)

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Post Office

 

A Chinese-American mother's attempts to help a seemingly abandoned child has unforeseen consequences. 

Directed By David Karp & Courtney Loo

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 I'm Good

 

A copywriter decides to stop working, sending an entire ad agency into chaos. ‘I’m Good’ is a modern retelling of the classic short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville. Updated to a modern setting in a creative agency, the themes from the original story remain as relevant as ever. 

Directed and written by John Merizalde

SHORT FILM 🎬 Yellow Ticket

 

Mr. Valentine teaches literature at a bilingual high school in Poland; today is his last lesson as a teacher before he assumes the new position of principal. His students are, by and large, wealthy and well-off, the future elite of the country. But they are also cynical, blase and obsessed with their phones, and Mr. Valentine lays into them about using A.I. for writing their assigned essays. The teacher does his best to get through to his students, teaching a lesson on Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky and how his work anticipated the rise of perilous ideologies in Russia. But when they fail to engage with the lesson, he takes drastic measures to grab their attention. Mr. Valentine then demands his students write a response on its themes, but when he realizes none of his students have even read the text, he is infuriated. As the teacher, actor Rene Zagger offers an impassioned, fierce turn as an educator who fervently believes in his mission but is dismayed and then enraged by the growing detachment of his students. He knows what he is teaching -- and the discussion it should engender --has relevance more than ever, but his students are too removed and absorbed to pay attention, much less care. So he decides to wake them up with a drastic, even dangerous gesture. 

Director: Piotr Toczynski 

Writer: Piotr Toczynski 

Stars: René Zagger, Paulina Chapko, Alicja Wieniawa-Narkiewicz

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 The Interpreter

 

Belma is a Turkish interpreter going through a romantic crisis when she's asked to fill in for someone who interprets for patients in a London hospital. She's deft with languages, but working in the National Health Service is challenging. 

Director: Andrea M. Catinella 

Writer: Yasmine Alice 

Stars: Yasmine Alice, Dan Robins, Mensah Bediako

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Self Love

 

In a secluded cabin, a quiet retreat turns into an unexpected journey of reflection and revelation. 

Director: Blake Ridder 

Writer: Blake Ridder 

Stars: Blake Ridder • Sofia Unal

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Sardinia

 

Ryszard is a serious Polish-American man, a husband and a son who works in a dour office. When a contagious epidemic of uncontrollable laughter befalls the world, Ryszard becomes immune, exacerbating his already acute feelings of isolation and difference. As the epidemic escalates, Ryszard watches as society becomes more dysfunctional. And when his cheerful wife is stricken, his sadness becomes a palpable grief for a world that's rapidly changing.

Director: Paul Kowalski 

Writer: Paul Kowalski 

Stars: Philip Ettinger • Olek Krupa • Martha Plimpton

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Model Citizen

 

A mailman develops a dangerous obsession with a pregnant woman on his mailroute and goes to extreme lengths to prove his love.

Director: Rachael Dahl 

Writer: Rachael Dahl 

Stars: Travis Hammer • Katie Michels • Ronin Lee

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Offline

 

A terrible honest short film about the final cut of a commercial film. An online meeting, a demand in political correctness manner, an embarrassing moment and a proposition putting that moment in ambiguous light. But shocking is the speechless last scenes between a member of team and food courier. A film about color of skin, contempt about the others (and hipocrisy as a sort of bribe), a young director witness of massacre against her film, accepting it, like the appropriated from client for a presumed beautiful future. A not comfortable short film, first for embarassing truths revealed in their full nakedness. 

Directors: Daniel Fure Schwarz • Mauritz Brekke Solberg 

Writers: Daniel Fure Schwarz • Mauritz Brekke Solberg 

Stars: Marit Andreassen • Alexander de Senger • Laila Goody 

Country of origin: Norway

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Pull Over Right Here

 

During a driver’s ed lesson, Hayley is forced to pull over to the side of the road so her instructor, Glen, can tell her about his estranged daughter. She does her best to navigate the situation, trying to figure out whether or not things are headed in a dangerous direction.

Directed by Erin Elders 

Stars: David Yow • Ava Bellows

 

SHORT FILM 🎬 Listen

 

Copenhagen. A police station. A foreign woman, wearing a burqa, is there with her young son to file a complaint. Yet, it seems the translator is not willing to report what she is telling. 

Directors: Rungano Nyoni, Hamy Ramezan 

Writers: Rungano Nyoni, Hamy Ramezan 

Stars: Yusuf Kamal El-Ali, Zeinab Rahal, Amira Helene Larsen