Social & External
The people behind it
El wakes to her Mother's voice and begins to see her body separating from herself, as through cascading visions of El’s past and future, she walks towards a memory of her Mother that seeps in from her dreams and calls her back into a place she is afraid to return to.
On the London Underground, a young man relives past traumas as he endures the sensory overload of rush hour, only to look up and see a young woman at the end of the carriage going through the same PTSD symptoms. Their recognition of each other's condition allows them a moment of peace before the train jolts them back into reality and she disappears at the next platform.
In 1986 Terri had a hit record. Still touring - same tune, same band - she longs for new material, but Paul her guitarist and boyfriend, can't see it. When teenage musician Jack can, she flees her gig on Canvey Island for a one night adventure, and finds her voice at last.
In the everyday life of the bus, the world still hopes to find warmth.
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Rubber Duckie is the story of Jesse and Daniel, who on a blazing summer afternoon, are consumed with boredom and push their own limits and boundaries. This leaves us begging the question; is it simple boredom or insatiable innate appetite for more?
When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.
A chemical analyst, finds himself under unbearable pressure from the environment he chose to live in. Which leads him to a drastic change, for self-acceptance.
Val is a century old vampire, but in human terms, she can barely pass for twenty. After what feels like an eternity spent at her family home in the northern reaches of the UK, she’s now ready to embark on a new chapter at university. However, the long trip down south soon turns frosty as grieving mother Vera struggles to come to terms with her little girl flying the nest.
Moody, edgy and unrelieved: the duplicity of desiring one’s double.
"Sugar" is an elegiac short film directed by filmmaker, Michael Patti. Michael sought to tell a story of grief, patience, the overwhelming aspects of parenthood and the understanding that we are all connected. "Sugar" a stirring, wistful visual meditation on relationships.
Confused, in a haze of consciousness and intolerance, five fragile souls enter an eerie dimension. This journey forces an artist, junkie, an unapologetic queer, a racist cop and a forged reverend to confront their own demons. In the waiting room, a trickster deity illuminates the shadows hiding within each subject. Piece by piece, each person realizes the darkness they've left behind.
A TV decorator returns to his small Arizona town for his 20 year class reunion with his boyfriend in tow and discovers that his former classmates are not exactly as they seem.
Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.
Cracks are starting to burst in Marina's frozen life, leading towards finding refuge in dangerous places.
Bebhínn lives the high life in London while her parents retire in rural Ireland to work the family farm. On a visit to Co Kerry, Bebhínn sees her father working hard as a sheep farmer with very little monetary reward - - Bebhínn struggles with his recent choices in life until one night her eyes are opened to another way of life.
Yan Hao, a violinist, gets into an accident causing her to be temporarily blind. Frustrated and shocked, a blessing comes as a woman suddenly tries to help Yan Hao navigate life again.
A seaman finds himself out of work and stranded in a distant port. He shares a cheap room. They take turns sleeping, some in the morning, some at night. Grief! When he will go back to sea? And there! The scent of woman drifts up to seduce him! He realizes he had shared his bed with a lady of the night.
A story about a dysfunctional father and son who are still coping with a loss, the other with a highly-stigmatized illness who are compelled to talk to one another to make ends meet and heal the wounds of their relationship.
A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.
Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.
A woman watches time pass beside the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn't understand that his master has abandoned him.
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
The Once-ler, a ruined industrialist, tells the tale of his rise to wealth and subsequent fall, as he disregarded the warnings of a wise old forest creature called the Lorax about the environmental destruction caused by his greed.
A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.
Two large, ignorant bullies ruthlessly pursue a small, brilliant boy in this young adult Roald Dahl short story.
Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.
Seasoned deep-sea divers battle the raging elements to rescue their crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface.
A nobleman vows to avenge the death of his father by the hands of pirates. To this end, he infiltrates the pirate band; Acting in character, he single-handedly captures a merchant vessel, but things are complicated when he finds that there is a beautiful young woman of royal blood aboard.
On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.
Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
The unlikely friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse traveling together in the boy's search for home.
Aspiring bodybuilder Killian Maddox struggles to find human connection in an exploration of celebrity and violence. Nothing deters him from his fiercely protected dream of superstardom, not even the doctors who warn him of the permanent damage he causes to himself with his quest.
An animated short based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale about a poor young girl with a burning desire to find comfort and happiness in her life. Desperate to keep warm, the girl lights the matches she sells, and envisions a very different life for herself in the fiery flames filled with images of loving relatives, bountiful food, and a place to call home.
When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.
