American Eid

Ameena, a Muslim Pakistani immigrant, wakes up on Eid to find out that she has to go to school. Homesick and heartbroken, she goes on a mission to make Eid a public-school holiday, and in the process, reconnects with her older sister, and embraces her new home, while her new home embraces her.

Dinner Is Served

A Chinese student at an elite U.S. boarding school realizes excellence is not enough when he tries out for a leadership position no international student has ever applied for.

Oleg and the War

The film follows 10-year-old Oleg, whose life has been turned upside down by the ongoing war in East Ukraine. Oleg lives with his beloved grandmother Alexandra in a small house in a village on the frontline. Most people have left the village, but Oleg and Alexandra love their life together there and want to stay on and take care of each other. But life is becoming more and more difficult and the war does not seem to end.

French Water

A lone waiter observes a group of party guests as they search for one another throughout a strange, cavernous venue.

Growing Fangs

Val Garcia, a Mexican-American teen who is half human/half vampire, has had to keep her identity a secret from both worlds. But when her human best friend shows up at her monster-infested school, she has to confront her truth, her identity, and herself.

Mottainai

A commercial aimed at Japanese youths in order to generate an appreciation of their present lives, such that it would be a waste to give up on their futures. Joint campaign by NHK and Advertising Council Japan.

Letters

LETTERS, a dramatic historical fiction written by Mrs. Evelyn Merritt in 2010, tells the story of U.S. soldiers and their loved ones through their correspondence beginning with the Civil War and ending with the War in Iraq. Sahuarita High School students adapted the Readers’ Theatre play into a movie, reasoning the student actors would be kept safe from Covid-19 by filming them individually, and afterward the footage could be reassembled into a screenplay following the original dialogue.

The Legend of Rurik

A Viking warrior fights a dragon in a volcano to avenge the destruction of his village and his wife’s death.

Or Bleu

Two coral harvesters brothers are about to finish their working day, when the elder one discovers a mysterious underwater cave.

The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper

During the holiday season, when the animals of the Central Park Zoo are preparing for Christmas, Private, the youngest of the penguins notices that the Polar Bear is all alone. Assured that nobody should have to spend Christmas alone, Private goes into the city for some last-minute Christmas shopping. Along the way, he gets stuffed into a stocking

Quod Libet

A Knowledge They Cannot Lose

Using both found footage and her own material, Nina Fonoroff recollects the memory of her father. Constructing and deconstructing a portrait, she weaves family and friends’ remembrances with an inquiry into her own work process. Her searching attitude suggests that with the loss of her father came a question of the role, not of a particular father, but the father figure—a refusal of authority, and an appreciation of her father’s cycles of learning, teaching, learning. As Danny Kaye, playing Hans Christian Andersen, tells a group of children the story of the piece of chalk that saw itself as a the source, not the transmitter of knowledge, one senses Fonoroff’s sorrow at the loss inherent in the film image, and a yearning for the source of the image, not just its projection.

Jorge

A lovelorn man is entranced by a beautiful girl who takes a ladybug from his neck.

Shake Hands with Danger

This short cautionary training film examines dangers associated with earthmoving equipment operation, showing many simulated accidents on construction sites.

Bless Me Father

In a small Irish town where secrets are rare, a local man goes to church to confess his.

Crawlies

Crawlies is a soliloquy based on voice recordings of my schizophrenic uncle. An audiovisual exercise of mise en abyme that weaves a patchwork of memories from my childhood, of madness and desire.

Bronx, New York, November 2019

Cal State Long Beach, CA, January 2020

A wordless portrait of sculptor Jessica Jackson Hutchins shows us the artist in the process of transforming clay into uncanny forms.

My Pretty Pony

The story follows an elderly man on his deathbed who gives his young grandson a pocket watch and warns the boy against the dangers of letting time slip away.

Foolish Girl