2021 Film Program

A voyeuristic, wealthy vlogger finds herself drawn to a handsome, shy youth from the infamous Barrier Block housing project. Their relationship with each other, and with the camera, leads them down a dangerous path.

A man living in solitary seeks emotional refuge in the organising and documenting of family moments using low-grade impersonators. When his fake sister becomes inspired to follow his method, their relationship struggles between the forged and genuine.

Dea leaves rural Indonesia and her singing dreams to migrate to Hong Kong as a foreign domestic worker. The script is the result of a nine-months acting improv laboratory with a group of Indonesian women migrant domestic workers, who have been victims of domestic violence while working in Hong Kong.

An artistic commune of filmmakers awaits the return of the Director, who disappeared without a trace, despite his absence, the Director seems to control all of the troupe's actions.

A Soviet style film noir about the murder of a Jew that changed the world.

In an anachronistic dystopian landscape, a beleaguered young man attempts to navigate his way through the indie film scene in LA.

A receptionist at a suicide hotel in Taipei forms a fleeting friendship over the course of one night with a guest who can’t decide if she wants to live or die.

What happens within the walls of an American High School?

Confronted with a series of racially charged incidents, a young black man must overcome rage, alienation, and hopelessness in order to find his own humanity.

A charismatic activist works to build a better Chicago for the teens in his neglected community even if it comes at the cost of his home, his family, and his safety.

Black and white, young and old, a group of women risk their personal identities to build a second family while creating a documentary-film across the inequities of their Baltimore City neighborhoods.

From inspiring triumphs to heartbreaking setbacks, Bleeding Audio relives the explosive career of the Matches and what it means to succeed in the digital age of music.

"CODE NAME: Nagasaki" tells the story of Marius and Fredrik, two young men who forged their friendship through filmmaking and decided to put their skills to a unique challenge: finding Marius’ long lost Japanese mother.

In the art world, there are those who take risks and then, there's Martín Solo.

Tim, a talented, yet unknown LA artist, bluffs his way into winning the commission to create the world's largest stained-glass window of its kind, even though he has no idea how to make it…but he stumbles across someone who might, the famous glass maestro, Narcissus Quagliata.

As their bodies give way to Parkinson's disease, two New York actors put their hearts into one final Off-Broadway production of Beckett's "Endgame," the play that posits, "there's nothing funnier than unhappiness."

After an unlikely casting onto a reality television show, 47-year old suburban telemarketer Ed Popil leaves his job to pursue a full-time entertainment industry career as his drag queen alter ego, 1960’s era housewife Mrs. Kasha Davis.

As two former classmates dig into their deceased professor’s set of cassette tapes, which possibly contain recordings of strange signals from beyond the stars, they begin to feel memories, the chronology of time, and their identities slip into obscurity.

In 2019 a group of criminal justice de-escalation workers in Minneapolis embarked on a collaborative film project that used radical theater workshop techniques to explore their real-life struggles to escape the pressures of the American dream. The result, finished days before the murder of George Floyd, captures a city searching for what lies after America.

“Working-class Latino hood, crossed with crazy artist, crossed with left-wing radical,” so the legendary underground cartoonist Spain Rodriguez is described in this intimate portrait by his wife, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Susan Stern.

Featuring shocking, never-before-seen law enforcement video surrendered by a disgraced officer, End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock is the incredible story of the indigenous women who establish a peaceful camp in protest of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline construction that desecrated ancient burial and prayer sites and threatens their land, water, and very existence.

After a violent breakup, Mia is struggling to get revenge on her ex. As her plan kicks off, she finds herself surrounded by a group of friends that give female togetherness a new definition.

In a near future, a callous smuggler hardened by life guides a pious young woman and her child across the border to safety, unaware that their destinies are inescapably linked in this inhospitable land.

CLOSING NIGHT FILM // LA DRIVE-IN on Feb 25th, 2021 // A raucous, visceral Los Angeles tale—seen through the story of a 20th Century fight palace and the remarkable woman who ran it-—reveals battles over race, gender and identity that still roil America.

Along with friends Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf grew from a graffiti artist into a major force in the 1980s NYC art scene. Obsessed with garbage, cartoons, and plastic, this playful Peter Pan’s roller coaster career flourished despite the decimation of the AIDS crisis and the fickle tastes of the art world and continues to create colorful, complex work that puts him at the forefront of where popular culture meets fine art.

Strange experiences and realizations lead a grieving artist to reconsider his identity and beliefs in this meditation on loss, family and mental illness.

Precious Sarria and her family experienced housing insecurity for over two years. After transitioning into housing, they documented their lives to raise awareness for the rising homelessness in regions surrounding Silicon Valley.

Tunis, November 2019. On the eve of the presidential election, a group of women is gathered at Saïda’s hair salon, which is transformed into a town square, mirroring the internal turmoil of the country. In this female sanctuary, we get an intimate look at the country’s teenage democracy.

After being estranged from his family for his homosexuality, we observe a young Arab man over four seasons from far away as he navigates his solitude – all the while attempting to reconnect with his mother.

Charging scenes of the present with dystopian speculation, Field Resistance blurs the boundaries between documentary filmmaking and science fiction to investigate overlooked environmental devastation in the state of Iowa.

Reconstructing one last encounter with Dad.

A Ugandan mother tries to navigate her past traumas through participating in the country's first beauty pageant for plus-size women.

Based on a recorded Skype exorcism and found footage, the filmmaker confronts her religious trauma growing up in the Evangelical prophetic and deliverance ministry.

The Length of Day is a collaged essay film that tells an emotional history of socialism in the United States. Filmmaker Laura Conway enacts a cinematic seance using archival documents to communicate with her departed communist grandparents and ask them questions about the end of capitalism. An accou

A ruthless hitman for the18th Street gang serves his sentence in an isolation cell in El Salvador. But in prison, Geovanny is not just guilty of his crimes, but of an unforgivable sin under God and gang: being gay.

The mother cares for seniors in their homes, where the ticking clock counts down the working day, between the frightening sounds of the heavy breathing that increase the fear of emptiness...

A young man is sexually assaulted and subdues, punishes, then befriends his own attacker while confronting his past and the ambiguities of sexuality.

Sour grape.

Three animals caught between planes of existence, and an egg.

Experience the ritz and glamour of a death at the Dane's fundraiser.

Opera is a massive 8K size animation installation project which portrays our society and history, filled with beauty and absurdity.

A visual and audio mixtape that celebrates the sun, the moon, water, and the beach.

A man is unable to make a choice and the world comes to a halt. Is the tension of indecision stronger than the fear of mistake?

Looking at a China modernized, are we back in such a wonderland described in an ancient fable, The Peach Blossom Spring, or is this high-speed train impelling us to somewhere else?

Warm showers make me see stars.

The film is an image of a land ruled by a whim. Everything that exists on the planet is unobvious, chaotic, and changes its shapes and properties.

Unleash your urges! Let them take care of you.

The bystander leaves after whispering, they say an accordion could never talk to a white horse.

A dark journey down the rabbit hole of a turbulent female adolescence.

Drawing upon a rich repository of images – from digital renderings of Kashmir’s mountains to the textured materiality of 16mm hand-processing and direct animation techniques – 'Letter From Your Far-off Country' maps a hidden vein of shared political commitment and diasporic creative expression, linking a poem by the Kashmiri American writer Agha Shahid Ali with interviews with the filmmaker’s father and a letter addressed to Communist Party leader Prabhakar Sanzgiri, who is also the filmmaker’s distant relative.

The director's grandmother shares the story of being committed to a mental hospital in 1961 after seeing a doctor for inexplicable nausea.

The candle, the myth, the legend. Mountain Lodge.

A foley artist creates sounds for a film featuring a dressage horse and dissolves into his own imitation. Shot on 16mm film, PASSAGE is contemporary and sensual homage to the origin of cinema, with a thrilling performance from queer artist and performer Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau.

A postmodern swiss-tyrolean ensemble ventures into remote mountainous regions, embracing the sonorous variety of local vernaculars. A poetic road movie with stunning shots and an emphatic approach to a new alpine aesthetics.

Using love letters tucked in bootleg DVD menus, a gay Iranian recounts his first relationship and its end.

Fences, zooms, blastbeats and oscillators search for possibility or perforation as the walls close in.

the gospel according to them, is an experimental film that explores the phenomenology of faith and its relationship to the Black body.

The rigidity of a historical fact rolls by like clouds, or maybe like cloud-computing. Digital landscapes like desktops, trash cans, and cursors flatten the sensation of what tangibly remains: the invisible pleasure of wind on skin.

While browsing YouTube at the start of the 2020 COVID pandemic, a narrator grabs a camcorder and shares their thoughts about the video platform. The narrator lingers on a video of Stevie Nicks singing "Wild Heart" in the studio of Annie Liebovitz in 1981.

A$$ Level is a comedic music video that celebrates life with a disability while paying homage to 90s dance videos.

After moving cross-country, a young girl with Down syndrome struggles to fit into her new surroundings.

When Calvin announces that he's proposing to Leesa...and then they're moving to the suburbs, Rebecca enlists Dennis's help to sabotage the proposal and keep their friends around for good.

An exhaustive meta-analytic review documenting a mysterious “women's” issue, otherwise known as endometriosis1 (1term used to describe a clinical etiology that thus far has only been identified in primates with a female reproductive system, an anatomical structure of decidedly lower importance in comparison to those of the male primate.)

A teen-in-need's reluctant act of kindness toward a DeafBlind man becomes a night-long journey, creating a bond between them that gives the teen hope for the future.

A teenage boy in a Brooklyn apartment interrupts a man on his morning run by throwing eggs out the window.

Santina has been in a wheelchair since she was six years old. With meetings, hangouts, and classes happening virtually due to the Coronavirus quarantine, she's experiencing something new: Choosing when (or if) to disclose her disability.

This stirring documentary explores the failures of the U.S. health system through the lens of four disabled women.

Human Helper is a sci-fi comedy short about a doctor's mission to make artificially intelligent human-like helpers not ableist.

This music video tackles the reality of women with disabilities in abusive relationships.

A dance & art short film about psychosis - from mental illness to full recovery.

On The Outs follows three people with various disabilities, including vision impairment, brain injury, and mental illness, as they reenter the community from Washington State prisons.

A Jamaican immigrant finds his life in LA shaken by forces outside his control as he struggles to understand how far he is willing to go to protect his family.

Thirteen-year-old Terry is in emergency care with guardians after his mother’s arrest. Cheeky and living with a disability, he outwits one guardian while finding exactly the connection he needs from the other.

A girl born with one arm gets set-up on a blind date with a guy who has one hand, and she is pissed!

A young man tries to escape a surreal dystopia where everyone wears ginormous metal stilts.

A father struggles to connect with his son, who grows to love a language not native to his tongue.

The story of a renowned circus troupe traveling through the devastated American landscape at the height of the Great Depression, lifting the spirits of audiences along the way. During their travels they discover a man without limbs in a carnival sideshow, but after an intriguing encounter with the showman, he becomes driven to hope against everything he has ever believed.

A robber's plan goes horribly awry when he realizes the store he has targeted is full of disabled people.

A young Civil War surgeon in the Union army visits home with an unexpected companion: a soldier whose arm she amputated.

A groundbreaking point-of-view documentary exploring a non-fluent speaker's world. 14-year-old Emma challenges societal judgment surrounding autism... one keystroke at a time.

A struggling disabled actress gets a job advising a film star how to be disabled for his latest role.

Liberal? White? Guilty as hell? Let me help you get through your tough, tough times with ASMR for White Liberals.

Who are we when we all share the same face?

Thousands of masks from around the world, at 24 masks per second, brings us along a journey through culture, utility, and deviance.

The END OF THE WORLD isn't going to be an apocalyptic explosion. It's going to be our minds, descending into chaos.

Everything you need to know about pierogi, and more!

Three women contemplate their relationship with convicted serial killer Richard Ramirez.

Life is an experimental super short film about time of life. The duration of this film is only 4 seconds (not minutes) because life is very short and very fast.

Nigel is on his way to meet his partner's daughter Emily for the first time, and while he hopes to make a big impression, the impression she'll leave on him is far more permanent.

In a small hotel, there is a man who tries to stop his hunger for love by eating excessively. Unexpectedly, his left foot transforms into his lost lover, Suzanne. Still, this is just the beginning of a surreal story, made of plasticine, about loneliness, jealousy and love.

A high school filmmaker wins the heart of a troubled young woman, only to loose her in the course of a harrowing psychedelic experience that forces him to confront life truths that are at once beautiful and painful.

In a dark world, devastated by lies and dominated by fear, we continue with our self-destructive routines towards extinction.

A Satanic cult lures a no-name rapper into stealing an enchanted chamber pot from his estranged friend and now superstar rapper, Big Tobacco.

While observing life outside his shop, a barber thinks he sees someone who is after his life and his family. Confronted with imminent danger, the barber decides to react.

The eye that you see is not an eye because you see it; it’s an eye because he sees you. A tribute to all Street Artists from Valencia.

Can an A.I. be creative? An artificial intelligence (A.I.) computer watched the Mario Bava classic “La Maschera del Demonio” for six straight days, then it made its own disturbing movie.

While ‘airway’ can be a reference to air travel and human respiration alike, in this context ‘Airway’ is the name of a dog.

During the 14-day mandatory quarantine in a hotel room after I went back to China, I "raised" some virtual animals in my phone. Somehow, we look very alike.

Bodies and objects chaotically collide in a small house as it plummets down a deep hole. Created using Valve's 2004 Machinima game Garry's Mod during COVID-19 self isolation.

A dance performance exploring horror movies, why we love them, and the things they reveal about our culture.

A feisty young girl from South LA struggles to achieve her dreams of becoming a doctor with the help of her high school science teacher, a martial arts master.

A Native American country music star finally hits rock bottom and is court-ordered into wellness therapy with an offbeat group of misfits on her hometown reservation.

Two goblins behold and scold the great chef giants.

In a post-nuclear-war Jerusalem, two teenage bickering siblings travel what's left of the city in search of their little brother whom they lost in the bombing.

On the way to a distant planet, three less-than-qualified astronauts are awoken from stasis 90 years too early and trapped inside their hibernation pods. Alone in the endless void, they can't kill themselves, and they can't kill each other, so they'll just have to kill time.

Two gamer best friends battle the everyday Big Bosses of "unequal opportunity" and "crappy day jobs." Nina's first writing credit may spell "game over" when she realizes the publication isn't all it's cracked up to be, while Paige battles her own self-doubt (the biggest baddie of all).

Life is full of twists and letdowns. Live it like a movie.

Alisa gets a chance to win $50,000 by making a half-court shot at a Knicks game but her anxiety quickly derails her when she learns the contest is going to be on TV.

A woman struggles to maintain her sanity during the 2020 quarantine lockdown.

A struggling Black college grad wakes up to find that reparations have finally been paid to descendants of slaves in America.

The story of Marie, a young woman who uses her secret passion for rogue taxidermy to cope with debilitating anxiety.

When a nine-year-old boy in 1620s Bavaria goes on trial for witchcraft, a flabbergasted court must decide the child’s fate.