A Fine and Private Place
Director: Sarah Pearce
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: Nolan Claiborne lives on a remote lake island in Tennessee, estranged from his family and preparing for the end of the world. His granddaughter, Lana, comes for a visit, but she has an agenda of her own. She won't leave without answers.
Apology Ghost
Director: Brian Padian
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: A man makes a series of phone calls across several late nights as he drives home from work.
A Story Of Fish
Director: Rusty Enger
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: TN.
Synopsis: True love is hard to find. It's even harder when you are a fish and you live in a fish tank with only one other fish.
Baxter Bi-Rite
Director: Allison Inman, Sean Clark and Jace Freeman
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: In a rural middle Tennessee grocery store, daily transactions are more than the sum of their parts.
Beefmaster Inn
Director: Zach Strum
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: TN.
Synopsis: Two siblings try to sell a mounted deer head.
Brought To You By Satan (2021)
Director: Holly Laurent
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: RETRO
Synopsis: A young woman grapples with the supernatural origins of a family dinner.
...but i’ll be BACK before you’re DONE
Director: Trasparente (Federico Montaresi)
Country of Origin: Italy
Premiere: United States
Synopsis: "...but I’ll be BACK before you are DONE is a found footage video exploring the pure essence of destructive energy. A relentless stream of over 500 explosions, sourced from cartoons, artificial intelligence, video games, films, online archives, and war footage, unfolds in a frantic and chaotic montage. The obsessive repetition of detonations dissolves
the boundaries between reality and simulation, turning the
video into an extreme sensory experience. The work reflects on media manipulation and the spectacularization of violence, subjecting the viewer to a perceptual overload that defies linear interpretation."
Call My Sister, Last Year
Director: Dylan Simon
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: An experimental video shot and edited on VHS video about gender identity and transformation.
Checkmate
Director: Nichole Lim
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: As rehearsal blurs with reality, a friendship built on compliments and competition begins to crack. Wardrobe changes, emotional breakdowns, and mild blood loss ensue. A surreal and darkly funny look at ambition, self-delusion, and the performance of being fine.
Climate Control
Director: Sarah Lasley
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: United States
Synopsis: A director making a documentary about the perils of fossil fuel extraction is consistently subverted by an AI agent that wants to tell a generic love story. Moved by the sacrifice of youth activists in Lutzerath, Germany, Sierra and her team attempt to finish their no-budget documentary while warding off an AI agent empowered with toxic positivity. When the film’s crew is absorbed into the AI’s rom-com, Sierra fights for control over her project however she can. Made in collaboration with Gen Z film students at Cal Poly Humboldt, the film looks at generational responses to the climate crisis through an absurdist lens, connecting the extraction of natural resources to the extraction of our human data and the extraction of our attention in this post-information era.
Dreamer
Director: Balca Elif Sagmanli
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: Nashville
Synopsis: In an effort to fall asleep, a unique young woman, Audrey, struggles through the entrapment of a dream-like state where she encounters the various challenges of time past, time present, and time future.
Ephemera
Director: Cici Clancy
Country of Origin: Canada
Premiere: Nashville
Synopsis: Trapped in a digital void of endless porn, ROBIN, a lonely gas station worker discovers salvation in shadflies - creatures born purely to mate, a carnal pleasure she can no longer access. Her porn cravings grow more extreme. She used to be able to make love – now she can't even maintain friendships. Her best friend, GAIA, sees through her digital haze. As a modern witch, Gaia knows there's only one way to pull Robin back: strip naked in the forest and learn to love her body again. In nature's purest act of sacred eroticism, Robin might finally wake up.
The Genie
Director: Enricka M.H.
Country of Origin: France
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: Adam and Lina are brother and sister, but they fight like cats and dogs. One day, Lina purposely escapes her older brother's supervision. He goes looking for her in the city and finds her with a strange man named Sey-dou, who offers to grant each of them a wish.
Gnomes (2023)
Director: Ruwan Heggelman
Country of Origin: The Netherlands
Premiere: RETRO
Synopsis: Unknowingly, a girl enters the habitat of a tribe of killer gnomes during her daily run. Lured by mysterious glowing mushrooms, she'll soon wish she'd stayed on her usual tracks...
Guadalupe (2022)
Director: Guadalupe (2022)
Country of Origin: Mexico
Premiere: RETRO
Synopsis: An undocumented Mexican house cleaner finds something unexpected and controversial in the homeowners' closet. She leaves an unmistakable message.