A Fine and Private Place
Director: Sarah Pearce
Country of Origin: United States
WORLD PREMIERE
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
WORLD PREMIERE
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
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
WORLD PREMIERE
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
Synopsis: Two siblings try to sell a mounted deer head.
Brought To You By Satan
Director: Holly Laurent
Country of Origin: United States
Defy Year: 2021
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
US PREMIERE
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
WORLD PREMIERE
Synopsis: An experimental video shot and edited on VHS video about gender identity and transformation.
Checkmate
Director: Nichole Lim
Country of Origin: United States
WORLD PREMIERE
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.
Chris Crofton: Nashville Famous
Director: Seth Pomeroy
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: A feature-length documentary about the life and career of underground comedian and musician Chris Crofton, and his struggles with local fame and alcoholism. The film follows Chris from his farewell show in Nashville to open mic obscurity in Los Angeles as he tries to re-establish himself in a bigger market, encountering unexpected roadblocks and successes along the way.
Climate Control
Director: Sarah Lasley
Country of Origin: United States
US PREMIERE
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.
Dollface
Director: Kirsten Johnson
Country of Origin: Canada
Defy Year: 2016
Synopsis: A woman wakes up covered in toys. Is she hungover? Depressed? Can she get up? Live action and stop-motion animation fuse together in this mad ride exploring self-doubt, delusion, misplaced inner voices and embroidery floss.
Ephemera
Director: Cici Clancy
Country of Origin: Canada
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 Fire Cycle - A Reading from the Book of Regenesis
Director: Clay Steakley
Country of Origin: United States
Defy Year: 2022
Synopsis: The Fire Cycle is a multidisciplinary artwork consisting of films, poetry, music, and visual art. It's a call to stop, to breathe, to return to elemental things and the ritual of the year. This short film accompanies both a poem and song titled "A Reading From the Book of Regenesis," which sets the stage for The Fire Cycle—a regenerative cycle in which large fires cause changes in weather that can lead to other fires, elsewhere. In the process, they bring life and take it away.
The Future
Director: Greg Sharp
Country of Origin: Serbia
Defy Year: 2019
Synopsis: In the future all people will be men and and all men will be crabs and all crabs will be thirsty.