The Genie
Director: Enricka M.H.
Country of Origin: France
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.
Glorious Times
Director: Stan
Country of Origin: United States
Defy Year: 2016
Synopsis: Glorious Times is a short, experimental documentary that meditates on the experience of a death metal festival and the passion of its fans.
Hang On, Little Tomato
Director: Shalyn Grow and Asya Hildenbrand
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: Hazel returns to her childhood home after her estranged mother has died. As she enters the repast looking for her younger sister, Hanna, it is clear that presence causes a stir amongst her family. She has an awkward run in with an uncle and a slightly hostile exchange with her mother's best friend and Hazel's aunt, Cindy. Hazel convinces Hanna to sneak away with her to the local park to get away from the repast and the two smoke cigarettes and discuss their feelings on the death of their abusive mother.
The Invisible Crown
Director: Amelia Kramer
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: The Invisible Crown follows Endometriosis warrior Hannah Lindgren as she wrestles with medical trauma and finds methods of healing mind and body. Abstract visuals painting the complexity of her inner emotions are paired with the outer reality she faces.
John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office
Director: Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: An essay film about the mysteries of consciousness and communication channeled through neurophysiologist and “psychonaut” John C. Lilly, a daring experimenter with dolphins and psychedelics. Lilly’s motto — “My body is my laboratory” — carried him into realms of radical self-investigation, while his research also helped bring dolphins and whales into the collective dreamlife of the 20th century.
KIA SUMMER SALES EVENT
Director: Brendan Walter
Country of Origin: United States
Defy Year: 2021
Synopsis: An innocent conversation about a new car between a Juggalo boyfriend and girlfriend devolves into an existential, harrowing relationship crisis surrounding infidelity, family and their (possibly fabricated) deepest darkest secrets.
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kid with a pearl earring
Director: Abigail Holland
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: Obsessed with forgiveness, a filmmaker builds a self portrait through two relationships with men and the objects they left behind.
Midsummer
Director: Masha Vlasova
Country of Origin: United States / Finland
Synopsis: Midsummer is a cyanotype photogram film, where the sunlight, along with plants, insects, and water, are all employed in the process of filmmaking. The production of the film began in Finland, during Juhannus, the celebration of the longest day of the year in, when the sun doesn’t set. Blank 16mm film strips are coated in cyanotype emulsion and exposed to sunlight with natural materials, capturing the fleeting moments of nature's cycle. The landscape is both material and collaborator, where its physicality is literally imprinted into the filmic surface. The film explores the ephemeral nature of life, the swift passage of time, and the interplay between humans and the environment. Each frame captures not only the landscape but also the transient and dynamic processes of nature, creating an image that is at once tangible and elusive, grounded in the physical world yet imbued with a sense of mystery.
The Motherfucker's Birthday
Director: Saif Alsaegh
Country of Origin: Iraq | United States
Synopsis: Through dancing, the Motherfucker's Birthday shows the evil of the dictator and the horror people endure under powerful political leaders. The film presents dancing, a universal and uniquely human activity often representing joy, with eerie footage of Saddam and his sons’ torture tools while they dance. Bush also dances with a smirk across the screen while announcing a war that would destabilize a whole region. Contrasting the dancing of these powerful men, who seem disturbingly unconcerned with the lives they impact, with the dancing of the people of Iraq amplifies the fear, control, and horror the general public lives under. Everything becomes a gesture of dance: the torture, the hesitant political humor, and the war. Everyone becomes a dancer, the dictator and the oppressed performing a distorted version of this human act. Saddam dances, Bush dances, so what's left for the Iraqi people except to join in.
Nail Clippings: World Without Sun
Director: Artemis Evlogimenou
Country of Origin: Cyprus
Defy Year: 2023
Synopsis: Dark Comedy Experimental Short starring Konstantina Skalionta. Our immersion into the surrealist world of emotions, brings to light how constructs of reality can be affected by our detachment from: nature, ourselves and others, when dealing with loneliness and depression.
Nathan Loves Ricky Martin
Director: Steven Arrigada
Country of Origin: Australia
Defy Year: 2017
Synopsis: Pauline, a full time carer for her disabled son Nathan, orchestrates a ruse to form a meaningful connection with the man next door.
The Never Ending Passion Boys Crew at Captain Daniel David's on the Coast
Director: Jeffrey Sundin
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: A body of water, a blind date, and an '84 Chevrolet in the year of a musical collective's debut release.