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Shorts 5: Inside Looking Out
September 2, 2023 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EDT
A collection of dramatic, comedic, and experimental female-centric shorts. Learn more below.
Flesh Ballet
A quadruple amputee and a seamstress metamorphose into a giant flesh mound. Made by the arts collective ‘Are we Artists or Cops?’ to develop an art film exploring how modern society interprets disability. An in-studio experiment involving collaborative spontaneity and in-the-moment creative decision making with an improvised jazz soundtrack.
Directors: Frederick Kroetsch, Kasie Campbell, Daniel Ennett, David Baron
Performers: Math Dave Cullen, Tom Robinson, Caley Suliak, Danny Jaycock, Thaimu Turay, Emily Kira, Chris Weiss, Rebecca Klassen, Mika Haykowsky, Hannah Chamberlain, Emily Tychkowski, Cristoval Castillon, Rebecca Campbell, David Puff
2023 | 4 mins | Canada | English | Color | 🏆 | Experimental, performance
Picture Day
Casey, an Asian-American tomboy coming of age on Army bases, prepares for picture day at her new school, deciding what she’s willing to sacrifice in order to fit in.
Director/Writer/Producer: Kelly Pike
Cast: Michelle Krusiec, Oona Yaffe
2022 | 15 mins | US | English | Color | 🏆✏️ | Drama, coming-of-age
Dot on Earth
A lonely actress forms new relationships with both her drug dealer, an aspiring poet, and a once “cancelled” podcaster with addiction issues. Both relationships turn sour, forcing Dot to confront the moral complexities of life.
Director/Writer/Producer: Jack Dunphy
Writer/Producer: Colleen Rose Trundy
Producer: Jordan Tetewsky
Cast: Colleen Rose Trundy, Jessie Pinnick, Jack Dunphy
2022 | 16 mins | US | English | Color | 🏆 | Drama
Discarded
A solo dancer (wearing a dress made from the plastic trash she generated over four months) embodies simultaneously both a woman and planet Earth reckoning with the impact of humans on the environment. Filmed on location at Glacier National Park as Artist-in-Residence and featuring a score by Patrick McKinney of Iron and Wine.
Director/Performer: Ilana Goldman
Composer: Patrick McKinney
2023 | 8 mins | US | Color | 🏆🍊🦩 | Experimental, performance, environmental
Tommies
In Regency-era London five women waiting for a carriage descend into a frenzy of vicious gossip about a notorious scandal – with devastating results.
Directors/Writers: Brian Fairbairn, Karl Eccleston
Producers: Ioanna Karavela, Erik Pack
2022 | 15 mins | UK | English | Color | 🏆 | Drama, period
Forward Fast
While embarking upon a process of archival and preservation, a filmmaker dives into a stark exploration of self as she discovers the seeds of patriarchy and misogyny already planted and steeping the imagery of her childhood films.
Director/Writer/Producer: Lorraine Sovern
2022 | 3 mins | US | English | Color | 🏆🍊🦩🎬✏️ | Documentary, experimental, portrait
The filmmaker Lorraine Sovern is expected to be in attendance for a post-screening discussion about the film.
Paper Planes
A woman with agoraphobia and the AirBnB guest across the hall strike up a correspondence that becomes something more for the holidays. A Christmas-set romantic comedy about the need for human connection in the modern world, the film is a cinematic holiday card, one that will make viewers’ hearts full by the time the end credits roll.
Directors/Producers: Alyssa Thordarson, Michael Glover Smith
Writer: Alyssa Thordarson
Producer: Alan Strutz
Cast: Shaina Schrooten, Alyssa Thordarson
2023 | 17 mins | US | English | Color | 🏆🎬 | Romance, comedy, LGBTQIA+
The filmmaker Michael Glover Smith is expected to be in attendance for a post-screening discussion about the film.
Paint Her Red
In this short film, written and co-directed by Bella Thorne, Bella delivers an unapologetic narrative, both painful and beautiful, exploring the journey of women. With vulnerability and strength, haunting visuals and an assembly of melancholic prose and poetry, we are allowed a an intimate peek into a woman’s pre-destined journey.
Director/Writer: Bella Thorne
Producers: Sofie Warshafsky, Paige Starke
Cast: Bella Thorne, Juliet Sterner
2022 | 10 mins | US | English | Color | 🏆 | Experimental, portrait