Film Archive
2019
Feature Film Archive
1br
David Marmor | US
Writer: David Marmor
After leaving behind a painful past to follow her dreams, Sarah scores the perfect Hollywood apartment. But something is not right. Unable to sleep, tormented by strange noises and threatening notes, her new life quickly starts to unravel. By the time she learns the horrifying truth, it's too late. Caught in a waking nightmare, Sarah must find the strength to hold onto her crumbling sanity...or be trapped forever in an existential hell.
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After we leave
Aleem Hossain | US
Writer: Aleem Hossain
*NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE!
Jack returns to a bleak Los Angeles after abandoning his wife six years ago. There’s only one way to escape this high crime, dystopian world – getting a visa to an off-world colony, but it’s a couples’ visa and Jack needs his wife to use it. Jack dives back into the world of crime that he left behind in search of his wife and a way off the planet. Is Jack back because he wants to make things right or because he needs his wife to use this “lottery ticket” to a better life?
Afterlife
Willem Bosch | The Netherlands
Writer: Willem Bosch
After her mother’s passing, teenage Sam takes up most of the household responsibilities. When she, too, ends up in the afterlife and finds out she can get a do-over, Sam gives life another try with the sole mission of saving her mother. A fantasy science fiction film, Afterlife tugs on the heart strings and deals with the hard realities of life and death.
Alien Addiction
Shae Sterling | New Zealand
Writers: Shae Sterling, Melanie Price, Ricky Silvester
*US PREMIERE!
Riko lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Life is pretty normal until two aliens crash-land near his house. Fortunately for Riko, the aliens like to get high and chill as much as he does and they develop an intergalactic friendship of epic proportions, as well as a strange relationship to human feces. However, unknown to them, alientologist Peter Mackintosh is hot on their trail and plans to capture them and reveal them to the world.
Around the Sun
Oliver Krimpas | UK
Writer: Jonathan Kiefer
A film location finder is shown around a repossessed, crumbling French château. Over the course of the afternoon, he slowly falls for both the place and the owner’s flirtatious representative, as she recounts the story of a famous book set there. But is their present-day connection for real, or just a projection of the book’s 17th Century characters? As the scene plays over in different variations, the two almost lovers orbit around each other like a binary star system, forever circling but never quite reaching each other.
The Ascent
Tom Paton | UK
Writer: Tom Paton
*NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE!
*Now titled STAIRS
Special ops squad "Hell's Bastards" are sent to infiltrate a civil war to retrieve intel. The unit soon find themselves trapped on a never-ending stairwell forced to climb or die. To survive, they must revisit their past sins if they ever want to get off.
Dead Dicks
Chris Bavota, Lee Paula Springer | Canada
Writers: Chris Bavota, Lee Paula Springer
*US PREMIERE!
When a young nursing student named Becca receives a series of panicked messages from her older brother Richie, she rushes over to check on him. Following a seemingly successful suicide attempt, Richie, who suffers from mental illness, discovers what appears to be his own dead body. When Becca gets to his apartment, they find more dead versions of Richie as well as a strange hole in his bedroom wall. Together, they must figure why his suicide just won’t keep.
Dementer
Chad Crawford Kinkle | US
Writers: Chad Crawford Kinkle
Katie begins to put her life back together after escaping a backwoods cult by taking a job in a home for special needs adults. Then the dark messages of her past tell her one of the sick patients needs more than just medicine. Shot in an almost documentary style, the film embraces and properly represents the developmentally disabled, both in the script and in the actual casting, while still being both thrilling and disturbing.
I AM HUMAN
Taryn Southern, Elena Gaby | US
This documentary explores the co-evolution of humans and technology, focusing on a small group of people with different ailments that choose to use robotic implants to cure themselves. Diving deep into the current technology and where science could take us in the future, I AM HUMAN fills its frames with heart-warming stories of real people and their process of deciding to accept technology as a part of their bodies.
LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER
Ryland Brickson Cole Tews | US
Writer: Ryland Brickson Cole Tews
The eccentric Captain Seafield hires a crew of specialists in his revenge plot against the creature that killed his father. After several failed attempts, Seafield is forced to take matters into his own drunken hands. What began as a simple case of man versus beast soon plunges down a rabbit hole of mysterious unknowns and Lovecraftian hijinks.
SCARE PACKAGE
(UW CENTERPIECE FILM)
Directors: Emily Hagins, Baron Vaughn, Noah Segan, Chris McInroy, Anthony Cousins, Hillary & Courtney Andujar, Aaron B. Koontz | US
A meta Horror-comedy anthology film where each segment subverts a different set of Horror tropes, SCARE PACKAGE intertwines its components around the on-boarding of a mysterious new employee at a struggling genre video store: Rad Chad’s Horror Emporium.
SPIRAL
Kurtis David Harder | Canada
Writers: Colin Minihan, John Poliquin
In the mid-nineties, same-sex couple, Aaron and Malik, move to a small town so they can enjoy a better quality of life and raise their 16-year-old daughter, Kayla, with the best social values. However, nothing is as it seems in their picturesque neighborhood. At first, Malik holds back his suspicions and covers up bigoted vandalism in their home. Nevertheless, when Malik witnesses the folks next door throwing a very strange party, his suspicions become a Lovecraftian reality.
Volition
Tony Dean Smith | US
Writers: Tony Dean Smith, Ryan W. Smith
On a rain-soaked night in 1991, two cars collide, leaving all drivers dead on the scene, including the mother of the lone survivor – a child – James Odin, who foresaw the accident happening two days prior. Twenty-plus years later, James is a product of the failed foster care system, using his ability for petty crime and cheap thrills. But when a pre-sentient vision reveals to him his own imminent murder, James must go on the run and change a fate he knows is fixed.
Z
Brandon Christensen | Canada
Writers: Brandon Christensen, Colin Minihan
Cynical Beth feels trapped by her status as mom. She takes care of others before taking care of herself. She doesn’t think anything of it when her son, Josh, brings Z, an Imaginary Friend, into the house, ignoring small signs that her son’s new friendship may not be a healthy one. After a particularly tragic play date, Beth drugs Josh, leaving Z without a friend to play with. And he turns to Beth.
2019 short Film Archive
The automaton
W. Alex Reeves | US | 22 min
In 1897 South Dakota, troubled widow Margaret gains a renewed sense of purpose upon discovering her late husband’s secret project: a robot named Otto.
AVA IN THE END
Ursula Ellis | US | 10 min
Recently deceased Ava’s consciousness has been uploaded into a digital purgatory. Unfortunately her only companion, the virtual assistant BAE, is kind of a bitch.
BALLOON
Jeremy Merrifield | US | 17 min
Young teen Sam’s trouble with a school bully coincides with his burgeoning superpowers in this meditation on toxic masculinity
BRAIN JAIL
Carleton Ranney | US | 13 min
A handsome stranger may have just let Diane in on the most terrifying secret in the world.
Alumni: JACKRABBIT (2015)
CONVERSION THERAPIST
Bears Rebecca Fonte | US | 20 min
A pansexual, polyamorous trio kidnap a ‘pray-the-gay-away’ evangelical conversion therapist and torture him until he sees the light.
Dispel
Kylie Eaton | US | 14 min
Without her brother to protect her from their addict mother, Lizzie seeks guidance from TV hero Celeste Skygoode on how to save her mother before it’s too late.
*2019 Mary Shelley Award Winner!
Face swap
David Gidali, Einat Tubi | US | 5 min
Can a new technology – one that superimposes a celebrity’s face onto one’s own – save a married couple’s sex life? Eh, maybe.
FEARS (MIEDOS)
Germán Sancho | Spain | 5 min
A little girl’s constant night terrors hide a tragic truth.
GEMINI
Mily Mumford | Canada | 13 min
A meet-cute at a subway station turns dark when both parties realize they share a past.
GRAVITY
Jonathan Martin | US | 4 min
In a music video for Yelpy, a man must be saved by the woman he loves before all is lost.
Alumni: CREATURES OF WHITECHAPEL (2016)
HELLO, WORLD
Nathan Hong Fisher | US | 10 min
Elderly couple Gayle & Bennett have a plan to continue their partnership past death, with the help of new technology. Alas, things don’t go quite the way they expected.
THE HELPING HAND
Brenden Hubbard | US | 10 min
After installing a digital caretaker to watch over their young daughter while she sleeps, a couple realizes too late that something sinister is at play.
HIDE AND SEEK
Andrew Gleason, Thomas Nicol | US | 13 min
A cutesy app turns into a nightmare for two sisters when they’re unable to end the game or control the rapidly escalating stakes.
JEFF DRIVES YOU
Aidan Brezonick | US | 17 min
Headed to his best friend’s wedding, lonely David is about to forge a very special bond with the smart car that’s taking him there.
KELOID
Brendan Pollecutt | US | 19 min
When her fiancé dumps her after she gives him one of her kidneys, a grieving woman begins to formulate a plot for revenge.
KEYSTROKE
Tom Sanchez Prunier | US | 20 min
Two roommates clean up their new apartment after the previous tenant and find a computer with a journal of all history that they can edit in any way they please.
LANE 9
Jessica Valentine, Richard Valentine | US | 16 min
Two bowling alley employees find themselves at the mercy of an evil entity that has taken up residence in one of the lanes on Halloween night, 1979.
LET ME PLAY
Andrew Bell | US | 9 min
A young girl faces a mysterious entity from her mother’s past – one that has a sadistic idea of fun.
LIMINAL
Collin Davis, Matt Litwiller | US | 7 min
The lead scientist of a topsecret teleportation experiment slowly pieces together the dire consequences of her latest feat while on a smoke break with a new employee.
LIVE
Taryn O’Neill | US | 13 min
A woman who broadcasts her life online for the entertainment of devoted followers is forced to confront her safety, her lover, and her conscience when she wakes up one day with a change of heart.
THE OFFICE IS MINE
Michael Varrati | US | 14 min
Zac’s role as “the office gay” is being threatened by a new hire, and he’s not going to stand for it.
PIG
Evan Powers | US | 8 min
Psycho killers have feelings, too.
PREFIGURED
Zeshaan Younus | US | 10 min
A secretive support group provides a strangely affected woman with the comfort and answers she seeks.
REGULATION
Ryan Patch | US | 12 min
Social worker Mia faces a crisis of conscience when she arrives to administer a behavior-modifying “happiness patch” to a reluctant young girl.
THE RINK
Ronald Short | US | 13 min
WORLD PREMIERE!
Lo is nervous to ask Mae to take the next step in their relationship, and her strange friends won’t be making the night any easier.
SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE
The Summers Brothers | US | 11 min
Through a series of dreams and visions, a woman begins to suspect reality has been altered by mysterious forces.
Alumni: COUPLES NIGHT (2017); THE BENCH (2016)
THIS DARK THOUGHT
Kris Theorin, Kurtis Theorin | US | 7 min
A young astronomer has discovered something strange in the night sky. If her newborn sister doesn’t stop crying, she may never solve the mystery.
Alumni: MARY & MARSHA IN THE MANOR OF MADNESS (2017)
UNREGISTERED
Sophia Banks | US | 15 min
Ata and her boyfriend debate the one-childper-household law enforced in futuristic LA, and a secret she keeps from him may finally come to light.
WAY OUT ASSISTANCE
Stef Smith | Australia | 8 min
A virtual-reality therapy program provides an important new lifeline for those who suffer.
WE ARE NOT ALONE
Trevor Clarence | South Africa | 15 min
An alien with amnesia is trying really hard to remember why she’s here on Earth. She’s supposed to rescue someone. Or kill them. Or something.
WE GOT A MONKEY’S PAW
Aaron Pagniano | US | 9 min
Zack has one last chance to convince his best friend Jakki not to move out, and he’s got a pretty good idea of how to do it.
WHEN WE DANCE
Charles Pieper | US | 12 min
On the night of his wife’s funeral, Henry digs out the record that was playing when they first met and finds himself faced with her ghost.
Alumni: MALACOSTRACA (2018).
YOUNG BLOOD
Maiara Walsh | US | 19 min
Healthy young adults make good money providing blood transfusions to the aging wealthy class. When Logan breaks his strict contract, however, he learns he’s giving away much more than his blood.