Swiss Cheese Holes
2024 / 21 min / USA / Experimental, Documentary, Fantasy, Horror
Directed by Ethan Knecht
Covertly filmed in Disney World, Swiss Cheese Holes is a multi-layered documentary that explores the timeless question: How do you make a film about your father’s mental breakdown in Disney World?
Through the interplay between family accounts, criticism of Randy Moore’s Escape From Tomorrow, and melting of James Reason’s Swiss Cheese Model, the filmmaker explores reenactment’s role in resolving previous attempts at amusement.
As Disney World customer service states in the film, “Just because we’re the happiest place on earth, doesn’t mean that everyone is happy.”
Shadow in the Mirror
2024/ 14 min/ USA/ Experimental, Fantasy, Thriller
Directed by Katie Ann O’Keefe
Cast: Georgia Markey, Kyle Slayton, Kyle Reed
The Shadow in the Mirror is a Fantasy/Thriller film about a young woman named Mae who recently has let her former addict boyfriend back into her life.
On her journey she has to fight the dark past they shared together while fighting for her own life with a diabetic crisis. She ultimately wants to believe in JD again but has to
learn to let go and that she can’t change anyone.
What is a Boy?
2024 / 6 min / USA / Experimental
Directed by Cristian Jesus Vega
Cast: Luca Orozco, Reed Flowers
In the face of toxic masculinity in Latino culture, a masculine-presenting Queer Latino struggles with their gender identity while striving to appear and be accepted as a man through working out and joining the military, the character hides their queer identity, ultimately leading to them discovering the true meaning of embracing their authentic self.
A Beginner’s Guide to Giving Up
2024 / 12 min / USA / Drama, Experimental
Directed by Jeremy Pion-Berlin
Cast: Cara Mitsuko, Francesca De Luca
A struggling painter, decides to give up on her dreams for graduate school. Awaiting the acceptance or rejection letter, spirited debates with her peers unfold, delving into the eternal conflict of following one’s artistic dreams versus choosing a more logical path. But amidst it all an enigmatic magic glides through the air, whispering secrets only the cosmos comprehend.
The Shaver Mystery
2024 / 14 min / USA / Documentary
Directed by Dean Bertram
Was sci-fi writer Richard Shaver really abducted and tormented by a malevolent underground race of hideous humanoids, known as the “Dero”? Regardless, his “true” stories – known collectively as “The Shaver Mystery” and sometimes ghost written by editor Raymond A. Palmer – were the most successful and controversial sci-fi tales of the mid 20th century. They drove sales and circulation of the pulp magazine AMAZING STORIES to all time record highs, and paved the way for the emergence of UFO lore.
A short, stand alone, segment, cribbed from Dean Bertram’s upcoming feature documentary THE MAN WHO INVENTED FLYING SAUCERS: A film about Ray Palmer, the Shaver Mystery, and the creation of modern UFO belief.
Little Candy Girl
2024 / 13 min / USA / Fantasy, Drama, Fairy Tale
Directed by Una Smoole
Cast: Madeline Lucas, Tye Smoole, Andrew Simmons
A miniature girl who tap dances in candy machines runs away with a curious and charming rescuer, only for her to realize that she must be the one to save herself.
The Kittens’ Tea Party
2024 / 11 min / Canada / Experimental
Directed by Millefeuille
In a quiet residential neighbourhood, the tension between domestic, wild and work animals is caught on home security camera, recorded through windows and souvenired in old postcards. A found-footage piece made as a reaction to the internet’s obsession with pets, The Kittens’ Tea Party allegorizes speciesism. [ & alludes to home invasion fear, nature’s revenge, settler colonialism ]
