Directors Notes // The Home of Independent Filmmaking

Nathan Xia Interrogates Hollywood Representation and Personal Ego in Satirical Short ‘Flavor of the Month’

What do you do when your values are at odds with your own ambitions? Nathan Xia turns that question into a squirming, darkly comic piece of self-scrutiny.

Live Action

How Jasper Caverly’s ‘Pleasure’ Challenges Masculinity and Queerness Through Australia’s Eshay Subculture.

Frustrated by insincere, offensive contemporary queer characterizations, Jasper Caverly crafts a visceral portrait of young men wrestling with vulnerability.

Live Action, Premiere

Kelly Sarri Turns a Punishing Summer Into Intimate, Generational Warfare in Her Scorching Climate Short ‘Heat Me’

Kelly Sarri grounds global climate anxieties within the invisible domestic toll borne by three generations of women inside a sweltering Greek apartment.

Live Action, Premiere

Lianpeng Zhao Draws on Chinese Myth for a Soul’s Last Journey in ‘Museum of Death’

Classical poetry, weathered belongings and Cantonese opera carry what can't be spoken in Lianpeng Zhao's tender portrait of a soul's long farewell.

Live Action

David Huang & Albie Smith-Chang on Blurring Reality and Fiction in iPhone Short Film ‘WE BUY GOLD’

David Huang & Albie Smith-Chang on how real locations, heavy improvisation and shooting on iPhone gave their short its authentic, unpredictable feel.

Art & Fashion, Premiere

Guilherme Proença Crafts a Liminal Performance Testing Ground in Fashion Film ‘Human Trials’

In his experimental fashion film, Guilherme Proença explores the endless pursuit of perfection & optimisation of human experience across a trio of odd tests.

Animation

How Being an “Extreme Daydreamer” Inspires the Work of Sacha Beeley and Her Short Film ‘Babyface’

With a spoon as its central character, we speak to animator Sacha Beeley about her love of oddball characters and her short film, Babyface.

Live Action

Two Men, One Doorstep and a Whole Lot of Unbearable Tension Collide in Elliott Power’s Short Film ‘K-9INE!’

Shot on 35mm in a single house, writer/director Elliott Power straddles menace and humour in a psychological standoff short disguised as suburban mundanity.

Documentary, Premiere

Grace Anna Cardona’s ‘Born To Hustle’ Refuses to Slow Down, Explain Itself or Wait for Audiences to Catch Up

Grace Anna Cardona's portrait of artist Emma Addams, Heart of Bone's macabre jeweller and accommodator of no one, gives the rest of us permission to let rip.