USA Tag Archive

Live Action, Premiere

Sam Tricomo Asks Audiences to Find Empathy Without Forgiveness in His Darkly Transgressive Pilot ‘Puke Bitch’

How do you make audiences care about people who do terrible things? Sam Tricomo's dark pilot strips away backstory, letting silence and loneliness do the work.

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Live Action, Premiere

A Houseguest Too Many Tips Everything Into Chaos in Kiyan Ahmadi’s Tense & Tender Short ‘PIERRE THE GREAT’

How much can a relationship withstand when an outsider disrupts its delicate balance? Kiyan Ahmadi explores that tension in his cramped, darkly comic short.

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Animation

Animator Kate Renshaw-Lewis Peels Back the Repetition, Rhythm and Absurdity of Mass Production in ‘Busy Bodies’

Kate Renshaw-Lewis explores the hidden complexities of consumerism driven mass production in a surreal, tactile world of Rube Goldberg systems of production.

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Live Action

When Friendship Becomes a Nightmare: Hugo De Sousa on His SXSW Short ‘Best Friends with the Devil’

Hugo De Sousa digs into the guilt of letting old friends go and takes that to the absolute extreme in the tonal tightrope of his SXSW comedy thriller short.

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Documentary, Premiere

‘Fjallferð’ Finds Song, Storm and Community Strength in the Mountains of Iceland’s Annual Sheep Round-Up

Three Self shooting directors, $6.5k and six days of unpredictable Icelandic weather. Caution Media on why scale is a question of ambition rather than budget.

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Live Action

Theo Matza Zooms in on Digital Deception and Tourist Naivety in His Paris-Set Catfishing Comedy ‘Faux Amis’

Theo Matza flips the fantasy of Paris and rewrites the rules of catfishing through an unexpected story of digital deception and toxic friendship.

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Live Action

Natural Selection Comes to Homeroom as Kyle Sims Pits Teacher Against Student in His Wordless Thriller ‘Galapagos’

A snake that wouldn't strike, a craigslist rabbit and a wordless script — Kyle Sims takes us inside his unnerving tale of shifting classroom power dynamics.

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Live Action

Li Anne Liew’s Gentle Ghost Drifts Through Strangers’ Secret Selves in ‘glide (all the people i’ll never be)’

In Li Anne Liew's tender ghost story reverie, a young woman wanders Los Angeles unseen as she mourns the life she's leaving and the ones she'll never live.

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Live Action

Defiant Black Trans Sisterhood Crashes Upscale Gentrification in Nana Duffuor’s Heist Short ‘Rainbow Girls’

As tech money prices them out of their own city, Nana Duffuor's trio of friends turn brazen luxury theft into an act of belonging, defiance and love.

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Live Action

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.

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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.

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Live Action

Camila de Ilhéus Turns the Agony of Online Dating, Language Slips and a Brazilian Wax Into Cringe Comedy ‘Sofia’

Static frames, held beats and a sly aspect ratio shift power Camila de Ilhéus' squirm-inducing story of first impressions gone excruciatingly wrong.

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