Over the course of a long evening, a woman celebrating her birthday gets to know a new friend while navigating her relationship with an old one. Jesse Thurston directs “Bad at Birthdays,” a naturalistic portrait about a group of NYC friends spending the night in Stratford, Connecticut. Told in a ...

Brent struggles with the meaning of his girlfriend's suicide, which she acted out with her ex-boyfriend who she seemed to continue loving in secret. “Dearly Departed,” directed by Ester Song Kim, is a painfully dark comedy about being blindsided by someone you thought you knew. It’s a fine line b...

Maggie invites friends, acquaintances and total strangers into her home for what they think is a party, but she has other plans in store. “Maggie So Low,” directed by Michael Borowiec and Sam Marine Borowiec, is an improvised comedy about toxic friendships and harebrained schemes. An old college ...

Local racing legend Victor Elaine squares off against his greatest rival, a man whose opposing philosophy on life sets up a battle of outlooks. “Duality Derby,” directed by Mark Richard Miller and Dave Franzese, is a lighthearted rumination on the duality of man: one side focused on kindness and ...

A house full of men with nothing to talk about. To boot, no one knows each other, or whose house they're in, or whether the football game they’re watching is being broadcast via Cable or Dish. An unbelievably funny exposé on men's small talk, which takes every moment of social awkwardness & magni...

A young woman visits the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles alone where she tries to make friends with complete strangers. Directed by Andrew DeYoung.

An awkward guest shows up to a party and makes things weird for everyone. Written by Kate Berlant, Andrew DeYoung and John Early, “Rachel” is a hilariously creepy portrait of a strange evening in the lives of a group of L.A. creatives. Early stars as the man throwing a party for his boyfriend, Go...

A dinner party with friends turns into a two-way battle of ego and one-upmanship. Directed by Andrew DeYoung. Starring John Early and Kate Berlant.

A fragmented portrait of an insecure young woman, enthralling and vibrant. Directed by Donal Foreman.

Surrounded by an empty beach town, Danny is taken in by four reckless boys set on causing havoc. “Fuck Marry Kill,” directed by Domenic Lombardi, is a stylishly shot drama about an outsider who falls in with the wrong crowd. Danny wakes up in a hammock at an off-season campground where he’s appro...

The story of an asthmatic misanthropic bicycle enthusiast named Derek and his sensitive all-american sitcom-loving cousin Bruno. Directed by Sam Goetz.

A man with an unknown past takes up room and board in the remote Scottish Highlands on the property of a woman named Bronte and her husband William. It’s not clear what he’s left behind, but what he’s found is a place to sleep and there's work to be done. For awhile, his presence is tolerated as ...

In a yellow dress, a woman runs across the wilderness of the Scottish Highlands. At first she's dwarfed by the immense landscape, but we come in close to find she's distressed, lost, frantic, stumbling over rocky terrain. A car passes just out of distance. She's not thinking straight or something...

Another in an unintentional series of 1st person narrated docs. Here we have maybe the most patient and hyper-specific of the bunch, including references to real people we don't know, an interesting technique - to assume the film will be only viewed by friends and family, ones 'in the know' alrea...

A conversation between 2 friends, drinking beers, eating Combos, talking about everything, a spirited 5am social + political + religious, etc, etc., discussion. There's a jump cut every 2 or 3 seconds which takes some getting used to, but creates interesting gaps and leaps, and establishes moment...

A distinctive piece of homemade filmmaking that’s awkwardly funny and intriguing. Arriving and departing on its own track, "Making Eyes" is a lo-fi film about locking eyes with a stranger on the NYC subway and falling in love. An office worker who gets by with his Mad Men impressions keeps seeing...

Anthony and Irma are about to meet each other for the first time in-person and possibly have sex, as long as nothing goes wrong. Directed by Alexander Rojas.

File under a little unusual for NoBudge. Might be the closest we've come to a horror film. It's a deathly dark story of unrequited love between two women. There's an astonishing visual flair at work, slow shutter speed rain dances, spectacular lightening storms, ghosts that look like ghosts. It's...

A supernatural thriller about a woman dealing with the void left by her recently deceased father. Mysterious tone piece with razor sharp editing & gorgeous images. Robert Barnett’s extraordinary and masterful short lurches towards a new way of expressing the mysterious facts of the world. It is d...

Set in 1991, this comedic portrait of a mumbling and indecisive young man trying to collect rent from his eccentric roommates taps into the grand lineage of poor college kids living as weirdo artists in houses with way too many people. It’s tried and true and "White and Lazy" captures it with per...

Lucinella, an openhearted 20-something, visits her dour sister, Lore, in L.A, and we see the weekend as a narrated montage, kinetic & full of spot-on details of how trips like this go. The first day, the younger sister, Lucinella, spends alone eating red velvet poppers and trying to act casual on...

When the camera clicks on, the persona does too. That carefully cultivated image that requires multiple takes, the perfect angle, the right filter. And then you meet someone in real life and you don’t have that luxury. It’s on this precarious foundation that director Francesca Mirabella frames th...

Pal falls in love with the prettiest girl in the classroom, Iris. He daydreams of living on the inside of her eyelids hoping that she will notice him. This one goes out to all you softies. Directed by Bradley Bischoff.

A night-in-the-life of a Mick Jagger impersonator while a former lover narrates the story of a lost romance between the two. Black and white collage over sentimental lost love voice over. Directed by Bradley Bischoff.