In West Berlin in 1989, Manny Jumpcannon prowls his dingy apartment phoning various degenerates from his past. Maxwell McCabe-Lokos directs and stars in “Midnight Confession,” a darkly funny character study which paints a remarkably full backstory of deceit from a series of unsolicited phone call...

Anne gathers herself for a job interview, a casual one at a coffee shop, but still a job interview. When her potential new employer arrives, a smooth, well-dressed man named Georg, giving off all the social cues of a first date, she’s caught off-guard and scrambles to react. Brilliantly observed ...

A faithfully recreated 1970s cigarettes advertisement unspools into a surreal satire on melodramatic marketing. “Ralph Styles Ultra,” by director Nic fforde, is an exquisitely-realized mockup complete with period-perfect performances, music, art design, costuming, and hair and make up. A debonair...

Davey needs to win the high school QuizJam to help pay for his girlfriend Lex’s abortion. Habitually oblivious but generally well meaning, he's only a few answers away from the $125 they need. “Más Bowls,” directed by Max Tullio, is a well-drawn coming-of-age drama carried by its subtly affecting...

Over the course of a year, two Parisians fall in and out of love. Lee Manansala directs “One Year of Khadijah and Pauline,” an eloquent study of a relationship shot in lovely black and white and rendered with grace and intelligence. Told in three parts, the film examines the ups and downs of Khad...

A young woman flees to Paris and relinquishes her blackness in pursuit of personal freedom. “White Girl in Paris,” directed by Tajayona, is a poetic exploration of race, a powerful set of visuals that stake claim to a black woman’s opportunity to be young and carefree. She puts on a costume, pran...

A frustrated, out of work actor turns to medical acting to pay his bills, offering intensely committed performances to students who are simply trying to diagnose symptoms, not evaluate believability. The actor, Paul (played by Alex Karpovsky) wants to be great but without a traditional audience i...

In a trash-filled city, a homeless woman's encounter with a fish takes an unexpected turn. Elly Stern directs “Waste Away,” a beautifully designed and executed stop-motion animated film, an allegory of motherhood in various forms, and a depiction of the overabundance, wastefulness and decay of mo...

On the edge of adolescence, a little brother visits his sister in the big city for the first time. This documentary snapshot directed by Dominique van Olm (who also stars) is a beautifully intimate account of their weekend in Toronto. The low-key course of events makes an effective case for the p...

Etta returns home from Vegas with a pile of cash and needs to explain to her boyfriend how she got it. Jessica Garrison writes and directs “DIME,” a provocative chamber drama circling a host of relationship hot buttons - trust, jealousy, sex, power. The situation escalates bit by bit - Etta arriv...

On a visit home to Idaho, Matt documents family dynamics and recalls scattered memories from childhood. “Here We Have Idaho,” made by and starring Matt Barats, is a witty self-portrait about small-scale resentments and feeling undervalued amongst loved ones. He leaves his “high-octane, balls-to-t...

A lonely virtual reality actor parties with a woman sent to kill her. “Talk About Your Dreams,” directed by Robbie Barnett, is psychedelic sci-fi set in the near (?) future where hallucinogenic drugs have replaced anxiety. Kate Lyn Sheil plays the woman, a popular VR actor specializing in comfort...

Mitra and Whit walk around Brooklyn discussing their dream TV show. “Shot on Film” is a loose, self-aware comedy tackling insider cliches about improvised dialogue, gender representation, and shooting on film. Directed by and starring Whitmer Thomas playing a problematic version of himself, an un...

Playing a version of himself, director Whitmer (aka Whit) Thomas drifts through L.A., meeting up with a series of friends and alienating them in various ways. Both comedic and revealing, "Fast and Loose" is a casual hang but an incisive one. As a self-reflection of a particular sort of friend gro...

A film about a person's inability to cut an avocado. Directed by and starring River L. Ramirez, this experimental short finds strange humor in reality-bending absurdities and illogical deep-seated fears. A woman sits in a white room at a table in front of an avocado terrified at the prospect of c...

Sometimes you can love your friends a little bit too much for them, but not enough for you. Such is the conundrum at the heart of “I Love My Friends," a new satirical piece by River L. Ramirez about the cliches of describing and feeling love, and the angst felt when it's not returned. Ramirez pla...

An anxious musician finds himself unable to leave his hotel room. Dan Arnés writes and stars in “Please Enjoy Your Stay,” a surreal comedy that employs an ever-shifting dream logic to explore issues of identity and artistic process. Surrounded by slips of paper with scattered notes, a man attempt...

Dusty Jacobson, a boy band obsessed grown man, tries to get a date online with someone named HungBrad. Directed by Natalie Fält, "The Loneliest Boy Band" has a light touch — mostly we’re just following Dusty as he talks about his love for The Backstreet Boys and dances in front of McDonalds— but ...

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...

If one of those demented Roman emperors was reincarnated today, where would he find his eunuchs? What would he look like? Most importantly, what kind of stuff would he be into putting in his butt? So as not to commit any spoilers, I’m leaving the solutions to these pressing questions until the en...