Maslenitsa

Spoiled seven-year-old Vanka lives a carefree childhood. Going with his father to the Maslenitsa holiday, Vanka meets a runaway deserter in the forest, about whom he tells the adults. This act instantly deprives Vanka of his childhood, and the father of his child. The event opens his eyes to the adult world in which the child will have to live on.

The Listener

Pecker

A Baltimore teenager who picks up a second-hand camera starts snapping his way to stardom, soon turning into a nationwide sensation, with a fateful choice between his life and his art.

The Hunched Donkey

After his mother's death, a young man edits the family's home videos to bring back her image. As he delves into the occult he begins to reveal the paradoxical magic of memories and cinema.

Memory Replica

After hearing about a pagoda's mysterious disappearance, a group of filmmakers embarks on their journey to find an explanation.

Remembrance

Through innovative 3D animation, this film follows an elderly woman’s journey through her memories as Alzheimer’s reshapes her sense of time and experience. Visual artistry brings her inner world to life, offering a profound exploration of memory, consciousness, and human connection.

Hidden Away

The film tackles the life journey of Toni Ligabue, visionary naïf painter who used to draw tigers, lions and jaguars while living among the poplar trees of the boundless Po valley. A harsh life that is a fairy tale too, as a lonely and marginalized kid finds redemption in his art, and a way to express himself and be admired by the world.

Matarile

Soft

A portrait of new found sobriety and love unravels as a young woman moves through the motions of melancholic life in seclusion.

Our Precious Autumn

Our Precious Autumn follows Ami, a young manga artist struggling with burnout. After several sleepless nights, she collapses and awakens in a dreamscape, facing three encounters that help her rediscover her reason for drawing.

Venus

Maurice is an aging veteran actor who becomes taken with Jessie, the grandniece of his closest friend. When Maurice tries to soften the petulant and provincial young girl with the benefit of his wisdom and London culture, their give-and-take surprises both Maurice and Jessie as they discover what they don't know about themselves.

My Neighbor Wants Me Dead

The Tenant continuously fails to escape his deadly apartment within a 5 minute time limit as his blood-thirsty neighbor threatens him from behind the front door.

Smash Cuts! Super Sci-Fi Shorts Fest

Host Scott Forrest presents a curated compilation of eight independent short films in this rapid-fire science-fiction feature. Genres collide, narratives twist, aesthetics clash, and even humor, both campy and dystopian, showcase the vast creative possibilities of each story's individual world, offering the viewer a brief glimpse into the lives of every character's attempt to survive the otherworldly chaos around them. Released in 2001, the selected shorts span original creation dates of 1997 to 2001; most of the featured filmmakers also appear as themselves in short video interviews to talk about their inspirations, creative process and motivations while working on their individual shorts.

it's raining wet puzzle pieces

Childhood memories continue to live inside me. Some of the most painful ones are the ones that echo the longest.

The Dog of Sarandi Alley

In this 57-second short film, a dog-like doll faces another doll. It begins with an innocent, playful tone, but quickly turns dark and unsettling. Bach’s classical music adds a heavy, melancholic mood to the scene. The Dog of Sarandi Alley is a strange and brief story about violence, loneliness, and the secrets hidden behind the simple faces of toys.

Billy Boy

A former football star turned real estate broker meets with rich, spoiled young Billy to close a deal on a mansion, and nothing goes according to plan.

Citric Acid

A young artist is stalked via the internet by a mysterious online celebrity who harshly criticizes their artwork.

Admissions of Desire

A man and a woman talk on the phone and express their feelings and desires for each other for the first time. We watch as they listen to the other's admissions.

As Dreamers Do

The early life of Walt Disney is explored in this family film with an art house twist. Though his reality was often dark, it was skewed by his ever growing imagination and eternal optimism.

HIM

An, at times, experimental film about the tainted nature of love set against the Alberta landscape.