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.

Caterpillar

A half-hour experimental film that shows Fukui moving towards cyberpunk imagery in a manner similar to Tsukamoto, featuring industrial locations, a malfunctioning cyborg/android and a hulking metallic ‘caterpillar’ that stalks characters.

A Scanner Darkly

An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.

Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch

Now, we find the rowdy extraterrestrial getting used to life with his new ʻohana. However, a malfunction in the ultimate creation of Dr. Jumba soon emerges, which reinstates his destructive programming and threatens to both ruin his friendship with Lilo and to short him out for good!

Friend of the World

After a catastrophic global war, a young filmmaker awakens in the carnage and seeks refuge in the only other survivor: an eccentric, ideologically opposed figure of the United States military. Together, they brave the toxic landscape in search of safety... and answers.

Orbit

The sun’s energy circulates throughout the earth, feeding the cycle of life. Everything is connected in a natural loop, which repeats, like the circular discs of magical optical toys. This perfectly balanced rhythm is disrupted by human excess, throwing the cycle out of orbit and temporarily stopping the circulation of energy in nature.

HYPERSONIC Music Club

In 2017, a short anime film called Hypersonic Music Club was produced in Japan. It was directed and written by Osamu Kobayashi, a veteran of the industry who passed away in April 2021. For various reasons, this short anime was never released. It was made public on August 1, 2023.

Self Portraits or: How to talk endearingly to possible victims

Quinn is a grade school teacher who is exploited by a group of memoryless individuals who reeducate his long-term partner Amy.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score

The Planet Express crew return from cancellation, only to be robbed blind by hideous "sprunging" scam artists. Things go from bad to worse when the scammers hack Bender, start traveling through time, and take Earth over entirely! Will the crew be able to save the day, or will Bender's larcenous tendencies and their general incompetence doom them all?

The Thomas Henry Experience

A vlogger whose life is seemingly controlled by an unknown presence begins to spiral as he falls further into surrealism and imaginary worlds.

Attachment

Attachment is an experimental, abstract short film about the attachment between the self and other from a marxist perspective, exploring how the right educate thought.

Untitled Earth Sim 64

A woman is faced with existential crisis after learning that the universe is an untitled simulation.

Moving Matter I

Moving Matter is the culmination of a material-led process with artists from dance, costume design and film that began with a study of old kitchen flooring about to be discarded. This flax-based material enters our orbit in the 1950s, where a measured homelife and prescribed domesticity offered a reassuring antidote to bomb scares, political turmoil, and paranormativity. Stability topples as the flooring becomes entangled in the lives of those who don the material as garments and shelters. This film was made through Moving Matter, a long-term research-creation project that offers a methodology for rethinking the dynamism between raw materials, garments, and the body. Moving Matter steers the locus of choreography and wearable design away from human hierarchy to instead support truer collaboration amongst all moving materials, both human and non-human, in this case… linoleum.

115

A girl trapped in a time loop leaves an AI replica to relive her final days. Glitches and burned-in subtitles reveal the machine’s fractured view, until the loop shifts to the real her — blurring the line between memory, code, and consciousness. "Told from the memory stream of a trapped A.I., the film visually glitches as it attempts to 'escape,' including encoded flashes of an 'ESC' key."

Amelia 2.0

After his wife Amelia suffers an aneurysm that leaves her bedridden and slowly dying, police officer Carter Summerland searches for a way to revive her. He's approached by Wesley Enterprises pioneering a new program to extend life through robotics, they get caught in a public debate over human’s relationship with technology and her right to exist.

Phantasmatapes

Welcome to the 1980s TV horrorshow that never was. PHANTASMATAPES is a psychotronic VHS mixtape that reimagines THE REVENGE OF DR. X (a Japan-set creature feature that was written by Ed Wood) and THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (the savage body horror film that inspired FRANKENHOOKER) as a late-nite, home-taped double feature—complete with local TV commercials and a new synthesizer score from Taken by Savages (JUNGLE TRAP). Inspired by hazy memories of channel-surfing at the witching hour, this is a nostalgic and experimental art project from the minds behind Bleeding Skull.

Revelation To The Disembodied

Fragments of a collective post-human dream construct a world that straddles hyper-technological, ecological, and mythological dimensions.

¿Hypnosis?

We propose an experiment to an Artificial Intelligence chat: answer all the questions trying to generate terror.

The Aerial Submarine

Using a futuristic submarine, pirates kidnap a young couple, torpedo a passenger ship, travel under the sea to salvage bullion, then make their escape by taking to the air.

Glitch