Category: Films in Competition

When Maja’s parents come to Zagreb to visit their daughter, Nika and Maja cover their faces with masks and start playing the game Nika has grown very tired of.
Directed by Renata Lučić (Croatia)

Modern revisitation of the “Allegory of the Cave” by the Greek philosopher Plato.
Directed by Filippo Becciani (USA)

For 40 years, Spoons have been one of Canada’s most successful bands, and they are still going strong. With this newest CD out, their first in nearly a decade, they visit a historical haunted mansion in The First & Last Time. Do you believe in ghosts?
Directed by Peter Sacco (Canada)

When a young man’s grandfather dies, he returns to Greece. On the last day of his trip, in Athens, he meets Ellie. They decide to spend his remaining hours together, but as time goes by, it becomes more difficult for them to say goodbye.
Directed by Ari Papargyropoulos (Greece)

After his mother’s death, a distanced son and father are brought back together to rekindle their relationship.
Directed by Alkiviadis Tzortzoglou (USA)

This is a branded short film about an existential thinker, journeying through the scenic canyons of Gunnison, Colorado. He ponders about the possibilities of dimensional travel, where his reflective self-consciousness, presented in the form of a Native Indian shaman, utters a prophecy of hope for our, yet perishing, Mother Earth.
Directed by Raymond Edwards (USA)

Rookie Cop Alphonso Waters is put into a difficult position after his partner, Medina, takes a routine traffic stop too far.
Directed by Jordan Parrott (USA)

When a pair of lonely homeschooled penpals try to meet in person, they struggle through fear, miscommunication, and freak accidents that keep them apart until they realize they must come out of their shells to continue their relationship.
Directed by Eleanor De Fer (USA)

The year is 2075 and an alien race is set upon conquering Earth. These aliens, known as Space Natives, originated the human population on Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. At present, an evil sect of the Space Natives is secretly replacing key people of power on earth with clones that are under their control, eliminating those who resist. The takeover is spearheaded by Leland Crosswick, also known as “The Surgeon”, because of his twisted genetic surgical obsessions.
Leland’s right hand man is Fenix, an eccentric assassin, who oversees the Space Diner, a prison-like zone that exists as a world between worlds, a dimensional crossroads between space and time. The Space Natives search out Jett, a half-breed mix of Earthling and Alien. Jett is in love with Stella, a local from his hometown outside of the barren desert of Los Angeles, but Jett is trapped in a world of family troubles, including a traumatized mother and a crazed and violent father driven mad from a past encounter with Fenix. Jett meditates in the desert, in an effort to calm himself and escape his troubles. While meditating, Jett is visited telepathically by Soul Bird, a Space Native who is pro Earth/against the take over. Soul Bird tries to influence Jett, to teach him about his innate genetic gifts, but an inexperienced and unprepared Jett then tries to confront his
abusive father. There is a horrible accident, in which Jett accidentally kills his father using his newly discovered abilities.
Jett, in a state of shock wanders out into the street and is killed in an accident. Soul Bird witnesses the event and takes Jett’s body to his master, Kekoa, who gives up his own physical form to heal Jett. Returned from the dead, Soul Bird begins to enlighten Jett of his role in saving the Earth from Leland’s plot. Jett begins to train under Soul Bird to harness his powers.
As Leland and his people become aware of Jett and his growing threat to their plot, a band of Leland’s hench-men are sent to capture Jett. Imprisoned and awaiting execution on the foreign planet, Jett’s predicament leaves the fate of the world at stake. Through a spatial and temporal mental conduit known as Dream Sense, Jett manages to reach Stella, and calls on her to rescue him. With the aid of Soul Bird, Stella must brave the world of the Space Diner, that path between worlds that links our own to that of the Space Natives, in a desperate attempt to rescue Jett and to save Earth from a subversive take over.
Directed by Aaron Huisenfeldt and Keith Russell (USA)

“Seeing Through” is a short documentary about people trying virtual reality (VR) for the first time, exploring themes at the intersection of immersive technology and the cognitive science of fear. By capturing people’s real responses to an illusory risk, the film examines the power of seeing through illusions, the eyes of others, and this new technology of VR. Ultimately, we hope our film serves as a looking glass to reflect on seeing through illusions, doubts, and fears that hold us back in real life.
Directed by Jordan Quaglia (USA)