INDIE SHORT FEST

Banished

An optimistic teacher’s life is turned upside down when she is “reassigned” by the Department of Education – to a madhouse. Based on a true story.
Directed by J.R.S. (USA)

Petty Thing

The summer afternoon was no special, until the kids, also gun fight lovers, hung around in the village and found a replica pistol. As the trigger was pulled, the whole wood was awakened.
Directed by Li Zexi (China)

Pusher

In a small Appalachian town crippled by opioid addiction, a young drug dealer is coming to terms with the life she’s chosen.
Directed by Andi Morrow (USA)

Bitches that Bake

Meet Karen Bonita Gahleeni a.k.a. Sue, your Bitches that Bake hostess of the first and only NON-instructional baking show where bitches get to bitch BIG, and if there’s time, we Bake Big.

“Sue” will guide you to live your life wholly as you embrace your full-on “bitch in the kitch.” Listen as this lovable “bitch” offers some bonafide bitch centered rebuttals for all “her gal pals” who need an unbridled, no-beatin’-around-the-mulberry-bush home base to address the every day doozies that Cannot and Should Not be muted.
Directed by Hope Salas and Madeline Stephensen (USA)

The Soft Parade

Alceste, our protagonist, is a 60-year-old solitary cynic that dies of a motorcycle accident within the first scene. He awakes shortly after in the Hall of Ma’at: the judgment room (of ancient Egyptian beliefs). A courtroom, strange and psychedelic somewhere in the nebulous world between life and the afterlife. Egyptian Gods and four jurors, greet our protagonist. At first Alceste – understandably- is speechless, in a bit of a shock, he tries to process where he’s just landed. A judge arrives. The trial begins. Alceste is shown his life and is asked to defend himself for his actions on earth, but in the eyes of the Gods it’s a lost cause. Alceste has failed the test. As is customary, his heart is taken from him and is weighed on grand scales against the feather of Ma’at. His heart is heavier than the feather. The test is failed. His soul is not worthy. His life wasn’t. The “water of forgetfulness” is forced upon him, erasing his memory, rendering him a blank canvas, another life awaiting him, another opportunity. Another shot at it: life.
Directed by Adrien Dupagne (UK)