Category: Films in Competition

“Sylvia” is a story about a little girl who creates a world inside her bedroom with her eery but lovable ‘imaginary’ friends. She is determined to have a fun meaningful birthday but something goes terribly wrong and the house catches on fire. Years later she returns to her room to find a sense of closure and say one last goodbye to the friends who once existed there.
Directed by Meirav Haber (USA)

Ricardo and Omar are 18 year old kids living and getting by in the city of Caracas, Venezuela between 2016 and 2018, alongside their skateboarding friends. Intertwined with their passion for skating they show us their relationship with the environment around them and their coexistence with the rest of the population. “30 dias de patineta” is a glimpse into a in a city where the lines between reality and fiction are blurred, through the eyes of it’s youth.
Directed by Henry Solorzano (Venezuela)

Jail or Yale 
Young, Black and out of Options? 
Documentary 
This project focuses on examining the problem of structural racism in the educational system and its ramifications on black males as they progress through life.

Significant data reveals that Black students are being pushed into prison through our school systems, known as the School-to-Prison Pipeline:

40% of students expelled from U.S. schools each year are black 70% of students involved in “in-school” arrests or referred to law enforcement are Black or Latino Black students are 3.5x more likely to be suspended than whites Black and Latino students are 2x more likely to not graduate high school as whites 68% of all males in state and federal prison do not have a high school diploma. People of color make up 37% of the U.S. population but 67% of the prison population.

Their performance is inferior to every other comparable race and sex. “Many teachers begin to systemically look at Black males as troublemakers and as less intelligent than their peers, and this becomes the assumption rather than the exception. ”

Does the bias inflicted upon Black males affect them in such a manner that they begin to view themselves in an inferior way, thus compounding the issue at hand.

I believe the educational system has been consistently oppressive towards black boys for decades upon decades, and therefore the litmus test for an effective school system should be the success of black boys.

In my experience Black boys see no other option as they grow up, than to turn to side walk high, street culture and crime to survive. Once they fail academically and disengage in the school culture, they are pushed out of school and this affects them in all walks of life. Although this oppressiveness and educational bias towards black boys is not necessarily intentional, its effects still hurt black boys the same.

Jail or Yale is an expository documentary set to explore whether black boys are being trained and prepared to enter the prison system? 
Is there any correlation between the bias inflicted upon Black males as they progress through the educational system, and their over representation in the criminal justice system? 
This researched film aims to educate and explore through interviews, research, voiceovers and illustrative visuals.
Directed by Christopher Spence (USA)

A documentary about Elliot, a young transgender person who undergoes top surgery. He is supported by his girlfriend and Evangelical Christian Mother, who in the past has struggled with her son’s identity. It is a film about unconditional love and the family we choose.
Directed by Camille Liu Nock (UK)

Nikki and Jason are young and attractive. They met in rehab. She’s a heroin addict. He’s only dabbled in cocaine. Until Christmas eve.
Jason decides to experience smoking heroin to “see why it’s more important to Nikki than their relationship.” They are also dependent upon financial support from her wealthy parents, and must attend the parents9; holiday party, even though they’re still high. It’s a challenge…but they seem to be handling it. Until a cousin tells Nikki a family secret that “changes everything”.
Directed by Jeff Kanew (USA)

A ghost tries desperately to make friends despite being different.
Directed by Jacqueline Kerr (USA)

One of my constant endeavors in my Art Practice revolves around interpreting man’s multiple theories on Creationism. I believe Vishnu’s Cosmic Dream Sleep, Anantashayanam, corresponds to the most widely accepted scientific theory of Creation, the Big Bang and the Big Contraction…creation and destruction.
Hindu creation myths say this is not the first universe. After each old universe is destroyed nothing is left but a vast ocean. Floating on this ocean, resting on the great snake Ananta, is Lord Vishnu. A lotus flower springs from his navel and from this comes Lord Brahma. And from Lord Brahma comes all creation. It’s a story of ceaseless, continuous creation, of the incredibly Big Bang of Creation. This Art Video project attempts to represent this cosmology myth, its striking focus on (a) the endlessly recycling periods of time, and (b) the notion of continuing decline.
The cosmic sleep of Vishnu invites us to consider creation from the perspective of time, the unfolding of the past into the present and the present into the future. The cosmos may have been created and destroyed, but it represents only one turn in the perpetual “wheel of time”. After a 100 years in the life of Brahma, (= just over 311 trillion human years), the entire process repeats itself, endlessly.
Conclusion: The very idea of a sudden expansion out of nothingness into an ever-growing space and mass is proof of the vastness of knowledge left to be discovered.

The film is a live-action animated film shot on blue screen, with my own illustrations animated onto the live one-shot action. It starts with the toes and feet of Lord Vishnu, pans up, and reveals his consort Lakshmi, and how a lotus flower grows out of his navel, to bloom; and the appearance of Lord Brahma. The cosmic egg of creation appears and all the universe is created with a sudden Big Bang. Cosmoses move around and evil forces appear, Madhu & Kaitabha. Lakshmi warns Vishnu of this. He has all along been blissfully sleeping on the gently rocking multi-coiled serpent Ananta. Vishnu destroys the demons, and resumes his sleep; the universe is peaceful. Then the great Crunch happens and after another implosion, nothingness remains. Text explains this concept briefly. Then out of this nothingness, the cycle starts again, with Vishnu’s toes appearing again.
Directed by Murali Raman (India)

A rich player emotionally abuses his girlfriend until she discovers the bond of multiple past lives that ties them into present day. She in turn is empowered to cut the cord.
Directed by Michelle Arthur (USA)

This video is about my brother’s family memories in the form of animation, and extend from these memories to two criminal cases that took place in the surrounding area: one teenager was murdered, which happened at an Internet café where my brother often used to go to in his adolescent years, and this event was made into an illustration on the news. Another event also happened in my hometown; someone witnessed a dog wandering on the street, with a female’s head too rotten to be identified in its mouth. A police imagined and portrayed the female’s face before her death according to the shape of the skull. 
　 
The two events were separately made into portraitures on public media—a manga illustration made with 3D software by news media, and the portrait of the victim drawn with pencil by the police. I visited the police who produced the head profile of the female, as well as the storyboard director who made the news animation. By exploring their graphic techniques, I attempt to construct the images of my brother’s memories in my work.
Directed by HSU Che-Yu (Taiwan)

A guy in a hurry to play in the tennis championships, must first wrangle two sneaky cats that escaped through the front window.
Directed by Blake Stowe (USA)