NOAH MAC - KEEPMELOOKINGFORWARD
Happy Hour Shorts
Chris Thach - 19 | California
"I was absolutely smitten with this film, which plays like the early work of Harmony Korine mixed with touches of Andrea Arnold and Sean Baker. A mythic, nostalgic whiff of the American childhood.”

GODS FROM SPACE
A Screening Darkly
Annalise Pasztor - 20, Ty Leet - 20, Bogui Adjorlolo - 20 |
California
"By the end of this five-minute documentary...I was questioning my reality! The soundscape of this film put you in a netherworld where anything is possible...even Jesus hanging out with aliens!?”

BIRD OF PARADISE
Centerpiece
Alexander Zorn - 24, Jacob Zorn - 24, Zoe White - 21 |
Illinois
"This quietly sweet tale --- of a caretaker falling in love with his senior client --- is handled with such depth of humanity and subtlety it’s hard to imagine it was made by a filmmaker in their early 20s. Alexander Zorn finds himself in esteemed company of Matthew Puccini and Tyler Rabinowitz and the new wave of queer NFFTY filmmaking.”

UMBILICAL CORD TO HEAVEN
Radical Experiments
Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan - 23, Hannah Schierbeek - 22, Keaton McQuarrie - 22, John Eblahan - 18 | Phillippines
“I first saw this film on the big screen earlier this year at another film festival, and it has haunted me ever since. This film casts you across time and space to unlock the hidden secrets of the cosmos, and provides a completely entrancing and mesmerizing experience unlike any other film I’ve seen.”

ELASTIC
Slaps, Bops & Bangers
Lindsay Sunada - 23, Kenzo Le - 24, Nicole Closson - 22 |
California
"Lindsay Sunada has plunged straight into the the late 90s/early 00s heyday of the music video, when auteurs like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry were completely remaking the format. I have watched this film no less than ten times and love it more with every rewatching.”