Listen to this articleThe Sundance Film Festival returns to Park City and Salt Lake City in January with in-person options for the first time in three years.
Organizers announced 101 feature-length films, many of which will premiere at the festival, and 64 short films, and four indie episodic projects.
The festival will kick off Jan. 19 with, “Opening Night: A Taste of Sundance,” honoring “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, “Nanny” writer/director Nikyatu Jusu, and United Shades of America” comic/host W. Kamau Bell.
“A Taste of Sundance will raise crucial funds for the essential work Sundance Institute does year-round — grants, mentorships, critical resources, and hosting the Festival where new voices are discovered and launched — all made possible from the generosity of our donor community,” organizers said in a statement.
Online and in-person passes are now available, and individual film tickets will go on sale January 12.
PREMIERES
Cassandro
Director: Roger Ross Williams, Screenwriters: Williams, David Teague, Julián Herbert
Starring Gael García Bernal, Roberta Colindrez, Perla De La Rosa, Joaquín Cosío, Raúl Castillo.
Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, rises to international stardom after he creates the character Cassandro, the “Liberace of Lucha Libre.” In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world, but also his own life.
Director Roger Ross Williams is an Oscar, Emmy, Webby, Peabody, and NAACP Image award–winning director, producer, and writer and the first African American director to win an Academy Award with Music by Prudence. His company, One Story Up, produced the acclaimed projects High on the Hog, Civil: Ben Crump, and Master of Light. Cassandro is his first scripted feature film.
The Deepest Breath
Director/Screenwriter: Laura McGann
A champion freediver and expert safety diver seemed destined for one another despite the different paths they took to meet at the pinnacle of the freediving world. A look at the thrilling rewards — and inescapable risks — of chasing dreams through the depths of the ocean.
Laura McGann is a documentary filmmaker from Ireland. She started making films and producing theater when she was 15 and went on to study film in Ballyfermot, Dublin, before pursuing her master’s at Liverpool Hope University. Laura has worked in Ireland and abroad, shooting and directing numerous documentary projects for RTÉ, Sky, PBS, BBC, Lonely Planet, and UTV.
Drift
Director: Anthony Chen. Screenwriters: Susie Farrell, Alexander Maksik
Starring Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba.
Jacqueline, a young refugee, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island where she tries to survive, then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour guide, and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.
Director Anthony Chen is an award-winning writer, director, and producer from Singapore. His debut feature, Ilo Ilo (2013), won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes. His sophomore film, Wet Season (2019), was nominated for the Platform Prize at TIFF. In 2021, he contributed a short to the anthology film The Year of the Everlasting Storm, which premiered at Cannes. Drift marks his English-language debut.
Eileen
Director: William Oldroyd, Screenwriters: Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh
Starring Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Whigham, Marin Ireland, Owen Teague.
Set during a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by the glamorous new counselor at the prison where she works. Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s award-winning novel.
Director William Oldroyd is best known for directing the critically acclaimed TIFF 2016 breakout Lady Macbeth starring Florence Pugh. The film garnered rave reviews at the BFI London Film Festival, won the FIPRESCI Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and earned a DGA Award nomination. Oldroyd is a revered UK theater director who held a directing residency at the Young Vic Theatre in London.
Fairyland
Director/Screenwriter: Andrew Durham
Starring Scoot McNairy, Emilia Jones, Geena Davis, Cody Fern, Adam Lambert, Maria Bakalova
Set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s vibrant cultural scene in the 1970s and ’80s, chronicling a father-daughter relationship as it evolves from an era of bohemian decadence to the heartbreaking AIDS crisis. Based on the best-selling memoir Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father by Alysia Abbott.
Director Andrew Durham is a graduate of USC Film School who went on to work for MTV Networks as a producer and Fox Television Studios, where he served as Vice President of Production. Leaving television to pursue photography, Durham has shot for Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and Vogue, and taught photography at Art Center College of Design and Otis College of Design.
Invisible Beauty
Fashion revolutionary Bethann Hardison looks back on her journey as a pioneering Black model, modeling agent, and activist, shining a light on an untold chapter in the fight for racial diversity.
Director Bethann Hardison is an advocate, model, and muse with a career spanning over five decades, from working in New York City’s Garment District to founding her namesake agency, where she guided the careers of some of the most prominent models in the world. She has received many awards in recognition of her decades of advocacy work.
Director Frédéric Tcheng is a French-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn. He co-directed Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, and his award-winning directorial debut, Dior and I, premiered at Tribeca in 2014. Halston, with CNN Films and Amazon Studios as executive producers, premiered at Sundance in 2019.
It’s Only Life After All
Director: Alexandria Bombach
Blending 40 years of home movies, film archives, and intimate present-day vérité, a poignant reflection from Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of iconic folk rock duo Indigo Girls. A timely look into the obstacles, activism, and life lessons of two queer friends who never expected to make it big.
Director Alexandria Bombach is an award-winning cinematographer, editor, and director from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her feature documentary On Her Shoulders, following Yazidi activist and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad, premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival — where Bombach won the U.S. Documentary Directing Award — and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards and shortlisted for an Academy Award.
Passages
Director: Ira Sachs, Screenwriters: Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias
Starring Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulos
An intimate examination of attraction and emotional abuse between men and women.
Director Ira Sachs is a filmmaker whose features include Frankie (Cannes), Little Men (Sundance), Love is Strange (Sundance), Keep the Lights On (Sundance), Forty Shades of Blue (Sundance Dramatic Grand Jury Prize), and The Delta (Sundance). A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Sachs is the Founding Director of Queer|Art, created in 2009 to support LGBTQ+ artists in film, performance, literature, and visual arts.
Rotting in the Sun
Director: Sebastian Silva, Screenwriters: Silva, Pedro Peirano
Starring Jordan Firstman, Catalina Saavedra, Sebastian Silva
After filmmaker Sebastian Silva goes missing in Mexico City, social media celebrity Jordan Firstman begins searching for him, suspecting that the cleaning lady in Sebastian’s building may have something to do with his disappearance.
Director Sebastian Silva is a writer-director based in Mexico City. Sebastian’s eight films have featured in festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, and Sundance. His debut, The Maid, won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema, and Crystal Fairy won Sundance’s Director Award: World Cinema Dramatic. Sebastian is currently developing two television series with Ari Aster and A24.
MIDNIGHT
Birth/Rebirth
Director: Laura Moss Screenwriters: Moss and Brendan J. O’Brien
Birth/Rebirth is a psychological horror film about motherhood and creation, inspired by Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” A single mother and a childless morgue technician are bound together by their relationship with a little girl they have reanimated from the dead.
Director Laura Moss is a filmmaker from New York City whose work has screened at Tribeca, Rotterdam, and SXSW. Their short film Fry Day is featured on the Criterion Channel. They directed the sci-fi/comedy pilot “eureka!,” which won Best Director, Comedy Pilot at Seriesfest. They were a 2020 Sundance Screenwriters/Directors Labs fellow. Their award-winning screenplay Gordon, co-written with Brendan J. O’Brien, is in development.
My Animal
Director: Jacqueline Castel, Screenwriter Jae Matthews
Heather, an outcast teenage goalie in a small northern town, falls for newcomer Jonny, an alluring but tormented figure skater. As their relationship deepens, Heather’s growing desires clash with her darkest secret, forcing her to control the animal within.
Director Jacqueline Castel is an internationally award-winning director and screenwriter based in New York City. Her short film work has screened at Sundance, SXSW, Rotterdam, Sitges, and Fantasia. She has written for and directed cult auteurs John Carpenter and Jim Jarmusch, and collaborated on a short film with David Lynch. Castel’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Nowness, and on Shudder.
NEW FRONTIER
Gush
Director/Screenwriter: Fox Maxy
Starring Michel Sayegh, Ruth Fish, Sergio Mejia, Littlebear Sanchez, No’aash Iswut Peltier, Suavitel Paper
An embodied rumination of both male and female power, healing and haunting, all within an apocalyptic world. A transformation that courses from unknown terror to untamed collective joy.
Director Fox Maxy is a filmmaker whose work has been screened at MoMA, LACMA, Rotterdam, and BlackStar Film Festival, among other places. In 2020, COUSIN Collective supported the director with her first grant. In 2022, Fox was named Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita Fellow. She’s also a Vera List Center Borderlands Fellow. Currently, Fox is working on a film about mental health.
SPOTLIGHT
Joyland
Director/Screenwriter: Saim Sadiq
Starring Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq, Alina Khan, Sarwat Gilani, Sania Saeed, Salmaan Peerzada.
As the Ranas, a happily patriarchal joint family, yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line, their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theater and falls for an ambitious trans starlet. Their impossible love story illuminates the entire family’s desire for a sexual rebellion.
Director Saim Sadiq is a Pakistani director who won the Jury Prize of the Un Certain Regard section at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and the Canne Queer Palm award for directing the drama film “Joyland,” the first Pakistani film to be selected at Cannes.
L’Immensità
Director: Emanuele Crialese, Screenwriters: Crialese, Francesca Manieri
Starring Penélope Cruz, Vincenzo Amato, Luana Giuliani, Patrizio Francioni, Maria Chiara Gorett, Penelope Nieto Conti
Clara has relocated to Rome with Felice and their three children. From their new apartment, Clara sees a city in transition: an old society washed away by an emerging middle class. The paint is fresh, and the appliances are new, but expectations around family, desire, and gender remain as traditional as ever.
Director Emanuele Crialese is an Italian screenwriter and film director. He is a native of Rome and studied filmmaking in New York City. In 2022, he came out as a trans man while presenting L’immensità at the 2022 Venice Film Festival about the relationship between a trans boy and his mother in the 1970s. Crialese said the film was inspired by his own experiences
NEXT
Kokomo City
Director: D. Smith
Four Black transgender sex workers explore the dichotomy between the Black community and themselves while confronting issues long avoided. NEXT
Director D. Smith is a two-time Grammy-nominated songwriter/producer who produced and is featured on “Shoot Me Down” from Lil Wayne’s 8x platinum album Tha Carter III and wrote/produced the No. 1 Billboard dance single “Love Yourself” by Billy Porter. She made history as the first trans woman cast on a primetime unscripted TV show. This is Smith’s directorial feature film debut.
FROM THE COLLECTION
The Doom Generation
Director/Screenwriter: Gregg Araki
Starring James Duval, Rose McGowan, Johnathan Schaech, Perry Farrell, Heidi Fleiss, Christopher Knight, Skinny Puppy, Julie Tewes, Cress Williams.
Jordan White and Amy Blue, two disenfranchised suburban teens, pick up a mysterious drifter, Xavier Red. Together, the trio embark on a sex-filled joyride through a surreal American wasteland of QuickieMarts and ultraviolence.
Director Gregg Araki earned an MFA in Film Production from USC. His features, including White Bird in a Blizzard, Kaboom, Smiley Face, Mysterious Skin, and The Living End, have screened at Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and Toronto. Araki created/directed Starz’ Now Apocalypse and has directed episodes of TV shows including Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, 13 Reasons Why, Red Oaks, and American Crime.
U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
The Disappearance of Shere Hite
Director: Nicole Newnham
Shere Hite’s 1976 bestselling book, “The Hite Report,” liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. So how did Shere Hite disappear?
Director Nicole Newnham is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary director and producer and four-time Sundance alumnus. She co-directed Crip Camp (2020) with Jim LeBrecht. Crip Camp was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Sundance U.S. Documentary Audience Award. Nicole’s other documentary directing credits include the Emmy-nominated films The Revolutionary Optimists, Sentenced Home, and The Rape of Europa.
Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of legendary queer poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy.
Director Joe Brewster is a media-maker who believes in the healing power of stories. Brewster left his medical practice to create immersive, narrative, and documentary stories that provoke, challenge, and inspire. He is an Independent Spirit Award and four-time Emmy nominee, a jury prize winner at Tribeca and Sundance, and a Guggenheim fellow.
Director Michèle Stephenson is a platform-agnostic artist who pulls from her Haitian and Panamanian roots to create stories centering on the lived experiences of the Black diaspora. She is a Guggenheim fellow and Creative Capital artist. Stephenson lives in Brooklyn with her creative and life partner, Joe Brewster.
Going Varsity In Mariachi
Directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn
In the competitive world of high school mariachi, the musicians from the South Texas borderlands reign supreme. Under the guidance of coach Abel Acuña, the teenage captains of Edinburg North High School’s acclaimed team must turn a shoestring budget and diverse crew of inexperienced musicians into state champions.
Director Alejandra Vasquez is a Mexican-American filmmaker. Raised in rural Texas, Vasquez directed the short films Folk Frontera, winner of the SXSW Texas Shorts Jury Award, and When It’s Good, It’s Good, co-produced with Latino Public Broadcasting. Going Varsity in Mariachi is her first feature film.
Director Sam Osborn is a filmmaker of Mexican-American descent. His debut feature-length documentary, Universe, was awarded Best Music Documentary at the 2021 IDA Documentary Awards. His short film Folk Frontera received the Texas Shorts Jury Award at SXSW 2022 and premiered on The Latino Experience on PBS. Going Varsity in Mariachi is his second feature-length project.
Little Richard: I Am Everything
Director: Lisa Cortés
This celebration of Little Richard reveals the Black queer origins of rock ’n’ roll, finally exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music. Through archival and performance footage, the revolutionary icon’s life unspools with all of its switchbacks and contradictions.
Director Lisa Cortés is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning producer and director renowned for creating challenging, visionary stories. The film Precious, which she executive produced, received the Sundance Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize for best drama. All In: The Fight For Democracy, which she directed with Liz Garbus, chronicles the battle waged by Stacey Abrams against voter suppression.
The Stroll
Directors: Kristen Lovell, Zackary Drucker
The history of New York’s Meatpacking District, told from the perspective of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked “The Stroll” for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights.
Director Kristen Lovell has been an advocate in the trans community for over 20 years. As an actress, she appeared in Random Acts of Flyness, and she was co-producer of the award-winning feature The Garden Left Behind. The Stroll is her directorial debut.
Director Zackary Drucker is an artist and filmmaker whose work has been shown at museums and galleries, including the Whitney Biennial, MoMA PS1, and the Hammer Museum. Zackary was a producer on the Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning series Transparent. Her directorial debut, The Lady and The Dale, recently premiered on HBO.
U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Fancy Dance
Director: Erica Tremblay, Screenwriters: Tremblay, Miciana Alise
Starring Lily Gladstone, Isabel Deroy-Olson, Ryan Begay, Shea Whigham, Audrey Wasilewski
Following her sister’s disappearance, a Native American hustler kidnaps her niece from the child’s white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow in hopes of keeping what is left of their family intact.
Director Erica Tremblay is an award-winning writer and director from the Seneca-Cayuga Nation. Her short film Little Chief premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. She is a Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Lab fellow and an SFFilm Rainin Grant recipient. Tremblay was the Executive Story Editor on Dark Winds, an AMC series produced by George R.R. Martin and Robert Redford. She is the Executive Story Editor on season two of Reservation Dogs at FX and also directed an episode. Together with Sterlin Harjo, she will be co-writing and Executive Producing a series adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Yellow Bird for Paramount+. Tremblay lives on Cayuga Lake in upstate New York, where she studies her Indigenous language.
Mutt
Director/Screenwriter: Vuk Lungulov-Klotz
Starring: Lío Mehiel, Cole Doman, MiMi Ryder, Alejandro Goic.
Over the course of a single hectic day in New York City, three people from Feña’s past are thrust back into his life. Having lost touch since transitioning from female to male, he navigates the new dynamics of old relationships while tackling the day-to-day challenges of living life in between.
Director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz is a Chilean-Serbian filmmaker raised between Chile, New York City, and Serbia. He is an alum of the Sundance Institute Labs, the Tribeca Film Institute, and the Ryan Murphy HALF Initiative Program. As a transgender storyteller, he hopes to expand queer narratives. His work focuses on intimate moments we often miss if we’re not looking. Mutt is his debut feature film.
The Persian Version
Director/Screenwriter: Maryam Keshavarz
Starring: Layla Mohammadi, Niousha Noor, Kamand Shafieisabet, Bella Warda, Bijan Daneshmand, Shervin Alenabi.
When a large Iranian-American family gathers for the patriarch’s heart transplant, a family secret is uncovered that catapults the estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past. Toggling between the United States and Iran over decades, mother and daughter discover they are more alike than they know.
Director Maryam Keshavarz is an Iranian-American writer, director, and producer. Her first narrative feature, Circumstance, won the Audience Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Participant Media. Maryam’s sophomore feature, Viper Club, starring Academy Award-winner Susan Sarandon, had its world premiere at TIFF 2018 and was released by Roadside Attractions. The Persian Version is Maryam’s third feature.
Shortcomings
Director: Randall Park, Screenwriter: Adrian Tomine
Starring: Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola, Ally Maki, Debby Ryan, Tavi Gevinson, Sonoya Mizuno.
Following Ben, Miko, and Alice as they navigate a range of interpersonal relationships and traverse the country in search of the ideal connection.
Director Randall Park is an American actor, comedian, and writer, who is best known for his role as Louis Huang in the ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, for which he was nominated for the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series award in 2016.
Theater Camp
Directors: Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman Screenwriters: Noak Galvin, Ben Platt, Gordon, Lieberman
Starring: Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, Ayo Edebiri
When the beloved founder of a run-down theater camp in upstate New York falls into a coma, the eccentric staff must band together with the founder’s crypto-bro son to keep the camp afloat.
Director Molly Gordon recently wrapped on her feature directorial debut Theater Camp. She’s currently filming the second season of Adam McKay’s HBO series, Winning Time. Other credits include: Shiva Baby (John Cassavetes Award), Booksmart, Good Boys, Life Of The Party, and Ramy. Upcoming: Netflix’s You People, starring opposite Julia Louis Dreyfus, Jonah Hill, and Eddie Murphy.
Director Nick Lieberman is a Los Angeles–based writer-director. He has made music videos with a variety of artists, including Ben Platt and Remi Wolf, and his commercial work includes projects with Samsung, Billboard, and Fendi. Theater Camp is his feature directorial debut.
WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Is There Anybody Out There?
While navigating daily discrimination, a filmmaker who inhabits and loves her unusual body searches the world for another person like her and explores what it takes to love oneself fiercely despite the pervasiveness of ableism.
Director Ella Glendining is a writer-director dedicated to telling authentic disabled stories. She has written and directed short films with backing from Film4, the BFI, Arts Council England, Screen South, and the National Paralympic Heritage Trust. Ella was named one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow 2020. She is currently writing a feature fiction film called CURIOSITIES OF FOOLS for the BFI.
Milisuthando
Director: Milisuthando Bongela
Set in past, present, and future South Africa — an invitation into a poetic, memory-driven exploration of love, intimacy, race, and belonging by the filmmaker, who grew up during apartheid but didn’t know it was happening until it was over.
Director Milisuthando Bongela is an award-winning writer, editor, cultural worker, and artist living in Johannesburg. Her career began in the fashion industry, but the last 15 years have seen her traverse the worlds of music, art, media, and film — continually turning towards Indigenous knowledge. Sundance-supported Milisuthando is her first film.
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
In the darkness of a smoke sauna, women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences, washing off the shame trapped in their bodies and regaining their strength through a sense of communion.
Director Anna Hints is an Estonian film director with a background in contemporary art and experimental folk music. Having deep roots in the distinct culture of South Estonia, Anna’s second home is in India. As an active dumpster diver, Anna’s short documentary For Tomorrow Paradise Arrives initiated public discussion and the growth of new grassroots movements against food waste in Estonia.
WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Bad Behaviour
Director/Screenwriter: Alice Englert
Starring Jennifer Connelly, Ben Whishaw, Alice Englert, Ana Scotney, Dasha Nekrasova, Marlon Williams.
Lucy, a former child actor, seeks enlightenment at a retreat led by spiritual leader Elon while she navigates her close yet turbulent relationship with her stunt-performer daughter, Dylan.
Director Alice Englert is an Australian New Zealand actor and filmmaker who came on the scene in Sally Potter’s Ginger & Rosa and featured in 20 films and series. Alice has made two shorts, The Boyfriend Game, which premiered at the 2016 Berlinale, and Family Happiness (2017). Bad Behaviour is her feature film debut as a writer-director.
Girl
Director/Screenwriter: Adura Onashile
Starring Déborah Lukumuena, Danny Sapani, Le’Shantey Bonsu, Liana Turner
Eleven-year-old Ama and her mother, Grace, take solace in the gentle but isolated world they obsessively create. Ama’s growing up threatens the boundaries of their tenderness and forces Grace to reckon with a past she struggles to forget.
Director Adura Onashile is an award-winning Glasgow-based artist. In 2020, she wrote and directed her screen debut, Expensive Shit, a BAFTA Scotland-nominated short produced by barry crerar, which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival 2020. Girl is her feature debut.
Mamacruz
Director: Patricia Ortega Screenwriters: Ortega, José Ortuño
With the help of her newly emigrated daughter, a religious grandmother learns how to use the internet. However, an accidental encounter with pornography poses a dilemma for her.
Patricia Ortega, the founder of Mandrágora Films, graduated in Social Communication from the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños EICTV (Cuba) in the specialty of direction (2003-2005). She also graduated from the Filmakademie in Ludwigsburg (Germany) in the specialty of documentary direction (2006). She directed her first feature film in 2018, entitled Yo, Imposible.
Slow
Director/Screenwriter: Marija Kavtaradze
Dancer Elena and sign language interpreter Dovydas meet and form a beautiful bond. As they dive into a new relationship, they must navigate how to build their own kind of intimacy.
Film director and scriptwriter Marija Kavtaradze is considered to be one of the most talented upcoming filmmakers in Lithuania. She graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Film Directing studies, in 2014. Her debut feature film, Summer Survivors, premiered at Toronto IFF 2018, was well-received at international festivals and received three Lithuanian Film Academy awards.
SHORT FILMS
Bigger on the Inside / U.S.A.
Director/Screenwriter: Angelo Madsen Minax
Through snowy stargazing, flirting with guys on dating apps, taking ketamine (or not), and watching YouTube lecture videos, outer and inner space collapse — to draw a warped cartography of desire and distance.
Christopher at Sea / France, U.S.A, U.K
Director/Screenwriter: Tom CJ Brown, Screenwriter: Laure Desmazières
Cast: Jocelyn Si, Andrew Isar, Florian DesBiendras
Christopher embarks on a transatlantic voyage as a passenger on a cargo ship. His hopes of finding out what lures so many men to sea sets him on a journey into solitude, fantasy, and obsession.
The Dalles / U.S.A.
Director/Screenwriter: Angalis Field,
Cast: Joshuah Melnick, August Ackley.
Cam is used to seeing the same customers while working at his family’s cherry stand. After a handsome cyclist passes through and asks for directions to a local cruising site, Cam takes it as an invitation to follow him. World Premiere.
fur / U.S.A.
Director/Screenwriter: Zhen Li
A crush gone moldy… North American Premiere
Headdress / U.S.A.
Director/Screenwriter Taietsarón:sere ‘Tai’ Leclaire
Cast: Leclaire, Sean Reidy, Rachel McKay Steele, Sami Griffith, Austin Pohlen.
When a queer Native is confronted by a non-Native wearing a ceremonial headdress at a music festival, he retreats into his mind to find the perfect response from various versions of his own identity. World Premiere.
Pipes / Switzerland
Directors: Kilian Feusi, Jessica Meier, Sujanth Ravichandran, Producers: Gerd Gockell, Jürgen Haas
Cast: Tom von Arx, Dave Striegel.
Bob is a plumber hired to fix a broken pipe. He lands, to his surprise, in a gay fetish club. North American Premiere.
Tender / U.S.A.
Director/Screenwriter: Samm Hodges
Cast: Will Brill, Louisa Krause, Alexander Hubble, Daina Griffith.
A missing wallet threatens to destroy a teenager’s life. World Premiere
Thriving: A Dissociated Reverie / Canada
Director/Screenwriters: Nicole Bazuin, Andrea Werhun, Screenwriter: Kitoko Mai
Cast: Kitoko Mai, Dustin Hickey, Myfanwy Charlesworth, Morgan Bargent, Grace McDonald, Andrea Werhun
A surrealist exploration of dissociative identity disorder based on the lived experience of a Black, nonbinary, disabled artist and former sex worker. World Premiere.
Troy / U.S.A.
Director: Mike Donahue, Screenwriter: Jen Silverman
Cast: Adina Verson, Michael Braun, Florian Klein, Dylan Baker, Dana Delany.
Troy has loud sex. Troy has loud sex 24/7. Troy shares a wall with Thea and Charlie. Troy is ruining their lives… Or is he saving them?
