Encore: Block #3 and #4

ABOUT THE FILMS: 

Bump in the Night: PROOF Block #3

Chow

Directors: Kevin Armento, Jaki Bradley

Producers: Carolyn Levine/Same But Different, Timothy Mendonca

Writer: Alexander Hacker

USA | 15min

@kevinarmento @jakibradley @petty_crocker @sbdfilms

CHOW follows MIKE as he attempts to recreate a delicacy he had on his travels abroad while also readjusting to his life in NYC. However, Mike’s newfound urges consume him and he cannot reconcile the life he had before with the demands of his new desires. By the end of the film Mike completely debases himself and loses all sense of right and wrong.

EYECATCHER

Director: Jun Shimizu

Producer: Becca Park

Writer: Jun Shimizu

USA | 13min

@memorylines

In the heart of Koreatown, Los Angeles, Yuna Jung receives a distressing phone call from her mother while caring for her ailing father at a run-down laundromat in the middle of the night. Unbeknownst to them, a supernatural entity awaits them just outside…

Inner Demons

Director: Jasmine J. Johnson

Producers: Mary Bonney, Whitney Fuller

Writer: Jasmine J. Johnson

USA | 11min

@jazzfacekilla @innerdemonsthefilm

Mya’s world takes a harrowing twist when pills meant to alleviate depression unwittingly unleash a nightmarish entity that embodies her inner turmoil. Mya finds herself entangled in a relentless battle against her own psyche, fighting not just for her mental well-being but her very survival.

The Rebirth

Director: Connie Shi

Producers: Connie Shi, Yuki Maekawa-Ledbetter, Justine Sweetman, Stephanie Bonner

Writer: Connie Shi

USA | 11 minutes

@iamconnieshi @therebirthfilm

The Rebirth is a supernatural feminist thriller about choice, power, and the freedom to put yourself first. Hana is an overworked waitress who takes a black market abortion pill that gives her an unexpected, supernatural side effect. As we follow her over the course of a single night, she starts to slowly realize the pill’s reaction and her newfound power, until she is finally able to demand what she needs – a fucking break.

Mr. Static

Mike Williamson | USA | 9min

Director: Mike Williamson

Producers: Paul Hart-Wilden, Mike Williamson

Writer:Mike Williamson

USA | 9 min

@williamson.mike

An old television turns on in the middle of the night. Static flickers onscreen as an ominous, distorted voice announces, “Time To Watch.” Samantha kneels in front of the television obediently and watches as a woman is murdered in bed as she sleeps. This is not the first time the television has shown her these horrors, and it won’t be the last as long as Samantha remains trapped in this endless loop of broadcast brutality.

Age of Change: Block #4

Fairground

Director: Jess Berry

Producers: Giulia Alexander, Jess Berry

Writer: Jess Berry

USA | 13min

@brrygood @fairground_film

Falling in love with Shane, a wandering carnie at the county fair, risks teenage hog farmer Maggie’s place in her family’s Grand Champion legacy. Drawn into the thrill of first love on the forbidden midway, Maggie drifts from the barn—and from her mother, shattering the trust their relationship was built on. As the summer’s biggest swine competition approaches, her desire for a different destiny threatens to upend everything she’s been raised to become.

GISELLE

Director: Lauren Goetzman

Producers: Tony Yang, João Pereira-Webber

Writer: Lauren Goetzman

USA | 16min

@laurenngoetzman

On Yom Kippur’s eve, Reut (45) avoids grief by hosting a holiday dinner days after her brother’s death. But a cursed encounter with her estranged aunt at a Kosher market – and a vision of rotten meat – begin to crack her composure. As three generations gather, a haunting call and a moment of stillness lead Reut to open the door, at last, to mourning, tradition, and the healing her family needs.

When Big People Lie

Director: Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz

Producers: Gus Murray, Amy Kouxiao

Writers: Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz, Pablo Cervera

USA | 14min

@gianfranco_f_ruiz @sashamerci @whenbigpeoplelie

Elvis is ten, curious, and already fluent in the language of small lies. His mother Lola sells them dreams—furniture, fairy tales, fake marriages—to keep them afloat. But when fantasy collides with post-9/11 paranoia and Elvis begins inventing stories of his own to cope with a disappeared man, an old apartment, and a fake Eiffel Tower. As truth slips further from view, so does childhood, and the two must reckon with what her survival has cost them.