By popular demand, the Marin County Fair International Film Festival is back in its 52nd year. Films ranging from Animation, Documentary, Environmental, Narrative, and Experimental will be screened daily at 12:30pm and at 6:15pm in the Showcase Theater.
SIDE SEDIMI
Director: Wombat Studio | Australia
This music video follows a colony of ants in their quest to prepare a grand spring feast, as winter fades away. This
enchanting and eerie journey, set to Nitai Hershkovits and Rejoicer’s melodic piano piece, takes you from food heists
to royal rituals.
HOT DOG
Directors: lore Burban, Logan Cameron, Nicolas Diaz, Chloé Raimondo, Hugues Valin | France
Love is a four-legged word.
MEOUCH!
Director: Rodrigo Lobato Toporov | Brazil
An unlucky black cat lives in a constant bad mood, until a crazy event makes him get lost from his home and meet an
optimistic stray dog who proposes to him a new way of looking at life.
TALAIAS
Director: Maria Raquel Atalaia | Portugal
A boy in love with a girl goes to her house but things don’t go well. Upon returning home, the boy meets a talaia,
one of the beings that live in the forest. Eager for company, you take the talaia home but he will only have one thing
on his mind, returning to his friends.
MOUSE HOUSE
Director: Timon Leder | Slovenia
A gluttonous mouse traps himself in a cheese wheel while his starving friend stranded outside must contend with a
hungry cat.
FLYIN’ BAMBOO
Director: Felix Colgrave | Australia
Much ado in the garden as the bamboo grows to great heights. A music video for a melody by Nitai Hershkobits,
featuring MNDSGN.
CATERPILLAR SHOES
Director: Eliot Wykes | UK
A story about a kindly caterpillar who decides to give his beloved shoes away to his woodland friends before turning
into a beautiful butterfly.
CALLIE AND BEE: HOOP DREAMS
Director: George Maestri | US
A short exploration of 1930’s rubber hose animation in 3D. Callie gets her dog Bee to jump through a hoop with
surprising results.
NICKEL AND DIME (Audrey Lowell, Kai Smith, Esha Vaikhary, David Bloom / US)
In the environmentally conscious, wealthy city of San Francisco, some of its poorest residents spend their nights collecting empty beer bottles and soda cans in exchange for nickels at Our Planet Recycling Center. Some say it’s a win-win—less trash on the street and cash for the poor—but there’s more to the story. This emotionally charged mini documentary analyzes how the success of one environmental law reflects San Francisco’s deep wealth inequality.
FASHION BACKWARD (Augusto Calçada, Brazil)
One of the world’s largest textile factories, located in Brazil, serves as a starting point for reflecting on the profound impact of the fashion industry on the social, political, cultural, economic and environmental. Reimagining fashion means ensuring our future. And it is high time we unite forces and take action to get it done.
JOURNEY TO ITHAKA (Michael Westreicher, Jenny Ioannou / Austria)
From devastation to paradise: Epic sea cleanup restores pristine beauty of Greek island with the removal of 76 tons of debris!
RUINS (Karim Lazaar, France)
The lament of a world ravaged by human activities. Set against a haunting and dystopian backdrop, the video unfolds as an artistic narrative that aims to serve as a poignant commentary on the aftermath of industrialization and the unchecked disposal of toxic waste.
WADI RUM: FIGHT AGAINST WASTE (Nicola Pan, Italy)
The incredible story of the Bedouins of the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan who every day with love for their land clean the desert from waste left by tourists.
REMEDIATE (Kevin Lucero Less, US)
Paper or Plastic? It’s not too late to remediate.
ALUADO
Director: Cláudio Jordão | Portugal…somewhere in the far reaches of an imagined universe, an astronaut travels between moons in search of his sanity… somewhere in the far reaches of an imagined universe…
LITTLE STAR
Directors: Elena Fee, Coco Aimée Rid, Vanessa Ramovic, Sonja Latussek | Germany
An overworked astronomer trapped in the daily grind meets a younger version of herself one night, whose childlike and imaginative view of our universe guides the astronomer’s perspective back to her almost lost passion.
EL ASTRONAUTA
Director: Ignacio González Ruiz | Mexico
Kudryavka was mistaken for a stray dog. Scientists, thinking she had no owner, decided to adopt her for a grand ex-
periment: to take the first living being to the moon. What they didn’t know was that Kudryavka has an owner, a child who will do the impossible to hug his dog again.
LAUNCH!
Directors: Gabriel Colom, Jasper Kray, Elias Pforsich, Benjamin Tanaka, Annabelle Van De Veere | US 3, 2, 1… Launch! Follow our team of neurodiverse young adults as they venture not only into space, but their own filmmaking and visual effects creative potential.
PIG
Director: Jorn Leeuwerink | Netherlands
A big group of animals makes itself dependent on a power grid, hooked onto the socket-shaped snout of a single
sleeping pig… How long will that last?
SOLAR NEIGHBOR
Director: Austin Cole | US
This claymation film tells a whimsical tale of a human named August born with a rare incurable heart condition, in a time where medical technology falls short in finding a cure. As a result, August is placed in cryogenic freeze and
launched into space, preserving their life until a future time when the condition might be treatable.
Unbeknownst to them, drastic changes occur on their home planet during their frozen state, leading to the extinction.
GO GREEN
Director: Eva Weitzman-Stangel | US
The story of a few marine animals and their struggles with a changing environment.
TRAFFIC JAM
Director: Jason Nichols | US
A drummer kills time while waiting at a red light.
THE CORMORANT’S SHADOW
Director: Barbara Peikert | Switzerland
A funny cormorant relaxes on a buoy in the lake and watches an animation that reveals a plan behind it: AI or the
urge to take part in the spectacle?
ARBOLITO
Director: Katalin Egely | Australia
Little Tree’s trip to Australia, where he meets the magical instrument, the didgeridoo.
Directors: James Lefkowitz, Ole Schell | US
On our changing and warming planet, the Western Monarch is suddenly on the verge of extinction. In the 1990s, hundreds of millions of monarchs made the epic flight each fall from the northern plains of the U.S. and Canada to sites in the Oyamel fir forests in central Mexico, and more than a million monarchs overwintered in forested groves on the California coast. Now, researchers and community scientists estimate that only a fraction of the population remains—a decline of approximately 80% has been seen in central Mexico and a decline of 99% in coastal California. The Monarchs need our help and we are trying to do our part by planting pollinator and nectar plants integral to their tenuous survival. Ole Schell and the Xerces Society have partnered to create a Monarch sanctuary in West Marin, planting thousands of native nectar plants to restore habitat for the dwindling and beautiful Monarch Butterflies.
SANBORN COUNTY PARK
Director: Cole Cappadona | US
A brief nature documentary about Sanborn County Park
FASHION BACKWARDS
Director: Augusto Calçada | Brazil
One of the world’s largest textile factories, located in Brazil, serves as a starting point for reflecting on the profound impact of the fashion industry on the social, political, cultural, economic and environmental. Reimagining fashion means ensuring our future. And it is high time we unite forces and take action to get it done.
OUR CHILDREN’S BREATH
Director: Asha Pickard | US
The last of the old growth trees are indeed “Our Children’s Breath” as this film explains that old growth trees produce more oxygen than smaller trees. “Our Children’s Breath” is more than a film, it is a plea to preserve the last of the old growth trees, from a mothers perspective, who cares for her child and the health and well being of future generations… attempts through legislative acts have failed, so the path forward is for the California voters to be able to protect their vital forests through their vote with a measure on the ballot that will protect the last of the old growth trees.
WANDEL
Director: Maria Korporal | Germany
The title of this video WANDEL, translated CHANGE, may have at least two possible meanings. The first concerns climate change, the second and connected are the social and cultural changes we have to undertake to avoid a global environmental crisis, caused by climate change. The Austrian poet Erich Fried wrote in 1981: „Wer will, dass die Welt bleibt, wie sie ist, will nicht, dass sie bleibt.“ (Those who want the world to remain as it is, do not want it to remain). This is a timeless statement. It is written at my
feet on an infinite asphalt planet, and I stand there with my bicycle. When I begin cycling, the planet starts moving itself and while rotating a transformation is taking place. One sees animated images emerge. They suggest alternative energies and evolve into breathing life forms. The world is revitalized, the asphalted planet begins blooming
again!
IN THE MARITIME FREQUENCIES
Director: Greta M. Snider | US
We’ll remember the earth as if it were a dream. For the past year, I have been working on a project exploring the coastal landscapes of San Francisco, using darkroom developers made from the solutions of our times – bay water, hand sanitizer, and “safe” detergent. The resultant movie is a conversation about how we internalize our climate emergency, letting mortalities large and small emerge only when the night puts our guard down. Inspired by the San Francisco Bay, dreams, and novelist Octavia Butler’s vision of a future California. This film embraces the aesthetics of a crumbling society – expired and cast off film, backyard developing, hand cranked camera – because it is a premonition, a goodbye, and a last look over the shoulder. Featuring Bill Basquin, Ivy McClelland, Juan Aguirre, Annalise Velasquez, Valerie Soe, Mark Klatte, and Mayuran Tiruchelvam
TODAY, I <3 U _ _ _ _
Director: Neely Goniodsky | US
An exploration of contemporary perspectives on love and romance, challenging traditional societal norms around relationships and sexuality. It embraces non-traditional relationship structures and celebrates diverse expressions of sexuality, rejecting stigma and fostering an open, inclusive dialogue about what intimacy looks like today. Made from high resolution scans of three intaglio prints of 14 frame animated loop, etched on plexiglass.
when u love somebody
Director: Joy Valencia | Philippines Things just swirl around…
APPENDAGED
Director: Alex Christie | US
Appendaged is an act of translation and reanimation. The images you see are generated by homemade analog circuits—circuits I typically build for synthesizing sound—fed into CRT televisions. These circuits speak in modes we usually listen to, but in this case they breathe new visual life into forgotten bodies. Connections form and functions emerge between image and image, image and sound, and sound and sound.
PHYSALIA
Director: Ian Gibbins | Australia
Physalia is highly successful organism, widespread across the world’s oceans. Nevertheless, its environment is under increasing threat from pollution and climate change. Its potent armoury of highly toxic stings is no match for this type of attack. Perhaps new forms of cryptic colonial zooids may evolve to reverse the damage… If they had the words, what would they tell us? All the spoken text and its on-screen transcription is derived from mirror images, reversals and reflections of the Wikipedia quote. The Physalia biomorphs are variously constructed from Particle Illusion (Boris FX), coralline red algae, Muntrie flowers and Eucalypt flowers.
THE MUSIC THAT YOU PLAY
Director: Nikolaus Jantsch | Austria
‘The music that you play’ is a song by Austrian band Yellow Mellow, the music video is created by animation artist
Nikolaus Jantsch using a technique called “direct animation”, or “drawn on film”. The footage was produced by painting, drawing and scratching directly on 16mm film. With the help of nowadays software, this century old technique supports the character of the engaging music with a fresh approach, turning great sound into a rousing visual imagery. “You say, you have no feelings for this world outside your room. You say the only healing is that the music is going on.” These first two lines of the song beautifully describe the feelings of many: seeing music as a sanctuary from the uncomfortable, daily life.
FRUITING BODIES
Director: Mia Milardo | Canada
A vivid exploration of transformations and aesthetics in nature and the female body.
SIDE SEDIMI
Director: Wombat Studio | Australia
This music video follows a colony of ants in their quest to prepare a grand spring feast, as winter fades away. This
enchanting and eerie journey, set to Nitai Hershkovits and Rejoicer’s melodic piano piece, takes you from food heists
to royal rituals.
HOT DOG
Directors: lore Burban, Logan Cameron, Nicolas Diaz, Chloé Raimondo, Hugues Valin | France
Love is a four-legged word.
MEOUCH!
Director: Rodrigo Lobato Toporov | Brazil
An unlucky black cat lives in a constant bad mood, until a crazy event makes him get lost from his home and meet an
optimistic stray dog who proposes to him a new way of looking at life.
TALAIAS
Director: Maria Raquel Atalaia | Portugal
A boy in love with a girl goes to her house but things don’t go well. Upon returning home, the boy meets a talaia,
one of the beings that live in the forest. Eager for company, you take the talaia home but he will only have one thing
on his mind, returning to his friends.
MOUSE HOUSE
Director: Timon Leder | Slovenia
A gluttonous mouse traps himself in a cheese wheel while his starving friend stranded outside must contend with a
hungry cat.
FLYIN’ BAMBOO
Director: Felix Colgrave | Australia
Much ado in the garden as the bamboo grows to great heights. A music video for a melody by Nitai Hershkobits,
featuring MNDSGN.
CATERPILLAR SHOES
Director: Eliot Wykes | UK
A story about a kindly caterpillar who decides to give his beloved shoes away to his woodland friends before turning
into a beautiful butterfly.
CALLIE AND BEE: HOOP DREAMS
Director: George Maestri | US
A short exploration of 1930’s rubber hose animation in 3D. Callie gets her dog Bee to jump through a hoop with
surprising results.
HARLEM TO HARVARD
Director: Zuzelin Martin | US
An inspirational short documentary about a teacher, Edouard E. Plummer, who helped over 600 students from Harlem attend the most elite boarding schools in the country creating countless ripples of generational impact.
SECOND CHANCE
Director: India Anne Mitchell | US
An inspired young filmmaker who witnessed a disturbing incident at school looks inside Juvenile Hall and Court,
through the moving account of a juvenile offender and his parents, as well as the insights of the judge, attorneys and
probation officer. Second Chance takes a step towards better understanding, compassion and ultimately, hope for juveniles who are some of the most vulnerable in our society, and who are also part of its future.
VOICES OF TOMORROW
Director: Lena Popilieva | US
“Voices of Tomorrow” captures the work educators in America are doing with students to restore civic culture in a hyperpolarized society. By fostering viewpoint diversity and free speech in their school communities through civil discourse practices with Sphere Education Initiatives, these educators and their students are revitalizing the most important characteristics of strong democratic citizens – respect, curiosity, and openness.
CARING ABOUT THE LITTLE THINGS
Director: Noah Loushin | US
Life has highs, and it has lows, but it has much more in the in-between. How are we to approach the day-to-day, the
routine, the mundane? I certainly wouldn’t have expected to find the answer in the shower, but here we are.
when u love somebody
Director: Joy Valencia | Philippines Things just swirl around…
TRAFFIC JAM
Director: Jason Nichols | US
A drummer kills time while waiting at a red light.
PASSAGES: A VIDEO MEMOIR
Director: Harris Norman Cohen | US
A veteran Tiburon, CA based documentarian looks back at his transitions. Starting as a Vietnam War film editor for
CBS, spending years in the KPIX San Francisco Field Production Department, founding Magnetic Image Video Production Facility, then going on to making award-winning documentary shorts for nonprofits and film festivals.
GERT’S BOYS
Director: Sara Laura Schwartz | US
Gert’s Boys offers a unique window into San Francisco’s gay community from the early days of AIDS (1981-1995)
through the story of one woman: Cindy “Gert” McMullin, co-founder of The AIDS Memorial Quilt. The Quilt was launched in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood in 1987, the epicenter of the AIDS crisis, as a social action tool to demand a public and government response to AIDS. Today, the Quilt is the world’s largest work of community folk art with over 50,000, three-foot by six-foot panels commemorating over 110,000 lives lost to AIDS. Gert, known as the Mother of the Quilt, continues to oversee the panels, which she refers to as her “boys”, in a warehouse in Oakland, California. The film explores Gert’s experiences caring for four of her boys—David, Roger, Jack and Joey—and becoming an activist in the process.
FROM SILENCE TO SOUND: THE LAUREL AND HARDY TRANSITION OF 1929
Director: Geo Thelen | US
From Silence to Sound: The Laurel and Hardy Transition of 1929” is a short 3-min documentary created to celebrate Public Domain Day and highlight creative intellectual properties entering the public domain on January 1, 2025. The film uses source materials from 16 different audio & visual intellectual properties entering the public domain in 2025 including the 1st recording of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
ABOUT:
In 1929, the motion picture industry was at a pivotal juncture, transitioning from the era of silent films to the groundbreaking world of sound and talking pictures. This shift is observed through the works of the iconic comedy duo, Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy -under the direction of Hal Roach, known for The Little Rascals and Our Gang comedies. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy stand as pioneers in the evolution of comedy presentations in the motion picture industry. Their popularity as both silent film performers and later talking picture stars established them as one of the most memorable and influential comedic duos of all-time dominating the motion picture landscape from the 1920s through the 1940s.
SQUIRMING HEARTS
Director: Sara Laura Schwartz | US
When Troy Wallace’s girlfriend undergoes an unexpected transformation, he is determined to fulfill her dream, proving that love knows no bounds – even in the most wriggly situations.
LONESOME TOWN
Director: Caleb Garrett | US
A cowboy flung forward in time becomes homesick.
HEROES IN A HALF DOCUMENTARY
Director: Austin Sane | US
Follow Josh B Wicked, Illinois’ most dedicated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, in this engaging documentary. Explore their impressive collection, attend vibrant fan events, and delve into the passion that fuels their love for the iconic heroes in a half-shell. This film captures the heart and soul of true fandom, celebrating the timeless appeal of the TMNT universe.
MY LITTLE HOBBY
Director: Lauren Stava | US
A behind-the-scenes look at the competitive world of hobby horsing through the eyes of an eighteen year old
fanatic.
NO TRESPASSING IN TRANSYLVANIA
Directors: Michael Dorfman, Maxwell Dorfman, Emmett Dorfman | US
A group of mummies stumble onto a vampire’s property.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
Director: Nathan Rivers | US
When a novice Magician drops the ball on his first performance, a faint laugh sets into motion a journey of self discovery.
FLYIN’ BAMBOO
Director: Felix Colgrave | Australia
Much ado in the garden as the bamboo grows to great heights. A music video for a melody by Nitai Hershkobits, featuring MNDSGN.
SIDE SEDIMI
Director: Wombat Studio | Australia
This music video follows a colony of ants in their quest to prepare a grand spring feast, as winter fades away. This
enchanting and eerie journey, set to Nitai Hershkovits and Rejoicer’s melodic piano piece, takes you from food heists
to royal rituals.
HOT DOG
Directors: lore Burban, Logan Cameron, Nicolas Diaz, Chloé Raimondo, Hugues Valin | France
Love is a four-legged word.
MEOUCH!
Director: Rodrigo Lobato Toporov | Brazil
An unlucky black cat lives in a constant bad mood, until a crazy event makes him get lost from his home and meet an
optimistic stray dog who proposes to him a new way of looking at life.
TALAIAS
Director: Maria Raquel Atalaia | Portugal
A boy in love with a girl goes to her house but things don’t go well. Upon returning home, the boy meets a talaia,
one of the beings that live in the forest. Eager for company, you take the talaia home but he will only have one thing
on his mind, returning to his friends.
MOUSE HOUSE
Director: Timon Leder | Slovenia
A gluttonous mouse traps himself in a cheese wheel while his starving friend stranded outside must contend with a
hungry cat.
FLYIN’ BAMBOO
Director: Felix Colgrave | Australia
Much ado in the garden as the bamboo grows to great heights. A music video for a melody by Nitai Hershkobits,
featuring MNDSGN.
CATERPILLAR SHOES
Director: Eliot Wykes | UK
A story about a kindly caterpillar who decides to give his beloved shoes away to his woodland friends before turning
into a beautiful butterfly.
CALLIE AND BEE: HOOP DREAMS
Director: George Maestri | US
A short exploration of 1930’s rubber hose animation in 3D. Callie gets her dog Bee to jump through a hoop with
surprising results.
when u love somebody
Director: Joy Valencia | Philippines
Things just swirl around…
FRUIT CRATE CITY AND ME
Director: Alfred Matthew Hernandez | US
Fruit Crate City and Me is based on true stories from my and my niece’s childhoods. The film is an allegory for the worlds that we are all born into, both natural and human-made and how we internalize these worlds as children and act them out through play and creativity. Through her play world, a city made of stacked fruit crates, a young girl is able to synthesize the often-perplexing realities around her while cradling her biggest hopes for the world and its people in the guise of her toy “inhabitants.” With Fruit Crate City and Me, I also wanted to tell a story about the importance of housing and the heartbreak of losing homes through evictions etc. – something I’ve lived through too many times in my life. The grandmother in the story (my mom), lived to the golden age of 96, and it is, I believe, her connection to others and the younger ones in particular that helped her along.
CHALLENGES OF A SOLITARY MIND
Director: Astrid Rothaug | AUSTRIA
An introverted person deals with pressure to be more outgoing. It’s a story of constant challenge, but being true to one’s sense of self will always come with reward.
I CAME WITH EARRINGS
Director: Jonathan Caren | US
This is a personal story inspired by the real-life video that Hahn Ponder uploaded to YouTube intended for her unknown birth mom in Vietnam…. It all begins when Leah’s adoptive mom gifts her a pair of diamond earrings that force her to overcome more than just a brown belt test.
THE BRAIN BUCKET
Director: Christopher Flippo | US
A woman reflects on her time as a young skateboarder.
I WANTED TO BE A BALLERINA
Directors: Isabel Seixas, Leo de Souza Santos | Brazil
A girl goes out to discover her new neighbourhood when she has an unexpected encounter that changes her life forever.
CARING ABOUT THE LITTLE THINGS
Director: Noah Loushin | US
Life has highs, and it has lows, but it has much more in the in-between. How are we to approach the day-to-day, the routine, the mundane? I certainly wouldn’t have expected to find the answer in the shower, but here we are.
TRAFFIC JAM
Director: Jason Nicholls | US
A drummer kills time while waiting at a red light.
THE LAST WISH
Director: Ilya Noyabrev | Ukraine
On the threshold of the Supreme Court, everyone anxiously awaits the Decision about their fate. And only one strives to return to where a part of their soul remains…
ANGEL
Director: Margaret Rouleau | US
I found an Angel statue on the side of the road – once standing, now demolished. Who could destroy such a beautiful piece of art? This film deals with my feelings of anger towards whoever killed the angel. Using 16mm contact prints, tinting, toning, and frame by frame scanning – I hope to threaten a curse upon those who would mess with such beauty
IN THE MARITIME FREQUENCIES
Director: Greta M Snider | US
We’ll remember the earth as if it were a dream. For the past year, I have been working on a project exploring the coastal landscapes of San Francisco, using darkroom developers made from the solutions of our times – bay water, hand sanitizer, and “safe” detergent. The resultant movie is a conversation about how we internalize our climate emergency, letting mortalities large and small emerge only when the night puts our guard down. Inspired by the San Francisco Bay, dreams, and novelist Octavia Butler’s vision of a future California. This film embraces the aesthetics of a crumbling society – expired and cast off film, backyard developing, hand cranked camera – because it is a premonition, a goodbye, and a last look over the shoulder. Featuring Bill Basquin, Ivy McClelland, Juan Aguirre, Annalise Velasquez, Valerie Soe, Mark Klatte, and Mayuran Tiruchelvam
CARING ABOUT THE LITTLE THINGS
Director: Noah Loushin | US
Life has highs, and it has lows, but it has much more in the in-between. How are we to approach the day-to-day, the
routine, the mundane? I certainly wouldn’t have expected to find the answer in the shower, but here we are.
PRAYER OF THE SEA
Director: Martin Gerigk | Germany
A composer recounts a dream from his youth that inspired the slow movement of his first string quartet, Prayer of the
Sea. The dream, depicting a peaceful dissolution into the sea and wind, symbolized his future death. Decades later,
rediscovering a drawing from the quartet’s premiere – perfectly capturing the dream’s essence – revived its emotions. Now older, he reflects on the dream’s message: a serene acceptance of life’s inevitable end. Prayer of the Sea is an audiovisual elegy offering a calm perspective on the universal experience of passing.
CHALLENGES OF A SOLITARY MIND
Director: Astrid Rothaug | Austria
An introverted person deals with pressure to be more outgoing. It’s a story of constant challenge, but being true to one’s sense of self will always come with reward.
ATMOSPHARIA
Director: Sandra Rengifo | Colombia
Unprotected by an atmosphere, life ceases. This thin gaseous varnish, a compound of ἀτμός (vapor or air) and σφαῖρα (sphere), allows us to exist as we float in infinity. This is from where this film departs with the recorded chant of the last surviving – and now extinct – Hawaiian Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird. AtmoSphaira is subdivided into epistolary chapters, into travel logs or letters of confrontation with human and non-human nature. Each segment weaves the sonorous and visual warp of two cyclops, who, from their sphericalpoint of view, grant us – sometimes abstractly, others frontally and very often silhouettedly – a glance into their worlds. From the Andean moors to the Mediterranean Sea, this film guides us with photosensitive textures and superimposed layers through a multiverse evoking a nostalgia of better days, extinction of and within bodies, the ampliation of our conception of events in space and time, and physical as well as immaterial memory. The subjects of this piece are insignificant controllers, facing a finite flow in their expiring bodies, excreting crunchy, perfect images… megapixels that show nothing.
WANDEL
Director: Maria Korporal | Germany
We’ll remember the earth as if it were a dream. The title of this video WANDEL, translated CHANGE, may have at least two possible meanings. The first concerns climate change, the second and connected are the social and cultural changes we have to undertake to avoid a global environmental crisis, caused by climate change. The Austrian poet Erich Fried wrote in 1981: „Wer will, dass die Welt bleibt, wie sie ist, will nicht, dass sie bleibt.“ (Those who want the world to remain as it is, do not want it to remain). This is a timeless statement. It is written at my feet on an infinite asphalt planet, and I stand there with my bicycle. When I begin cycling, the planet starts moving itself and while rotating a transformation is taking place. One sees animated images emerge. They suggest alter- native energies and evolve into breathing life forms. The world is revitalized, the asphalted planet begins blooming again!
IN THE MARITIME FREQUENCIES
Director: Greta M Snider | US
We’ll remember the earth as if it were a dream. For the past year, I have been working on a project exploring the coastal landscapes of San Francisco, using darkroom developers made from the solutions of our times – bay water, hand sanitizer, and “safe” detergent. The resultant movie is a conversation about how we internalize our climate emergency, letting mortalities large and small emerge only when the night puts our guard down. Inspired by the San Francisco Bay, dreams, and novelist Octavia Butler’s vision of a future California. This film embraces the aesthetics of a crumbling society – expired and cast off film, backyard developing, hand cranked camera – because it is a premonition, a goodbye, and a last look over the shoulder. Featuring Bill Basquin, Ivy McClelland, Juan Aguirre, Annalise Velasquez, Valerie Soe, Mark Klatte, and Mayuran Tiruchelvam
TODAY, I <3 U _ _ _ _
Director: Neely Goniodsky | US
An exploration of contemporary perspectives on love and romance, challenging traditional societal norms around relationships and sexuality. It embraces non-traditional relationship structures and celebrates diverse expressions of sexuality, rejecting stigma and fostering an open, inclusive dialogue about what intimacy looks like today. Made from high resolution scans of three intaglio prints of 14 frame animated loop, etched on plexiglass.
when u love somebody
Director: Joy Valencia | Philippines
Things just swirl around…
APPENDAGED
Director: Alex Christie | US
Appendaged is an act of translation and reanimation. The images you see are generated by homemade analog circuits—circuits I typically build for synthesizing sound—fed into CRT televisions. These circuits speak in modes we usually listen to, but in this case they breathe new visual life into forgotten bodies. Connections form and functions emerge between image and image, image and sound, and sound and sound.
PHYSALIA
Director: Ian Gibbins | Australia
Physalia is highly successful organism, widespread across the world’s oceans. Nevertheless, its environment is under increasing threat from pollution and climate change. Its potent armoury of highly toxic stings is no match for this type of attack. Perhaps new forms of cryptic colonial zooids may evolve to reverse the damage… If they had the words, what would they tell us? All the spoken text and its on-screen transcription is derived from mirror images, reversals and reflections of the Wikipedia quote. The Physalia biomorphs are variously constructed from Particle Illusion (Boris FX), coralline red algae, Muntrie flowers and Eucalypt flowers.
THE MUSIC THAT YOU PLAY
Director: Nikolaus Jantsch | Austria
‘The music that you play’ is a song by Austrian band Yellow Mellow, the music video is created by animation artist Nikolaus Jantsch using a technique called “direct animation”, or “drawn on film”. The footage was produced by painting, drawing and scratching directly on 16mm film. With the help of nowadays software, this century old technique supports the character of the engaging music with a fresh approach, turning great sound into a rousing visual imagery. “You say, you have no feelings for this world outside your room. You say the only healing is that the music is going on.” These first two lines of the song beautifully describe the feelings of many: seeing music as a sanctuary from the uncomfortable, daily life.
FRUITING BODIES
Director: Mia Milardo | Canada
A vivid exploration of transformations and aesthetics in nature and the female body.
SIDE SEDIMI
Director: Wombat Studio | Australia
This music video follows a colony of ants in their quest to prepare a grand spring feast, as winter fades away. This
enchanting and eerie journey, set to Nitai Hershkovits and Rejoicer’s melodic piano piece, takes you from food heists
to royal rituals.
HOT DOG
Directors: lore Burban, Logan Cameron, Nicolas Diaz, Chloé Raimondo, Hugues Valin | France
Love is a four-legged word.
MEOUCH!
Director: Rodrigo Lobato Toporov | Brazil
An unlucky black cat lives in a constant bad mood, until a crazy event makes him get lost from his home and meet an
optimistic stray dog who proposes to him a new way of looking at life.
TALAIAS
Director: Maria Raquel Atalaia | Portugal
A boy in love with a girl goes to her house but things don’t go well. Upon returning home, the boy meets a talaia,
one of the beings that live in the forest. Eager for company, you take the talaia home but he will only have one thing
on his mind, returning to his friends.
MOUSE HOUSE
Director: Timon Leder | Slovenia
A gluttonous mouse traps himself in a cheese wheel while his starving friend stranded outside must contend with a
hungry cat.
FLYIN’ BAMBOO
Director: Felix Colgrave | Australia
Much ado in the garden as the bamboo grows to great heights. A music video for a melody by Nitai Hershkobits,
featuring MNDSGN.
CATERPILLAR SHOES
Director: Eliot Wykes | UK
A story about a kindly caterpillar who decides to give his beloved shoes away to his woodland friends before turning
into a beautiful butterfly.
CALLIE AND BEE: HOOP DREAMS
Director: George Maestri | US
A short exploration of 1930’s rubber hose animation in 3D. Callie gets her dog Bee to jump through a hoop with
surprising results.
FOIL
Director: Jacob Varley | UK
The adventures of a tiny man made of foil.
TRAFFIC JAM
Director: Jason Nichols | US
A drummer kills time while waiting at a red light.
NO TRESPASSING IN TRANSYLVANIA
Directors: Michael Dorfman, Maxwell Dorfman, Emmett Dorfman | US
A group of mummies stumble onto a vampire’s property.
REMOTE POSTAL SERVICES
Director: Jacob Varley | UK
A man alone on a submarine…
(I started making this video at the start of lockdown. Much like the man in the submarine, I was trapped in a small room doing a dull monotonous task – Making a stop-motion– and so I empathized quite a bit with him.)
ALUADO
Director: Cláudio Jordão | Portugal…somewhere in the far reaches of an imagined universe, an astronaut travels between moons in search of his sanity… somewhere in the far reaches of an imagined universe…
LITTLE STAR
Directors: Elena Fee, Coco Aimée Rid, Vanessa Ramovic, Sonja Latussek | Germany
An overworked astronomer trapped in the daily grind meets a younger version of herself one night, whose childlike and imaginative view of our universe guides the astronomer’s perspective back to her almost lost passion.
EL ASTRONAUTA
Director: Ignacio González Ruiz | Mexico
Kudryavka was mistaken for a stray dog. Scientists, thinking she had no owner, decided to adopt her for a grand ex-
periment: to take the first living being to the moon. What they didn’t know was that Kudryavka has an owner, a child who will do the impossible to hug his dog again.
LAUNCH!
Directors: Gabriel Colom, Jasper Kray, Elias Pforsich, Benjamin Tanaka, Annabelle Van De Veere | US 3, 2, 1… Launch! Follow our team of neurodiverse young adults as they venture not only into space, but their own filmmaking and visual effects creative potential.
GERT’S BOYS
Director: Sara Laura Schwartz | US
Gert’s Boys offers a unique window into San Francisco’s gay community from the early days of AIDS (1981-1995)
through the story of one woman: Cindy “Gert” McMullin, co-founder of The AIDS Memorial Quilt. The Quilt was launched in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood in 1987, the epicenter of the AIDS crisis, as a social action tool to demand a public and government response to AIDS. Today, the Quilt is the world’s largest work of community folk art with over 50,000, three-foot by six-foot panels commemorating over 110,000 lives lost to AIDS. Gert, known as the Mother of the Quilt, continues to oversee the panels, which she refers to as her “boys”, in a warehouse in Oakland, California. The film explores Gert’s experiences caring for four of her boys—David, Roger, Jack and Joey—and becoming an activist in the process.
FRUITING BODIES
Director: Mia Milardo | Canada
A vivid exploration of transformations and aesthetics in nature and the female body.
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DUCK
Director: Holo Wang | Hungary
A transnational, elder gay couple manage their pastoral life in Hungary countryside as poultry farmers, while struggle to come out their true identities to their grown-up children. – Taiwanese filmmaker and his crew encounters at the country side of Hungary, Zoltan and his partner having a bohemian life. Holo explores of their existence, dialogue, love and bringing smile to viewer’s mind.
JENNY AND THE ALIEN
Director: Kate Fair | US
Jenny, a grieving and anxious old woman, takes in a strange alien with an interest in radio.
A STEP STORY
Director: Varuna Nigam | India
A not so typical love story.
LUCK
Director: Shane Devine | US
“Luck” is a poetic exploration of human existence as the ultimate form of good fortune. Beginning with a woman lamenting her bad luck over spilled coffee, the film expands outward in scale and perspective, revealing the extraordinary improbabilities that led to each individual’s existence. Through stunning visuals and contemplative narration, “Luck” invites viewers to reconsider their place in the universe and recognize that their very existence represents a triumph against nearly impossible odds—the ultimate stroke of luck.
AI Integration:
Every aspect of the film was crafted through collaborative AI partnerships. The dynamic scenes were brought to life using Runway’s video generation models, based on foundational imagery created with models from Google and OpenAI. The contemplative narration was voiced through Runway’s audio technology. Throughout the creative process the Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet large language model provided assistance with script refinement.
TALKING RUBBISH
Director: Ian Donnelly | UK
Carl’s morning kicks off the way every hapless single mans does every week. Forgetting to put the bins out. He must
race against time before the bin lorry arrives. What follows is a slapstick series of unfortunate events: Carl struggles with his clothes, the recycling bin, a small dog, and ultimately his own emotions as he looks for the chance of new love and companionship. As he tries to impress his new neighbour, he digs himself deeper into a self-made hole. The chaos peaks when a sentimental piece of jewelry goes missing, and his disapproving sister gets involved. Mixing quick-witted dialogue, absurd situations, and heartfelt moments, this short comedy reveals the beauty in life’s little mishaps and the lengths we go to find love…. and the correct wheelie bin….
THE_COOL_FILM_IDEA.MP4
Director: John Angelo Martin Serrano | US
A student is pitching a cliché film idea to a professor: A hero saving a town from a rushing train caused by a ginormous monster. The student has doubts about the film but the professor may have some insightful advice.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
Director: Nathan Rivers | Canada
When a novice Magician drops the ball on his first performance, a faint laugh sets into motion a journey of self discovery.
MEOW!
Directors: Michal Vojtech and Ariel De La Garzas | UK
A visually rich tale that blends German expressionist style with 16mm film artistry, set against Prague’s timeless Gothic architecture – MEOW! is an invitation into a whimsical world where magical realism meets the peculiar charms of Prague. This absurd, non-spoken comedy follows a young restroom attendant in search of her missing cat, Meow. Along her path, she encounters a troupe of mysterious hunchbacks, who seem to hold clues to her lost pet’s whereabouts. From shadow-puppet performances to surreal trades with river-dwelling oddballs, her journey unearths a surprising revelation about love, loyalty, and the mysteries of independence.
LONESOME TOWN
Director: Caleb Garrett | US
A cowboy flung forward in time becomes homesick.
TRAFFIC JAM
Director: Jason Nicholls | US
A drummer kills time while waiting at a red light.
SIDE SEDIMI
Director: Wombat Studio | Australia
This music video follows a colony of ants in their quest to prepare a grand spring feast, as winter fades away. This
enchanting and eerie journey, set to Nitai Hershkovits and Rejoicer’s melodic piano piece, takes you from food heists
to royal rituals.
MEOUCH!
Director: Rodrigo Lobato Toporov | Brazil
An unlucky black cat lives in a constant bad mood, until a crazy event makes him get lost from his home and meet an
optimistic stray dog who proposes to him a new way of looking at life.
TALAIAS
Director: Maria Raquel Atalaia | Portugal
A boy in love with a girl goes to her house but things don’t go well. Upon returning home, the boy meets a talaia,
one of the beings that live in the forest. Eager for company, you take the talaia home but he will only have one thing
on his mind, returning to his friends.
MOUSE HOUSE
Director: Timon Leder | Slovenia
A gluttonous mouse traps himself in a cheese wheel while his starving friend stranded outside must contend with a
hungry cat.
CATERPILLAR SHOES
Director: Eliot Wykes | UK
A story about a kindly caterpillar who decides to give his beloved shoes away to his woodland friends before turning
into a beautiful butterfly.
CALLIE AND BEE: HOOP DREAMS
Director: George Maestri | US
A short exploration of 1930’s rubber hose animation in 3D. Callie gets her dog Bee to jump through a hoop with
surprising results.
HOME OF MY MEMORIES
Director: Javier Méndez Lefon | Mexico
A boy shares a special project with his grandfather, all of whose teachings come alive in a truly wonderful way. Seven years in the making, this short film brings back memories of all those who taught us something invaluable.
EL ASTRONAUTA
Director: Ignacio González Ruiz | Mexico
Kudryavka was mistaken for a stray dog. Scientists, thinking she had no owner, decided to adopt her for a grand experiment: to take the first living being to the moon. What they didn’t know was that Kudryavka has an owner, a child who will do the impossible to hug his dog again.
ALPHA GENERATION
Directors: Débora Resendes, Iuri Moreno | Brazil
Rebeca, a girl passionate about reading, tries to convince her best friend Marcelo to read a book.
WATER MONSTER
Director: Kotik Villela | Mexico
A boy in love with a girl goes to her house but things don’t go well. A young girl experiences bullying from other kids. One day, she has an accident and falls from her canoe into the river. This incident leads her to encounter a gigantic axolotl, which is also facing bullying. This unexpected meeting sparks a friendship that empowers them to overcome the challenges they both face.
ARBOLITO
Director: Katalin Egely | Australia
Little Tree’s trip to Australia, where he meets the magical instrument, the didgeridoo.
LAUNCH!
Directors: Gabriel Colom, Jasper Kray, Elias Pforsich, Benjamin Tanaka, Annabelle Van De Veere | US
3, 2, 1… Launch! Follow our team of neurodiverse young adults as they venture not only into space, but their own filmmaking and visual effects creative potential.
NO TRESPASSING IN TRANSYLVANIA
Directors: Michael Dorfman, Maxwell Dorfman, Emmett Dorfman | US
A group of mummies stumble onto a vampire’s property.
REMOTE POSTAL SERVICES
Director: Jacob Varley | UK
A man alone on a submarine… (I started making this video at the start of lockdown. Much like the man in the submarine, I was trapped in a small room
doing a dull monotonous task – Making a stop-motion– and so I empathized quite a bit with him.)
FRUIT CRATE CITY AND ME
Director: Alfred Matthew Hernandez | US
Fruit Crate City and Me is based on true stories from my and my niece’s childhoods. The film is an allegory for the
worlds that we are all born into, both natural and human-made and how we internalize these worlds as children and act them out through play and creativity. Through her play world, a city made of stacked fruit crates, a young girl is able to synthesize the often-perplexing realities around her while cradling her biggest hopes for the world and its people in the guise of her toy “inhabitants.”
With Fruit Crate City and Me, I also wanted to tell a story about the importance of housing and the heartbreak of
losing homes through evictions etc. – something I’ve lived through too many times in my life. The grandmother in the story (my mom), lived to the golden age of 96, and it is, I believe, her connection to others and the younger ones in particular that helped her along. Mother of the Quilt, continues to oversee the panels, which she refers to as her “boys”, in a warehouse in Oakland, California. The film explores Gert’s experiences caring for four of her boys—David, Roger, Jack and Joey—and becoming an activist in the process.
40º TO THE SHADOW (40º A LA SOMBRA)
Director:Eduardo Elli | Argentina
A summer Sunday with 40° to the shadow. In a parking lot, a little girl invokes her recently deceased grandmother and waits for something extraordinary to happen.
DAY OF THE DEAD
Directors: Geo Thelen | US
A vintage animation inspired micro-film paying homage to the celebration Dia de los Muertos -popular around Halloween and early November (1st & 2nd) in honor of ancestors lost. The short follows a poor man’s lament to walk once more with his love now departed. Backed by original music & Spanish lyrics written by Geo Thelen and wailed by Luchito Munoz.
THE NEGATIVE
Director: George Alexis Rojas | Venezuela
During a routine review, a photographer notices that something is wrong with a negative.
ATMOSPHAIRA
Director: Sandra Rengifo | Colombia
Unprotected by an atmosphere, life ceases. This thin gaseous varnish, a compound of ἀτμός (vapor or air) and σφαῖρα (sphere), allows us to exist as we float in infinity. This is from where this film departs with the recorded chant of the last surviving – and now extinct – Hawaiian Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird.
AtmoSphaira is subdivided into epistolary chapters, into travel logs or letters of confrontation with human and non-human nature. Each segment weaves the sonorous and visual warp of two cyclops, who, from their spherical point of view, grant us – sometimes abstractly, others frontally and very often silhouettedly – a glance into their worlds. From the Andean moors to the Mediterranean Sea, this film guides us with photosensitive textures and superimposed layers through a multiverse evoking a nostalgia of better days, extinction of and within bodies, the ampliation of our conception of events in space and time, and physical as well as immaterial memory. The subjects of this piece are insignificant controllers, facing a finite flow in their expiring bodies, excreting crunchy, perfect images…megapixels that show nothing.
MEXRISSEY: THE BOY WITH THE THORN IN HIS SIDE
Director: Oscar Hudson | UK
Fans of Morrissey have always tended towards the obsessive. Now the theatrical indie singer has become hugely popular in Mexico, where musician Camilo Lara formed his band Mexrrissey to celebrate the work of the British star, in Spanish, giving each song a Latin arrangement that is radically different to the original. The response has been packed houses around the world, as the band’s translations breath new life into classics including 1985’s “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side”, which they play here as they wait for the 100 bus in London on a suitably melancholy English evening.
LONESOME TOWN
Director: Caleb Garrett | US
A cowboy flung forward in time becomes homesick.
AWAKENING
Director: Sonya Dukhon | Israel
An elderly couple decides to perform a ritual to bring their dead friend back to life and become young again.
THE HEALER
Director: Shankey Srinivasan | US
A reclusive Healer’s life is disrupted when one of her patients mysteriously disappears. Detectives from the sheriff’s department investigating the case begin to question if she’s involved in something darker.
STAIRCASE STOMP
Director: Aaron Louis | US
Stop-motion music video for the song “Staircase Stomp” by punk/new wave band The Clamor. The music video tells the story of a man grappling with his inner turmoil, represented by a haunting female figure in a storm-battered cabin. Through surreal stop-motion animation, the video explores themes of identity, psychological conflict, and self-reconciliation, blurring the lines between external chaos and internal struggles.
KUMAR, KUMAR
Director: Kiran Koshy | US
Kumar Kumar is all alone on his birthday. His social media feed is dead. Maybe he should be too? But then, the computer dings
when u love somebody
Director: Joy Valencia | Philippines
Things just swirl around…
MEOW!
Director: Michal Vojtech and Ariel De La Garza | UK
A visually rich tale that blends German expressionist style with 16mm film artistry, set against Prague’s timeless Gothic architecture – MEOW! is an invitation into a whimsical world where magical realism meets the peculiar charms of Prague. This absurd, non-spoken comedy follows a young restroom attendant in search of her missing cat, Meow. Along her path, she encounters a troupe of mysterious hunchbacks, who seem to hold clues to her lost pet’s whereabouts. From shadow-puppet performances to surreal trades with river-dwelling oddballs, her journey unearths a surprising revelation about love, loyalty, and the mysteries of independence.
TALKING RUBBISH
Director: Ian Donnely | UK
Carl’s morning kicks off the way every hapless single mans does every week. Forgetting to put the bins out. He must
race against time before the bin lorry arrives. What follows is a slapstick series of unfortunate events: Carl struggles with his clothes, the recycling bin, a small dog, and ultimately his own emotions as he looks for the chance of new love and companionship. As he tries to impress his new neighbour, he digs himself deeper into a self-made hole. The chaos peaks when a sentimental piece of jewellery goes missing, and his disapproving sister gets involved. Mixing quick-witted dialogue, absurd situations, and heartfelt moments, this short comedy reveals the beauty in life’s little mishaps and the lengths we go to find love…. and the correct wheelie bin….
TRAFFIC JAM
Director: Jason Nicholls | US
A drummer kills time while waiting at a red light.