Nothing is what it seems—and everyone’s losing it, just a little. Get ready for an offbeat ride through paranoia, monsters, AI chaos, the all-too-real horror of climate apocalypse, and beach party bloodbaths. Whether you're into soul-sucking water demons, suspicious dinner parties, or 16mm nostalgia soaked in sun and doom, this lineup will leave you laughing, unnerved, and ready to fight back against the forces destroying our planet - while questioning whether that noise in your headphones is something reaching out... from elsewhere.

BEACH-O

United States 2025 \ Short Film \ 11 min

Directors: Leah Smith & Karen Lawler

— An homage to the campy beach movies of the 1960s, set within a late 90s time capsule, Beach-O is a rockin’ retro romp. This 16mm film follows Greg and Lesley as they enjoy a summer’s day at the beach. After they befriend a gang of local partiers, their day takes an unexpected turn when everyone gets hungry… This long awaited music centric film (shot in 1998, and finally completed in 2024) features performances by DC and Boston indie rock legends The Make-Up, Victory At Sea, and The Wicked Farleys.

Features performances by indie rock legends: The Make-Up, Victory At Sea, and The Wicked Farleys.

Language: English

YELLOW 

United States 2024 \ Short Film \ 14 min

Director: Angel Garcia

— Cariño struggles to have a good time on a trip to New York with her father who’s overzealous attitude and wandering eye are getting on her nerves. Her attitude alchemizes into an anxious spiral when she starts to notice strange women watching her.

Language: English

2ND DAY & THE END OF THE WORLD

Denmark 2025 \ Short Film \ 12 min

Director: Sara Koppel

— Is a story of dysfunctional family life. About powerlessness in society & processes of detachment. Responsibility, presence, attentive & awareness, in the presence of natural disasters in an increasingly totalitarian world. About self-discovery, loneliness & body disorders in a Climate Catastrophic Contemporary Universe. But also about love & hope for the future to be.

Language: English

CLIMATE CONTROL

United States 2025 \ Short Film \ 15 min

Director: Sarah Lasley

— A metafictional comedy about the intersection of the climate crisis and generative AI. A director making a documentary about the perils of fossil fuel extraction is consistently subverted by an AI agent that wants to tell a generic love story.

Made in collaboration with my Gen Z students, the film looks at generational responses to the climate crisis through an absurdist lens, connecting the extraction of natural resources to the extraction of our human data and the extraction of our attention in this post-information era. Through grant support from Cal Poly Humboldt, 30 students were hired at professional rates and occupied all production roles both in front of and behind the camera.

Language: English

WATER DOG

United States 2024 \ Short Film \ 11 min

Director: Christina Kelly Holmes

— A disillusioned millennial man bumps into an old classmate and meets his new wife – but there's something off about her. Questioning his sanity, the man brings his girlfriend to dinner with the couple.

Language: English

11:11

United States 2025 \ Short Film \ 2 min

Director: Sophia Gordon

— A study on synchronicities and phenomena of high strangeness, "11:11" examines the connections between initiation, ritual, and the universal sequences surrounding us.

Language: English

MONDEGREEN

United States 2025 \ Short Film \ 22 min

Director: Linda Mai Green

— While on a rural retreat, a sound artist becomes obsessed with eerie sounds in her recordings—until a conspiracy theorist warns that she’s provoking dangerous paranormal forces. As she delves deeper into deciphering their meaning, she confuses discovery and delusion.

Language: English

COLD FEET

Unites States 2024 \ Short Film \ 8 min

Director: Anna Vecellio

— A woman struggling with intimacy invites her girlfriend over for a sleepover, only to discover there's something much scarier than emotional availability lurking under her bed.

Language: English

RETURN OF THE NÄCKEN

United States 2024 \ Short Film \ 22 min

Director: Cassandra Sechler

— The Return of the Näcken is a gothic fairytale and love letter to storytelling and mythology. It is a surreal fantastical journey into the life of a forlorn creature who must feast on human souls to survive, introducing a new spin to traditional water demon myths. The story explores the unforgiving nature of mortality, the cruelty and loneliness of immortality, the sensuality of death, and the pain of being a monster.

Language: English