2023 FEATURE FILMS
2023 SHORT FILM BLOCKS
2023 SHORT FILMS
Directors: Joshua Heath Clark, Mike Kash
Runtime: 35 min
A story of a family’s generational trauma and how it uses motorcycle riding as a coping mechanism across generations.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Jack Beckett Cohen
Runtime: 18 min
A theater actor with crippling body image insecurities must face his greatest fears when he is asked to perform nude on stage in his dream role.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Déja Russell
Runtime: 14 min
Vanesia Simmons, a young black woman, finds herself trapped in a mysterious space when her apartment hunting doesn’t go as planned. To escape, she must find the key to “Eclosion,” a magical garden that will send her home. When finding the key doesn’t prove as easily as thought, she is forced to address the monsters inside.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Payton Burkhammer
Runtime: 10 min
Anxious about her upcoming date, Gabi enlists the help of her best friend, Matt, to teach her how to have the perfect first kiss.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Jon Osbeck
Runtime: 12 min
Two mob hitmen, one retired, one still on the job, meet for supper.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Joshua Nowak
Runtime: 15 min
A dark, comedic drama about a waitress and single mother who is having a terrible night at her job. Between hitting her head, getting yelled at by her boss, and being stiffed by a customer, she barely notices the two criminals sitting in her section. It’s an ensemble of unique characters, cosmic coincidences, and serendipitous luck, both good and bad.
World Premiere – Santa Barbara Film Festival (2023)
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts
Director: Adnan Siddique
Runtime: 36 min
A passionate astronomy student disengages from her college curriculum upon the discovery of an illusive artifact.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts
Director: Kayla Lehman
Runtime: 4 min
Self in Progress follows a young woman’s experience with anxiety and mental illness and her journey of healing through acceptance and self-compassion. The film draws inspiration from the aesthetics of Surrealism to visualize this mental health journey.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts
Director: Kaylin Allshouse
Runtime: 12 min
When her bionic boyfriend Ethan proposes, Jackie finally feels like she has found her happily ever after — until a chance encounter with another human shows her how messy love can really be.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts
Director: Jonathan Riles
Runtime: 3 min
A slithering creature evolves into different forms, but also remains the same.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts
Director: Angelo Thomas
Runtime: 7 min
Two souls meet in the space between this life and the afterlife.
SHORTS BLOCK: Local Shorts
Director: Michael T. Workman
Runtime: 18 min
After Tim’s work-related stroke leads to troubling signs of memory loss, his son Michael returns home to Montana. As they spend the most time together since Michael’s childhood, they reckon with the past that haunts Tim. Meantime is a deeply personal exploration of memory, guilt, labor, and the attempt to preserve the fleeting.
Winner (Best Short Film) – Telluride Mountainfilm (2022)
Winner (Vimeo Staff Pick Award) – Palm Springs ShortFest (2022)
Winner (Best Short Documentary) – BendFilm Festival (2022)
SHORTS BLOCK: Documentary Shorts at the Drexel
Directors: Elisa Stone, Matthew Leahy
Runtime: 22 min
As the world grappled with pandemic isolation, Edith Espinal entered her third year of sanctuary in a Midwestern church. A Shelter for Edith sheds light on the solitary life of one undocumented woman and the threat that sent her indoors — not the pandemic, but the fear that ICE could tear her family apart.
SHORTS BLOCK: Documentary Shorts at the Drexel
Directors: Claudia Owusu, Ife Oluwamuyide
Runtime: 18 min
Set in the sister cities of Accra, Ghana and Columbus, Ohio, Ampe: Leap into the Sky, Black Girl is a rhythmic love letter to Black girlhood across the African diaspora. Through the lens of the Ghanaian traditional jumping and clapping game, Ampe, the film takes us on a journey of sisterhood, loyalty, and nostalgia in a space created for us, by us.
World Premiere – Indie Memphis Film Festival (2022)
SHORTS BLOCK: Documentary Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Robert Machoian
Runtime: 5 min
A shift at a metal foundry provides the basis for a meditation of life as a pressure machine.
World Premiere – Cinequest (2023)
SHORTS BLOCK: Documentary Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Kuukua Eshun
Runtime: 9 min
Kuukua Eshun explores the reconnection of women of African descent with the earth.
SHORTS BLOCK: Documentary Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Brian Plow
Runtime: 21 min
A short documentary about two women with intensive trauma histories and the new approach to mental health treatment that led to healing and resilience. It is also the story of the pioneering women who are leading the way in advocating for Trauma Informed Care in Ohio.
SHORTS BLOCK: Documentary Shorts at the Drexel
Director: Anne Hu
Runtime: 16 min
When a Taiwanese American woman prepares lunches from her childhood, she struggles to forgive herself for pushing away her immigrant mother.
World Premiere – Hawaii International Film Festival (2023)
SHORTS BLOCK: Narrative Shorts
Director: Conner De Mita
Runtime: 3 min
A son reminds his mother, who is surrounded by darkness, that there is still beauty in the world.
SHORTS BLOCK: Narrative Shorts
Director: Anna Salinas
Runtime: 12 min
When Allie’s plans fall through, she must face her chaotic Inner Demon to survive an evening home alone.
SHORTS BLOCK: Narrative Shorts
Director: Nitzan Mager
Runtime: 13 min
Amateur harpist and professional teacher’s pet, Meg Littleton, is fed up with everyone’s thoughts and prayers.
World Premiere – Cleveland International Film Festival (2023)
SHORTS BLOCK: Narrative Shorts
Director: Kayla Abuda Galang
Runtime: 13 min
Teenager Ly and her cousins get high before a boisterous family Thanksgiving at their auntie’s house in southeast San Diego in 2006.
Short Film Grand Jury Prize – Sundance Film Festival (2023)
SHORTS BLOCK: Narrative Shorts
Directors: Josie Charles, Phoebe Brooks
Runtime: 14 min
A young working-class Welsh woman meets her wealthy English boyfriend’s eccentric family for the first time on Christmas Eve. She’s thrown straight into the family’s traditional Christmas game, and struggles to keep up with its in-jokes and strange rules. But as she improves, she begins to uncover a dark secret in the family’s past.
Finalist (Best Director, Best Production Design, Best Sound Design) – The British Short Film Awards (2022)
SHORTS BLOCK: Narrative Shorts
Director: Justin Zimmerman
Runtime: 22 min
SOLDIER focuses on Daniel Krug: a heroic firefighter, father of five, SWAT trainer, and armored combat enthusiast. Daniel is also a former sniper, with ten years of combat, security, rescue, and recovery experience in Iraq. And over the past decade, he’s lost 11 of his close military friends – and almost lost himself – to PTSD.
SHORTS BLOCK: The Power & Purpose of Our Veterans’ Stories
Directors: Spencer LaGros, Alexander Hinsch
Runtime: 26 min
Jason Graven, an Army Veteran, looks into the generational trauma from his missing father and surrendered daughter. This eventually leads to him finding a new family of fellow veterans who cope together through physical fitness.
SHORTS BLOCK: The Power & Purpose of Our Veterans’ Stories
Directors: Julie Pacino, Aron Meinhardt
Runtime: 22 min
Brainstorms is an experiential look inside the mind of Brian, a veteran who has sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during combat. The film follows Brian’s struggle returning to home life with his wife and daughter. While experiencing a panic attack in a hospital parking garage, Brian meets a young VA nurse named Danielle who is in the process of recovering from her own TBI.
SHORTS BLOCK: The Power & Purpose of Our Veterans’ Stories
Directors: Ryan Gentle, Austin Quarles
Runtime: 13 min
Alexander, a space-loving day dreamer hopes to pass that love on to his son Galileo. As he grows up, Galileo realizes he needs to break away from his father’s hope to find his own path, but his path is closer to his father’s dreams than he ever thought.
Shorts Programmer Award – Sidewalk Film Festival (2022)
Screening before feature film Stargazer
