GRRL HAUS Best of Shorts
May 6, 2026
THE BRATTLE • 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA
First program : 7pm
Second program : 9pm
THE BRATTLE • 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA
First program : 7pm
Second program : 9pm
First program
Saturn Risin9 — Tiare Ribeaux, Jody Stillwater
ANADROMOUS — Ari Grubb
Los Tres Antifaces: The First Body — Angel Rojas
Vestal Virgin Vengeance — Virginia L. Montgomery
Before I Wake — Christine Flemming, Tinshine Mont
Dead Name — Gina Kamentsky
Play Fight! — Katrina Cecilia Larner
Mondegreen — Linda Mai Green
Untitled Film Disenfection Project 1 — Lilan Yang
Climate Control — Sarah Lasley
Saturn Risin9 — Tiare Ribeaux, Jody Stillwater
ANADROMOUS — Ari Grubb
Los Tres Antifaces: The First Body — Angel Rojas
Vestal Virgin Vengeance — Virginia L. Montgomery
Before I Wake — Christine Flemming, Tinshine Mont
Dead Name — Gina Kamentsky
Play Fight! — Katrina Cecilia Larner
Mondegreen — Linda Mai Green
Untitled Film Disenfection Project 1 — Lilan Yang
Climate Control — Sarah Lasley
Second program
Billo Rani — Angbeen Saleem
Haiku — Christine Banna
Dominion — McLean Fahnestock
Lo Sciocco — Coco Roy
Interference — Lila Woodbridge
Fried! — Lizzie Watts
Under The Whether — Putri Sarah Amelia
Big Red's Adventure — Vanessa Castro
Meet The Friends — C. Denise
Billo Rani — Angbeen Saleem
Haiku — Christine Banna
Dominion — McLean Fahnestock
Lo Sciocco — Coco Roy
Interference — Lila Woodbridge
Fried! — Lizzie Watts
Under The Whether — Putri Sarah Amelia
Big Red's Adventure — Vanessa Castro
Meet The Friends — C. Denise
Saturn Risin9 — Tiare Ribeaux, Jody Stillwater
Queer performance artist and musician Saturn Risin9 returns home to the Bay Area to share their journey of perseverance centering self discovery, healing and creative expansion poetically told through dance, visual narrative, performance, and documentary.
Tiare Ribeaux is a Kānaka ‘Ōiwi filmmaker based in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Her films disrupt conventional storytelling methods by employing magical realist explorations of spirituality, labor, and the environment to critique both social and ecological imbalances. Her films use components of speculative fiction and fantasy to reimagine both our present realities and future trajectories of healing, queerness, lineage, and belonging. Ribeaux’s work traverses between the mundane and dreamworlds - creating stories around transformation and how our bodies are inextricably linked to land and water systems. She integrates immersion within community, personal/ancestral narratives, and Hawaiian cosmology into her films.
Jody Stillwater 周青海 is a three-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker and co-founder of Yanasa Creative Group. He works at the intersection of cinema and digital art—creating lyrical, hybrid works. His projects have been showcased at the Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, the de Young Museum, YBCA, SXSW, Mutek, ISEA, Gray Area, and the Honolulu Museum of Art.
Jody has served as a guest lecturer at Stanford University and UC Berkeley and has been commissioned for films by Google and Meta, speaking on experimental storytelling and the evolving language of hybrid cinema.
Queer performance artist and musician Saturn Risin9 returns home to the Bay Area to share their journey of perseverance centering self discovery, healing and creative expansion poetically told through dance, visual narrative, performance, and documentary.
Tiare Ribeaux is a Kānaka ‘Ōiwi filmmaker based in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Her films disrupt conventional storytelling methods by employing magical realist explorations of spirituality, labor, and the environment to critique both social and ecological imbalances. Her films use components of speculative fiction and fantasy to reimagine both our present realities and future trajectories of healing, queerness, lineage, and belonging. Ribeaux’s work traverses between the mundane and dreamworlds - creating stories around transformation and how our bodies are inextricably linked to land and water systems. She integrates immersion within community, personal/ancestral narratives, and Hawaiian cosmology into her films.
Jody Stillwater 周青海 is a three-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker and co-founder of Yanasa Creative Group. He works at the intersection of cinema and digital art—creating lyrical, hybrid works. His projects have been showcased at the Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, the de Young Museum, YBCA, SXSW, Mutek, ISEA, Gray Area, and the Honolulu Museum of Art.
Jody has served as a guest lecturer at Stanford University and UC Berkeley and has been commissioned for films by Google and Meta, speaking on experimental storytelling and the evolving language of hybrid cinema.
ANADROMOUS — Ari Grubb
anadromous
[ uh-NAD-ruh-muhs ]
adjective
(of fish) migrating from fresh water to sea water to spawn.
When they find themselves evolving out of their aquarium home, two fish set off on a musical journey of self-acceptance and queer joy, and find community in a freaky fish gay bar in the deepest depths of the ocean.
Ari Grubb (he/they) is an interdisciplinary artist, animator, and director from Boston, Massachusetts. Identifying from a young age as a puppeteer, storyteller, and performer, Ari’s work ranges from stop motion animation, sculpture, illustration, film, and anything in between. While varying in scale, style, and medium, all of his work comes from the desire to tell stories, and whether through animated film, interactive sculpture, or playful illustration, Ari relies on charming characters and a fantastical color palette to lure in viewers, and rewards those that take the time to uncover the hidden narratives. Ari Grubb currently holds a position as Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Animation at Pacific Lutheran University, and lives and works in Tacoma, Washington.
anadromous
[ uh-NAD-ruh-muhs ]
adjective
(of fish) migrating from fresh water to sea water to spawn.
When they find themselves evolving out of their aquarium home, two fish set off on a musical journey of self-acceptance and queer joy, and find community in a freaky fish gay bar in the deepest depths of the ocean.
Ari Grubb (he/they) is an interdisciplinary artist, animator, and director from Boston, Massachusetts. Identifying from a young age as a puppeteer, storyteller, and performer, Ari’s work ranges from stop motion animation, sculpture, illustration, film, and anything in between. While varying in scale, style, and medium, all of his work comes from the desire to tell stories, and whether through animated film, interactive sculpture, or playful illustration, Ari relies on charming characters and a fantastical color palette to lure in viewers, and rewards those that take the time to uncover the hidden narratives. Ari Grubb currently holds a position as Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Animation at Pacific Lutheran University, and lives and works in Tacoma, Washington.
Los Tres Antifaces: The First Body — Angel Rojas
A mother and brother are interviewed in Ohio, a grandfather’s last recorded song plays out from Peru, while a solo dancer recalls a familiar yet different routine. These memories flow altered by time from the perspective of a young filmmaker.
Angel Rojas is a queer Peruvian-American filmmaker/video artist with Quechua roots whose work explores themes of diasporic memory, ancestral reconnection, and queerness as an emotion. Coming from a background of community organizing and mutual aid values, their artistic process contains a focus on anti-hierarchical and anti-capitalist ways of being. Through experimental film and video art, they craft works that document being in diaspora and the queer emotions that reside within that state of being.
A mother and brother are interviewed in Ohio, a grandfather’s last recorded song plays out from Peru, while a solo dancer recalls a familiar yet different routine. These memories flow altered by time from the perspective of a young filmmaker.
Angel Rojas is a queer Peruvian-American filmmaker/video artist with Quechua roots whose work explores themes of diasporic memory, ancestral reconnection, and queerness as an emotion. Coming from a background of community organizing and mutual aid values, their artistic process contains a focus on anti-hierarchical and anti-capitalist ways of being. Through experimental film and video art, they craft works that document being in diaspora and the queer emotions that reside within that state of being.
Big Red's Adventure — Vanessa Castro
Directed and animated by Vanessa Castro in collaboration with the band The Fascinating Chimera Project, Big Red’s Theme is a video game–inspired animated music video that follows a day in the life of Big Red, an orange tabby cat, from his own point of view. An ordinary day-in-the-life becomes an epic neighborhood quest filled with encounters, triumphs, and discoveries shared with other critters.
Animated over nine months entirely in Blender and After Effects, Big Red’s Theme invites viewers to reflect, play, and embark on their own neighborhood adventures, foregrounding nonhuman lives and the landscapes that sustain them.
Vanessa Castro is a New York–based, director, editor, and multidisciplinary artist working across digital art, music, and film. Her animations appear in the NEON documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon (2024), Adult Swim’s short New Game (2022), and Gilga’s short film Seek No Favor (2025). Her own projects have screened at Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, Ridgewood Off-Kilter Film Festival, Catskill Comedy Festival, Smhoakstock, and Boston Hassle Fest. She is currently finishing up her second music record, and developing her 3D animated short Player 1 (working title).
Directed and animated by Vanessa Castro in collaboration with the band The Fascinating Chimera Project, Big Red’s Theme is a video game–inspired animated music video that follows a day in the life of Big Red, an orange tabby cat, from his own point of view. An ordinary day-in-the-life becomes an epic neighborhood quest filled with encounters, triumphs, and discoveries shared with other critters.
Animated over nine months entirely in Blender and After Effects, Big Red’s Theme invites viewers to reflect, play, and embark on their own neighborhood adventures, foregrounding nonhuman lives and the landscapes that sustain them.
Vanessa Castro is a New York–based, director, editor, and multidisciplinary artist working across digital art, music, and film. Her animations appear in the NEON documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon (2024), Adult Swim’s short New Game (2022), and Gilga’s short film Seek No Favor (2025). Her own projects have screened at Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, Ridgewood Off-Kilter Film Festival, Catskill Comedy Festival, Smhoakstock, and Boston Hassle Fest. She is currently finishing up her second music record, and developing her 3D animated short Player 1 (working title).
Before I Wake — Christine Flemming, Tinshine Mont
Before I Wake explores the queer experience through the eyes of a younger sister struggling to connect with her older sister’s transformed state into adulthood and motherhood. As queer filmmakers, we are drawn to experiences and vulnerabilities that deviate from or conflict with gender norms, and to the psychological violence that arises from tensions like those: the alienation and confusion that emerge when traditional modes of womanhood embodied by family, friends, loved ones, or even strangers, no longer reflect our identity.
The film is also a commentary on how spaces constantly transform as urban development and gentrification invade city’s outskirts, and the lack of third spaces for adolescents. Before I Wake takes place in a dream, a nostalgic refuge preserving the protagonist’s memories, where the sisters ride their motorbike through familiar neighborhoods, revisiting childhood haunts and escaping their troubled home. The dreamscape contrasts with the narration that describes the real world, where those once-familiar places have been replaced by new structures. This transformation parallels the sister’s relationship, which in reality has grown distant and irreconcilable.
Queer loneliness become internal landscapes shaped by memory and absence. We cultivate this sense of longing and surrealism through subtle world-building: shots of a fallen tree, a silent playground, spiderwebs, and scattered, broken remnants of the past within an abandoned building. Memories construct a liminal world, neither fully alive nor entirely gone. It is the violence of being trapped between the past and estrangement. At the same time, memories also become fantasies: they are fragile means of survival through which we navigate grief and nostalgia. In dreams, we remember and feel, and then we wake up.
Christine Flemming (they/them) - Christine is a Thai, Yunnanese-Chinese and Swedish writer, filmmaker, and activist. Born in Chaing Mai, Christine moved to Bangkok for university and after graduation, they have been working in media production as a screenwriter, director and community organizer for more than 5 years. Christine has been curating film programs and facilitating filmmaking workshops to encourage, uplift and connect feminist and LGBT+ storytellers, artists and activists.
Tinshine Mont (they/them) - Tinshine's work explores themes of subconscious and queer desires and how they manifest in dreams and memories. Tinshine’s short film “Ethereal Creature,” is about two girls returning a fruit they stole from a Thai mythological Goddess. It competed at the 2018 Seoul International Women’s Film Festival and 2019 SeaShorts Film Festival. Tinshine’s third short film, “A Day Will Come” (2019) is a collaboration with Christine Flemming, with political themes about freedom of speech and forced disappearance. It screened at two exhibitions organized by Amnesty Thailand in 2022 and 2025. Tinshine’s latest work is part of the project “Soon to be Forgotten,” shot on 8mm film. It captures landscapes and migrant labor in Bangkok, and was exhibited at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) in 2024 and the Thai Film Archive in 2025.
Before I Wake explores the queer experience through the eyes of a younger sister struggling to connect with her older sister’s transformed state into adulthood and motherhood. As queer filmmakers, we are drawn to experiences and vulnerabilities that deviate from or conflict with gender norms, and to the psychological violence that arises from tensions like those: the alienation and confusion that emerge when traditional modes of womanhood embodied by family, friends, loved ones, or even strangers, no longer reflect our identity.
The film is also a commentary on how spaces constantly transform as urban development and gentrification invade city’s outskirts, and the lack of third spaces for adolescents. Before I Wake takes place in a dream, a nostalgic refuge preserving the protagonist’s memories, where the sisters ride their motorbike through familiar neighborhoods, revisiting childhood haunts and escaping their troubled home. The dreamscape contrasts with the narration that describes the real world, where those once-familiar places have been replaced by new structures. This transformation parallels the sister’s relationship, which in reality has grown distant and irreconcilable.
Queer loneliness become internal landscapes shaped by memory and absence. We cultivate this sense of longing and surrealism through subtle world-building: shots of a fallen tree, a silent playground, spiderwebs, and scattered, broken remnants of the past within an abandoned building. Memories construct a liminal world, neither fully alive nor entirely gone. It is the violence of being trapped between the past and estrangement. At the same time, memories also become fantasies: they are fragile means of survival through which we navigate grief and nostalgia. In dreams, we remember and feel, and then we wake up.
Christine Flemming (they/them) - Christine is a Thai, Yunnanese-Chinese and Swedish writer, filmmaker, and activist. Born in Chaing Mai, Christine moved to Bangkok for university and after graduation, they have been working in media production as a screenwriter, director and community organizer for more than 5 years. Christine has been curating film programs and facilitating filmmaking workshops to encourage, uplift and connect feminist and LGBT+ storytellers, artists and activists.
Tinshine Mont (they/them) - Tinshine's work explores themes of subconscious and queer desires and how they manifest in dreams and memories. Tinshine’s short film “Ethereal Creature,” is about two girls returning a fruit they stole from a Thai mythological Goddess. It competed at the 2018 Seoul International Women’s Film Festival and 2019 SeaShorts Film Festival. Tinshine’s third short film, “A Day Will Come” (2019) is a collaboration with Christine Flemming, with political themes about freedom of speech and forced disappearance. It screened at two exhibitions organized by Amnesty Thailand in 2022 and 2025. Tinshine’s latest work is part of the project “Soon to be Forgotten,” shot on 8mm film. It captures landscapes and migrant labor in Bangkok, and was exhibited at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) in 2024 and the Thai Film Archive in 2025.
Dead Name — Gina Kamentsky
My dead name is trying to kill me.
Gina Kamentsky is an experimental animator and sound artist based in Providence Rhode Island. Her anxious and joyful short films blast out at twenty-four frames per second searing eyeballs and sending waves of buzz and crackle into the ether.
Over her three decade career she’s progressed through numerous forms including painting, drawing and collaging on film, Rotoscope, Musique concrète, sound collage, stop motion and Pixilation.
Kamentsky’s films have screened at festivals nationally and worldwide including Ottawa International Animation Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Animator Festival in Poznań Poland.
My dead name is trying to kill me.
Gina Kamentsky is an experimental animator and sound artist based in Providence Rhode Island. Her anxious and joyful short films blast out at twenty-four frames per second searing eyeballs and sending waves of buzz and crackle into the ether.
Over her three decade career she’s progressed through numerous forms including painting, drawing and collaging on film, Rotoscope, Musique concrète, sound collage, stop motion and Pixilation.
Kamentsky’s films have screened at festivals nationally and worldwide including Ottawa International Animation Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Animator Festival in Poznań Poland.
Play Fight! — Katrina Cecilia Larner
Five little girls are jumping on the bed. One falls off and bumps her head. Mother carries her away and she doesn't come back. Four little girls keep jumping on the bed. One plays with fire and is burnt to a crisp. Three little girls are wondering who's next? They are bouncing off the walls and laughing at nothing. One discovers a truth deep within herself. Two little girls face off on the bed. Where did their friends go? What is there left to do?
Katrina Larner is a multimedia animator from California based in Providence, RI. she recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Film/Animation/Video.
Her work spans time-based mediums. Jumping from the moving image to her tattoo practice allows her to find a place to tell stories of in-between spaces and characters that are not quite whole. She enjoys exploring the intersection where design, form, iconography, and story meet using scrappy, low-tech processes. She is interested in characters that are compelling on their own: using them as actors going through motions or moving through spaces.
Girls are the most interesting subjects,
in her opinion.
Five little girls are jumping on the bed. One falls off and bumps her head. Mother carries her away and she doesn't come back. Four little girls keep jumping on the bed. One plays with fire and is burnt to a crisp. Three little girls are wondering who's next? They are bouncing off the walls and laughing at nothing. One discovers a truth deep within herself. Two little girls face off on the bed. Where did their friends go? What is there left to do?
Katrina Larner is a multimedia animator from California based in Providence, RI. she recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Film/Animation/Video.
Her work spans time-based mediums. Jumping from the moving image to her tattoo practice allows her to find a place to tell stories of in-between spaces and characters that are not quite whole. She enjoys exploring the intersection where design, form, iconography, and story meet using scrappy, low-tech processes. She is interested in characters that are compelling on their own: using them as actors going through motions or moving through spaces.
Girls are the most interesting subjects,
in her opinion.
Mondegreen — Linda Mai Green
At a remote Northern California residency, a sound artist obsessed with eerie sounds in her recordings unravels when a conspiracy theorist warns that she’s provoking dangerous paranormal forces. As she delves deeper into deciphering their meaning, she risks confusing discovery and delusion.
Linda Mai Green is a filmmaker based in San Francisco, California.
At a remote Northern California residency, a sound artist obsessed with eerie sounds in her recordings unravels when a conspiracy theorist warns that she’s provoking dangerous paranormal forces. As she delves deeper into deciphering their meaning, she risks confusing discovery and delusion.
Linda Mai Green is a filmmaker based in San Francisco, California.
Untitled Film Disenfection Project 1 — Lilan Yang
As Borges once said, “Censorship is the mother of metaphor.” This 16mm structural film explores how state control breeds its own linguistic and visual resistance. Created in response to China's "zero-COVID" policy—with its harsh lockdowns, relentless testing, and severe restrictions that tragically culminated in the Ürümqi fire—this project treats developed image-less film as an "unclean" object in need of cleansing. By applying chlorine dioxide to film surfaces—following government disinfection guidelines during the pandemic—the work transforms physical material into a metaphor for censorship and information control in mainland China. Untitled Film Disinfection Project examines the delicate intersection of public health measures, state control, and artistic resistance.
Lilan Yang is an artist working with moving images across installation, film, photography, and performance. Rooted in the materiality of 16mm, their practice explores the flux of migration, the decay of memory and the intricacies of perception.
As Borges once said, “Censorship is the mother of metaphor.” This 16mm structural film explores how state control breeds its own linguistic and visual resistance. Created in response to China's "zero-COVID" policy—with its harsh lockdowns, relentless testing, and severe restrictions that tragically culminated in the Ürümqi fire—this project treats developed image-less film as an "unclean" object in need of cleansing. By applying chlorine dioxide to film surfaces—following government disinfection guidelines during the pandemic—the work transforms physical material into a metaphor for censorship and information control in mainland China. Untitled Film Disinfection Project examines the delicate intersection of public health measures, state control, and artistic resistance.
Lilan Yang is an artist working with moving images across installation, film, photography, and performance. Rooted in the materiality of 16mm, their practice explores the flux of migration, the decay of memory and the intricacies of perception.
Climate Control — 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.
Sarah Lasley is an award-winning filmmaker from Louisville, Kentucky living and working in Eureka, California. Her no-budget films critique our current socio-political moment with absurdist humor. She has screened internationally at festivals, museums, and galleries, such as Slamdance, Ann Arbor, Cairo Video Festival, 25 FPS Film Festival, Les Instants Video, Katonah Museum of Art, and the Wrong Bienniale. She holds an MFA from Yale School of Art and a BFA from University of Louisville and was a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2004.
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.
Sarah Lasley is an award-winning filmmaker from Louisville, Kentucky living and working in Eureka, California. Her no-budget films critique our current socio-political moment with absurdist humor. She has screened internationally at festivals, museums, and galleries, such as Slamdance, Ann Arbor, Cairo Video Festival, 25 FPS Film Festival, Les Instants Video, Katonah Museum of Art, and the Wrong Bienniale. She holds an MFA from Yale School of Art and a BFA from University of Louisville and was a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2004.
Meet The Friends — C. Denise
Krys lives by a simple, self-preserving code: charm, conquer, and never, ever get close. A master of the fleeting connection, she glides through a series of romantic encounters with emotional detachment as her shield. Her number one rule? No meeting the friends. Friends mean investment, context, and the terrifying specter of a real relationship.
Her carefully curated world is upended when she meets Felicia, a woman whose wit and beauty is matched only by her disarming sincerity. For the first time, Krys is genuinely captivated. Just as they are on the verge of intimacy, Felicia makes a gentle but firm request: before they take things further, she’d like Krys to meet her closest friends.
The proposition sends Krys into a tailspin. To agree is to dismantle the very walls that have kept her safe from heartbreak. It’s a direct violation of her entire emotional playbook. But to refuse is to lose Felicia, the first person who has made her consider wanting more.
"Meet The Friends" is a poignant and tense short film that follows Krys over one nerve-wracking evening as she stands at a crossroads. She must choose between the safety of her old ways or the terrifying, vulnerable leap of faith required to possibly win the heart of a woman who values connection over conquest.
C. Denise is a fearless creative force, a writer, director, and producer dedicated to bringing authentic, humanizing stories to the screen. Born and raised with the resilient spirit of Detroit, Michigan, she honed her craft earning a Bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
A natural storyteller, Denise began writing scripts in her early twenties, cultivating a unique gift for crafting narratives that resonate with real life for real people. Her work is characterized by its emotional honesty, finding the delicate balance between laughter and the uneasy truths that have the power to change perspectives and change lives.
While *Meet The Friends* marks her directorial debut, it is the culmination of a lifelong dream and a profound personal journey. A breast cancer survivor diagnosed in 2017 and in remission since 2018, she now lives with a renewed vigor and strength, working tirelessly to manifest her ambitions. She credits her relentless pursuit of these dreams to the unwavering support of her loving wife of 16 years, Angie, and their son, Austin.
Driven by a powerful mission to humanize marginalized communities, C.Denise founded Nolo’s Child Productions** as a tribute to her late mother, Carolyn “Nolo” Nolan, and the strong familial legacy she left behind. With a strong faith in the power of manifesting, C. Denise is not just a filmmaker; she is a visionary poised to create a lasting impact, with many more powerful stories waiting to be told.
Krys lives by a simple, self-preserving code: charm, conquer, and never, ever get close. A master of the fleeting connection, she glides through a series of romantic encounters with emotional detachment as her shield. Her number one rule? No meeting the friends. Friends mean investment, context, and the terrifying specter of a real relationship.
Her carefully curated world is upended when she meets Felicia, a woman whose wit and beauty is matched only by her disarming sincerity. For the first time, Krys is genuinely captivated. Just as they are on the verge of intimacy, Felicia makes a gentle but firm request: before they take things further, she’d like Krys to meet her closest friends.
The proposition sends Krys into a tailspin. To agree is to dismantle the very walls that have kept her safe from heartbreak. It’s a direct violation of her entire emotional playbook. But to refuse is to lose Felicia, the first person who has made her consider wanting more.
"Meet The Friends" is a poignant and tense short film that follows Krys over one nerve-wracking evening as she stands at a crossroads. She must choose between the safety of her old ways or the terrifying, vulnerable leap of faith required to possibly win the heart of a woman who values connection over conquest.
C. Denise is a fearless creative force, a writer, director, and producer dedicated to bringing authentic, humanizing stories to the screen. Born and raised with the resilient spirit of Detroit, Michigan, she honed her craft earning a Bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
A natural storyteller, Denise began writing scripts in her early twenties, cultivating a unique gift for crafting narratives that resonate with real life for real people. Her work is characterized by its emotional honesty, finding the delicate balance between laughter and the uneasy truths that have the power to change perspectives and change lives.
While *Meet The Friends* marks her directorial debut, it is the culmination of a lifelong dream and a profound personal journey. A breast cancer survivor diagnosed in 2017 and in remission since 2018, she now lives with a renewed vigor and strength, working tirelessly to manifest her ambitions. She credits her relentless pursuit of these dreams to the unwavering support of her loving wife of 16 years, Angie, and their son, Austin.
Driven by a powerful mission to humanize marginalized communities, C.Denise founded Nolo’s Child Productions** as a tribute to her late mother, Carolyn “Nolo” Nolan, and the strong familial legacy she left behind. With a strong faith in the power of manifesting, C. Denise is not just a filmmaker; she is a visionary poised to create a lasting impact, with many more powerful stories waiting to be told.
Fried! — Lizzie Watts
As Dev drives home from a mysterious, aging nuclear facility, he becomes stranded at an isolated emu farm run by old mystic lesbians. Suspicious of their intentions, Dev fears they will sacrifice him at the local stone circle.
FRIED! is a folk-horror comedy which explores themes of hope and community. The story draws inspiration from new-age spiritualism, Greenham Common and the proximity of ancient and industrial ruins in the British landscape. Created almost entirely in Blender, FRIED! combines mixed-media techniques, 3D and 2D animation, hand-drawn charcoal, and 3D-scanned props. The film takes an experimental approach to 3D software, merging an expressive making style with a lo-fi, 'scruffy' CG aesthetic to evoke a uniquely handmade feeling.
Lizzie Watts is a director and artist. She studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and Directing Animation at the National Film and Television School. Lizzie's work embraces a unique and expressive style which combines an experimental approach to 3D software and 2D animation. Her films often intersect the mundane with the supernatural and she uses dark comedy as a tool to explore social power dynamics and political themes. Her work has been screened internationally at BAFTA and OSCAR qualifying festivals worldwide and in 2025 she was awarded a place on the GMAC Little Pictures filmmakers programme.
As Dev drives home from a mysterious, aging nuclear facility, he becomes stranded at an isolated emu farm run by old mystic lesbians. Suspicious of their intentions, Dev fears they will sacrifice him at the local stone circle.
FRIED! is a folk-horror comedy which explores themes of hope and community. The story draws inspiration from new-age spiritualism, Greenham Common and the proximity of ancient and industrial ruins in the British landscape. Created almost entirely in Blender, FRIED! combines mixed-media techniques, 3D and 2D animation, hand-drawn charcoal, and 3D-scanned props. The film takes an experimental approach to 3D software, merging an expressive making style with a lo-fi, 'scruffy' CG aesthetic to evoke a uniquely handmade feeling.
Lizzie Watts is a director and artist. She studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and Directing Animation at the National Film and Television School. Lizzie's work embraces a unique and expressive style which combines an experimental approach to 3D software and 2D animation. Her films often intersect the mundane with the supernatural and she uses dark comedy as a tool to explore social power dynamics and political themes. Her work has been screened internationally at BAFTA and OSCAR qualifying festivals worldwide and in 2025 she was awarded a place on the GMAC Little Pictures filmmakers programme.
Lo Sciocco — Coco Roy
Shot on super 8 we follow the fool on a journey of self reflection , sadness and acceptance.
Coco Roy is a filmmaker , artist and musician. Her films have been shown both locally and internationally. Predominately shooting on super 8, her films revolve around hidden memories , dreamscapes and the occult. Combining her love of art and filmmaking she often sews the costumes and creates the worlds in which her characters inhabit. When she isn’t busy on a filmset you can find her playing in Whyte Lipstick or swimming at the Y.
Shot on super 8 we follow the fool on a journey of self reflection , sadness and acceptance.
Coco Roy is a filmmaker , artist and musician. Her films have been shown both locally and internationally. Predominately shooting on super 8, her films revolve around hidden memories , dreamscapes and the occult. Combining her love of art and filmmaking she often sews the costumes and creates the worlds in which her characters inhabit. When she isn’t busy on a filmset you can find her playing in Whyte Lipstick or swimming at the Y.
Interference — Lila Woodbridge
"Interference" tells the story of one teenage boy’s struggle with paranoia and identity amidst the start of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s.
Lila Woodbridge is a filmmaker from Southcoast Massachusetts, now based in New York City. With a double major in film and psychology, her work as a filmmaker is equally rooted in the academic and artistic study of the human psyche. Her work often explores themes of queer relationships and identity, embracing darkness and surrealism to challenge conventional queer narratives. “Interference” is her first major project since graduating from college. Lila works professionally as a freelance commercial video editor in NYC.
"Interference" tells the story of one teenage boy’s struggle with paranoia and identity amidst the start of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s.
Lila Woodbridge is a filmmaker from Southcoast Massachusetts, now based in New York City. With a double major in film and psychology, her work as a filmmaker is equally rooted in the academic and artistic study of the human psyche. Her work often explores themes of queer relationships and identity, embracing darkness and surrealism to challenge conventional queer narratives. “Interference” is her first major project since graduating from college. Lila works professionally as a freelance commercial video editor in NYC.
Haiku — Christine Banna
Haiku is a 2D animated music video, for singer/songwriter Moira Smiley, created in response to the ongoing realities of genocide worldwide. Inspired by a haiku by Kobayashi Issa, the film follows a young woman split between two simultaneous states of being, reflecting the fracture between the beauties of everyday life and the persistent presence of human-made global violence and suffering.
Christine Banna is an Assistant Professor of Film and Animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Banna works in both technological and traditional processes with a focus on experimental animation and projection design for live performance.
She has most recently collaborated with Colorado State University’s Symphony Orchestra, Mount Hope World Singers chorus, and singer/songwriter Moira Smiley. Her recent film, Pink Pottery (2022), has screened globally and won several awards including, most recently, from the European Cultural Council (ECC) in Venice, Italy. It also screened at the Archaeology Channel conference and streaming through their broadcast series, Strata: Portraits of Humanity.
Haiku is a 2D animated music video, for singer/songwriter Moira Smiley, created in response to the ongoing realities of genocide worldwide. Inspired by a haiku by Kobayashi Issa, the film follows a young woman split between two simultaneous states of being, reflecting the fracture between the beauties of everyday life and the persistent presence of human-made global violence and suffering.
Christine Banna is an Assistant Professor of Film and Animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Banna works in both technological and traditional processes with a focus on experimental animation and projection design for live performance.
She has most recently collaborated with Colorado State University’s Symphony Orchestra, Mount Hope World Singers chorus, and singer/songwriter Moira Smiley. Her recent film, Pink Pottery (2022), has screened globally and won several awards including, most recently, from the European Cultural Council (ECC) in Venice, Italy. It also screened at the Archaeology Channel conference and streaming through their broadcast series, Strata: Portraits of Humanity.
Under The Whether — Putri Sarah Amelia
A woman feels something strange in her body but struggles to share her feelings with her daughter, who is caught up in her own world. Seeking connection, she gets closer to her daughter's cat, Piping, treating her like a child. However, everything shifts when Piping hits puberty, displaying disruptive behaviors that mirror her daughter.
Putri Sarah Amelia (she/her) is a lecturer, film writer, and director. Her research and work are mostly about humanitarian issues involving minority groups, identity, women, and gender equality. Her film Jemari yang Menari di atas Luka-Luka (Golden Frames in the Closet) has won national and international awards including the National Jury Winner at the Minikino Film Week 6, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2020 in Japan, Winner People’s Choice Award for Best Short Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2021, and won the Best Short Film of the 2020 Film Festival Indonesia (FFI). She is also an alumna of LOCK-Full Circle Lab Indonesia 2019. She currently works in the Bachelor of Film Program at Multimedia Nusantara University and continues to focus on making short films before having her feature debut.
Eliza Cheisa is a Jakarta-based film and series producer with notable works such as Agen +62 (Feature Film), The Aces (Amazon Prime) & Ex-Addicts Club (Netflix). Her recent projects in distribution include short films such as Under The Whether (2025) by Putri Sarah Amelia, Yuck & Yum! (2025) by Kurnia Alexander, Samu The Terrible and His Sin (2024) & aLPa (2025) by Dhiwangkara Seta, which gained many recognitions in various international film festivals. She is an alumni of Jakarta Film Week Producers Lab (2022) and Full Circle Lab Philippines Producers Lab (2023). In 2023, she founded Lune Features as her way to support emerging directors with distinct visions.
A woman feels something strange in her body but struggles to share her feelings with her daughter, who is caught up in her own world. Seeking connection, she gets closer to her daughter's cat, Piping, treating her like a child. However, everything shifts when Piping hits puberty, displaying disruptive behaviors that mirror her daughter.
Putri Sarah Amelia (she/her) is a lecturer, film writer, and director. Her research and work are mostly about humanitarian issues involving minority groups, identity, women, and gender equality. Her film Jemari yang Menari di atas Luka-Luka (Golden Frames in the Closet) has won national and international awards including the National Jury Winner at the Minikino Film Week 6, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2020 in Japan, Winner People’s Choice Award for Best Short Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2021, and won the Best Short Film of the 2020 Film Festival Indonesia (FFI). She is also an alumna of LOCK-Full Circle Lab Indonesia 2019. She currently works in the Bachelor of Film Program at Multimedia Nusantara University and continues to focus on making short films before having her feature debut.
Eliza Cheisa is a Jakarta-based film and series producer with notable works such as Agen +62 (Feature Film), The Aces (Amazon Prime) & Ex-Addicts Club (Netflix). Her recent projects in distribution include short films such as Under The Whether (2025) by Putri Sarah Amelia, Yuck & Yum! (2025) by Kurnia Alexander, Samu The Terrible and His Sin (2024) & aLPa (2025) by Dhiwangkara Seta, which gained many recognitions in various international film festivals. She is an alumni of Jakarta Film Week Producers Lab (2022) and Full Circle Lab Philippines Producers Lab (2023). In 2023, she founded Lune Features as her way to support emerging directors with distinct visions.
Dominion — McLean Fahnestock
Repeated bombing runs produce a unique type of destruction upon a landscape. Gold leafed munitions, promises of wealth and prosperity, burst upon the hills and coat them in developments; suburban housing tracts, parking lots, and strip malls erupt in the wake of golden plumes of smoke. After they have run out of land the lay waste to, the bombers begin to attack each other, the violence of convenience and expansion turning upon itself.
McLean Fahnestock is a Nashville based interdisciplinary artist who works who works with desire in the manufactured landscape and its violent consequences. The grandchild of an explorer, McLean Fahnestock seeks out footage, images, and items that expand our understanding of place, real and unreal, and question how we process the landscape into information to obtain knowledge. Her work has been exhibited and screened across the United States and Internationally at institutions such as the Aurora Picture Show and Menil Collection, Houston, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Black Mountain College Re{Happening}, North Carolina, Technisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, The California Science Museum, Los Angeles, The British Library, London, and MOCA Hiroshima, Japan. Her work was selected for Off the Screen at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Repeated bombing runs produce a unique type of destruction upon a landscape. Gold leafed munitions, promises of wealth and prosperity, burst upon the hills and coat them in developments; suburban housing tracts, parking lots, and strip malls erupt in the wake of golden plumes of smoke. After they have run out of land the lay waste to, the bombers begin to attack each other, the violence of convenience and expansion turning upon itself.
McLean Fahnestock is a Nashville based interdisciplinary artist who works who works with desire in the manufactured landscape and its violent consequences. The grandchild of an explorer, McLean Fahnestock seeks out footage, images, and items that expand our understanding of place, real and unreal, and question how we process the landscape into information to obtain knowledge. Her work has been exhibited and screened across the United States and Internationally at institutions such as the Aurora Picture Show and Menil Collection, Houston, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Black Mountain College Re{Happening}, North Carolina, Technisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, The California Science Museum, Los Angeles, The British Library, London, and MOCA Hiroshima, Japan. Her work was selected for Off the Screen at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Vestal Virgin Vengeance — Virginia L. Montgomery
Vestal Virgin Vengeance is a surreal, sculptural, non‑narrative and live‑action—that invokes the gaze and the mythic power of the Vestal Virgins to confront the crisis in Texas women’s healthcare, made in response to the 2024 deaths of Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain under Texas’s abortion ban. Shot en plein air on a miniature prop set and driven by a hands‑on material inquiry (the artist’s Dewalt® drill as femme aggression, honey as healing) with a synesthetic soundscape of Texas bird song, weather, and drills, the film fuses feminism, metaphysics, and image theory into a ritual of destruction, care, and sisterhood.
Virginia L. Montgomery (b. Houston, TX) is an award-winning experimental filmmaker and multimedia artist working across video, performance, sound design, and sculpture. She received her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from The University of Texas at Austin.
VLM is known for her surreal, synthesia-esque artworks which unite elements from mysticism, science, and her own neurodivergent world. Virginia L. Montgomery has had solo presentations with New Museum (NY), Midnight Moment at Times Square Arts (NY), Tate Film at Tate Modern (United Kingdom), and among others.
Vestal Virgin Vengeance is a surreal, sculptural, non‑narrative and live‑action—that invokes the gaze and the mythic power of the Vestal Virgins to confront the crisis in Texas women’s healthcare, made in response to the 2024 deaths of Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain under Texas’s abortion ban. Shot en plein air on a miniature prop set and driven by a hands‑on material inquiry (the artist’s Dewalt® drill as femme aggression, honey as healing) with a synesthetic soundscape of Texas bird song, weather, and drills, the film fuses feminism, metaphysics, and image theory into a ritual of destruction, care, and sisterhood.
Virginia L. Montgomery (b. Houston, TX) is an award-winning experimental filmmaker and multimedia artist working across video, performance, sound design, and sculpture. She received her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from The University of Texas at Austin.
VLM is known for her surreal, synthesia-esque artworks which unite elements from mysticism, science, and her own neurodivergent world. Virginia L. Montgomery has had solo presentations with New Museum (NY), Midnight Moment at Times Square Arts (NY), Tate Film at Tate Modern (United Kingdom), and among others.
Billo Rani — Angbeen Saleem
Billo Rani is a whimsical short film about Hafsa, a 12-year-old South Asian Muslim girl who feels insecure about her unibrow—until it comes to life as two animated aunties, Billo and Rani. These cheeky aunties provide both humor and wisdom as Hafsa navigates societal beauty standards and the pressures of fitting in. Through a mix of live-action and animation, Billo Rani explores themes of self-acceptance, cultural identity, and the magic of embracing what makes you unique, offering a heartfelt and humorous take on growing up.
Angbeen Saleem is a Pakistani Muslim artist, filmmaker, poet, and aspiring gardener originally from Philadelphia, PA. She works as a freelance digital strategist and graphic designer, blending visual storytelling with cultural and political insight. Her past roles include positions at North Star Fund, MTV, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Aspen Institute. Across mediums, she is drawn to storytelling as a way to foster learning, joy, and healing.
Her poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry 2021, Blood Orange Review, Pigeon Pages, The Margins, The Slowdown, and underblong, among other spaces across the literary multiverse. An installation of her poem “black and brown people on shark tank” is currently on display at Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia. Her debut short film, “Billo Rani,” premiered at the Oscar-qualifying Tasveer Film Festival in Seattle. She now lives in Brooklyn, NY with her dustmites, and shares work on Instagram @angribeen.
Billo Rani is a whimsical short film about Hafsa, a 12-year-old South Asian Muslim girl who feels insecure about her unibrow—until it comes to life as two animated aunties, Billo and Rani. These cheeky aunties provide both humor and wisdom as Hafsa navigates societal beauty standards and the pressures of fitting in. Through a mix of live-action and animation, Billo Rani explores themes of self-acceptance, cultural identity, and the magic of embracing what makes you unique, offering a heartfelt and humorous take on growing up.
Angbeen Saleem is a Pakistani Muslim artist, filmmaker, poet, and aspiring gardener originally from Philadelphia, PA. She works as a freelance digital strategist and graphic designer, blending visual storytelling with cultural and political insight. Her past roles include positions at North Star Fund, MTV, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Aspen Institute. Across mediums, she is drawn to storytelling as a way to foster learning, joy, and healing.
Her poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry 2021, Blood Orange Review, Pigeon Pages, The Margins, The Slowdown, and underblong, among other spaces across the literary multiverse. An installation of her poem “black and brown people on shark tank” is currently on display at Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia. Her debut short film, “Billo Rani,” premiered at the Oscar-qualifying Tasveer Film Festival in Seattle. She now lives in Brooklyn, NY with her dustmites, and shares work on Instagram @angribeen.
