Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field
6.5A magical girl, who exists outside of space and time, inhabits an odd, timeless landscape that is both old and modern, and spends her days playing and collecting objects from history, things that she loves.
4.4"Connected" is a about two lonesome people who find each other via a chance encounter on a subway train. They experience happiness in one another for a brief moment in their lives until circumstances out of their control rip them apart. However their paths may once again intersect down the line.
5.0A teenage girl is held captive in the home of a wealthy family. She is befriended by the family's young gardener, himself an illegal from Mexico. Their friendship carries both of them through their hopeless, sequestered lives and ultimately inspires them to break free.
7.2A story through a child's eyes about living through a drought.
4.8A short coming-of-Age film about two boys, first love, and a kite that reunites them 20-years later.
Is perfection real or is it an abstract concept unattainable in life? A fetishist sees the perfect pair of feet and goes to great lengths to meet them (and the woman to whom they're attached). He talks it over with his shrink (an axilla fetishist), sees the mystery woman remove her shoes at a Japanese restaurant (he sneaks over to her shoes and traces the sole of one in order to buy her a pair that will fit), and follows her, shoe box in hand, until the right moment. Meanwhile, we learn something about her own fetish when she sneaks into a hospital and puts on a nurse's outfit. When the moment of their meeting is at hand, will she accept his gift?
Two men carry a palm tree through an endless desert to an unknown destination. Los Hervideros (Seething with Rage) is an audiovisual parable about the origin of human conflicts.
5.9Two teenagers are drawn together by the Buzzcocks' single 'Love You More' during the summer of 1978.
6.9Five maids in São Paulo are observed in this episodic, impressionistic film. The women interact with each other, ride busses, work, and have longings: Rai for a husband, Créo for her lost daughter, Roxane for a career in modeling. Quitéria is naive, a gull for thieves. Cida has a husband and also a lover. While each woman gets what she wishes for (more or less), it doesn't always make things better.
7.0Meet Pietro Angeli, a man haunted by a tragedy in his past, and Chan, a prostitute in search for a better life. Both alone in the crowd and constantly seeking for redemption. Maybe, despite everything, it's never too late to start dancing again.
6.0Hector's father just died. His girlfriend just left him for an older man and returned to her parents' home, taking their eleven-year-old sons to meet her "new" father. Hector is drunk and is wearing light cavalry armor borrowed from an ambulance driver he knows. There is a medieval festival going on and the town gets on fire.
4.5An unhappy artist finally decides to paint a self-portrait but with the appearance of a wealthy person, with a car and a country house. What he does not imagine is that his portrait will compete with him for the same woman ...
6.0Pablo confesses a crime to Anders, who has a hidden agenda.
4.8The short film depicts the life of a boy who is constantly sexually abused by his father. Leonardo Miggiorin brilliantly plays the role of this boy, who belongs to a poor and unstructured family.
