Back at the Staircase

“The films in the Beyond Program exhibit singular directorial vision while sharing a common commitment to challenge audiences to step outside their comfort zones,” says Beyond programmer, Josh Mandel. “These bold and adventurous filmmakers represent the most current voices in American independent film, and will continue to push boundaries in the years ahead.”Along with continued standout programming in every category, Anarchy Shorts promises another year of exuberantly subversive cinema. “The Department of Anarchy has curated a diverse program of sublime, dangerous, and deviant films that provide shock therapy to the soul.” says Anarchy Shorts programmer, Noel Lawrence. “We hope to provoke, challenge, and enlighten audiences by smashing the status quo on any and all levels.”

BEYOND PROGRAM

Back at the Staircase (USA) World Premiere Director: Drew Britton Five distinctive people, each with a flimsy coping strategy, find themselves stuck together after an accident. Cast: Jennifer Lafleur, Stephen Plunkett, Leonora Pitts, Mickey O’Hagan, Logan Lark, Heather LaVine Funny Story (USA) World Premiere Director: Michael Gallagher After years of being a neglectful father, a womanizing TV star decides to crash his estranged daughter’s vacation in Big Sur. Cast: Matthew Glave, Emily Bett Rickards, Jana Winternitz, Nikki Limo, Lily Holleman, Jessica Diggins, Pete Gardner, Reginald VelJohnson My Name is Myeisha (USA) World Premiere Director: Gus Krieger A beloved teenager crosses over into a hip-hop-musical dreamscape at the moment of her tragic death and contemplates her life; what it was and what it could have been. Cast: Rhaechyl Walker, John Merchant, Dominique Toney, Dee Dee Stephens, Yvette Cason, Gregg Daniel The Rainbow Experiment (USA) World Premiere Director: Christina Kallas An investigation uncovers more than just blame at a Manhattan high school when a science experiment permanently injures a student. Cast: Chris Beetem, Francis Benhamou, Christian Coulson, Kevin Kane, Nina Mehta, Laura Pruden, Connor Siemer, Lauren Sowa, Swann Gruen, Christine McLaughlin Savage Youth (USA) World Premiere Director: Michael Curtis Johnson The lives of six troubled teens in a racially-divided small town take a violent turn over drugs and broken hearts. Based on true events. Cast: Grace Victoria Cox, Tequan Richmond, Will Brittain, Chloe Levine, Mitchell Edwards, J. Michael Trautmann, Sasha Feldman, Tomas Pais

NARRATIVE SHORTS

The 99 Steps Left from the Square (Finland, Turkey) Director: Sevgi Eker The iron gate safeguarding an old man’s peace is opened. Cast: Sirin Erensoy, Yasemin Erensoy, Salih Kalafatoglu, Hasan Kurun Abbas Kiarostami; The Director (Iran) Director: Mohsen Khodabakhshi A boy wants to take a photo with Abbas Kiarostami… Cast: Mani Sherafat – Nazli Gorgani – Shahed Sherafat Audition (USA) Director: Richard Van Unable to find a sitter, an aspiring actress has no choice but to drag her 3-year old son to her audition. Cast: Shaquita Lopez, Nezih Lopez, Ernest Walker Jr, Laura Price Clean Blood (USA) World Premiere Director: Jordan Michael Blake A family drama about Christmas, The Apocalypse and an IMMACULATELY PREGNANT man. Cast: Jordan Michael Blake, Stephanie Allynne Falling (USA) World Premiere Director: Ewen Wright A potentially psychosomatic white man, a woman stuck in a vortex of “man-splaining,” and a young black man caught in a racially charged standoff are set on a collision course as society falls apart around them in this absurdist dark comedy. Cast: Sarah Hollis, Elijah Reed, Davey Johnson Flatbush Misdemeanors (USA) Director: Dan Perlman, Kevin Iso Longtime friends Dan and Kevin adjust to their evolving surroundings in the unforgiving environment of Flatbush, Brooklyn. A raw comedy of city life. Cast: Drew Dowdey, Kareem Green, Kevin Iso, Dan Perlman Goodbye, Brooklyn (USA) World Premiere Director: Daniel Jaffe Struggling with New York living, Dana Schapiro decides to move, saying goodbye to a neighborhood that can barely remember who she is… Cast: Michelle Uranowitz, Angela Pietropinto, Luke Marinkovich, Ione Saunders Hail Mary Country (USA) World Premiere Director: Tannaz Hazemi Macho grandmother Irene Dandy has to defend her family of football fanatics from a gang led by a cocky thief named Nora. Cast: Vera Cherny, Catherine Taber, Lori Jean Wilson, Alison Yates Iris (Canada) Director: Gabrielle Demers As the storm rages outside a special lust for Laura grows inside Emanuelle. Cast: Marie Babbini, Daphné Germain Katalysis (Sweden) World Premiere Director: Ashley Michael Briggs A doctor and an artist use Anna’s body as an tool to further their own professional progress. Cast: Moa Nilsson, Adam Stålhammar, Peter Hildén, Anna Ladegaard The Knits (Canada) US Premiere Director: Lisa Birke A sweater, lovingly and arduously knit by a mother, incrementally unravels as her daughter treks her way across Canada by foot. Cast: Barbara Birke; Lisa Birke Magic Bullet (USA) World Premiere Director: Amanda Lovejoy Street A psychologist combats grief with self-soothing rituals; a shopping network host obliterates hers in a self-destructive haze. They collide in a televised confrontation. Cast: Rosemarie DeWitt, Molly Parker Night on Floating Island (Australia) North American Premiere Director: Jack Atherton From a storm drain, a strange man watches a tourist rollerblading through an unfamiliar nightscape in search of his missing girlfriend or an anonymous sexual encounter in a park. Cast: Gavin Drumm, Annie Schofield, André Shannon, Kate Coates Ok, Call Me Back (USA) Director: Emily Ann Hoffman Craving companionship, a woman leaves a voicemail late at night. Cast: Emily Ann Hoffman Onikuma (Italy, USA) Director: Alessia Cecchet Surrounded by a foreign landscape, two women will understand that demons can come in different forms. Cast: Sandy Siquier, Sarineh Garapetian Parthenon (USA) Director: Frank Mosley A naked body moves a stranger to empathy. Cast: Lily Baldwin, Tallie Medel, Thiago Martins Reunion 1 (USA) World Premiere Director: Brock Neilson The artist re-enters a space from their childhood as an adult and is struck both by the haunting tone of the setting and an indelible memory from the past. Rupture (Jordan, Canada) US Premiere Director: Yassmina Karajah Rupture follows the journey of four Arab kids whose repressed traumas surface during their quest to find a public pool in their new city. Cast: Asaad Al Arid Salam Almarzouq Hussein Al Ahmad Wazira Al Ahmad Slap Happy (Canada) US Premiere Director: Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli A dysfunctional couple with a penchant for twisted sexual fantasies fight to stay together as their relationship crumbles over the course of a day. Cast: Jesse LaVercombe, Madeleine Sims-Fewer That Thing (USA) World Premiere Director: Dan Roe Tabby is conflicted about Patrick’s sexual quirk. Cast: Claire Lucido, Sam Yarabek The Things You Think I’m Thinking (Canada) US Premiere Director: Sherren Lee A black male burn-survivor and amputee goes on a date with a regularly-abled man for the first time since his accident, ten years ago. Cast: Prince Amponsah, Jesse LaVercombe Transmission (USA) Director: Morgan McGlothan Father, daughter, and her 1999 Toyota Camry. Cast: Darrin McGlothan, Morgan McGlothan The Troubled Troubadour (South Korea) North American Premiere Director: Forest Ian Etsler & Sébastien Simon An embittered old musician embarks on a journey which becomes the outward manifestation of his inner landscape. Cast: Kasuga “Hachi” Hirofumi, Tetsu Kono, Lee Hwajin, Kang Saneh Welcome To Bushwick (USA) World Premiere Director: Henry Jinings On the heels of a successful first date, Evan and Marceline end up back at her place. Cast: Tim Platt, Liba Vaynberg Whales (Iran) North American Premiere Director: Behnam Abedi A police officer and a soldier are assigned to investigate a case wherein seven dead bodies are found on a beach. Cast: Majid Norouzi, Khosrow Shahraz, Majid Aghakarimi

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS PROGRAM

Big Surf (USA) Director: Brian Smee San Francisquito Cyn, March 12th, 1928: The sound a horse makes as it’s drowning. Do I Have Boobs Now? (Canada) Director: Milena Salazar, Joella Cabalu A trans activist’s journey to challenge Facebook and Instagram’s censorship policies. Ex Nihilo (Finland) World Premiere Director: Timo Wright Ex Nihilo is an experimental short documentary about a doomsday seed vault, an advanced robot and a cryonics facility. Homeland (Belgium) Director: Sam Peeters Homeland is a creative documentary about right-wing populism and narrow-mindedness in the Belgian suburbs. House (Iceland, USA) Director: Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson A meditation on emigration and immigration, house and home. Icon (Poland) US Premiere Director: Wojciech Kasperski An old doctor who has spent his life working at a psychiatric hospital in the Siberian countryside – The place, which was inaccessible for film crews, can be shown thanks to its residents, some of whom spent several decades at the hospital. The Last Man You Meet (USA) Director: Chris Bone Take an exclusive look inside the gritty business of death as a third-generation funeral director reflects on his life. Lorem Ipsum (pain itself) (USA) Director: Gabrielle Kash A handmade look at why artists hate making, and keep making art. Nueva Vida (USA) Director: Jonathan Seligson A ball, some brains, and a lot of fluids. A cautionary true tale on the dangers of playing soccer from my dear brother, Kenny. Phototaxis (USA) Director: Melissa Ferrari Rooted in nonfiction, “Phototaxis” connects Mothman, a prophetic demon in West Virginia folklore, and Narcotics Anonymous, the primary treatment program in West Virginia’s addiction epidemic. Pocket Sized Feminism (USA) Director: Valerie Schenkman “This house is for wallpaper women. What good is wallpaper that speaks?” Women speak out about women’s rights, or human rights. Quiet Hours (USA) Director: Paul Szynol Donald Hall, America’s Poet Laureate and winner of the National Medal of Arts, lives in the fragile space between loneliness and solitude. Taobao (USA) Director: Noah Sheldon Modelling for China’s largest online shopping site, Taobao. True Love in Pueblo Textil (Cuba, USA) US Premiere Director: Horatio Baltz Nine-year-old Maribel explains to us how it feels to be stricken with the world’s oldest infliction: love. Where Are You From (USA, China) Director: Xizi “Cecilia” Hua In a world where western values dominate, coming to America as a “Parachute Kid” makes the filmmaker feel ashamed of her “Chinese” and “foreign” identity.

ANIMATION SHORTS PROGRAM

Airport (Switzerland, Croatia) Director: Michaela Müller An exploration of the place in modern society where the limits of borders, security, and tolerance are constantly tested. Ascribed Achievements (Iran) Director: Samaneh Shojaei A man’s suicide attempt leads to the idea that fate is breakable. Black Dog (USA) Director: Joshua Dean Tuthill A dark family drama set during the space race of the 1960’s, utilizing stop-motion animation and archival footage to elucidate a time of heated social and political tension. Gusla ou les Malins (France) US Premiere Director: Adrienne Nowak Adrienne goes back to Poland to see her grandmother and ask her family about communism. In their cozy kitchen she will learn about the spirits that haunt the Polish imagination and the unexpected superstitions used to face them. Icebergs (USA, Greece) North American Premiere Director: Eirini Vianelli An existential, dark comedy of 14 stop-motion vignettes both mundane and absurd. Interstitial (Japan) North American Premiere Director: Shunsaku Hayashi A hybrid project of a painting and additive animation exploring a spacelessness of humanity in the defined space of a canvas of a continuous horizon. Mak (USA) Director: Natalya Serebrennikova Searching for opium, Big Macs, and cultural identity, a teenager visits her hometown in Russia and finds that her best friend has already grown up. Mountain Castle Mountain Flower Plastic (USA) Director: Annapurna Kumar The most efficient containers can store multiple pieces of information in the same location, intersecting from different angles. Railment (Japan) Director: Shunsaku Hayashi In the anonymous crowds of commuter rail lines, it’s possible to move at high speeds while remaining perfectly still. The Realm of Deepest Knowing (South Korea) Director: Kim Seung-hee A playful exploration of how knowing someone on the deepest level becomes a love that spans across objects. Red Fat Cat (Germany) Director: Klaus Hoefs A singer-songwriter animation confronting the dichotomy of drowned refugees washing up on a public beach while residents go about their settled, everyday lives filled with antique cars, dogs, and cats. Satellite Strangers (USA) World Premiere Director: James Bascara A zoom into a microscopic world reveals a strange cacophony.

EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS PROGRAM

38 River Road (USA, Switzerland) Director: Josh Weissbach Fear resides in the gesture of a telling. Are you tired of forever? (USA) World Premiere Director: Caitlin Craggs A surreal meditation on the experience of self. Cloud Of Petals (USA) Director: Sarah Meyohas At the former Bell Labs, sixteen workers photograph 100,000 individual rose petals to map out an artificial intelligence algorithm that learns to generate new petals forever. I’m Not Sure (Germany) World Premiere Director: Gabriel Hensche By confronting an app with Surrealist paintings I’m Not Sure explores the psychology of artificial intelligence. No Stories Now (USA) Director: CT Bishop Hopefully, in moving toward weakness, there can be recognition of false relief. Silica (Australia, UK) Director: Pia Borg An unseen location scout explores an opal mining town in South Australia in this sci-fi-laced essay film, which finds in this semi-deserted region both the traces of indigenous culture and remnants of cinema history.

ANARCHY SHORTS PROGRAM

AniMal (Iran) Director: Bahram Ark, Bahman Ark A man disguises himself as a ram to cross a border into another land. Cast: Davoud Nourpour Breaker (Japan) Director: Philippe McKie In tomorrow’s Tokyo, the technologically-enhanced body of a young mercenary hacker is overrun by a sentient data weapon. Cast: Yuka Tomatsu / Arisa Hanzawa / Kazuya Shimizu Clipping. – “Back Up” (USA) US Premiere Director: Anna Zlokovic An unnamed filmmaker stumbles upon a horrifying discovery—an underground cult-like society where adults have baby faces and milk is the drug of choice. Cast: Daveed Diggs, Antwon, Signor Benedick The Moor Information Superhighway (USA) World Premiere Director: Mathew Nelson A man participates in an experiment to test artificial intelligence in driverless cars. Cast: Luke Banham, Elias Harger, Anna Faye Hunter , Michael Lee Little Wonder (USA) World Premiere Director: Jojo Carlman This refreshing tale of puppet sexuality follows Username: Stray_Cat as he trolls internet dating sites and vaguely meditates on the loneliness of death. Cast: Christine Moore, Daegan Palmero, Brisco Diggs, and David Breen III Love After TIme (Taiwan) Director: Tsai Tsung-han After a nuclear explosion, two mutant humans fall in love. Cast: Lee Hong chi, Nana Lee Manila Death Squad (Phillipines, USA) Director: Dean Colin Marcial An ambitious journalist challenges the leader of a violent vigilante group to a high-stakes drinking game. Its outcome may score her a scoop… or a bullet to the head. Cast: Sid Lucero, Annicka Dolonius The Order of the Orchid (USA) World Premiere Director: Alex Italics A lonely spinster’s failed attempt at arranging flowers summons an ominous shadowy figure that sends her into a psychedelic netherworld to confront her own mediocrity. Cast: Juliette James, Sean T. Randolph Santa Ana (Spain, USA) North American Premiere Director: César Pesquera Part art-film, part documentary, Santa Ana aims to elucidate the link between evil and the famed Santa Ana winds, extremely dry down-slope winds in Southern California supposedly responsible for a tense, uneasy, wrathful mood among the people of Los Angeles. Steve’s Kinkoes (USA) World Premiere Director: Emma Debany A man copies posters for his missing (and dead) cat at an otherworldly 24/7 photocopy shop. What will happen to him if he stays forever? Cast: Timmy Gibson, Chance Bartels, John Archer Lundgren