Rojin is a maid at a chic hotel in London. When she overhears a hotel guest, memories of her past in Iran, a country she fled long ago, come rushing back. Finding herself In a position to wreak revenge on her torturer, Rojin must consider the ultimate question: Can she forgive if she can never forget? Kurdish women in Iran suffer abuse and a form of double-discrimination, due their ethnicity and their gender. Perpetrators of this abuse are rarely caught and even more rarely punished. Rojin is the latest short film from award-winning production company Poisson Rouge Pictures.
2010
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
33 minutes
Director:
Ben Hur Sepehr
On a rainy night near a concentration camp being bombed during the waning years of WWII, the son of a top-ranking and fearsome Nazi General is mortally wounded. With the camp's doctor having been transferred to the eastern front, the only doctor who is available to perform the life-saving surgery is a condemned, elderly Jewish inmate at the camp.
Upon summoning the man, the General commands the Jewish doctor to perform the surgery, but the doctor refuses, saying that he will not help his enemy to continue to massacre his own people. The General threatens the doctor's life, and the camp's Commandant is only too happy to oblige, but the doctor still replies that his life will end soon in the camp's ovens anyway. The General then offers freedom to the doctor if he cooperates. The doctor still refuses. The General then begs the doctor to save his only son, but the doctor then objects that the Nazis did not save his only son but hanged him for smuggling food in to starving ghetto children. Then all the General's hopes are dashed as the distant sounds of a prison train can be heard approaching the camp.
With the General at an impasse, he discovers that he must connect with the underlying humanity that connects them both as fathers before there is to be any hope for his son.
Narrative Feature
United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
39 minutes
Director:
Mary Sweeney
Set in bountiful rural Wisconsin, Baraboo follows six people who have each carved a life out at Petersen's Cabins, a rundown motel/resort. Some are there by choice, others by circumstance. They circle one another with caution, desire, anger and compassion, inching their way toward understanding.
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
5 minutes
Director:
Tim Miller
Two tortured souls spend a leisurely afternoon lamenting life, cheese and their mere existence, unaware of the imminent danger of their predicament.
Narrative Feature
United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
40 minutes
Director:
Frank Pestarino
Heartwrenching coming of age film set in 1989 blue collar New York. Four teens meander through love and tragedy, bonded by a secret that would seal their fate. Outstanding performances from all drive the film that will engulf the audience in tension and the brutal reality of teenage life from the opening credits.
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
25 minutes
Director:
Nathan Fisher
The world as we know it has ended, and Thomas survives each new day locked up alone inside his missing neighbor's fallout shelter. The oppressive boredom is occasionally punctuated by the pleas of survivors outside, but Thomas greets them with indifference and even hostility. In a brief moment of "weakness" he allows a young girl inside his world, but is his desire for companionship enough to overcome his instinct to survive?
In this followup to his successful 2009 release Beyond the Wall of Sleep, Nathan Fisher takes us into a world gone mad and into the mind of one survivor as he tries to determine what makes a life worth living.
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
20 minutes
Director:
Carlo Besasie
Michael, a down on his luck, love-less bag boy, learns that world-famous, concert violinist Nicholas Rentz is going to be performing for a few nights in his home town. Bearing a resemblance to the musician (a well-known bachelor with female fans around the globe), Michael hatches an elaborate plan to impersonate him with the hope that he can trick a woman or two into thinking he's the genuine article and get lucky. But when he meets a classy young woman at a ritzy nightclub and is poised to seal the deal, things take an unexpected turn.
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
12 minutes
Director:
Joel Moffett
Poi Dogs is the story of two local Hawaiian teenagers and their awkward attempts at expressing a budding romantic interest in each other. Toa, a tough-acting lineman on a crappy high school football team, has just lost the big game. Distraught and alone, he drives home on his old ramshackle moped, which breaks down in the shadow of an abandoned sugar mill. Anela, the tough-acting tuba player on his teams marching band, walks up and tries to console him. Ashamed, Toa pushes her away. After a tense fight, Toa and Anela find common ground by overcoming their pride and accepting each other's help. In the end, Poi Dogs illustrates the first small step towards love by two guarded teenagers.
Documentary Feature
United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
36 minutes
Director:
Ethan Dufault
This film is the story of an 86-year-old, war veteran poet, Peter Kane Dufault, as he comes to terms with his past and the collective sense of a threatened future. This is a story about connection and loss, both personal and political. Through on-screen interactions with his son, two Nobel laureates and the actor Chris Noth, Peter reveals how poetic language and imagination can bridge the rifts that open between individuals and the larger political, environmental and emotional landscape of their lives.
The actor Chris Noth pays a visit to the poet, who was once his American history teacher and soccer coach. He recalls the formative influence the old man had on his life. They play soccer together. Peter and his son travel to Cape May to find the declining American kestrel. Peter recites a poem about his deceased daughter who brought him a fledgling kestrel to raise. A kestrel appears as if "quarried out of a rainbow," the symbol of all that is vanishing from what's left of the American wilderness. He expresses his outrage at the past administration's piecemeal demolition of the Constitution in a poem called "Blues Recitative," and acknowledges his disappointment with the present administration. In the end, Peter admits that he's glad that he doesn't have to teach American history any more. He observes a colony of seals plunging into a stormy surf, reflecting on the mortal entity that the earth has become. He walks away, alone, vanishing into the mist.
Narrative Short
Nigeria, United States
Runtime:
8 minutes
Director:
Anthony Onah
Agbo, a previously-deported, Nigerian immigrant, runs the streets of downtown LA after smuggling her way back into America. From a church to a shelter to a bus station, she tries to stay hidden while being pursued. When she is finally cornered, Agbo is forced to make a decision that will alter her future like none before.