FEATURES
The Entertainers (75 mins) : theentertainersmovie.com | View Trailer
A heartwarming documentary about six piano players striving to win the World Championship of Old-Time Piano (mostly ragtime). With brilliant showmanship and skill, these competitors vie for the glow of victory, for escape from the trials of their everyday lives, and for the revival of the first distinctly American popular music..
On the Mat (87 mins) | View Trailer
This documentary–produced and narrated by "Parks and Recreation" and "Moneyball" actor Chris Pratt–follows high school wrestlers in Lake Stevens, Washington, through a turbulent 2010–11 season in which the team was attempting to win its fourth state title in five years. Told predominantly through the eyes of five wrestlers, the film depicts an eventful and dramatic season.
The Sheik and I (110 mins)
cavehzahedi.com/films-plot-the-sheik-and-i.html | View Trailer
Commissioned by a Middle Eastern Biennial to make a film on the theme of "art as a subversive act," independent filmmaker Caveh Zahedi ("I Am a Sex Addict") goes overboard. Told that he can do whatever he wants except make fun of the Sheik, who rules the country and finances the Biennial, Zahedi decides to do just that, turning his camera on the Biennial itself. But his court jester antics fail to amuse. Zahedi’s film is banned for blasphemy and he is threatened with arrest and a fatwa.
Souvenirs: Healing After War (90 mins) : souvenirsdocumentary.com | View Trailer
Lyrical, intimate and sometimes humorous, "Souvenirs" is a eulogy in film. Following Vietnam Veteran Andy Pelecis’ suicide, his daughter Mara seeks to understand Why he was the way he was. In meeting with other war veterans, she witnesses the labyrinth of surviving the peace. With each Vet she meets, she finds a piece of her dad.
Things I Don’t Understand (110 mins) : tidu-film.com | View Trailer
In this comedic drama, a detached grad student forms a cathartic bond with a terminally ill girl she’s interviewing and a lonely bartender with a mysterious past while trying to prevent she and her artist roommates from being evicted from their rent-controlled loft.
Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines (62 mins)
wonderwomendoc.com | View Trailer
Featuring such famous faces as Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, and Gloria Steinhem, this documentary traces the fascinating evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman. From the birth of the comic book superheroine in the 1940s to the blockbusters of today, "Wonder Women" looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.
SHORTS
Another Dress, Another Button (3 mins., animated)
This stop-motion animated film explores the plight of the spare buttons: carefully saved, but never used.
The Flying House (8 mins., animated)
The final animated short by the "father of animation" Winsor McCay (‘Little Nemo in Slumberland,’ ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’) is reimagined by animator Bill Plympton.
A Girl Named Penny (8 mins., live action)
Sometimes a comfortable life needs to be turned upside down for one to realize what they are capable of.
An Incomplete History of the Travelogue (9 mins., documentary)
The form of the amateur ethnography is subverted to reflect upon our cultural anxiety and fascination with race, evolution, and civilization. This lyrical essay film captures the spirit of excess and adventure embodied by ‘The Great Gatsby’ (published in 1925) in fragments from home movies of a wealthy American family abroad in Europe and North Africa.
It’s such a beautiful day (23 mins., animated)
Nearly two years in the making, the third of Don Hertzfeldt’s three-part series follows the mysterious Bill into his final stages of madness.
The Maiden and the Princess (18 mins., live action)
Young Emmy Adams kisses a girl on the playground and is left feeling isolated and alone. The Grand High Council of Fairy Tale Rules and Standards led by Bernard (Julian Sands) sends her a hetero-normative fairytale to set her down the ‘right’ path in life.
Night Hunter (16 mins., animated, experimental)
In this handmade film, composed of more than 4,000 collages and shot in 35mm color, film legend Lillian Gish is seamlessly appropriated from silent-era cinema and plunged into a new and haunting role.
Paper Hallways (15 mins., live action)
Drunk and not alone, a lifelong janitor returns in the night to the school from which he’s been fired.
Peep Show (9 mins., live action)
This Hardacre favorite—winner of our Best Short Film award in 1999—follows a thrill-seeking woman as she enters a peep show. Instead of a sexually charged striptease, she is pleasantly surprised as this comedy comes to climax.
Shinobi Blues (7 mins., animated)
A ninja tries to find a job in the modern world after being dishonorably discharged from his dojo in order to care of his daughter.
Summer Bummer (2 mins., animated)
A man about to go swimming imagines what horrors could be lurking deep in in the waters of his backyard pool.
Things My Father Never Taught Me (7 mins., live action)
Melvin gives useless dating advice to his 3-year-old son. He teaches him to dress well, act with confidence, and spend time in the right places. Everything goes horribly wrong, until Melvin meets Mary, an attractive single mother. After a clumsy romantic advance, Melvin is shot down and forced to reconsider his role as romance expert.
Tiffany the Whale in ‘Death on the Runway’ (9 mins., animated)
A young and earnest Tiffany makes her fashion debut in an attempt to be the most unlikely of supermodels and rejoin her beloved male model, Conrad.
Valentine Road: A Kidnapping at Castelle Manor (15 mins., live action)
The first part of this Iowa-shot historical gangster drama serves as a prologue to the story of The Man in Black and The Man in Brown.
Waiting for Her Sailor (1 min., animated)
Waiting for her sailor to return home, a woman on a cliff watches closely as a ship approaches. She learns that it’s all a matter of perspective.
Wallenda (20 mins., live action)
Set in 1920s Germany, high-wire legend Karl Wallenda’s journey as a young man answering an advertisement for a handstand artist to capturing the hearts of a demanding audience by his daring and courage on the wire.
A Year-Long Morning (9 mins., live action)
A car is taken, and the woman who used to call it home is left with a black eye, a knife, and the need to get it back.
