Covering subjects from small business owners to rural activists, these documentaries engage us with the personal histories and values of individuals and groups.

The Art of Avila Rose

Elsis Saravia, Michelle Gao, Isaiah Molinga-Puletasi, Yulieth Aguilar and Sojo Titus | California | Age 14-17

Isaac Vazquez Avila and Lauren Rose D’Amato reveal their working process and ethos as the artists and owners of Avila Rose Signs, a custom sign shop in San Francisco, CA.

Protect What You Love

Mia Lazar | Virginia | Age 19

Through interviews with local activists, this exposé charts the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s impact on the people of Appalachia and reveals why they fight so hard to protect the land they love.

Carry me in

Rebecca Miriam Penner | California | Age 22

This delicate personal essay film tracks the filmmaker’s connection with insects from their childhood fascination to their development of late-stage Lyme Disease as a young adult.

Orchestra. Portrait

Daria Litvichenko | Estonia | Age 19

A sensory portrait of the Tallinn University Symphony Orchestra that follows them on their tour to Järva-Jaani, showing how timeless music transforms a small Estonian town.

Nisqually Moving Forward

Caleb Jacobson | Oregon | Age 20

Legendary tribal leader Billy Frank Jr. dedicated his life to protecting fishing and land rights. His son, Nisqually Chairman Willie Frank III continues his father’s legacy and shares a vision for a path forward.

The Last Page

Kota Nakamura | Japan | Age 22

In the suburbs of Tokyo, an elderly bookseller reflects on his antiquarian bookstore that is on the verge of closure due to the pandemic.

Bonds are tested and renewed in these heartfelt stories of sibling rivalry and solidarity, revealing the ways brothers and sisters shape each other’s character.

Note: Films in this program may not be suitable for all ages.

Films

My Brother’s Keeper

Mariah Barrera | New York | Age 18

Combining family photos and dramatic footage, the filmmaker crafts a lyrical look at her father’s experiences with brotherhood, incarceration, and the relationship between the two.

Escape

Laura Hadsund Baarstrøm | Denmark | Age 18

Fearing her neglectful parents will split them apart, teenaged Freja takes her younger brother into the woods. Insecurity over their escape settles in as she reflects on being a responsible older sister.

Stranger

Chloe Caufield | Arizona | Age 20

Filmmaker Chloe Caufield creates a tender portrait of her brother, who shares his journey with autism and how it has shaped his perception and expression of self.

Delta

Jules St-Jean | Canada | Age 22

Three sisters journey to fulfill the dying wish of their father: scattering his ashes at Prince Edward Island. Together they recollect their complicated family history, a life filled with both darkness and light.

Bru’dhars

Sriram Papolu | Michigan | Age 20

Through his own tumultuous relationship and often violent power dynamic with his little brother, a young man confronts his own trauma from a generational cycle of abuse.

Our city has proven once again to be fertile ground for filmmakers to find sources of creative self-expression, and these shorts are a mere sample of what the future holds for Chicago cinema.

Note: Films in this program may not be suitable for all ages.

Films

RAICES

Andres Aurelio | Chicago/Mexico | Age 21

Reflecting on his passion for gardening, a man finds the source of this infatuation in Mexico. Now living in the United States, he seeks to plant his pride from the Mexico family garden into his new one.

Love Stories

Elizabeth Myles | Chicago | Age 21

Unique love stories are touchingly explored from multiple perspectives through experimental animation of archival personal photographs, investigating what it means to love in this world.

Miniature Vacation

Samantha Ocampo | Chicago| Age 16

In this visual adaptation of her own poem, filmmaker Samantha Ocampo reveals the little local things she appreciates in her life that help her escape the day-to-day banality.

A Wolf Comes at Night

Nathan Marquez | Chicago | Age 22

An ominous presence comes from out of the darkness, terrorizing a cattle farm where a frightened grandfather and his grandchildren are trying to protect themselves and the farm.

Face Me

Ty Yamamoto | Chicago | Age 21

This provocative look into Hollywood’s history examines the use of yellowface and its continued impact on the Asian-American community by projecting media onto the faces of the younger generation.

De Sol a Sol

Shira Baron | Chicago | Age 21

On warm summer days you can find Abraham and Ricardo selling ice cream along the Chicago lakefront, but a new perspective offers a glimpse into the often harrowing experiences of ice cream men.

Stuck in the System

Ameerah Connor, Kala Dismuke, Matthew Echols, Rajuan Barnes | Chicago | Age 14-17

Students from Free Spirit Media explore the topic of racialized mass incarceration and the U.S, prison system, asking why petty crimes have caused minorities to make up the majority of inmates.

Fear

Marjorie Matamoros | Chicago | Age 19

Visiting desolate and lonely spaces around Chicago, a young woman recites a poem exploring her fears and their relationship to her own grieving process.

71 Seconds

Jazmin Bryant | Chicago | Age 20

Mirroring the final moments in the life of Treyvon Martin and imagining the 71 seconds unaccounted for in the official report of his murder, an ordinary day takes a tragic turn in an all too common way, reminding everyone that Black Lives Matter.

As We Are Planted

Anna Lee Ackermann | Chicago | Age 21

To combat the effects of food insecurity in the South Side of Chicago, Just Roots Chicago and Saint James Catholic Church unite to bring fresh produce and smiles to the local community.

Phenomenally Me

Sahrmaria Wright, Jakia Walker, Amanee Muhammad, and Iyanna Jordon | Chicago | Age 16-17

This empowering portrait of four African American teen girls from Chicago explores the way hair shapes their individuality, expresses their creativity, and builds their confidence.

Fear Frenzy

Nikki Milan Houston | Chicago | Age 21

After starting the fear-based competition game show Fear Frenzy to patch up his marriage, Tony must come to terms with how the game caters to a complacent audience only interested in watching him suffer.

Children Play With Fire

Samuel Johnson/Jakari Thompson | Chicago | Age 19-20

There’s a party going on in Chicago’s South Side neighborhood Bronzeville, and Kari asks his brother to pick something up from the store. What follows is a devastating journey through time and memory.

Dois Estágios

Lua Borges | Chicago/Brazil | Age 21

Exploring the beginning and end of a bloodline, this film delves into the personal history of the filmmaker’s family and illustrates her longing memory of Brazil.

Experience the radically inventive approaches to image-making from these young visionaries, who create a cinematic language all their own.

Note: Films in this program may not be suitable for all ages.

Films

I Am He Who Created Himself

Emma Penaz Eisner | California | Age 17

Joining with his shadow, the first god creates himself as the progenitor of humanity. This surrealistic mix of stop motion, time lapse photography, and live action sequences re-imagine the Heliopolitan creation story.

Wonderland

Ella Fields | California | Age 15

Waking up on the beach, a young girl battles peer pressure to find her own happy place in an absurd, dreamlike world full of animal masks and eyeball munching loonies.

Home(sick)ness

Daria Litvichenko | Estonia | Age 18

Observational photography finds poetry in the everyday as Estonians living abroad share their memories of home, reflecting on their old routines and the wonderful quiet.

Life’s a Blur

Shaun Louis Calleja | Malta | Age 21

A visual, abstract expressionist piece that finds vivid street lights meshing and colliding together to create a transcendent experience out of ordinary objects.

The Rose of Manila

Alex Westfall | Rhode Island/The Philippines | Age 22

Archival footage and reenactments evoke a formative moment in the life of young Imelda Marcos, the infamous wife of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, to investigate the nature of beauty and love.

CELEBRITISM

Mia Neumann | Chicago | Age 22

Hundreds of celebrity faces align in this kaleidoscopic collage, where endlessly generated media images create icons whose reality degenerates when fed to us at incredible speeds.

Same Everything

Rachel Bowman | Chicago | Age 18

Chaotic text, music, and multiple exposed images represent the inner state of two teenage girls discussing feelings of fear, apathy, and uncertainty about growing up as they get ready for a New Year’s Eve rave.

Wash Day

Kourtney Jackson | Canada | Age 22

As they prepare for the day ahead, three young Black women discuss the public perception of their Blackness in relation to their cultivation of a strong sense of self.

I look back and it’s gone

Teona Galgoțiu | Romania | Age 21

Hoping to find a way to keep important memories from disappearing, three subjects interact with an experimental device designed to reconstruct memory fragments.

Provocative and emotional, these shorts exhibit the power and resilience of survivors as they reflect on and recover from personal traumas.

Note: Films in this program may not be suitable for all ages.

Films

The Lord’s Day

Simon Weizineau | Canada | Age 18

To get over his Sunday boredom, a young Atikamekw wanders around killing time with friends, reminiscing about troubles at school and his dogs.

Moira

Mckenna Ryan | Canada | Age 20

Slipping out of the present and into the liminal unconscious landscape of her anxious mind, a woman struggles through an existential crisis in this ghostly 2D animation.

The Words We Don’t Say

Jess O’Brien | UK | Age 18

As alcohol flows at a house party packed with teenagers, a nervous Ellie finds herself trapped in a dilemma that could compromise her sense of self and her relationship with a coercive partygoer.

The Year That Passed

Grace Simmons | Pennsylvania | Age 22

Minimalist, monochromatic animation accompanies this thoughtful look at addiction and grief, in which a young woman reflects on how the opiate epidemic has directly affected her life and her understanding of the world.

Witness

Kira Findling | California | Age 22

In a world where women go missing every day, the terror of going outside becomes personified in colorful paintings, Google Maps images, and the news.

An Alternative Method

Hannah Schierbeek | Chicago | Age 22

After a ballerina teacher is followed on her way home from work, her fears start manifesting in dreams and reality. To cope, she confides in her neighbor.