Synopsis

As Pablo falls in love with the altar boy Sebastián, he finds that God has become an obstacle to their relationship in more ways than one.

This film screens as part of the Best of CineYouth 2024 program.

Synopsis

CineYouth is Cinema/Chicago’s annual festival for filmmakers aged 22 and younger. This “best of fest” program showcases eight award-winning shorts from CineYouth 2024, and includes surrealist comedies, touching dramas, and boldly crafted stories from young people with impressive visions. Featuring work by Caroline Bates, April Aquino, Mitch Davila Armendano, Roso Pérez Bueno, Raine Yung, Nathan William Frost, Olivia Huilin Gao, and Ángel Villahermosa.

A group of friends come to terms with the end of childhood in a dying tourist town in Space Coast (United States). In Trigonometry’s Ultimate Method to Putting the Fun Back in Your Own Funeral (United States), a character’s untimely death inspires him to go out with one last hurrah by crashing his own funeral. Mitch, Jaden, and Stevie, three students with visual impairments at the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind, detail common misconceptions and their struggles for accurate representation in Blind Sighted (United States). As a toxic substance slowly ravages a celebrity’s body, he has to decide how far he will go for the advertising money in Too Much Sand (Sweden). I Can No Longer See (United States) is a self-portrait of trauma, objectification, and relief told through a collection of experimental shorts. Artist On The Go! (DS Advanced Unreleased Gameplay) (United States) is a surreal, nightmarish game in which the player (or viewer) is charged with completing abstract and frightening tasks. In The Damp Season (United States), a young girl comes across the teenaged version of her estranged immigrant mother. And as Pablo falls in love with altar boy Sebastián, he finds that God is obstructing their relationship in more ways than one in Body of Christ (Mi primera comunión) (Spain).

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Synopsis

In this short, we see a delicate and deeply moving portrait of Maria, a grieving woman. Small fragments of Maria’s life and surroundings help give the work a sense of poetry and mystery that lingers long after the end of the viewing experience.

This film screens as part of the Experimental Shorts: The Act of Seeing program.

Synopsis

The seven short films in this program radically push towards new and singular forms of expression. Through the use of archival footage, historical recreation, and dreamlike narratives, these films grapple with the past and the future of cinema — and the world. Featuring works by Marisa Hoicka, Isadora Neves Marques, María Salafranca, Valentin Noujaïm, Chi Jang Yin, Alison McAlpine, and Kevin Jerome Everson.

Teen Girl Fantasy (Canada) is a poetic archival excavation of the complex cultural signals surrounding teen girlhood. In My Senses Are All I Have to Offer (As minhas sensações são tudo o que tenho para oferecer) (Portugal), Lourdes and her girlfriend Lana can communicate telepathically using “sensory pills.” Black Shadow (Negra sombra) (Cuba) is a delicate and deeply moving portrait of Maria, a griveing woman. In To Exist Under Permanent Suspicion (France), a woman has fantasies of burning the skyscraper in which she works. Newly discovered archival images of postwar Hiroshima mix with contemporary footage of the city in I Was There, Part II (U.S., Japan). In Perfectly a Strangeness (Canada, Chile) three donkeys wander an abandoned landscape and come upon an observatory. And Hazel (dual) (United States) is a dual-screen recreation of Eddie Hazel’s famous 10-minute guitar solo on the song “Maggot Brain” by Funkadelic.

Synopsis

Unbound obsessions and delusional desires fuel these hilarious shorts that embody the essence of “fake it ‘til you make it!” From the delightfully heartwarming to the absolutely bonkers, these films remind us to dream big, live large, and leave it all on the field. Featuring works by Natalia García Agraz, Isabel Perry, Adam Yates, Stéphanie Bélanger, Luisa Arraes, Chris Cole, and Wissam Charaf.

In Passarinho (Mexico), two teenage best friends devise a plan to meet their dreamy idol, a superstar Brazilian soccer player. But things change when one of them gets their first period at the game. Fishbowl (United States) captures the joy and futility of trying to relive one’s youth when an unlikely pair of twentysomethings spend a summer weekend doing whatever it takes to forget their exes — and also keep a goldfish alive. Lumen (Canada) takes “the customer is always right” to new heights when an isolated woman discovers that her Facebook Marketplace order has been canceled. A wealthy matriarch’s important work dinner is thrown into disarray when her housekeeper doesn’t show up in Dadá (Dependências) (Brazil). Out of options, a grandson tries to save his hospitalized grandmother’s life with a freestyle rap, and finds himself joined by a handful of unlikely participants in Terminally Ill (United States). And a dedicated security guard finds his assignment guarding a waterfront construction site to be much more difficult than he thought in If the Sun Drowned into an Ocean of Clouds (Et si le soleil plongeait dans l’océan des nues) (France, Lebanon).