SHORTS BLOCK 4: Expectations
10 min -- “Money Shot” by Jackie! Zhou: Richie has wanted to direct pornographic film since he stumbled on a Lance Cummaro scene his father accidentally recorded onto a home video tape. Though he has pursued film making in high school, he hasn't quite made anything anyone wants to watch.
When the AV Club budget gets the axe, the club president rejects Richie's pitch to make a porno as the club’s final film. Richie is forced to make his dream movie on his own to prove himself as a film maker.
17 min -- “SUBTEXT” by Jacob Pander and Arnold Pander. SUBTEXT explores how relationships are formed, maintained and ended, all through phone texts. This mode of communication has changed the way we express ourselves, allowing the sound-bite and emoticon to determine the fate of our personal lives. Power plays are made with the push of a button as the next text that is sent may decide who has the final say, without ever speaking a word.
01 min -- “Fletch” by Zen Freese: An intimate coming of age character study of Frisbee golf legend Fletcher Ferguson, as he embarks on an epic journey to make his mark in the world, and learn what it means to be a man ... in under a minute and a half.
15 min -- “Gage” by Keith Wilhelm Kopp: Set in Vermont, the true story of Gage is seen through the eyes of his physician. Life is interrupted the day Gage is injured in an explosion that plunges a rod weighing 13 pounds through his skull. Dr. Harlow saves his life, but brain damage leaves Gage’s world skewed. Harlow attempts to restore Gage’s’ life, while struggling to explain the drastic personality shift to a town of people who, in 1848, do not understand the consequences of brain injury.
15 min -- “Subsurface Flow” by Carl Bird McLaughlin: Wounded by their childhoods, young lovers travel to the desert in search of a holy ground, where the pains of their pasts can be washed away.
12 min -- “Bridgetown” by Bryan Tosh: A drug addicted and despondent father, Peter Abbott, awakens from a haze of heroin to find his only daughter is getting married. In an attempt to connect with her father one last time, Emily Abbott sets up a meeting, only to see that nothing has changed. Peter must choose to either continue his path of destruction or become again the father he once was.
03 min -- “Everybody Poops” by Chris Buchal: An exploration of the unspoken laws of the universe, to which we all adhere.
09 min -- “Tip Toe” by Raquel Bordin: “Tip Toe” is a drama comprised of two parallel stories about the weight of reality on ordinary people. A little boy, Daniel, dreams of becoming a ballet dancer, but his father refuses to accept it, crushing his only opportunity.
Veronica, a transsexual, faces complications with her sex-change along with the reality of the death of her childhood dream.
13 min -- “A Time in a Dark Cloud” by Rebecca Sgan-Cohen: Emily Lively is spending the weekend at her mother's. Her first night home, she decides to go out to the local bar. She meets a good-looking stranger and goes home with him. The encounter causes her to reflect on her choices as well as her mother's.