v8 film lineup
Focus Patterns
Kyle Stanley, UNC Wilmington
Shot and hand painted on Super 8, this diaristic film is about my bike ride to work in Ocean City, NJ. Music by Gabe Qazi.
in a heartbeat
Beth David and Esteban Bravo, Ringling College of Art and Design
Two young men navigate the tricky business of following the heart.
unstated
Paul Kachris-Newman, Portland State University
Follow Buthaina - a refugee single mother from Iraq - through her first year in the United States. Her journey runs parallel with an unprecedented election, riots, and alarming local tragedies. UNSTATED is a resettlement story in an unsettled America.
reflections
Morgan Gruer, Pratt Institute
The fleeting quality of love forces a girl to question if her relationship ever truly existed, or if it was all in her head. Reflections” is a 2D-animated film composed of approximately 1,100 individual drawings.
tin man
Nathan Knox, UNC School of the Arts
A young father-to-be struggles to overcome his grief and fear of becoming a father and specifically his father.
not long now
Leo Aguirre, University of Texas-Austin
Accompanied by James's Blake's "Not Long Now," this nonlinear film captures the melancholic utterances and remnants of lost time. The atmospheric tones underscore elements of surrealism, painting gray portraits of abandonment and grief.
MIMI: CARING FOR A LOVED ONE WITH DEMENTIA
Graham Prevatte, UNC Chapel Hill
A quick glimpse into the life of Mimi Prevatte and her family,Mimi: Caring For a Loved One With Dementia gives a touching perspective on the struggles, joys, and realities of being a caregiver.
redaction
Tyler Holender, UNC School of the Arts
A young man uses a found toy to travel back in time to correct his mistakes, creating the perfect New Year's Eve date.
SCAPE
Erik M.G. Fox, Portland State University
Empty landscapes from Korea and Vietnam evoke a tranquil existence in which an invisible threat is felt lurking beyond the frame. Scape is comprised entirely of landscape footage shot by U.S. war cinematographers.
VESTIBULAR MATCHING SOUNDTRACK
McKenzie Blake, Portland State University
A filmmaker, who was born deaf, recollects her relationship with sound by examining home movies shot by her parents throughout her childhood.
CAT CITY
Victoria Vincent, California Institute of the Arts
Cat goes to the city to find a new life. He finds that independent life isn't as easy as he thought it might be.
TERESA
Jake Hart, UNC Wilmington
Faith interconnects a millennial's vanity, a silent generation's charity, and a lost generation's humanitarian work.
where mothbloods bloom
Grant Conversano, UNC School of the Arts
Autumn, fed up and exhausted, cuts ties with her heroin addict boyfriend in a gas station parking lot. Stranded and alone, she approaches a semi-truck driver eating by himself. The two strangers awkwardly share a table.
swipe
Chance Saller, UNC Wilmington
"Debt is always easy to accumulate but it's not as easy to get rid of." A budding filmmaker explores the world of credit card addiction after landing in debt himself in Swipe, a short documentary by director Chance Saller.
wait pretty butterfly
Brynne McGregor, Ohio State University
Wait Pretty Butterfly is an experimentation that fuses samples with McGregor’s own material in order to question the idea of a complete authorship. McGregor composed and performed the cello score with integrated sampled audio. Through this audio/visual mixture, she is able to synthesize how her inspirations craft who she is as an author with demonstration rather than unacknowledged imitation. The influence of other artists becomes both implicit and explicit in the film.
adam
Evelyn Ross, Rhode Island School of Design
A mysterious twist on origin stories, "Adam" proposes the idea that creation begins with “she” rather than “he.
venus
Heather Jensen, UNC Wilmington
Venus is an experimental short film about a woman longing to feel whole; to feel connected and home in a world full of negative distractions and pollutions. It is not until she is pushed to her edge that she discovers who she truly is, at least physically.
solar pulse
Dena Springer, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Solar Pulse is an experimental film that abstracts images from real life with modularsynthesizers. It is an exploration of analog means of sound and filmmaking.
winston
Aram Sarkisian, California Institute of the Arts
Through series of letters written to his younger brother Marcus, we get inside the mind of a man (Winston), who slowly falls into his own hell, by his own means.
intrusion
Ali Akbari, University of Central Florida
An uninvited presence intrudes and roams within the boundaries of a couple, demanding the soul and flesh of an occupant.
facing navassa
Milo Kim, UNC Wilmington
Throughout the 20th century Navassa, NC was an industrial hub in the region. Industry brought welcomed economic growth to the rural community, but it also had devastating impacts on the local environment. Facing Navassa examines the dark history of environmental injustice in southeastern North Carolina.
ouroboros
Emma Keehan, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
A cycle of pursued acceptance met by rejection is threatened when one character sees the world for what it truly is
burn out
Cécile Carre, Gobelins, l'École de l'image
Stella, a space mechanician, breaks down on a desert planet. While in despair, a little girl appears out of nowhere. Following the child into a tunnel, Stella discovers a cave full of objects that once belonged to her, reminding her of the dreams she has left behind.
headless: the ed shales story
Yousef Thami, University of Central Lancashire
A mockumentary exploring the trials and triumphs Ed has experienced since losing his head.