Empty Shelves (2023)

Downfalls High

When reserved and lonely teenager Fenix meets popular high school girl Scarlett, the two form a bond that shapes the rest of his life.

REM

Unfulfilled by his day-to-day life, an 18-year-old homebody copes with social anxiety by living the life of his dreams, in his dreams.

The Age of Decency

Eric and Ariadna are students of an anachronistic restrictive school. In love with each other, they decide to disobey the rules hoping not to be discovered by their teacher.

Hikikomori

Plot unavailable

Moo

Luna has a fobia of cows for a peculiar reason: she herself moos instead of moaning when she has sex. Her condition complicates the relationship with her boyfriend, Rigo. In order to find her way to self-acceptance she will have to follow the clues left to her by a mysterious swan.

Strings

The hands of a puppeteer control the bodies of two dancers who compete with each other.

Leda in the Elevator

Leda meets a swan when taking a ride in an elevator.

Northern Lights

Emma approaches adulthood, she tries to live an ordinary life and keep up to her late mothers expectations. However her anxiety weighs over her, stopping her from enjoying the last few youthful years.

Sensitive Parts

Sensitive Parts is a tender and sharply observed dramatic comedy about a young woman who is forced to confront her social anxiety and interpersonal fears before they consume her and the people she loves, with a little help along the way from the imaginary manifestation of an iconic popstar.

Echo of the Past

José Alberto seems condemned to wander through the countryside like a lost soul since the moment of his beloved's untimely death. Until one day, nature conspires to remind him of his torturous past. It takes strength to uncover the mystery that resides within him, and perhaps, to finally break free from living chained to melancholy.

Monotonous Sound

Hector is a man of the third age with serious problems of memory, the small homemade tasks of the daily life will be complicated as the day passes.

The Good Being

In the middle of a trip, Rubí, an eight-year-old girl, discovers within herself a powerful desire to eat roses. The rigidity and severity of her mother forces her to act in secret, until her desire manages to transform into something else.

Self-Complacency

Cristian comes back to his house because he forgot his work badge. At home, he finds Fernanda, his wife, having sex with somebody else. Cristian does not dare to deal with the situation, so he wanders around the city to avoid the event and decide what to do about it.

Ángel

Ángel, a small 5-year-old, watches as her mother takes care of her grandmother who is sick with terminal cancer. As the relationships around him start to deteriorate, Ángel tries to help her grandmother…

Drowning

Aura, a remote accountant with a monotonous routine, has her usual life interrupted one night due to an unexpected and unfamiliar leak. While trying to survive in her surroundings, Aura discovers that in the water exists a comforting escape from her mundane life, but at the same time, it condemns her.

Kinetic: The Art of Oneself

A coming-of-age story about two former childhood friends attempting to make amends following a fight. As their conversation progresses, one of them has to mature in order to reconcile with her friend as well as herself.

A Spot for Frog

Locked out of the school art room, a creative non-binary teen named Frog grapples with anxiety as they seek a new place to eat lunch. Imagination blurs with reality in this hybrid work of live action and animation about finding a place to belong.

The Night

Luisa and her sister Estela will play hide and seek during a particular night. They both have suffered an important loss in their family, the mourning and grief will be present inside their house all night long.

Wanted

Marcos, an adult who as a child lost his beloved pet, a black German shepherd dog, with whom he had a special bond. This bond leads him to search for it over time until he believes he has found it in a park with another owner.

Terror!

A teenager tests his limits by attending a costume party, where his anxiety manifests itself in the form of a looming shadow.

Return

Gerardo returns home with a pack of dogs barking in the background on a dark night. Inside his house he will find an altar with flowers and orange lights. Now it will be the silence that will guide his steps to find out what is on that altar.

Angst and Treason

During an awkward family gathering, María, a young lady going through a love crisis, discovers a secret that will transform her reality.

A New Goodbye

Helen lives with her son Bruno, but Bruno doesn't behave like a normal kid. She will have to overcome the mourning crisis to withstand reality.

The Noise of Time

In the town of Xoco, the spirit of an old villager awakens in search of its lost home. Along its journey, the ghost discovers that the town still celebrates its most important festivities, but also learns that the construction of a new commercial complex called Mítikah will threaten the existence of both the traditions and the town itself.

Silence After Storm

To understand the way they are feeling and why, Eva and Den converse about their ended relationship by going through the most important memories that were shared in the past. Through this remembrance, the memories’ capacity to be complete begins to be questioned as well as the love that was shared in the past.

Don't Go Yet

Poncho, an 8-year-old boy, becomes obsessed with finishing a time machine, since he wants to meet Papá Nacho, his grandfather, again; who passed away months ago.

Actor

The film tells the tragic life story of an actor named Farhad, who remains faithful to national values and deeply feels the pain of their loss. Fearing the negative impact of social media, Farhad leaves the theater because of a colleague's dismissal. The story explores his inner world, the traumas he experiences, and the void created by the loss of national values, presenting it all to the audience.

Existere

Horacio, a lonely young man, cornered between his routine and disturbing dreams, stops and isolates, revealing a vital message.

Horse Girl

A socially awkward woman with a fondness for arts and crafts, horses, and supernatural crime shows finds her increasingly lucid dreams trickling into her waking life.

Elsewhere

Two women meet, wander and experience together a city that unveils different places and a connection beyond them.

The Caves of the Air

Three friends talk about the legend of ´the caves of the air´, an ancestral site near a village where many people have disappeared mysteriously.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Ulises hasn't seen his friends since they graduated from high school. But now, walking to the reunion party, he is full of hope and joy to relive his past glories and rekindle the passion he had with Paulina, the girl he was always in love with but never dared to do anything with. But that will change tonight, which will surely be unforgettable.

Letters to Claudia

Claudia is a young woman who spends her days working in an old bookstore. One day, after finding a forgotten letter in a book, she starts an adventure to deliver it.

Not Forever on Earth

A day in the daily life of Man, an evicted adult who travels through the city before making a decision that will change his life.

First Movement for Twenty Men in an Empty Room

Don Plascencio has a collection of men he uses like radio stations: in a routine aural examination each man plays a different musical piece instead of the usual heartbeat.

Floating World

After returning to her childhood home, Sofia faces the challenge of living day after day, immersed in a vicious circle where the world seems to stop and where the most important thing is to live hedonistically. However, Sofia will sooner or later have to face the real reason that keeps her trapped in her own life, escaping the conflict that she does not want to face.

Bungalow

A young couple buys a rotten house with the intention of turning it into their dream home. But the more the renovations progress, the more their life turns into a nightmare. Bungalow is a comedy-drama about the financial, social and sexual anxieties that millennials experience in our performance society.

Manic Man

Shane, battling social anxiety at a party, finds himself dissociating from this own body when social pressure pushes him to the brink, turning a simple gathering into a surreal escape from reality.

Blooming

Filomena is a 16-year-old girl, who after an accident discovers that she will experience an extraordinary transformation.

I Saw the TV Glow

Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate Maddy introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.

Anxiously

Liz’s life now started facing changes every day, because of that, anxiety began striking her all the time, and one should never deal with this alone.

Black Hole

A girl tries to celebrate her birthday with her friends and family.

Limiar

Plot unavailable

Word Puzzle for an Empty House

Effort to construct an audio-visual dance between the body of an 90-year old man and the body of his house, that has become an extension of himself.

Every moment of you

Gilberto leaves his home on the last day of his father's life, travelling around the city in search of the places that were meaningful to him: his old house, the museum where he worked, and the streets of a very lively city. This escape becomes a reconstruction of the father, a journey through memory and a farewell.

Black Kettle

A student moves into their accomodation, only to find their room already decorated, a strange, inhuman flatmate, and a kettle that won't stop boiling.

Lost Time

Anto travels to the depth of his most beloved memories with Julián. He must cross the threshold of the loss of a loved one.

Snakes & Stairs

Upon the death of his grandfather and playmate, Bruno, an 8-year-old boy, embarks on a journey in a magical world, trying to finish the unfinished story he was building with his grandfather to become a king.

Mictlán

Three souls wake up on a train that takes them to an unknown place.

Apples, Oranges, Lemons & Limes

A young man, suffering from social anxiety, finds surprising joy and romance after an unexpected encounter at a party encourages him to let loose.

The Doors

A young man sits in a surreal space between two doors, each representing a life-altering choice. Behind one lies the darkness of his drug addiction, and behind the other, the hope of happiness with friends and family—but which path will he take?

Dear Evan Hansen

Evan Hansen, a high schooler with social anxiety, unintentionally gets caught up in a lie after the family of a classmate who committed suicide mistakes one of Hansen’s letters for their son’s suicide note.

Punch-Drunk Love

A socially awkward and volatile small business owner meets the love of his life after being threatened by a gang of scammers.

A Silent Voice: The Movie

Shouya Ishida starts bullying the new girl in class, Shouko Nishimiya, because she is deaf. But as the teasing continues, the rest of the class starts to turn on Shouya for his lack of compassion. When they leave elementary school, Shouko and Shouya do not speak to each other again... until an older, wiser Shouya, tormented by his past behaviour, decides he must see Shouko once more. He wants to atone for his sins, but is it already too late...?

Los cuerpos que se apagan

In a dreamlike wandering, the city becomes a constant rendezvous. In the hustle and bustle of strange streets, the protagonists face disillusionment and life’s obstacles that make them believe that their desire for freedom is only possible in dreams.

Taint

Olivia notices a blood stain on her panties during her 8th birthday. After trying to remove the stain, she tells her mother, who assumes that she has started her menstrual cycle. After a couple of interactions with her older cousin, Ernesto, her mother is no longer sure what is going on, however, they will only be able to talk about it 10 years later.

Liquidation

Basil is an eight year old kid who gets lost exploring a department store while his mother is distracted. Playing among the clothing racks, Basil uses his imagination and begins a fantastic and frightening adventure, of wich he may never be able to scape.

Bedtime Story for Ghosts

Three generations of women return to the old family home in Sinaloa to confront the ghosts of their past. Our story, wherever we begin to tell it, begins with a broken heart.

It smells of shit, it smells of being

Ximena has been a victim of sexual abuse. The investigation of his case seeks to find the responsible. Carlos, Ximena's husband, is the one who encourages the case to be resolve. The investigation finds the crime scene and the presumed responsible. However, Carlos does not have the money that the prosecutor asks for sentence those allegedly responsible.

Men do not sham convulsion

Cecilia tries to follow her normal routine. She goes to classes; however, she decides to go somewhere else. She tries to work on a project but fails. Javier, a friend of Cecilia, invites her to a party. Cecilia agrees to go to distract herself and feel better. Something bad happens, and Cecilia needs to stop it.

Blossoms in Agony

Jacinta lives with her mother Alma, who has now brought grandmother Soledad home, to look after her, as she's had a cerebral stroke. Jacinta lives Soledad's presence as an invasion of her intimacy, and feels jealous of the attention Alma pays to her grandma, leaving Alma more and more worn-out.

LIMINAL

"LIMINAL" is an animated student short film where we follow a little creature trying to find an end to his monotony, isolation, and loneliness.

Orpheus

Despite it being her father's death anniversary, Patricia, a young streamer, tries to continue with her daily rutine until one sponsor offers her a large sum to make a live stream that night playing "ORFEO", a paranormal summoning challenge. She accepts without imagining how dangerous it is to face your own demons.

Train Man

The purportedly true story of a 23-year-old otaku (Japanese geek) who intervened when a drunk man was harassing a woman on a train. The otaku ultimately started dating with her and chronicled his event and his dates with the woman (who became known as "Hermès") on the Japanese mega-BBS 2channel.

The Mexican Football Coaching Guide

In this comedic docufiction, Javier (Javier Raphael) is a young man who has always wanted to be a football coach like his idol “El Chelís” (José Luis Sánchez Solá), but has never done anything to fulfill his dream. Now, guided by a nosy narrator (Jorge Pietrasanta), he will look for some of the most unorthodox amateur football coaches in Mexico, and for his beloved "Chelís", so that each one can give him lessons until he is fully trained to manage a match and thus become a true "Mexican football coach".

October Notebook

Ricardo receives a visit from Daniel, his teenage cousin. Together they will explore the city and themselves.

Algo que hacer mientras decidíamos que hacer

The voices of the 2013 Generation of the now extinct CUEC, talk about issues such as loneliness, growing up and decisions about the uncertain future they face when leaving to study Cinematography.