Griot's Lament (2014)

My Best Friend

A short film inspired by the book "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets" of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

The Players

Arthur studies at the library of his high school. Sarah, near him, looks at him with interest. Nothing prepared them for what awaited them, behind the door.

Sodom's Cat

Sodom's Cat, from Taiwanese director Huang Ting-Chun, asks what it must be like to be a part of this world, and yet feel strangely distant from it. Sun is a young man who attends a sex party, organized via a dating app, with four other men. While the others seem to be enjoying themselves enormously, Sun finds himself unaroused, despite the others' best efforts turn him on.

Submerged

Burned out by the urban gay dating scene, Horace decides to have a real date with a one-night stand. However, he realizes that he has to confront his fear before he can pursue a meaningful relationship.

Kid Fish

Hugo, a shy teenager, has a sexual relationship with Ernesto, a cynical young guy. For Hugo it's more than sex, but Ernesto is involved with a girl. Jealous, Hugo decides to take his revenge.

The Phone Call

Heather is a shy lady who works in a helpline call centre. When she receives a phone call from a mystery man, she has no idea that the encounter will change her life forever.

Out of Darkness

A unique story told by nine different actors which explores the haunting of a conscience by lost souls that won't let go.

Look at Me

Rehearsals for a fundraising gala become the arena for a struggle between two men; one, the gala director and the other, a richly talented but unstable rock drummer. As their battle for expression and control escalates against a relentless rhythmic backdrop, their public and private selves explosively collide.

III

By a hot summer day on the lakeshore, three siblings face death for the first time through their contact with nature.

Smog

Thick, deadly smog blankets the globe, reducing visibility to less than a few metres. In a secluded farmhouse, a woman and her overbearing husband attempt to find resources and survive using a series of walking trails crafted from ropes and stakes. One night, the woman is alerted to the presence of someone or something else deep in the smog. Desperate to escape the farmhouse, the woman attempts to meet the unknown and risk everything to leave her loveless and abusive relationship behind.

Raids

Based on the treatment of Pacific Island families during the New Zealand Dawn Raids of the 1970’s, this short is an intimate look into a police raid, as told through the eyes of a young girl Losa and her father Lupematasila.

A Child of Light

1983. Lucas is 12 years old. He must keep company, during the holidays, with Erwan (15 years) whose parents left alone on a trip. Erwan transfers his bitterness at being neglected to Lucas. He treats him like a dog, forcing him to eat only bread and cheese, and to live without clothes, "like a dog".

Abnormal Behavior

A mental health doctor goes off on a journey to Thailand with his girlfriend. They live with her friends. She enjoys the vacation and he works at his dissertation in psychiatry. People around seem to him no less sick than in the nuthouse, until he falls in strange circumstances...

The Beginning of Winter

When a young boy decides to hitchhike to get to a nearby village, he has no idea of the driver's true intentions.

Things We Don't Talk About

After surviving a car accident, thirteen-year-old Edvin isolates himself from friends and family. When his father forces him to go to rehabilitation, he can no longer avoid dealing with his trauma.

Nina

Nina, a 13-year-old pickpocket with a sharp and wise look, is checking the content of a man's wallet she has just stolen. She is staring at the unknown family pictures with curiosity and sadness - A little later, Nina is captured in her next attempt to steal. Surprisingly, the victim Yana refuses to surrender Nina to the police and decides to pay a little attention to the girl, taking her lunch.

Pizza and Sunshine

A former collegiate athlete and his best friend struggle with the turmoil of Multiple Sclerosis.

Alive

Victoria is disabled and yearns for intimacy, so her assistant Ida offers to help by making a Tinder profile. Victoria gets a match, but the guy she is matching with is very shady, and Ida worries about what might happen if they meet.

In Seventh Heaven

Sofiane lives in a high-rise block at the edges of Paris. A violent young man, he tries to be like his gang of friends. However, Sofiane is attracted to guys. Through his contradictions, he embodies the confusion of today's idle young people who have lost their bearings and live withdrawn into themselves.

Microchip

Imagine to be suddenly able to control your car, your bank account and all the electronics in your life just by thinking about it. What would you do with this power? What would you compromise for it?

Herrmann

Herrmann is a leftist Thirty Something, who is still politically active, despite beginning to live the usual life of having a girlfriend and a child. On the way to his weekly political meeting he is kidnapped.

Print the Legend

A young Navajo man performs a ritual related to the moon.

Los pobres aman con las manos

Tony, Pol and Baby are three friends that get together to search a solution to their project for the future, at a standstill. They criticize constantly the system and the other people's precariousness, without realizing that they share the same feeling of poverty.

Cabalerno

A young videographer is fascinated with filming a hunky skateboarder.

The Dam Keeper

In a desolate future, one small town has survived because of a large windmill dam that acts as a fan to keep out pollution. The dam's operator, Pig, works tirelessly to keep the sails spinning and protect the town, despite abuse from classmates and an indifferent public. When a new student joins Pig's class, nothing will be the same again.

Two Little Boys

A boy's love for his closeted bully drives him into an unconventional road to confession and its consequences.

Alkali, Iowa

On his family's farm in rural Iowa, young Jack Gudmanson is wrestling with his sexual identity, not an easy thing to do in the macho world of the Midwest. But things become clearer for him when he discovers via a rusty old lunch box filled with gay magazines that his father, killed in Vietnam, led a double life down on the farm. But as liberating as the discovery is for Jack, it is painful for his grandfather and mother, who have tried for years to keep it a family secret. Now Jack must decide whether to share this new information with his younger sister or allow it to remain buried a while longer.

Nunzio's Second Cousin

As Sgt. Randozza, a beefy, gay Chicago cop, leaves a bar with his lover, a gang of high-school punks decide to do some "fag-bashing". Tony's gun cools them off, and after giving them a brutal verbal dressing down, he forces the leader of the gang, Jimmy, to come to his house the next night for dinner. Jimmy soon gets a harsh lesson in sexual tolerance.

A Kiss in the Snow

When a new boy moves into the area Cecilie and Peter's friendship is changed.

Creswick

Sam's fear of her childhood home is brought to light when her ageing father claims there is another presence in the house.

Mila Caos

Every weekend at an illegal drag show in the suburbs of Havana, Sebastián, a 17-year-old Cuban teenager, transforms into 'Mila Caos', his empowered, flamboyant alter-ego. When he returns to his daytime self, Sebastián suffers from his mother's indifference, dreaming that one day she will see him on stage for who he truly is.

Traces

A young woman, captured on CCTV on a night out, describes her readiness for whatever fate has in store for her.

Dawn and Twilight

A blind violinist's sight is restored by an operation paid for by a young woman who loves him, but the fickleness of fate strikes them further tragic blows.

Daucus Carota

A community of women lives in an old convent that falls apart. They never talk and strive to keep everything clean. One day, Irene realizes for the first time that there is much more beyond the routine she and her sisters keep doing over and over. Irene, following nature’s signs, starts a journey of reconnection with her own impulses and body to finally find her own voice.

How It Feels

Over the past few months, less so now, I've been experiencing some fairly intense spouts of anxiety. Something incredibly new and quite frightening for me. After a bunch of CBT sessions, my therapist recommended channeling my experience into video form. So, here you are. With the help of the incredible Suli Breaks, I've made this little video. Trying to demonstrate how it felt for me. Hope you take something from it.

Interruption

A writer is interrupted by an insect that ends up being an allegory for his anxiety.

Largo

An unfinished love story between glimpses on wheels.

Flora

A metacinematic reflection on the nature of representation and the ongoing drug war in Mexico, Nicolás Pereda’s Flora revisits locations and scenes from the mainstream 2010 narco-comedy El Infierno, exploring the paradoxes of depicting narco-trafficking on film—its tendency both to romanticize and to obscure. To screen is both to project and to conceal.

Echo

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?