Short Films and Mid-Lengths

Short Films and Mid-Lengths

For the cinephile on a time budget.

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Short Films and Mid-Lengths
  • 31

    Directed by Miguel Gomes | 27 mins | 2003
    What does Portugal’s 1974 Carnation Revolution have to do with "The Wizard of Oz" (1939)? This is a riddle set up but not exactly answered by this endearingly lo-fi parable about two rich kids who, after getting mugged during a tennis lesson, forge a wind...

  • 38

    Directed by Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew | 23 mins | 2021
    Vivid interruptions of sound and images fragment the psychic landscape of a 38-year-old woman who becomes obsessed with the social media presence of the young woman who broke up her relationship. The latest entry in Chew and Durand’s ong...

  • Actress

    Directed by Sebastian Pardo | 11 mins | 2015
    An aspiring actress moves to Los Angeles to pursue her dream, and finds herself orbiting the periphery of show business, while everyday life muddies what exactly her path might be. Ana Coto, star of horror blockbuster "OUIJA", leads Sebastian Pardo’s n...

  • Backbone Tale

    Directed by Jérémy Clapin | 9 mins | 2004
    Clapin’s first short is a game of Tetris as much as it is a love story. It centers on a man whose spine bends at a striking right angle: his eyes can gaze only downwards, his hat perched on the back of his head. The appearance of a woman whose back bends ...

  • Beast

    Directed by Benjamin Nicolas | 11 mins | 2021
    While the opening of this Expressionistic short film—depicting a perfunctory exchange between a rideshare driver and his passenger about Christmas shopping—gives little indication as to the direction it’s headed in, then the ominous title is rather mo...

  • Blonde Cobra

    Leaving March 1

    Directed by Ken Jacobs | 34 mins | 1963
    In Blonde Cobra, dubbed “the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema” by Jonas Mekas, Jacobs turns his camera on fellow underground icon Jack Smith. Screening as part of a selection of five experimental shorts from the Brooklyn-born Jacobs, one ...

  • Canticle of All Creatures

    Directed by Miguel Gomes | 21 mins | 2006
    This playful but sincere tribute to St. Francis takes the form of a cinematic triptych. From the present day, in which a guitar-wielding bard ambles through the historic center of Assisi, Gomes jumps back 800 years, reviving the saint himself in a lusciou...

  • Carry Me, I'll Let Go

    Directed by Alexis Hithe | 12 mins | 2022
    A five-film shorts program curated by LA Rebellion affiliated-filmmaker Zeinabu irene Davis, including works by Pierre Desir ("The Gods and the Thief"), Julie Dash ("Four Women"), Portia Cobb ("Don’t Hurry Back: A Diaspora Fable"), and others.

    “These sh...

  • Christmas Inventory

    Directed by Miguel Gomes | 22 mins | 2000
    In this early work by the beloved and formally daring Portuguese auteur, the portrayal of a multi-generational Yuletide family gathering gives way to documentation of the season’s chintzy and charming accouterments: tinsel twinkles, baubles bob, and a Spi...

  • David

    Directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp | 26 mins | 2016
    In this short, directed Dean Fleischer-Camp, a woman tells David (Nathan Fielder) he has five weeks to live.

  • Don't Hurry Back: A Diaspora Fable

    Directed by Portia Cobb | 26 mins | 1996
    A five-film shorts program curated by LA Rebellion affiliated-filmmaker Zeinabu irene Davis, including works by Pierre Desir ("The Gods and the Thief"), Julie Dash ("Four Women"), Portia Cobb ("Don’t Hurry Back: A Diaspora Fable"), and others.

    “These sho...

  • First

    Directed by Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew | 12 mins | 2019
    A teenager lives her life, toggling seamlessly between her physical and digital self. She walks over a bridge at sunrise, follows a stranger through the streets of the city, and meets up with a friend to wander their favorite spots in NY...

  • Four Women

    Directed by Julie Dash | 8 mins | 1975
    A five-film shorts program curated by LA Rebellion affiliated-filmmaker Zeinabu irene Davis, including works by Pierre Desir ("The Gods and the Thief"), Julie Dash ("Four Women"), Portia Cobb ("Don’t Hurry Back: A Diaspora Fable"), and others.

    “These short...

  • Fun's Over

    Directed by Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn | 6 mins | 2006
    News of a gonorrhea infection only briefly sours the mood in this early Kalman and Horn short, which telegraphs a cheerful and occasionally violent beach party set in a winkingly lo-fi future.

  • Hang Loose

    Directed by Sammy Harkham and Patrick Brice | 9 mins | 2015
    "Hang Loose" follows a night in the life of an aimless surfer, Wade (Little Wings’ Kyle Field), who chases his whims up and down the California coast. When he returns to his former hometown, he takes the opportunity to visit his ex, who ...

  • Hannahs

    Directed by India Donaldson | 14 mins | 2019
    Amy Zimmer and Brenna Palughi give finely calibrated, increasingly squirm-inducing performances in Donaldson’s beguiling, darkly funny two-hander about a woman named Hannah who returns to her apartment one day to discover another woman, also named Hann...

  • Hi I Need to Be Loved

    Directed by Marnie Ellen Hertzler | 11 mins | 2018
    'I am going to have you read from a collection of my spam emails,' The director explains as she ushers actors from Craigslist one-by-one into an audition room. The actors and the director search together for the human voice inside the dialogue of...

  • If Found

    Directed by India Donaldson | 8 mins | 2021
    Set in an off-season beach town emptied out for the winter, Donaldson’s by turns unsettling and comic short is a deft character study done in small, precise strokes, following a troubled, lonesome, dog-obsessed woman who decides to take extralegal measu...

  • Jazz Christmas

    Directed by Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn | 9 mins | 2007
    The decadent gathering of this early Kalman and Horn short does not take place on Christmas but rather New Year's Eve, 1927, nor does it feature any jazz proper—but it does have characters performing a riff on The Strokes’ “New York City Cop...

  • Kalkitos

    Directed by Miguel Gomes | 19 mins | 2002
    A short as puckish as the kids it depicts, in which a soccer game is rendered absurd by the fact that these self-proclaimed ten-year-olds are played by adults. In place of speech, they just mash their mouths together, with the translation supplied by sile...

  • Le Franc

    Directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty | 45 mins | 1994
    Djibril Diop Mambéty, a towering figure in world cinema, is best known for his two features, Touki Bouki (1973) and Hyenas (1992, re-released in a new restoration by Metrograph Pictures in 2019). Yet these two extraordinary films tell only part of...

  • Little Stabs at Happiness

    Leaving March 1

    Directed by Ken Jacobs | 15 m ins | 1963
    A collection of smaller silent segments made between 1956 and ’63. Screening as part of a selection of five experimental shorts from the Brooklyn-born Jacobs, one of the most wildly creative and influential film artists and teachers in the...

  • Meanwhile

    Directed by Miguel Gomes | 23 mins | 1999
    Two decades before "The Tsugua Diaries" (2021), Gomes would make his assured debut with another film that fused summer languor and simmering tensions with expertly deployed pop music cues. The teen love triangle of Meanwhile drifts from rugby training to ...

  • Midnight Confession

    Directed by Max McCabe-Lokos | 11 mins | 2017
    West Berlin, 1989. Manny Jumpcannon prowls his dingy apartment, phoning various degenerates from his past. He's hoping for some uncertain vindication but the ensuing conversations only reveal his own sordid history of deceit.