Starring: Jim Gaffigan, Logan Miller, Samantha Mathis, Alex Karpovsky, Danielle Campbell, Anna Gunn

Seventeen-year old Philip (Logan Miller) longs to leave his small town for music school in The Big Apple. His dreams are dashed when his overbearing father, Frank (Jim Gaffigan), forbids it. In retaliation to his father’s dictatorial parenting, he sneaks away in search of a wild spring break. However, when he crosses state lines, he instead finds a charming lake community where he spots his father with another woman. Turns out, Frank lives in this town and has an entire other family. With this bizarre revelation Philip realizes he can either blow the whistle on his father’s deceit or take advantage of the surreal situation. With a well-balanced mix of comedy and drama, Being Frank offers an ensemble cast, led by the terrific Jim Gaffigan and Logan Miller, a chance to turn the heartbreaking into the hysterical.

Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Gary Cole, David Herman, Ajay Naidu, Stephen Root

Corporate drone Peter Gibbons hates his soul-killing job at software company Initech. While undergoing hypnotherapy, Peter is left in a blissful state when his therapist dies in the middle of their session. He refuses to work overtime, plays games at his desk and unintentionally charms two consultants into putting him on the management fast-track. When Peter’s friends learn they’re about to be downsized, they hatch a revenge plot against the company inspired by Superman III.

Get ready for a debaucherous selection of sexy shorts will have your palms sweating and your seat squeaking. Join Vimeo curator Jeffrey Bowers as he screens recent and classic erotically-themed animated shorts from the last three decades. From poignant to pure crazy, these 15 shorts run the gamut of sex, from introspective dissertations on small, curved penises to music made exclusively from spanking sounds to straight up porn.

The styles and techniques these films employ range from stop-motion to CGI, but each filmmaker uses them to get at a weird and singular truth that only animation can access. Filmmaker Naomi Uman’s profound Removed finds the filmmaker commenting on gender roles by literally removing a woman from an 8mm porn footage using traditionally feminine products. Acclaimed animator Jeff Scher, whose work often appears on the New York Times, screens his seldom seen Cunning Stunts, a gorgeously hand-painted rotoscope that finds the beauty in hardcore porn. The program, like sex, shifts from moving and deep to fun and WTF including a deranged, meta foot fetish piece from Cool 3D World and a masturbating, life-size bear puppet in The Blindness of the Woods.

Whatever your fetish might be, you’ll find something to satisfy it in this unique screening of very animated sex.

Supervenus (2013)
Directed by Frederic Doazan
A plastic surgeon creates a new Venus.
(3 minutes)

Cunning Stunts (2004)
Directed by Jeff Scher
Using found clippings of French novels, hotel business cards, old show flyers, bits of his stamp collection, and a whole lot of pasteled, goached, and watercolored paintings, animator Jeff Scher honors the rythms and motions of sex.
(2 minutes)

Pussy (2017)
Directed by Renata Gasiorowska
A young girl spends the evening alone at home. She decides to have some sweet solo pleasure session, but not everything goes according to plan.
(8 minutes)

Things I Should Stop Thinking about Thinking (2014)
Directed by Dan Castro
A film about boobs, sex and boys being happy – or not.
A brief look at what stress feels like from inside the head of a youngish bloke.
(1 minute)

Teat Beat of Sex #1 & 4 & 7 (2008)
Writer/director Signe Baumane present
A take on sex exclusively from a woman’s point of view. Showcasing three episodes from Signe Baumane’s acclaimed series.
(6 minutes)

Who’s the Daddy (2017)
Directed by Wong Ping
:< A Tinder tragedy.
:0 An unexpected child.
;( A journey finding my root of shame.
Inspired by true story
(10 minutes)

Destiny/Fate (Keep Going) (2018)
Directors Cool 3D World present
Destiny and Fate go toe to toe in the battle for a pornographer’s pleasure.
(1 minute)

Shunga (2016)
Directed by Roberto Biadi
A hypersexualized stream of consciousness animation that sees humans, demons, and animals morphing, exploding and becoming each other.
(1 minute)

Removed (1999)
Directed by Naomi Uman
Removed is a short film made up of pictures from porn films. The naked woman, an object of desire, is removed from the image with bleach and nail varnish. The viewer is forced to think about man-woman relationships.
(7 minutes)

Short Stories About Love (2015)
Directed by Darío Alva
A glitch in the romantic system allowed this shocking and peculiar brand of love to be told.
(4 minutes)

MLX (2017)
Directed by Simon Landrein
This butt can dance.
(2 minutes)

Superbia (2016)
Directed by Luca Toth
The native people of the surrealistic land of Superbia, where men and women form separate societies, face the changes sparked by the first equal couple in their history.
(15 minutes)

Hot Tea (2018)
Directed by Marcel Tigchelaar
In this hand drawn animation without dialogue, a man indulges in the vapour of a glass of hot tea. He drifts off to a colourful world where scents seem to be visualised and assume physical powers. Just when the man’s pleasure builds up to a sensual climax, the glass throws a spanner in the works.
(2 minutes)

The Blindness of the Woods    (2009)
Directed by Martin Jalfen and Javier Lourenco
A mash-up story of fairy tales and 1970s Nordic erotic films.
(12 minutes)

X.Y.U. (2019)
Directed by Donny Sansone
A hand-drawn morphing sexual circus in the vein of Bill Plympton’s famous “Plymptoons.”
(2 minutes)

Starring: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone

Twenty-seven years after the Losers Club defeated Pennywise, he has returned to terrorize the town of Derry once more. Now adults, the Losers have long since gone their separate ways. However, people are disappearing again, so Mike, the only one of the group to remain in their hometown, calls the others home. Damaged by the experiences of their past, they must each conquer their deepest fears to destroy Pennywise once and for all…putting them directly in the path of the shape-shifting clown that has become deadlier than ever.

Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss, Tiffany Haddish, Domhnall Gleeson, James Badge Dale, Alicia Coppola

In 1978, three Hell’s Kitchen housewives’ mobster husbands are sent to prison by the FBI. Left with little but a sharp ax to grind, the ladies take the Irish mafia’s matters into their own hands.

The 2019 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour is a program of seven short films selected from this year’s Festival, widely considered the premier showcase for short films and the launchpad for many now-prominent independent filmmakers for more than 30 years. Including fiction, documentary and animation from around the world, the 2019 program offers new audiences a taste of what the Festival offers, from sharply-written comedy and drama to edgy genre and an intimate family saga.

Fueled by artistic expression and limited only by their runtime, short films transcend traditional storytelling. They are a significant and popular way artists can connect with audiences. From documentary to animation, narrative to experimental, the abbreviated form is made for risk-taking. The Festival has always treated short films with the highest regard and gives a home to both established and new filmmakers with shorts for audiences to discover and celebrate.

The Festival’s Short Film Program has long been established as a place to discover talented directors, such as past alums Damien Chazelle, Wes Anderson, Jill Soloway, Spike Jonze, Paul Thomas Anderson, Dee Rees, Taika Waititi, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Lake Bell, Debra Granik, Jay and Mark Duplass, Todd Haynes, Lynne Ramsay, Andrea Arnold, and many others.

The Program:
sometimes, i think about dying
U.S.A., 13 minutes. Directed by Stefanie Abel Horowitz, written by Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Katy Wright-Mead, and Kevin Armento.
Fran is thinking about dying, but a man in the office might want to date her.

FAST HORSE
Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing
Canada, 13 minutes. Written and directed by Alexandra Lazarowich.
The Blackfoot bareback horse-racing tradition returns in the astonishingly dangerous Indian Relay. Siksika horseman Allison Red Crow struggles with second-hand horses and a new jockey on his way to challenge the best riders in the Blackfoot Confederacy.

Suicide By Sunlight
U.S.A., 17 minutes. Directed by Nikyatu Jusu, written by Nikyatu Jusu and R. Shanea Williams.
Valentina, a day-walking Black vampire protected from the sun by her melanin, is forced to restrain her bloodlust to regain custody of her estranged daughters.

Muteum
Estonia, Hong Kong, 4 minutes. Written and directed by Äggie Pak Yee Lee.
In an art museum, we learn—from outer to inner, from deep to its deepest, seriously and sincerely.

Crude Oil
U.S.A., 15 minutes. Written and directed by Christopher Good.
Jenny breaks free from a toxic friendship and learns to harness her magical, useless superpower.

The MINORS
Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing
U.S.A., 10 minutes. Written and directed by Robert Machoian.
A slice of life about a grandpa and his grandsons, the future and the past.

Brotherhood
Canada, Tunisia, Qatar, Sweden, 25 minutes. Written and directed by Meryam Joobeur.
When a hardened Tunisian shepherd’s son returns home after a long journey with a new wife, tension rises between father and son.

November 9, 2005: The Queen of Pop releases Confessions on a Dance Floor, arguably her 21st Century masterpiece, which ultimately peaks at number one in 40 countries, selling over 10 millions copies… Yet another renaissance for the virtuoso of re-invention, another imperial phase in her unprecedented career…

May 21, 2006: Madonna embarks on her seventh world tour to promote the record – nine months after a highly publicized horseback riding accident. Eight broken bones be damned: the Goddess descends upon us in a million dollar disco ball – and emerges an electro-punk dominatrix, with a body as stunning, svelte, and strapping as a stallion.

Collaborating with the likes of Steven Klein, Jonas Akerlund, Stuart Price, and director Jamie King, Madonna crafted a concert of poetic perfection: adorned with a crown of thorns and hung from a diamond crucifix, she returns to her familiar motifs of redemption and salvation… versions of Get Together and Erotica embody a sophisticated elegance hitherto unseen in her finest work… astounding, sumptuous iconography envelopes history’s greatest mistress of ceremonies, as she whips her audience into a frothy, disco-frenzy… and grinds a studded pommel-horse and glittering boom box into submission…

Get on your knees, for the Queen has one but question to ask: Have you confessed?

On the occasion of Madonna’s birthday, Nitehawk Williamsburg welcomes you to an intimate, midnite screening of the Grammy Award winning The Confessions Tour: Live From London, with pre-party at Lo-Res featuring DJ Chauncey Dandridge.

Hosted by Renaissance Boy, Michele Ruiz, Carlo of Icon Project and House of Dandridge!

Starring: Peter Robbins, Pamelyn Ferdin, Glenn Gilger, Andy Pforsich, Sally Dryer, Hilary Momberger

This is a special one day 50th anniversary screening of the original Peanuts film adaptation.

Charlie Brown and his fellow Peanuts make their feature film debut in this animated comedy that is based on Charles Schultz long-lived cartoon strip. The story centers on a national spelling bee. Lucky Charlie Brown is so excited that he is selected to participate in it, but will he be able to overcome his chronic bad-karma and actually win?

NoBudge is happy to present nine new narrative short films (including several NYC and Brooklyn premieres), a sampling of recent favorites from the film festival circuit and online premieres. Connected loosely around the theme of life not going as planned, this 92 minute block tends toward the comedic, but there are also moments of emotional resonance. A recently divorced father deals with the failure of his marriage in How It’s Goin’, while a visual artist reckons with the realities of not making enough money in the profound Unfinished,2017 (Mixed media). The lives of struggling artists are also tackled comedically in films such as Too Long at the Fair and Seven Dreams featuring performers with unusual approaches. Two films share a director (Doron Max Hagay, NoBudge Hall-of-Famer) while four take place in California, a visual nod to the summer screening. Screened with filmmakers in attendance for a post-film Q&A and Afterparty.

NoBudge is an online platform spotlighting the best in low-budget indie filmmaking. “One of the best places to sample what’s happening in low-budget cinema worldwide,” says Glenn Kenny of The New York Times. Its mission is to provide a supportive home for emerging indie filmmakers working with limited resources and without major industry connections, and to be a trusted discovery platform helping audiences find their new favorite movies and filmmakers.

The movies:
Rebound
New York Premiere.
Writer Wes Haney and director Doron Max Hagay present.
A burly stranger looking for a place to lay his head arrives at the home of a newly single mother renting out her guest house.
(3 minutes)

A Riveting Thriller
New York Premiere.
Writer/star Amy Zimmer and director Doron Max Hagay present.
A down-and-out reporter bemoans the current state of “this town.”
(3 minutes)

A Few Activities
Director Abigail Horton present.
A series of small, absurd moments in the lives of a handful of people.
(13 minutes)

Seven Dreams
New York Premiere.
Director Anthony Oberbeck present.
A nervous comedian seeks fame by sneaking into movie theaters to perform his stand-up act.
(9 minutes)

It’s Been Too Long
Director Amber Schaefer present.
Two ex-lovers meet at a rarely-used Aspen lodge to reignite their passions, but first they must confess their past sins.
(8 minutes)

How It’s Goin’
New York Premiere.
Directors Irene Kim Chin and Kurt Vincent present.
A recently divorced father drops off his daughter for the weekend with his ex-wife, then stumbles upon a 4/20 celebration in the park.
(13 min)

Nest Egg
New York Premiere.
Directed by Henry Loevner
When a young American woman decides to become a gestational surrogate to a couple from China, her insecure husband tries to torpedo the arrangement.
(13 minutes)

Unfinished,2017 (Mixed media)
Brooklyn Premiere.
Director Rafael Salazar Moreno present.
“Unfinished” captures the decisive and inevitable moment in which an artist faces her greatest fear: to stop making art.
(16 minutes)

Too Long at the Fair
Brooklyn Premiere.
Directors Jessie Barr and Lena Hudson present.
Charlie and Val, best friends and owners of a fledgling Princess Party business in L.A., meet a charming divorcee and spend the day together.
(14 minutes)

From the stacks of Strand to the screen at Nitehawk, we invite you to join us for a night of literary adaptations. These stories have lived on shelves at Strand Book Store for 92 years, and we’re excited to see them come to life in 10 original short films.

Enjoy the films, hang around for the award ceremony, and do some networking in the bar after! Thanks to our judges, all those who submitted, Nitehawk Cinema and book lovers everywhere who made our first ever film festival possible!

The program:

They’re Made out of Meat – directed by Stephen O’Regan
A humorous but thought-provoking story based on a conversation between two aliens about meat creatures.

The Hobbyist – directed by George Vatistas
A seemingly ordinary man seeks out a sagacious druggist in search of an untraceable poison, but winds up getting more than he bargained for. Based on the 1961 Short Story by Frederic Brown.

Dulcinea – directed by Francisco Lidón Plaza
A young knight and his shield bearer travel the country roads in search of adventures pretending to be in a chivalry novel. But these are very hard times and it won´t be easy to become Don Quixote and find the lady he loves, Dulcinea.

Thumbelina and the Ogre – directed by Cécile Robineau
A tale for kids & adults which offers a sensitive story about friendship. The film has also an ecological message as the ogre has learnt to care about everything in his gigantic garden and that’s why he considers with kindness Thumbelina, who was born in a flower.

We Are – directed by Abigail Karl
An experimental film built around excerpts from various works of Sylvia Plath read by young women from our time. These excerpts are supplemented by sexist advertisements and informational films from the 50s & 60s, which is the time Plath was a young woman.

Fleeting Autumn – directed by Vojtech Domlatil
Stopmotion poetry, oscilating between animation, documentary and experiment. Transforming Haiku poetry based on 5-7-5 syllables to the audiovisual form using 5-7-5 second shots structure. Shot during two month art residency in Japan.

Speak Thou Vast and Venerable Head – directed by Julia Oldham
An animated film that reimagines chapter 70 of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, “The Sphynx,” in which Ahab addresses the severed head of a sperm whale.

Speaking Daggers – directed by Sally McLean
Eight characters from five different Shakespeare plays discuss love, revenge, deceit and power in overheard conversations, set against the backdrop of coffee, cakes and waitresses in crisp white shirts.

The Blue from Heaven – directed by Suzie Hanna
Glenda Jackson provides the voice of poet Stevie Smith in this animated interpretation of her extraordinary 1950’s poem ‘The Blue from Heaven’. Suzie Hanna has adapted and animated the poet’s own drawings to communicate her rueful, wistful, comic, and melancholy themes with music and sound design by Phil Archer. (See The Collected Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith, Faber, 2015, edited by Will May.)

Father to Son – directed by Thomas Stokmans
In this musical debut film, there seems to be hardly any verbal communication between a father and his young son. But when dad plays his saxophone, the boy listens attentively. He gets a sip of dad’s coffee. A very small, intimate film with its heart in the right place.

The Yellow Wallpaper – directed by Janna Jesson
A woman is confronted with her anxiety after hey boyfriend disables access to her phone. Adaptation of a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.