Our final program for this year will provide a flood of emotions for all. Characters grapple with secrets, take wild swings for attention, and try to make sense of sexuality. In summer or winter, in the confines of an apartment or traversing a city, some of these shorts capture one night while others span time, finding ways to portray the ineffable.

Q&A moderated by Cristina Cacioppo, Nitehawk Cinema

Nepotism, Baby!
Tij D’oyen / U.S. / 2023 / 12 min. / English
A fame obsessed young woman fabricates a conspiracy to jump-start her career.

Quilly
Michael Arcos / U.S. / 2024 / 15 min. / English
A stuffed rabbit gets destroyed and a toxic couple goes berserk.

Wait To Tell Mother
Emma Elizabeth Steiger / U.S. / 2024 / 12 min. / English
After losing the most important person in her life, Anna must wrestle with her own choice surrounding life or death.

The Shadow Wrangler
Grace Rex / U.S. / 2024 / 13 min. / English
An audiobook narrator’s attempts to finish recording a western erotica novel in her closet are foiled by disturbances.

Summer’s End
Grant Conversano, Adam Conversano / U.S. / 2023 / 20 min. / English
A troubled young man must face the parallels between his own destructive patterns and his alcoholic father’s infidelity.

Ephemera
Cici Clancy / Canada / 2024 / 13 min. / English
Trapped in a digital void of endless porn, a lonely gas station worker discovers salvation in shadflies – insects born purely to mate.

STRANGERS
Leah Doz / Canada / 2024 / 14 min. / English
After missing their bus on a cold winter night, a young girl confronts the limits of her mother’s love.

Always a festival favorite, the Midnite program returns, once again at a reasonable hour! A midnite film can be gut-wrenching, gasp inducing, gruesome, goofy and gross, and all of that is represented here. In another year of a majority female directed line-up, these projects continue to push the boundaries in the best ways possible. Do you dare to enter?

Q&A moderated by Desmond Thorne, Nitehawk Cinema

Don’t Come Home Before Midnight
Allison Torem / U.S. / 2024 / 13 min. / English
An actor goes method while investigating a corrupt tennis camp owner, but the lines begin to blur between the case and the mysteries that consume him in his own home.

The Thaw
Sarah Wisner, Sean Temple / U.S. / 2023 / 17 min. / English
In 19th-century Vermont, a young woman’s parents drink sleeping tea to survive the harsh winter, but an early thaw leads to horrifying results.

Poppa
Peter Ahern / U.S. / 2024 / 1 min. / English
I’m sorry, what just happened?

Cruelty
Sam Das / U.S. / 2024 / 9 min. / English
A young trans woman is chased into a junkyard while being followed home late at night. She must outwit her predator and summon the strength of a goddess.

Is That a Mime?
Phil Cheney / U.S. / 2024 / 5 min. / English
A couple’s picnic is disrupted by what may or may not be a mime.

DESTROYER
Judd Myers / U.S. / 2023 / 20 min. / English
An insecure man’s compulsion to know his partner’s secrets leads him on an underworld descent where he makes contact with something non-human.

Spicy Latina
Michelle Cepeda Cruz / U.S. / 2023 / 11 min. / English
Leti, an anxious & lonely woman, struggles with an increasingly aggressive case of acid reflux all while diving headfirst into the stress inducing world of modern dating.

Dummy!
Francesca Pazniokas / U.S. / 2024 / 13 min. / English
An aspiring cabaret singer struggles to break free from her controlling mother — a ventriloquist dummy who was once a star herself.

The Flacalta Effect
Rochée Jeffrey / U.S. / 2023 / 8 min. / English
After a drug with anti-aging properties has apocalyptic consequences, two Black sisters fight for their lives—and looks—in this satirical take on toxic white beauty culture.

This year’s Matinee One program is quite the journey for an early morning! We begin with a surprising tale of romance, and end with an obsession over a shocking “delicacy”. As you reach your destination, you will also encounter beautiful and complicated relationships, strangers in the park, and an insomniac bear. Get ready to be energized by this truly fantastic work!

Q&A moderated by Caryn Coleman, The Future of Film is Female

Forever Yours
Elliott Louis McKee / Germany / 2024 / 16 min. / English
After a tragic accident leaves Sebastian paralyzed, Valeria becomes his devoted caretaker—but beneath her love, a disturbing obsession begins to take hold.

Desync
Minerva Marie Navasca / Canada / 2023 / 12 min. / English, Tagalog
A young Filipina filmmaker attempts to overwrite a painful memory of her mother with a perfect narrative.

Unbearable
Stephen Sues / U.S. / 2024 / 7 min. / English
A bear struggling with insomnia during hibernation season seeks help from a rabbit hypnotist, who uses unorthodox methods to get to the root of the problem.

Classmates
Major Dorfman / U.S. / 2023 / 19 min. / English
An apathetic teenager is dropped off on the outskirts of town to work on a project with the school outcast. The two boys form a connection, but not without consequences.

Fowl Play
Anabelle LeMieux / U.S. / 2024 / 12 min. / English
A struggling single mother’s Thanksgiving plans spiral wildly out of control…

Traveling Man
Graham Mason / U.S. / 2024 / 15 min. / English
A guy named Doug meets a mysterious stranger in the park and strikes a deal.

Sudden Apathy
Ryan Weatrowski / U.S. / 2024 / 11 min. / English
A former prima ballerina, now an Alzheimer’s caregiver, suffers from an identity crisis.

Chow
Kevin Armento, Jaki Bradley / U.S. / 2024 / 15 min. / English
A man’s life begins to unravel after he eats an unsettling meal abroad and becomes obsessed with recreating it at home.

Our Matinee Two program gives access to fully formed worlds with very personal stories told in sometimes disarmingly relatable ways. Frequently meditative and immersive. The relationships we experience with our environment, ourselves and others are examined alongside cultural insights. The different ways we react and move forward when new experience causes shifts in our perspectives. How we balance emotions and logic. Beautiful visuals and engaging films await in this fantastic program.

Q&A moderated by Shay Filmore, Film Programmer

A Film About Fascism
Paige Levy / U.S. / 2024 / 15 min. / English
On the set of her divisive film about radical indoctrination, a director fights for control as the all-male crew are united by an enemy of their own creation.

Daly City
Nick Hartanto / U.S. / 2024 / 16 min. / English, Indonesian
An Indonesian boy and his mother attend a church potluck and lie about their dish.

The Colour of My Room
Jake Alden Falconer  / U.K., U.S. / 2024 / 16 min. / English
When Sylvie’s best friend comes to visit her on the coast, it exposes just how far the gulf between their lives has grown.

Lucky Charms
Gabriella Cetrulo / U.S. / 2017 – 2024 / 6 min. / English
A teenager is left alone in her family’s mansion while a robber prowls the neighborhood.

A Part of You / Made Me Whole Again
Destyn Fuller-Hope, Andrew Wonder / U.S. / 2023 / 5 min. / English
Two Lives. One Gift. A post-kidney transplant memoir, told as a dream-like prayer to Mom.

Shangri-La
Rhys Raiskin / U.S. / 2024 / 14 min. / English
When Joe discovers his high school crush, Daphne, has moved into his nursing home, he asks his best friend Alma to be his wingman but, she has a little crush of her own.

PAWN SHOP
Amouri Edwards / U.S. / 2024 / 4 min. / English
A magical pawn shop owner trades enchanted objects that alter the state of three unsuspecting customers – an old wise lady, a little boy and a vain man.

Sunkiss
Dice Rose / U.S. / 2024 / 10 min. / English
Teenage best girl friends decide to go on a dangerous joyride with two older men and their lives are changed forever.

Forbidden Pond
Eric Jenkins-Sahlin / U.S. / 2022 / 13 min. / English
It’s a didinium eat paramecium world, and Deb Kapell makes microscopy art of it.

Comedian Kevin Maher and co-host Emily Menez are downright obsessed with sidekicks: brave best friends, dependable deputies, even sneaky second bananas. So naturally, they’ve crafted a tribute show starring scene-stealing second-in-commands! It’s a multi-media celebration of slightly shorter supporting stars, childhood classics, animated Christmas characters, and unforgettable folklore foes. It’s about time for these unsung helpers to get their due.

See why SyFy called Kevin “an insane genius” in the series DailyGrindhouse.com described as “TED Talks for Midnight Movies.”

Join us for this 90-minute multi-media variety show, with guest appearances by:

Brandon Burkhart (Writer, The Dump Podcast, Onion, Tonight Show)
Sean Charles (Producer, Creative, Developer)
Emily Flake (Cartoonist, Writer)
Amanda Lehr (Writer, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Audacity, Bright Wall/Dark Room)
Roman LC Martinez (Founder, Film Reframed)

**PLUS: Trivia prizes courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome.

And don’t miss our custom 30-minute pre-show video that plays as soon as the house opens. Curated by Camila Jones.

The individual journeys of the four members of Led Zeppelin, as they move through the music scene of the 1960s, playing small clubs throughout Britain and performing some of the biggest hits of the era, until their meeting in the summer of 1968 for a rehearsal that changes their lives forever.

For decades, Theo Jansen has toiled on the beaches of the Netherlands in his quest to make his beloved Strandbeests self-sufficient. But what happens when, as the artist pursues his dream to create new life, he starts to feel his own slipping away? As he contemplates whether he is the Strandbeests’ master or slave, Theo races against the inevitable passing of time and his eventual death.

Starring: Jorge Rivero, Andrea Occhipinti, Conrado San Martín

In 1983 the Italian director Lucio Fulci, having mastered the giallo, gifted the world his take on sword-and-sandal fantasy with Conquest, a gauzy, outrageous creation that features a laser bow and arrow, an oft-naked villainess with a head of gold, and beefy, long haired heroes. You need not try to follow the plot – just soak in the hallucinatory imagery that is equal parts violent as it is surreal, with tropes playing out like they’ve been shot into outer space and ricocheted back in a familiar yet uncanny form. Nonsensical and mystifying as it is, the artistry and imagination are undeniable – we struggle to think of a film that comes close to being this baffling and captivating.

Starring: Miki Itô, Emi Shinohara, Michie Tomizawa, Tesshô Genda

A sapphic love triangle between a super-powered schoolgirl, a cutie-patootie outer space princess, and a techno-powered rich kid gets way, way out of hand in Project A-Ko.

Bored of the luscious landscapes and tragic childhoods they crafted for Hayao Miyazaki and Mamorou Oshii, the Project A-Ko production team flexed on this flashy popcorn flick where they were finally free to animate the things they like: softcore nudity, excessively large spaceships, and elaborate fight scenes between robot spiders, mega-buff gender aliens, and three small girls. They go crazy with it.

A tiny bit titillating and quite funny, Project A-Ko made waves in the U.S.A. on home video and cable television, one of the first hits in anime’s global pop-culture conquest. For most of the last twenty years, however, lost negatives meant this animator’s anime took on a permanent lo-res haze. Happenstance struck in 2021, when the pristine material turned up in a mislabeled film can, allowing for A-Ko to kick a hole through our hearts in this beautiful new restoration.

Featuring the Anime After Dark Raffle, one lucky guest will win a pair of Friday passes to AnimeNYC 2025

Starring: Elia Suleiman

Elia Suleiman (as himself) escapes from Palestine seeking an alternative homeland, only to find that Palestine is trailing behind him. The promise of a new life turns into a comedy of errors: however far he travels, from Paris to New York, something always reminds him of home.