While reading a novel by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf on the bus, Ali Sabzian strikes up a conversation with a pretty girl, Mahrokh Ahankhah. When she tells him her family admires Makhmalbaf’s work, Ali pretends to be the filmmaker to impress her. Becoming friendly with the Ahankhahs, Ali tells them he is preparing a new movie, but when they uncover his true identity, he is arrested for fraud. This film reenacts the true story of the incident, with Ali and the family playing themselves.

African-American documentary filmmaker Marlon Riggs was working on this final film as he died from AIDS-related complications in 1994; he addresses the camera from his hospital bed in several scenes. The film directly addresses sexism and homophobia within the black community, with snippets of misogynistic and anti-gay slurs from popular hip-hop songs juxtaposed with interviews with African-American intellectuals and political theorists, including Cornel West, bell hooks and Angela Davis.

Starring: Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco

A vampiric doctoral student tries to follow the philosophy of a nocturnal comrade and control her thirst for blood.

Starring: María Mercedes Coroy, Sabrina De La Hoz, Margarita Kenéfic, Julio Diaz

Alma is murdered with her children during a military attack in Guatemala, but when the general who ordered the genocide is found not guilty 30 years later, Alma returns to the world of the living to torment the man.

Starring: Noé Hernández, María Evoli, Diego Gamaliel

After wandering a ruined city for years, two siblings enter a building and find a man who makes them a dangerous offer.

Starring: Alexis Díaz de Villegas, Jorge Molina, Andros Perugorría, Andrea Duro, Jazz Vilá, Eliecer Ramírez

When the dead rise and attack the living, Juan starts a zombie-killing business, until he has to save his small band from being eaten.

An up-close cinematic walkabout through the life of Gary Young, the original (and highly unlikely) drummer of indie rock royalty Pavement. His booze and drugs-fueled antics (on-stage handstands, gifting vegetables to fans) and haphazard production methods (accidentally helping launch the lo-fi aesthetic) were both a driving force of the band’s early rise and the cause of his eventual crash landing.

Leaving a wake of joy and/or destruction at every turn, Gary teeters the thin line between free-form self-expression and chaotic self-destruction. Thirty years on with scoliosis, blood clots, and a shriveled liver, Gary is still drumming with no regrets. Note: no puppets were harmed in the making of this film.

Starring: Mays Mustafa, Mohammed Al Ammari, Roger Assaf, Hanane Hajj Ali, Sophia Moussa Fitch, Ahmad Kaabour

U.S. premiere

Young Najwa and the musician Mansour cross the Lebanese border and reach Beirut. They follow smugglers to join a woman on the other side of the sea. The old lighthouse keeper tries to repair his neighborhood’s electricity.

Starring: Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satô

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman (Nobuko Otowa) and her daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi (Kei Satô). The mother disapproves and, when she can’t steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.

Please join The Future of Film is Female for its second annual evening of short films at Nitehawk Cinema! These sixteen films across two programs span genre and style, capturing a unique look at our present moment – or a wild escape from it.

Both programs will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

The Future of Film is Female is a non-profit organization whose mission is to amplify the work of all women and non-binary filmmakers through its Short Film Fund and exhibition programming. Short films are at the heart of what we do! To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.

The Blue Diamond, 2024, dir. Sam Fox, 16 min.
After the death of her toxic mother, a cultish 80s apres ski club is the setting of a grieving daughter trying to find closure, but as usual with 80s ski clubs, nothing is as it seems (aliens).

Your Own Good, 2023, dir. Haroula Rose, 3 min.
“If you’d known what had happened, we weren’t sure you could continue…It was for your own good, he said. It was for my own good.” A meditation on memory.

Grace, 2022, dir. Johanna Makabi, 14 min.
Grace, 8 years old, hates her neighborhood, she hates cheerleading, and today she decided to join her father in space.

All of Them, 2024, dir. Sylvia Sichel, 12 min.
Cora rises above her frayed relationship with her mother when faced with a poignant final request.

Hundreds, 2024, dir. Sabina Friedman-Seitz and Neil Champagne, 10 min.
In the summer of 2021, best friends Sasha and Meg are ready for their usual post-breakup gossip sesh at their favorite Brooklyn Pilates class, until their routine is shattered by the arrival of a masked stranger who seems eerily familiar. As Sasha becomes increasingly obsessed with uncovering the stranger’s identity, their once peaceful sanctuary turns into a claustrophobic hellscape of anxiety and intrigue.

The Awakening, 2023, dir. Sumi Mathai, 14 min.
A young girl learns the rules of the game she’s destined to play in a patriarchal world.

Merci, Poppy, 2023, dir. Hanna Gray Organschi, 15 min.
A scrappy assistant reaches her breaking point when her charismatic filmmaker boss blows off her request for a promotion.

The Jam, 2024, dir. Sasha J. Manning, 12 min.
During a girls’ night out roller-skating, a young woman becomes distracted by her boyfriend’s looming presence and must decide whether to leave her abusive relationship.