You’re cordially invited to join us for an afternoon feast where the devil’s lettuce is cinematically on the menu. Lightly inspired by the goofy genius of Gregg Araki’s 2005 cult hit SMILEY FACE, this queer stoner combo of very exaggerated and very real stories of canna-bliss will turn that morning frown upside down.

Gather your buds and sink into your seat with this Mary Jane-tinged mixtape that features a makeshift dealer, a mythic puppet, a dangerous appliance, angels and demons, and more surprises that await at our annual Brooklyn Brunch.

This program will be followed by a Q&A

DEALING
Dir. Kendall Alex Payne, USA, 2023, 12 min
Dealing is a stoner comedy about Kai, a depressed lesbian, who picks up a part-time gig delivering weed for a day and through the power of human connection learns to love life again.

BABY YAGA SMOKED ME OUT
Dir. Julia B, USA, 2023, 10 min
In this puppet-tastic queer 420 comedy, a heartbroken and unemployed dyke unknowingly smokes magical weed and summons the mysterious Baba Yaga — an old hag witch that grants wishes for a price.

MONSTER COOKIE
Dir. John E. Kilberg, USA, 2023, 10 min
Frankie wants to pay their rent, go to work, and be a good roommate but is hijacked by their love for weed.

GIRL BLUNT
Dir. Clementine Narcisse, USA, 2023, 11 min
Two young women decide to use their newly found drug-dealing business to get revenge against a conniving man of their past.

GIANNA
Dir. Kait Schuster, USA, 2022, 11 min
Gina, a Filipina Gemini doing her best, takes the the advice of her sliding scale therapist to spend a day with her INNER SABOTEUR. Enter Gianna. Will they make peace, or does Gianna, like, literally want Gina dead?

CRARYLAKE BOATS AND FLOATS
Dir. Spencer Thielmann and Emily Berge, USA, 2022, 10 min
Summer is over. At the combo hot dog stand boat rental shop, Lane hopes to wait out her shift by getting high and avoiding the rain. The arrival of a flirty late-season boat renter, Cara, throws her plans into chaos.

AC UNIT
Dir. Grace Godvin, USA, 2023, 13 min
Hilton and Drew are two best friends living in Brooklyn during the height of a heatwave. After a futile attempt at installing an AC unit, a disaster turns their world on its head and the future becomes incredibly unclear.

As queer people, we often turn to pop culture for escape, refuge, and guidance. The movies we love, the stories we absorb, the music we listen to on repeat, and the celebrities we idolize become an essential part of ourselves and inform how we move and see the world. This sensational shorts program showcases the unbreakable link between queerness and pop culture — the posters that adorn a childhood bedroom, the talk shows in which we seek comfort, the boy bands we obsess over, the romantic comedies we swoon over, and the fairy tales we read before bed. We are what we watch.

This program will be followed by a Q&A

MIKEY’S ARMY
Dir. Andrew Keenan-Bolger, USA, 2023, 11 min
16-year-old Mikey Alvarez finds himself at a pivotal moment where he must decide whether or not to be open and honest about what he is feeling inside. Not feeling quite ready, Mikey unwittingly conjures courage from a trio of guides who appear in an explosion of glitter and glitz. Can a drag queen, an international pop star and an action film heartthrob tackle a mission this big and give Mikey the confidence he needs?

I LOVE NANCY MEYERS
Dir. Narineh Tahmasebian, USA, 2023, 15 min
Two feminist women on a date contend with their love (and hate) for Nancy Meyers movies, debating issues that arise when viewing the past with present day eyes…and what a kitchen island really means.

RUMPELSTILTSKIN
Dir. Ethan Fuirst, USA, 2023, 8 min
A filmmaker compares his love life to the Rumpelstiltskin fable.

THROCKADACIA
Dir. Blake Lucius Griffey, USA, 2023, 13 min
Sterling and his co-host begin filming their variety talk show as usual, when an unexpected visitor arrives. The man at the door is Sterling’s ex-lover, flowers in hand. But the show must go on.

BOYBEND
Dir. Eva Malmberg, Sweden, 2023, 14 min
In an alternative reality Boybend is the world’s biggest boyband. In this documentary we get to see exclusive home videos of the band, together with pictures in the spotlight and behind the scenes. Boybend is about to take over the world. But in our reality, Boybend challenges the image of who gets to play the role of a fangirl’s dream boy.

SOMEWHERE ALL THE BOYS ARE BIRDS
Dir. Apa Agbayani, USA, 2023, 11 min
Benjie’s obsession with long-dead Filipino movie star Jaime Reyes leads him to the rooftop where the actor killed himself. Here, he summons Jaime’s ghost for a conversation.

CRUSH ICEBERGS
Dir. Hannah Rafkin, USA, 2022, 15 min
Four queer adults reflect on the onscreen characters that captured their adolescent hearts.

THE PRINCE’S DILEMMA
Dir. Devin Rowe, USA, 2023, 5 min
Prince Philip, who is longing to be with a prince of his own, must decide to follow the traditional tale or forge his own happily ever after.

Is Trans+ Realism a new genre, or an undefined category? The origin of the word trans is “to expand beyond,” and this powerful program evolves beyond genres, identities and pre-conceptions for an augmented expression of our community. Each film in this program — all-trans and non-binary-directed — offers a glimpse into the diverse spectrum of the trans experience, illuminating the screen with stories about characters fearlessly forging their path and living their truths. These fiction, documentary, and hybrid stories navigate the subtleties of T4T relationships, celebrate radical acceptance, deconstruct the medical paradigm, imagine possible futures, and present the multiple realities in which we care for and inhabit.

This program will be followed by a Q&A

THE SCRIPT
Dirs. Noah Schamus, Brit Fryer, USA, 2023, 15 min
Blending personal interviews with dramatized genre recreations, The Script explores the complicated relationship between trans and nonbinary communities and medical providers regarding gender-affirming care.

I IDENTIFY AS ME
Dirs. Tina Colleen, Monick Monell, USA, 2021, 10 min
Through the intimate lens of eight Black & Brown Trans, gender-diverse people, and masculine-presenting women, the social concept of gender is challenged.

THE DEVICE THAT TURNED ME INTO A CYBORG WAS BORN THE SAME YEAR I WAS
Dir. Chella Man, USA, 2023, 3 min
Chella Man explores his complex relationship with the cochlear implant, and navigating identity between the deaf and hearing worlds.

DO DIGITAL CURANDERAS USE EGGS IN THEIR LIMPIAS?
Dir. Roberto Fatal, USA, 2023, 13 min
A struggling Latinx healer considers abandoning the physical world for promises of a digital utopia.

VAPOR TRAILS
Dir. Willow Skye-Biggs, USA, 2023, 11 min
In 1997 against the backdrop of distant violence, two displaced women find transcendence through connection.

DISMANTLE ME
Dir. Max Disgrace, UK, 2023, 13 min
A comical proposition turns into an arousing powerplay when a smoldering-hot trans woman helps a heartbroken trans man tidy his messy bedroom. Made in collaboration with Trans+ On Screen.

THE YEAR LONG BOULDER
Dir. Brielle LeBlanc, Canada, 2022, 9 min
Billy (Em Grisdale), a moody yet chill twentysomething, opens the film reading yet another poem about “them”—it’s the classic queer canundrum (“Are we friends or are we flirting?”), gone on for so long that Billy is approaching a tipping point. Their roommate and best pal Dylan (Marley O’Brien) has been the support and audience for Billy’s poetic lament the whole year long, as this emotional boulder has slowly crushed them. After a vague moment off-screen proves the last straw in the dynamic, Dylan finally gives Billy the push they needed: just tell them how you feel! As Billy continues processing their feelings through writing, the film image interprets their poetics in dreamy montage, bringing to light the abstract complexities of Billy’s emotional register. Once it all comes out, and Billy tells “them” everything, they realize the answer to this grief lies in its release—that there’s strength in vulnerability, laughter in pain, and self-discovery at the heart of self-expression.

HOW TO CARRY WATER
Dir. Sasha Wortzel, USA, 2022, 15 min
This punk rock fairytale doubles as a portrait of Shoog McDaniel — a fat, queer, and disabled photographer working in and around northern Florida’s vast network of freshwater springs, the state’s source of precious drinking water. For over a decade, Shoog’s photographs have transformed the way fat people view themselves and how a fat phobic society views fat bodies. Bringing Shoog’s photography to life, the film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, one in which marginalized bodies — including bodies of water — are sacred.

Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Richard DeManincor, Theresa Tilly

Ashley “Ash” Williams (Bruce Campbell), his girlfriend and three pals hike into the woods to a cabin for a fun night away. There they find an old book, the Necronomicon, whose text reawakens the dead when it’s read aloud. The friends inadvertently release a flood of evil and must fight for their lives or become one of the evil dead. Ash watches his friends become possessed, and must make a difficult decision before daybreak to save his own life in this, the first of Sam Raimi’s trilogy.

Starring: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins

Based on the Henry James story “The Turn of the Screw,” a psychological thriller about a woman who takes a governess job for two orphans in a Victorian home. She begins to see what she believes are ghosts and suspects the children’s bizarre behavior is the result of supernatural powers.

Starring: Sunita Mani, Kate Easton, Kayla Foster, Danny Deferrari, Becca Q Co, Adam Faison

New York premiere

Struggling to cope with the sudden death of their best friend, three longtime friends decide to go on a camping trip together, as a way to heal the wounds caused by the recent tragedy. What starts off harmlessly awkward quickly descends into a mess of mistrust, revealed secrets, and the looming specter of even more tragedy.

Led by GLOW breakout Sunita Mani, writer-director Jessica Kozak’s Wilder Than Her playfully balances cringe comedy with subtle psychological horror. The result is a singular and sneakily creepy directorial debut. —Matt Barone

Starring: Toby Poser, Zelda Adams, John Adams

New York premiere

Things are tough in the Depression. Especially for a family of sideshow performers, who supplement their income through murdering the wealthy, then looting their homes for valuables. When teen daughter Eve steals a gruesome object from a fellow performer that seems to give eternal life, the family act draws in larger audiences than ever before. As always, however, all actions have consequences and the family gets a lot more than they bargained for. The Adams Family continue their microbudget gory artistry with this film, and give audiences a truly shocking final frame. —Caitlin Hughes

Starring: Karin Leklou, Visalia Pons

East Coast premiere

In Stéphan Castang’s absurdist dark comedy Vincent Must Die, a bizarre assault at work ignites a sudden new nightmare reality for an average man in which people – from colleagues to strangers – suddenly attack him with murderous intent. Confused and lonely amongst the chaos that is now his life, he tries to make connections and make sense of these occurrences while also trying to survive. – Caryn Coleman

Starring: Suzy Kendall, Tina Aumont, Luc Merenda, John Richardson

With a masked killer picking off college students in Perugia, Italy, four co-eds head to a lavish countryside estate to escape the danger. Unfortunately for them, the killer has followed them there, turning their getaway villa into a slaughterhouse. Widely considered to be one of the first slasher films, this excellent and quite lurid giallo from the great Sergio Martino, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is a masterclass in both white-knuckle tension and tightly orchestrated murder set-pieces. —Matt Barone

Starring: Zafreen Zairizal, Deena Ezral, Piqa, Shaheizy Sam

Twelve-year-old Zaffan lives her life with uber-confidence, stealing the daily show at school and being the alpha in her friend group. But when she has her first period, the young girl undergoes physical changes that may or may not be turning her into a monster and cause those around her to make her feel like some kind of freak.

Using body horror, Asian folklore, and a propulsive energy to remix the coming-of-age narrative, first-timer Amanda Nell Eu’s Tiger Stripes cleverly shows how growing up can be a waking nightmare. —Matt Barone