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.

Starring: The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Crosby Stills & Nash, Joe Cocker, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin

On the 50th anniversary of the concert, we’re screening the documentary Woodstock, an intimate look at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival. Held in Bethel, NY in 1969, the film documents the festival from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes to the surreal arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of 500,000.

Starring: Lou David, Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer, Larry Joshua

Apart from early appearances by Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter, an interesting score by Rick Wakeman, and some typically effective work by effects icon Tom Savini, this slasher film is also among the more frightening of its kind. The plot concerns a summer-camp caretaker named Cropsy (Lou David) who is horribly burned by mischievous teen campers during a botched practical joke. Years later, he leaves the hospital as a disfigured gloppy mess with an axe (actually, hedgeclippers) to grind. After dispatching a local prostitute, Cropsy heads out to the wilderness to terrorize a group of campers. They’re the usual bunch of horny, obnoxious teenagers, but there are some interesting performances by Larry Joshua as a mean-spirited bully and Brian Backer (of Fast Times at Ridgemont High) as a put-upon nerd.

Starring: Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze, Jerry Orbach

$5 from each cocktail special sold and a portion of popcorn sales will be donated to the National Network of Abortion Funds

Baby (Jennifer Grey) is one listless summer away from the Peace Corps. Hoping to enjoy her youth while it lasts, she’s disappointed when her summer plans deposit her at a sleepy resort in the Catskills with her parents. Her luck turns around, however, when the resort’s dance instructor, Johnny (Patrick Swayze), enlists Baby as his new partner, and the two fall in love. Baby’s father forbids her from seeing Johnny, but she’s determined to help him perform the last big dance of the summer.

Starring: Hugh Bonneville, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Kevin Doyle

The continuing story of the Crawley family, wealthy owners of a large estate in the English countryside in the early 20th century.

Starring: Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin, Michael Sheasby, Baykali Ganambarr

Set in 1825 in colonial Tasmania, Clare, a young Irish convict, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. On the way she enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

Attention: The Nightingale features potentially triggering acts of sexual violence, as well as violence towards children and Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The reason for this is to show an authentic and honest representation of Tasmanian history during colonization.

Playing before each screening of The Nightingale is the short film Kaya directed by Catherine Fordham (Nitehawk Shorts Festival alum).

A woman’s desperate search through truck stops and motels explodes in vigilante justice when she discovers a young girl being trafficked by the same crew of truckers who took her teenage sister.

Starring: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Kim Walker, Shannen Doherty

Westerburg High School’s elite clique of popular girls is “The Heathers,” comprised of Heather Chandler, Heather Duke and Heather McNamara. Rounding out the foursome is Veronica Sawyer, who is so fed up with the Heathers and the entire peer pressure cooker that she starts running with J.D., a mysterious motorcycle-riding newcomer. Their noble effort to rid Westerburg of its bad apples ends up taking a real toll, and their teen rebellion produces a serious and mounting body count.

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Bokeem Woodbine

Following the arrest of her mother, young Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) decides to go in search of her estranged grandmother. On the way, she is given a ride by school counselor Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland). During the journey, Lutz begins to realize that Bob is the notorious I-5 Killer and manages to escape by shooting him several times. Wounded but still very much alive, Bob pursues Lutz across the state in this modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

Starring: Stacy Keach, Jamie Lee Curtis, Marion Edward

Truck driver Pat Quid takes the law into his own hands to capture a serial killer. On the road in his search, he picks up a hitchhiker, and it is her presence that brings the killer out of hiding.