Short Narratives & Animated Stories
6:30 - 8:00 pM
The Bloch Learning & Performance Hall
Falta Manuel
Ro Olivares
Year: 2022
Run Time: 12:30
Country: Chile
Synopsis: Two days after President Piñera declared the State of Emergency, as a result of the so-called "social outbreak in Chile" (2019), Manuel, a 60-year-old man, cleans some candles. His son-in-law is having a birthday and his daughter on the phone complains because the cake he had ordered will not arrive...
Bio: Ro Olivares was born in Los Andes on October 18, 1988. He is a 4th year student at the Chilean Film School. In the development of audiovisual projects, he has shown his interest in the directing department and has worked on different themes with a common pattern, reflecting through the screen the contingent social issues that demand reflection.
Ro's creative processes respond to stories fragmented in time and space, whose ultimate goal is to find gear between the planes. The main characters are usually ordinary people with unique experiences.
Dollhouse Elephant
Jenny Jokela
Year: 2025
Run Time: 11:14
Country: Finland
Synopsis: In a world that demands community participation, individual desires inevitably collide. A group of neighbours, each focused on their own goals, must learn to communicate and consider one another. But when small, everyday actions trigger unexpected consequences, they are forced into interactions that challenge their independence.
Bio: Jenny Jokela (1990) is a Finnish animation director and artist based in Edinburgh, UK. She earned an MA in Animation from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2017. Her films have received multiple awards, including the Annecy Cristal for Best Graduation Film in 2018 for Barbeque (2017). One of her notable projects is Hibernation, a hand-painted animated film performed live with a large ensemble across Europe, which premiered at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in June 2022. She has also directed the children's TV series Hoppsorna (YLE, Finland, 2018–2022) and Arne Alligator (SF Studios, Sweden, 2023).
Filmography: Dollhouse Elephant (2025), Sweet Like Lemons (2023), Live a Little (2018), Barbeque (2017, graduation film)
You Do Not Exist
Dwayne LeBlanc
Year: 2026
Run Time: 8:00
Country: United States
Synopsis: In the stillness of his yard, Booker watches the sky fill and empty with passing planes. As the world moves around him, he lingers, circling a memory whose edges blur with time.
Bio: Dwayne LeBlanc is a Los Angeles-based, first-generation, Caribbean American self-taught filmmaker. His practice focuses on themes of migration, visibility, dual identities and belonging.
His debut narrative short film, Civic, was named one of The Best Movies of 2023 by The New Yorker. His sophomore film, Now, Hear Me Good, premiered in the Tiger Shorts Competition at IFFR and continues to screen at major international festivals and leading art institutions. Collectively, his films have been presented at venues including MoMA, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, NYU, and CalArts. He is nearing the completion of his trilogy with the upcoming short, You Do Not Exist.
LeBlanc is one of Filmmaker Magazine's '25 New Faces of Independent Film,' a 2024 Dolby Institute Fellow, and a 2025 MacDowell artist in residence, where he is developing his debut feature film.
All of This Must Be Paid For
Gabi Rudin
Year: 2025
Run Time: 12:10
Country: United States
Synopsis: The wellness universe evaluates the spiritual mechanics of the pain-body as it searches for answers.
Bio: Gabi Rudin is a teaching artist and filmmaker living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is interested in the ways people endure embodiment in a sociopolitical system. Her films films search for synergy and mystical significance in a secular, material world susceptible to loneliness and apathy.
