Opening Film Showcase Compilation
6:30 - 8:00 pM
The Bloch Learning & Performance Hall
Papa
Florias Welch Gallay
Year: 2026
Run Time: 3:50
Country: Swtizerland
Synopsis: An elderly woman, on the threshold of death, prepares to reunite with her father. We accompany her in this reunion through a poetic and spiritual film.
Flow of Being
Helen Unt
Year: 2024
Run Time: 11:11
Country: Bulgaria, Estonia
Synopsis: A person is in the flow. They make a decision and keep flowing until all becomes one.
Bio: Helen Unt (1987) is an Estonian animator and filmmaker. She graduated with a BFA in Printmaking from the Estonian Academy of Arts, where she also completed her MFA in Animation. Since then, she has taught the development and production of animated films to children, school teachers, and animation students. In 2016 her debut short animated film Out of Internal Worlds was finished at studio Eesti Joonisfilm. In The Flow of Being (2024), her most recent animated film, the story is told through changing techniques. Helen has recently developed an interest in woodworking and upcycling. She is currently looking for creative challenges in stop-motion, either modelling or animating.
Filmography: Flow of Being (2024), Out of Internal Worlds (2016), Chicks on the Highway (2011, graduation film)
Bug
Pat O’Connor
Year: 2025
Run Time: 7:25
Country: United States
Synopsis: A drifting Texas musician arrives in a small Midwest town to play a show, believing it may also bring him face to face with a love that’s only existed at a distance.
Bio: Patrick Jeremiah O'Connor (born July 13, 1998) is an American actor, director and producer. He currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dizzy Cavalry
Patrick Doyon
Year: 2025
Run Time: 1:00
Country: Canada
Synopsis: An 8mm reel of a Hollywood western flickers to life once more. As the first call of the bugle rings out, the cavalry charges—swift and chaotic—while the film strains to keep pace. It ripples, trembles and tangles, caught in the chaos of gunfire and the thunder of galloping hooves.
Bio: Patrick Doyon is a director based in Montreal, Canada. Its first professional film Sunday (2011) garnered honours on the international festival circuit as well as being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short. He studied graphic design and he is sharing his time between illustration and animation. Many of his works have been awarded in various competitions: Art Directors Club, Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, Applied Arts and Arte Laguna Prize have all highlighted the quality of his artwork. In 2015, he received the prestigious Governor General's Literary Award for his illustrated book "Le Voleur de sandwichs". Alongside his artistic practice, he teaches animation at UQAM School of Design.
Tarfu Bravo Zulu
Jonathan Kiefer
Year: 2025
Run Time: 8:26
Country: United States
Synopsis: At a lonely outpost on the coast of nowhere, two soldiers of sorts stand guard against civilization.
Or for it — sorry, yeah, for it.
With Galen Howard (The Book of Boba Fett) and Connor Diaz.
TARFU: Navy slang for “Totally and Royally Fucked Up”
BRAVO ZULU: Navy flag signal for “Well done!”
Bio: An alumnus of the Reykjavík International Film Festival Talent Lab and SFFILM’s FilmHouse residency, I’m the writer and co-producer of the independent 2020 feature drama Around the Sun, so far released in 24 countries, as well as the maker of a handful of shorts with festival screenings including Cinequest, Boston Underground, Indy Shorts, and PÖFF Shorts
Primetime Mr. President
Saif Alsaegh
Year: 2025
Run Time: 6:00
Country: United States
Synopsis: Only few weeks after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, former president George W. Bush gave a televised speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln declaring that his country has prevailed. Primetime Mr. President analyzes the speech, dubed as “Mission Accomplished,” through the lens of what Iraqis had and will endure from horrible insurgency, civil and sectarian wars, and the overarching senes of death for years and years, and years to come.
Bio: Saif Alsaegh is a United States-based filmmaker from Baghdad. Much of Saif’s work deals with the contrast between the landscape of his youth in Baghdad growing up as part of the indigenous Chaldean minority in the nineties and early 2000s, and the U.S. landscape where he currently lives. His films have screened in festivals and venues including
Cinéma du Réel, Kurzfilm Hamburg, Media City Film Festival, Kassel Dokfest, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and The Gene Siskel Film Center. Alsaegh’s films are distributed by Video Data Bank. His work has been supported by fellowships and residencies including the Flaherty, Ucross and Yaddo. Alsaegh received his MFA in film from the University of Wisconsin, Milwuakee.
Macabre
Jonah Manibusan
Year: 2025
Run Time: 12:00
Country: United States
Synopsis: Macabre is a haunting psychological thriller that delves into the fractured psyche of Ezekiel, a man tormented by his abusive past and unraveling grip on reality. As Ezekiel prepares for what should be a joyous birthday celebration with his girlfriend Samantha and their close friend J.T., he begins to experience disturbing visions of his late stepfather, Corbin. These apparitions blur the line between memory and reality, dragging Ezekiel deeper into a world of paranoia and self-doubt.
The film explores themes of trauma, betrayal, and the haunting nature of unresolved pain. As Ezekiel confronts the ghosts of his past, he is forced to question the authenticity of the relationships around him and the truth of his own actions. With its chilling atmosphere and a devastating twist, Macabre unearths the terrifying consequences of a mind trapped in its own darkness.
Bio: Jonah Manibusan is a filmmaker and student at George Mason University, majoring in Film and minoring in Communications. He is the Founder and Creative Director of 3017th Studios, a production company established in 2022, dedicated to creating thought-provoking and meaningful content. Under his leadership, 3017th Studios has produced award-winning short films, documentaries, music videos, and more.
Inspired by filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino, Jonah’s work explores themes of memory, redemption, and the lasting impact of the past. His stories often center on characters grappling with their history, reflecting his belief that the past shapes identity.
Patch
Meg Cook
Year: 2025
Run Time: 1:34
Country: United States
Synopsis: Using stop motion and cut paper, Patch explores pattern, movement, and play, echoing the tactile qualities of textile-making.
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Original 1:1 aspect ratio version available upon request.
Bio: Meg Cook is an experimental animator, multimedia artist, and educator. Currently, she is a faculty member at Texas A&M University within the College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts. She earned her MFA in Visualization from Texas A&M, and her BFA in Animation with a minor in Storyboarding from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia.
Cook’s stop-motion animated films have screened globally at film festivals such as London Short Film Festival, Ontario’s Best Short Fest, Dumbo Film Festival, Aurora Picture Show Extremely Shorts Film Festival, and more. Her film, UNSOLICITED, earned awards such as Best Animation at Continental Film Festival and Best Animated Film at Austin Micro Short Film Festival.
Memories of the Little Pond
Yeon Choi
Year: 2024
Run Time: 6:00
Country: United States
Synopsis: Memories of the Little Pond is an exploration of the pain and sorrow experienced by those who lost loved ones and homes during the Korean War. Told from the perspective of a young girl, the film follows her journey through profound loss, as she faces the grief of losing her closest friend and the fading of her childlike imagination in the aftermath of war. The little pond becomes a metaphor, representing the village, the homes, and the very essence of happiness for its people.
Bio: Yeon Choi is an award-winning director, painter, and animator whose work spans multiple mediums, including animation, digital prints, painting, drawing, and sculpture. Her creations have been exhibited in both South Korea and the United States, and her animations have screened at festivals around the world. Select films include A Bride’s Diary, Ever After, The Destroyed Room, Sandstorm, Objects of My Obsessions, The Labyrinth, and Memories of the Little Pond.
Screen Memory
Maggie Murphy
Year: 2026
Run Time: 3:45
Country: United States
Synopsis: Informed by Freud’s concept of screen memory—the notion that an ordinary childhood memory can mask a more complex experience—this short film combines hand-drawn animation with VHS home video. Using materials associated with childhood play, including colored pencil, crayon, marker, stickers, and glitter, the film intervenes directly in archived domestic footage. These layered gestures surround a young child with protective figures and imagined abilities, transforming home movies into a hybrid site where memory is reworked and the past is engaged through practices of care and repair.
Bio: Maggie Murphy creates mixed-media sculptures, videos, and installations that bend and loop time, reanimating glitchy toys, defunct electronics, and reconstructed childhood interiors as portals for memory and dream. Her current work layers digitized home video, hand-drawn apparitions, vintage textiles, and sentimental decorative materials to produce shifting realities that hover between the familiar and the uncanny. She is a librarian and an MFA candidate at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Where the Rhododendron Grow
Erin Draxler
Year: 2025
Run Time: 12:29
Country: United States
Synopsis: Where the Rhododendron Grow is a personal documentary exploring the complex ties between identity, community, and place through my lifetime journey at Camp Strawderman. The film moves through the nostalgia of girlhood, the challenges of an all-girls camp, and the lasting impact of a profound loss that fractured its sense of innocence, capturing the enduring pull of spaces that shape us and the ways we reconcile with grief and growth.
Project Selkie
Ryleigh Moule
Year: 2025
Run Time: 7:51
Country: United States
Synopsis: Magical children grow older and powers begin to manifest. With two perfect, busy parents, Nessa is completely alone in managing her magical maturity. Including all of the chaotic magical outbursts and lack of control that comes with it. And yet, Nessa’s big problem is completely different than she initially expected— Nessa can’t get her powers to work at all!
How can Nessa possibly learn to master her selkie magic on her own when she can’t even get them to work? By running experiments of course!
After a risky run-in with a giant fish monster, Nessa and her newfound, reluctant shapeshifter friend Corbin join forces to create “Project Selkie”: their way of recording and researching Nessa’s stubborn, temperamental magic.
What better way to test your skills than teaming up with friends against evil aquatic threats from the deep?
Bio: Ryleigh Moule graduated summa cum laude from Moore College of Art and Design in Spring 2025, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Animation and Game Arts with a minor in Sequential Art.
In her time at Moore, Ryleigh served as the President and co-lead for Moore College of Art and Design's Animation Club — a Women in Animation student collective. She participated in various other leadership activities such as being Treasurer of Moore's Pokémon Club, a peer tutor, and a member of the SGA event committee.
Ryleigh is a director, storyboard artist, animator, and character designer with a passion for all things production.