Announcing the Official Selections of the 2018 Art of Brooklyn Film Festival.

After an outstanding submission period where we received the most entries in our 8 year history, our screening panel led by 2018 Guest Festival Director Victoria Negri, was faced with the task of narrowing down hundreds of shorts and features in all genres. It wasn't easy. We continue to be amazed and inspired by the diversity and sheer talent of Brooklyn's film and media makers.

Which is why we are incredibly proud to announce the Official Selections for the 8th Annual Art of Brooklyn Film Festival.

Schedule and tickets will be announced the week of May 7.

Feature Films

Black Memorabilia
63 minutes | United States | 2018 | Feature Documentary
Directed by Chico Colvard – Brooklyn Premiere
BLACK MEMORABILIA moves beyond perverse attractions and absolute objections to collectibles and antiques that serve as reminders of America’s troubled racial history. The film combats a set of generalized stereotypes by presenting an intimate and poetic portrait of the people who consume, manufacture and assume the identities of these objects. A third of the film follows an artist who is based in Brooklyn.
 
Brooklyn Roses
85 minutes | United States | 2018 | Feature Narrative/Documentary
Directed by Christine Noschese – US Premiere
In Brooklyn Roses, filmmaker Christine Noschese blends documentary and fiction to re-examine her childhood and her mother’s feminist struggles in the 1950’s and 60’s working class Brooklyn.
 
Delenda
107 minutes | United States | 2018 | Feature Comedy/Drama
Directed by Ralph Moffettone – NYC Premiere
In the wake of a terrorist attack, a group of young people in New York seek to capitalize on the hysteria in a variety of morally dubious ways.
 
How To Say Goodbye
78 minutes | United States | 2018 | Feature Drama/Comedy/Romance
Directed by Frank Song – NYC Premiere
Tom is a down-and-out bond broker struggling to keep his business afloat, a legacy of his brother who passed away on 9/11. Claire is a fledgling actress from a small town starting over after a personal tragedy of her own. As their lives cross, Tom must face the decision to let go of his fears and acknowledge deeper feelings for Claire or withdraw to his comfort zone. Tom's best friend, Simone, has an identity crisis and an appetite for short-term gratification. Mario, Tom's wingman, and a wine enthusiast, must contend with the trappings of being a womanizer. In the urban maze of New York, the four struggle to say goodbye to old ways to find a better tomorrow. A vast majority of cast and crew of this film reside in Brooklyn, and a number of scenes were shot in Williamsburg.
 
Long Goodbye
78 minutes | United States | 2017 | Feature, Drama
Directed by Christopher Vernale – World Premiere
“Long Goodbye” is the story of Avery and Matthew. Two lonely strangers who begin finding comfort in a fantasy relationship with one another that doesn’t exist. Too deep in their delusion to talk to one another, they both struggle to find relationships with other people, only to find that reality can’t overcome the fantasy. When reality and fantasy collide, they are both forced to confront their demons. The film is set in Brooklyn, where the director and much of the crew live.
 
Meme
87 minutes | United States | 2018 | Feature, Drama
Directed by Sean Mannion – World Premiere
Jennifer, an independent designer disappointed in her stalled relationship and career, discovers a surreal mashup videotape, labeled "Meme," among a friend's VHS collection. She goes in search of Meme's creator, tracking down people who appear on the tape to gain greater insight into what it is and why it exists. As she pursues the creator of the tape she takes greater control of other aspects of her life including her relationship, difficult clients, and a drinking problem that increasingly interferes with her life. Director, Producer, and several other members of the crew and cast live in Brooklyn. Much of the film was shot in Brooklyn.
 
Paint As You Like
65 minutes | United States | 2018 | Feature Documentary
Directed by Ryan Fenton-Strauss – NYC Premiere
A son takes an emotional journey through his father's life as an artist from Brooklyn, and explores universal themes. What is success? What is failure? What is art?
 
Scenes from a Break Up
94 minutes | United States | 2018 | Feature, Drama
Directed by Carlos Cardona – World Premiere
A New York City apartment drama about the dismantling of a relationship and the effects it has over a group of young people trying to etch a living as artists. 2x4 Productions is based in Brooklyn, and the film was shot in the borough.
 
Trauma is a Time Machine
80 minutes | United States | 2018 | Feature, Drama
Directed by Angelica Zollo – World Premiere
The film follows a young woman named Helen who runs away from an abusive home and spends her life holding onto the secrets and pain of her past until she must face them when she is raped by her boyfriend. She goes through many different steps to try and distract herself including denial, anger, distractions, and a taking on of her perpetrator in order to try and understand what happened to her.
Angelica Zollo, the writer/director/producer lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
 
Us, Forever Ago
70 minutes | United States | 2017 | Feature Narrative/Documentary, Experimental
Directed by Irina Varina – World Premiere
In the near future, a narrator recalls in voiceover the doubts she faced between 2015 and 2017 while writing, directing, producing, and starring in her first feature film, an investigatory patchwork weaving together conversations with female artists and intimate scenes from her own personal life. Shot largely in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens, NY, “Us, Forever Ago” is a documentary/narrative hybrid that plays with our perceptions of intimacy, memory, belonging and what it means to be a creator. Most of the film's actors and crew live in Brooklyn.

Short Films

Acting Erratically
15 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary Experimental Web/New Media 
Directed by Daniel Goodman, Hazel Katz, Tuff Guts
"Not even or regular in pattern or movement; unpredictable, turbulent, unsettled.”
Using found footage and archival material as metaphorical architecture, Acting Erratically explores the relationship between state violence and mental health on the bodies of neurodivergent women of color in NYC.
 
This film was made as part of the Williamsburg-based UnionDocs Collaborative Studio. The film's two primary creative collaborators, Black Youth Project 100 (NYC chapter) and Picture the Homeless, advocate for their communities across NYC, including within Brooklyn.
 
All For This
3 minutes | United States | 2018 | Documentary
Directed by Eric Jenkins-Sahlin
Melissa finds her voice by invoking early blues women: “They sang their stories and they were always just so heart-wrenching.” She’s not afraid to let it all out, and laughs about singing “hateful songs” like “God May Forgive You (But I Won’t).”
 
Eric Jenkins-Sahlin lives and works in Brooklyn.
 
Brooklyn Raga Massive: Terry Riley In C
8 minutes | United States | 2018 | Experimental, Music
Directed by Ian Cinco
Brooklyn Raga Massive (BRM) is a collective of forward thinking musicians rooted in Indian classical music. This video, featuring a 7.5 minute excerpt of music from their recent album release Terry Riley In C on Northern Spy Records, showcases the various members of the collective in their element. From morning rituals, riding the subway and eating dhosas, to meeting in the park, playing music and backyard bonfires, we see BRM in a heartwarming slice of daily life. Indian classical music itself is a soloistic form involving 3 or 4 musicians at most. In C, Terry Riley's canonic, minimalist masterpiece, is composed for any number of any instrument, so it was an accessible way to bring together the entire collective to play exquisite music: with sitar, tabla, bansuri, vocal, violin, oud, cello, bass, hammered dulcimer, guitar, dragon mouth trumpet, cajon and riq. The video reflects the music and captures the community spirit of BRM. Terry Riley himself wrote after watching the video, "The extraordinary joyful humanity of the group shines through."
 
Brooklyn Raga Massive is a collective of musicians living in Brooklyn. The director Ian Cinco also lives in Brooklyn. Most of this music video was shot in Brooklyn with love for the borough.
 
Brooklyn In July
21 minutes | United States | 2017 | Drama 
Directed by Bob Celli
BROOKLYN IN JULY is the story of Frank Walker, an African-American WWII veteran working as a chauffeur. It is the summer of 1945. The War is all but won. The U.S. is riding a wave of triumph even as the undertow of unresolved issues roils beneath. Frank, like so many other African-Americans of the time, is drawn to New York by the promise of better life only to be confronted by the same realities, fear, and hatred he hoped he had left behind. He is a man scarred by a past that is lurking skin deep.
 
Our film's story takes place in Brooklyn and was shot in Brooklyn as well as various locations in NYC. We have over a dozen cast, crew, and donors that live in Brooklyn.
 
Cake
9 minutes | United States | 2016 | Comedy
Directed by Anne Hu
Eliza, a bisexual woman, tries to explore her sexuality within her marriage with her husband Thomas by surprise ordering a seemingly human female sex robot. But the sex robot is not the cure-all she had hoped for. Be careful what you wish for.
 
Shot in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Produced by Victoria Negri.
 
Come Downstairs
5 minutes | United States | 2018 | Experimental
Directed by Haisi Hu
With scenes inspired by Max Ernst’s "Europe After the Rain" and Rembrandt’s "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp", Come Downstairs explores the moment before death – examining the character’s longing, fear, and numbness.
 
This piece was created in entirely in Brooklyn, by artists that live and work in Brooklyn.
 
Creative Block
16 minutes | United States | 2017 | Drama, Comedy
Directed by Nicola Rose
A short bilingual (English-French) film weaving magical realism into everyday life, CREATIVE BLOCK introduces us to Claire, a young artist and puppet-maker in New York. One day, she suffers a huge rupture in her creative thought, leading to depression. She soon becomes convinced the only cure is the art of another: Thibaut, a figure skater in Paris. Spellbound by the artistry of this athlete she only knows from TV, Claire impulsively goes to Paris herself. There, she discovers the unexpected: Thibaut, too, is suffering from creative block. At that point, it's up to Claire to find the road back to her own creativity: a road strewn with disappointments, revelations ... and balloons.
 
A large chunk of the film was shot in Brooklyn with Brooklynite crew members.
 
Cross Training
7 minutes | United States | 2017 | Comedy, Drama
Directed by Eden Martinez
Influenced by the work of Monty Python and the simple visual style of series like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Arrested Development, Cross Training is a situational comedy that explores the ideas of faith and religion in the public eye in the modern social-media driven world.
 
Jordan James (Hunter Hoffman) is the face of "Cross Training," an on-the-rise Christian fitness brand, inadvertently created after a video of Jordan leading an exercise class for a church fundraiser leaks and goes viral. "Cross Training" marries televangelism, home-video-aerobics, and the current surge of cult fitness culture (think CrossFit).
 
Shot in Brooklyn.
 
Cyclone: 90 Years of History on Wheels
15 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary
Directed by Frank Posillico
The famed Cyclone, Coney Island’s historic roller coaster, celebrates it’s 90th birthday this year. In our short documentary, we look at the popular Luna Park ride and its long history, as told through the eyes of the people who have helped operate her, and the frenzied fanatics who ride her day after day.

​e.ro.sion, noun
14:30 minutes | United States | 2018 | Romance, Sci-Fi
Directed by Catriona Rubenis-Stevens
e.ro.sion follows the last days of a woman as she checks into the "Goodbye Clinic" to have her life deleted. We witness a person fade into a parallel reality where she observes the world she once felt connected to, continue on without her, and the physical being of her body and soul disappear before her very eyes.
Our producer/lead actor is a Brooklyn resident, along with our female DP, and several of our crew/cast.
 
Exit Interview
7 minutes | United States | 2018 | Comedy, Thriller
Directed by Jaclyn Gramigna
Dave's task of firing Christian is going well until Christian starts asking questions that make him reconsider his own happiness. The conversation escalates and Dave's office starts to physically change into the scene of a nightmare. A loud knock on the door pulls Dave from his subconscious and he wakes up, discombobulated, on the floor. Christian, himself, walks through the door, and alights Dave with the same task he began with.
 
The writer, actors, and director all live in Brooklyn.
 
Fever Source
10 minutes | United States | 2017 | Drama, Thriller, Experimental
Directed by Lamin Leroy Gibba
While a couple grapples with the choices they’ve made, they both look at their pasts through lenses that are as unreliable as memory innately is.
 
The film was shot in Brooklyn, where the cast and crew also reside.
 
Fresh Blood (Taaza Khoon)
8 minutes | United States | 2017 | Drama, Thriller
Directed by Richa Rudola
When a young South Asian girl is forced into the sex trade, she must choose her path to freedom even if it involves a vampire.
 
Writer/Director/Producer Richa and most of the crew are Brooklyn residents. Most of the film was shot (Prospect Park, Sunset Park) and 100% of the film was edited in Brooklyn.
 
Gary
10 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary
Directed by Marina Thome
Gary sells balloons on New York subways and dreams about learning magic.
 
The documentary shot in Brooklyn records conversations between the Brazilian documentary filmmaker and Gary, a neighborhood resident who sells balloons on the NY subways.
 
Head Above Water
10 minutes | United States | 2016 | Drama
Directed by Eric Shahinian
A devoted husband is forced to confront his doubts about remaining the caretaker of his wife suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
 
The writer/director, as well as the cinematographer Charlotte Dupre, are Brooklyn residents.
 
Hello
11:45 minutes | United States | 2017 | Drama, Romance, Comedy
Directed by Sydney Lloyd Smith
"Hello" is a modern fable about an introverted young Brooklynite who spends his days busking as a living statue of The Tin Man, at once immersed in and protected from a disheartening world. His sole companion is his beloved pet fish. When a spirited young woman and her curious pup move into the apartment next door, Herby is roused from his narrow existence.
 
“Hello" was shot entirely in Brooklyn (Clinton Hill and Williamsburg) and one of our actors (Audrey Jessup) is a resident of Brooklyn. The lead character works as a living statue of The Tin Man, in Continental Army Plaza, in Williamsburg.
 
I Went Ahead And Did It Anyway
4 minutes | United States | 2017 | Animation, Music
Directed by Pei Jung Wanyg
‘I Went Ahead and Did it Anyway' is a musical video journey following a man, his dog, and their adventures down the rabbit hole of the human psyche and into outer space.
 
The music for this video was composed and produced in Brooklyn, by Brooklyn artist, Mitchell Leonard.
 
Jamian Juliano-Villani Gets to Work
6 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary
Directed by Nick Ravich
Can an artist stay inspired day in and day out? Under near constant deadlines for the last four years, painter Jamian Juliano-Villani grapples with the demands of consistently producing new and better work. Her paintings have received widespread attention, including gallery and museum exhibitions, adding to the stresses of growing as an artist. “The main pressure is maintaining integrity and making work that you feel good about,” says the artist, “even under pressure, which is really difficult.”
 
Jamian Juliano-Villani lives in Brooklyn. Director, Nick Ravich, is a long-time Brooklyn resident and has shot numerous films in Brooklyn. Editor, Anna Gustavi, and cinematographer, Adam Golfer, are also Brooklyn residents.
 
Kayla in 1A
4 minutes | United States | 2018 | Experimental
Directed by Travis Wood
On September 6th, 2016, I moved in with Kayla, we had never met prior to that day. This is a film about a peculiar roommate that I never really spoke to to.
 
Creator lives in Brooklyn.
 
Kotonaru
5 minutes | United States | 2017 | Experimental
Directed by Omar Gomez
Everyone has a secret talent that not many people may know about. Discover what seems to be an ordinary man's powerful talent.
 
Inspired by Brooklyn's breakdance culture.
 
Mariposas
3 minutes | United States | 2017 | Drama
Directed by Adrian Carey
Set in a universe of magical realism, a boastful father prattles on superficially about his daughter to another parent in the school pick up line, but is unable to perceive her when it matters most.
 
The Director and DP are both Brooklyn residents.
 
Middle Ground
8 minutes | United States | 2017 | Experimental
Directed by Wi-Moto Nyoka
Purgatory. Two women. One way out.
 
Director, writer and director of photography are based in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Film was shot in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
 
Oliver Jeffers
16 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary
Directed by Bas Berkhout
Oliver Jeffers Reflects on His Past, Present & Legacy in Bas Berkhout’s Deeply Insightful Documentary. Cast, crew, location all from Brooklyn, partly shot in Northen Ireland.
 
Operation Proposal
6 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary, Comedy, Romance
Directed by Emily Harrold
OPERATION PROPOSAL follows 'spy' photographer Vlad Leto, as he travels the streets of NYC, capturing some of the most romantic moments of a person's life — wedding proposals — without blowing his cover.
 
Director of Photography, Erin Sanger, lives in Brooklyn and Colorist, Kyle Kelley, lives in Brooklyn.
 
Ovum
8 minutes | United States | 2018 | Sci-Fi
Directed by Cidney Hue
In the near future, Rosalyn must make a hard choice after a mind bending procedure.
 
Almost all cast and crew live in or are from Brooklyn.
 
Pair of Normals
11 minutes | United States | 2018 | Comedy
Directed by Jason Hood
Iris, an anxious Youtube psychic fresh out of a mental hospital, and Betty, a destitute college dropout who makes ASMR videos, meet and bond when they are dragged to a vlogger meetup. When they meet again in a chance encounter after both their lives have worsened significantly, Iris offers Betty a place to stay.
 
Filmed entirely in Brooklyn, with Brooklyn-based cast and crew. Also a series that can only take place in Brooklyn, with a subway scene and Brooklyn subcultures.

Page One
7:45 minutes | United States | 2017 | Thriller, Comedy
Directed by Don P. Hooper
Veteran actor Abel Worthy's career of dying first in all his movies gets put to the ultimate test when his latest film gets attacked by bloodthirsty creatures.
 
Stars Dorcas Davis and Tarik Davis, director Don P. Hooper, and producers Evan Kaufman and LeMar McLean all live in and/or are from Brooklyn, NY.
 
Park Slope
6 minutes | United States | 2018 | Drama
Directed by Eric Trenkamp - Brooklyn Premiere
A new mother struggling with postpartum depression finds herself drawn toward the unthinkable.
 
Cast, crew, location and title itself are all Brooklyn based.
 
Peta Pan
9 minutes | United States | 2017 | Comedy
Directed by Mathilde Dratwa
A Palestinian immigrant and her first-generation American daughter struggle to remain close as they navigate the pressures of growing up in the US. A coming-of-age film about the power of stories to bring us together, starring Independent Spirit Award nominee Nisreen Faour (Amreeka).
 
Almost all of the crew live in Brooklyn. The producer and DP are born and bred in Brooklyn. Shot in Brooklyn, too.
 
Rye Maintenance
5 minutes | United States | 2018 | Comedy
Directed by Artie Brennan, Anthony Giordano
Exploring the private life of a Brooklynite through the eyes of his dealer. A parody of the Highest proportions.
 
Brooklyn in the House! One of the two writer/directors has called Brooklyn home for a while. The other writer/director worked on the first AoBFF and grew up hanging in the borough. Our film's main location is BK, as it is a parody of the popular Brooklyn set HBO show "High Maintenance".
 
Skin
9 minutes | United States | 2018 | Experimental
Directed by Adam Golub, Liana Nigri
Dandara Zainabo has a scar around her belly button from eating bricks as a young child. Today, she is a 19 year old trans activist living on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. This experimental portraiture seeks to preserve the spirit of this mighty woman as both powerful and precarious.
 
The director is a long-time resident of Brooklyn.
 
Sell Your Body
11 minutes | United States | 2017 | Comedy, Horror
Directed by Jaanelle Yee
A med school dropout in crippling student debt swipes a wild couple on a dating app to make some fast cash.
 
The majority of cast and crew are from Brooklyn - including all three actors in the film and our director of photography.
 
The Brooklyn Burrow: Episode 1 - 3D Stay Puft ft. Iena Cruz
3 minutes | United States | 2018 | Documentary
Directed by Bradford Devins
Episode 1 of The Brooklyn Burrow shows how Milan's own Iena Cruz deviates from his typical activism & realism focused paintings and instead embarks on a unique challenge of its own - creating the first 3D Stay Puft Marshmallow Man mural (interactive with 3D glasses).
 
This short documentary piece features Iena Cruz, an immigrant from Milan, Italy who has found his home here in Brooklyn.
 
The Flip Side
25 minutes | United States | 2018 | Documentary
Directed by Val Wang
THE FLIP SIDE presents the increasingly globalized circus world, where disparate people and acrobatic cultures come together, clash, and ultimately transform each other. We meet Daqi, a Chinese circus artist who leaves home at age 9 to train at an elite state-run circus academy. Restless after ascending to the zenith of the Chinese circus world, he leaves his stable “iron rice bowl” job to perform with Cirque du Soleil. Though Daqi possesses extraordinary technical skills, he has a difficult journey ahead to develop an artist’s expressive power. He eventually collides with Shana Carroll, a trapeze star who began with the San Francisco-based Pickle Family Circus, where she trained with a Chinese coach and even married the coach’s Chinese protégé, then has a stint with Cirque du Soleil. Daqi grows as an artist when he joins Shana’s circus troupe, 7 Fingers, whose intimate circus shows are based on the individual artists’ stories.
 
The editor Patrick Flynn and the composer Paul Hogan live in the Navy Yard and Bushwick, respectively. Daqi, the subject of the film, was living in Williamsburg during part of the production process while he performed as a circus artist in Paramour, Cirque du Soleil's first Broadway how. The director Val Wang lived in Brooklyn for most of the aughts.
 
The Heartaches
12:22 minutes | United States | 2017 | Romance
Directed by Alex Modlin
A radical black feminist, a phony intellectual, two spinsters, an Israeli, and a libertarian gather to discuss a book, only to violently clash and bring about a profound life experience for all - total annihilation.
 
Filmed entirely in Brooklyn; most of the cast live in Brooklyn.
 
The PA Stays In The Picture
6 minutes | United States | 2017 | Comedy, Horror
Directed by Arielle Apfel, Claire Dub
​On the set of an indie horror film, the cast and crew face the wrath of a nicotine-starved director desperately in search of a cigarette and coffee. A chipper PA is on the way to save the day, but what she finds will definitely make her re-think her career choice.

The film is the product of the collaboration of three members of the Dumbo chapter of Film Shop, and a large percentage of the cast and crew live and work in Brooklyn.
 
The Rhythm Of Time
9 minutes | United States | 2016 | Documentary, Music
Directed by D. Schmudde
Suit & Tie Guy is an enigmatic figure living in a small Central Illinois town who has made a career for himself as a professional instrumentalist and performer by building synthesizers and sequencers for electronic musicians all over the world.
 
"The Rhythm of Time" parallels his journey with the cycling tones of the sequencer, illustrating the ways in which the notes of our past repeat indefinitely into the future. Suit & Tie Guy once feared that time had passed him by, but his experience promoting bowling alley punk shows in the 1990s made him the perfect person to capitalize on the resurgence of mid-century modular synthesizers and sequencers today.
 
D. is a documentary filmmaker living and working in Brooklyn.
 
The Waterfront
4:30 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary
Directed by Lexi Krupp, Chloe Williams
One of the nation's most seriously contaminated water bodies — Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal — is also the home to a thriving canoe club. It's located in what was once an all but abandoned neighborhood, now one of the most expensive areas in New York City.
 
Filmed in Brooklyn.
 
Tyrannosaurus Death!
15 minutes | United States | 2018 | Comedy
Directed by Adam Volerich
'Tyrannosaurus Death!' is a whimsical romp through suburban melancholy told through split timelines. We follow Russell, a traumatized loner who poetically narrates us through the past and present as he commits a life-altering faux pas and tries to bounce back from it.
 
In the past we see Russell in the lead up to the decision that forever changes him and in the present we watch him try to right his wrong, but the psychological self-harm caused by this decision has left him unable to take off a Dinosaur costume or speak out loud. He is aided on his journey to redemption by his twin sister, Maggie, and their friends.
Made with Brooklyn-based crew members.
 
UNSTUCK: An OCD Kids Movie
23 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary
Directed by Kelly J Anderson
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is often viewed as a minor annoyance, or worse, something useful. But OCD is a serious mental health issue that traps millions of kids, teens and adults in a vicious cycle of worries and rituals. While families and loved ones are desperate to help them, fighting OCD takes time and specialized therapy.
 
To uncover what OCD is, and what it isn’t, filmmakers Kelly Anderson and Chris Baier focus on an unlikely group of experts: kids. UNSTUCK documents OCD through kids’ eyes only. It avoids sensationalizing compulsions and obsessions, and instead reveals the complexity of a disorder that affects both the brain and behavior. As these six resilient kids and teens roadmap their process of recovery, the film inspires viewers to believe it is possible to fight their worst fears and beat back OCD.
 
Director and Producer are both Brooklynites. Two of the six kids are born and raised in Brooklyn. about one quarter of the film is shot in Brooklyn. The film was edited in Brooklyn.
 
Under The Weather
5:30 minutes | United States | 2017 | Web/New Media
Directed by Miriam Weiner
Miriam is a middle-aged Brooklynite and disciple of the inconvenient truth of climate change. The truth gives her nightmares. The truth guides her personal interactions. The truth? She even owns the DVD. But when she scolds some local kids for littering, their trash talk makes her reconsider everything. She may have accepted the truth, but not the inconvenience.
 
The cast and crew are Brooklyn based.
 
Vouchsafe
5:23 minutes | United States | 2017 | Documentary, Experimental
Directed by Bradly Dever Treadaway
Vouchsafe is a short-form experimental video based on a punishment enforced by the artist’s grandfather, that of kneeling on the family’s heating grate. The performative and Catholic gesture is accompanied by a broken, adapted reading of “A prayer be
fore confession”, found in the pocket prayer book once belonging to the artist’s grandmother. The piece addresses self-image and self-worth, penance, forgiveness and doubts about the preparedness to pass along cultural legacies, as well as the unanswered calls and un-received responses to ancestors for guidance
 
Director lives and works in Brooklyn.
 
Welcome To The World
7 minutes | United States | 2017 | Drama
Directed by Albert M. Chan, Anthony Grasso
WELCOME TO THE WORLD is a daring film starring Albert M. Chan (GOTHAM, 30 ROCK, GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST) as a troubled man who records a video message for his pregnant sister. Drawing its power and immediacy from its first-person, confessional style, the film presents, in one continuous 7-minute take, the journey of one man's awakening from isolation back to humanity.
 
The film was shot entirely in Brooklyn where cast and crew also reside.
 
What's That In The Ground?
2:14 minutes | United States | 2018 | Animation
Directed by Wally Chung
When you want one thing, sometimes you get the complete opposite or something worse.
 
Director lives in Brooklyn.

Screenplay Semi-Finalists

Bold Testament - Comedy - Written by Jason Petrovitch

Craig and his Uncle Ron (pilot) - Comedy - Written by Craig Miller & Dustin Chafin  

For All the Marbles - Drama - Written by Steven R.  Berry

Girl on a Swing - Comedy, Feature - Written by Shanna L Reed

Kosher Mutiny  - Comedy/Drama - Written by  Jim Norman

Lost In Control - Drama - Written by Maria Massei-Rosato

Mocha Dick - Drama - Written by Laura Kelber

One Moment  - Comedy - Written by Deirdre O’Connor 

The Plan - Drama - Written by Andrew Stone

Search for Glory - Comedy/Drama - Written by Jim Kalmenson