Past Life (January - June)

An agoraphobic woman dealing with severe social anxiety is visited by an old friend.

A woman and her ex-boyfriend reconnect at the vet after their dog gets sick, as a new boyfriend experiences jealousy. “WILK,” directed by Peg, is an experimental comedy with its own absurd cinematic language and esoteric scene-building. Joseph watches from the car as his girlfriend, Tallie, is consoled by her ex outside the vet (while Joseph’s car has a penis spray-painted on it). Later at home, Joseph still feels antsy about Tallie’s reconnection with her ex, as he’s offered a glass of ‘WILK’ (wine+milk) soon claimed by Tallie’s roommate, an eccentric music producer. Having learned what the titular WILK means, we can now cut to a boxing match between a milk mascot and a wine mascot while a hip hop track plays. Delivered as a medley of bizarre shifts and barely discernible story beats, the film is intriguingly chaotic and one-of-a-kind.

On the Northwest side of Chicago, large swaths of people have been gathering for decades to fill their containers with water from a magical water pump.

Commissioned by Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive as part of Century of 16mm. A camera roll and investigation into the landscape of West Chicago, IL’s former Rare Earth’s Facility, Kress Creek and Reed-Keppler Park. The former Lindsay Light and Chemical Company owned production plant polluted and distributed radioactive mill tailings (thorium byproduct) throughout the community including dumping in a landfill where the Reed-Keppler Park now stands, near the West Chicago Community High School, as well as in the West Chicago Sewage Treatment Plant, which resulted in runoff into the West Branch of the DuPage River and into floodplains such as the yards of homeowners. Mill tailings are effectively radioactive sand that can easily be carried by wind into bodies of water, the air we breathe or onto food grown nearby. Clean up of the Superfund sites occurred from 2005-2012 but prior to this West Chicago reportedly had elevated rates of cancer.

Eleven songs of Illinois, resurrecting ghosts across time and space. Each location borrowed from elsewhere. Among them Norway, Normandy, Lisbon, Ottawa, Peru, and Sandwich, forming the basis of a fragmented landscape study. The film traces the dissonance between ordinary Midwestern spaces and the histories embedded within their names. Fragments of local and global history, including ecological catastrophe, racial violence, failed harvests, murder, cultural displacement, and marginal history, emerge through voiceover created through artificial intelligence and synthetic image processes that destabilize the documentary image itself. Moving between essay film, landscape study, and horror cinema, the work examines naming as historical residue, a transfer of memory detached from geography yet still haunting it.

Juicehead learns the meaning of life from his pal Munnietox and starts hustlin'. | Made for the Fall 2021 Bizzaroland 72hr Film Debacle.

A world full of Image Makers erodes the objective power of the kino eye. If everyone can capture a moment on video, one angle implies the existence of infinite possible perspectives. This convergence of distinct representations distills any given moment to an impression, a painting, a memory.

Kevin and Christian, the talentless hacks behind hit company Flubflabski, Inc. are forced to meet their destinies. Will they reunite and continue making fun vids for kids? Or is this the end of the Flubber Boys forever...? The fate of the internet hangs in the balance.

Exactly one year after a debilitating Halloween accident, young Jack must search for his place in a cruel and unforgiving world.

A love letter to the first three months of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The third iteration of a continuing diary film. Five years and one roll of film distilled into three and a half minutes. The filmmaker captures a distinct period in their life, living and moving from Ithaca, New York to Chicago, experiencing and exiting the pandemic, seeing friends and taking road trips. Sound captured separately on a micro cassette recorder between 2019-2022.

Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s the communities of Cannonsville, Granton, Rock Rift, Rock Royal, Johnny Brook and Beerston, NY were destroyed to make way for the Cannonsville Reservoir. The reservoir would serve as the last piece of New York City’s growing water infrastructure in a battle of upstate versus downstate. 60 years after vacating or moving their homes, former residents gather at their annual town reunion to reflect and reminisce on their memories and the collective trauma that they share.

When a legendary thief sets his sights on the Mona Lisa, he recruits two young strangers to help him before revealing they are long-lost siblings… and oh yes, by the way, he is their father. Thrown into a chaotic reunion they never asked for, this new family must learn to work together — and try not to kill each other — if they want any chance at pulling off the heist of the century.

After a chance encounter sparks a sweeping romance, Maya's future is suddenly upended, sending her on an unexpected journey to love and live again.

Will Radford is a top analyst for Homeland Security who tracks potential threats through a mass surveillance program, until one day an attack by an unknown entity leads him to question whether the government is hiding something from him... and from the rest of the world.

Olive Smith, a biology PhD candidate, and Dr. Adam Carlsen, a hotshot professor and well-known tyrant, enter into a fake relationship, seeing each of their carefully calculated theories on love get thrown into chaos.

Noah must leave her city, boyfriend, and friends to move into William Leister's mansion, the flashy and wealthy husband of her mother Rafaela. As a proud and independent 17 year old, Noah resists living in a mansion surrounded by luxury. However, it is there where she meets Nick, her new stepbrother, and the clash of their strong personalities becomes evident from the very beginning.

George Hardy is a shepherd who reads detective novels to his beloved sheep every night, assuming they can't possibly understand. But when a mysterious incident disrupts life on the farm, the sheep realize they must become the detectives. As they follow the clues and investigate human suspects, they prove that even sheep can be brilliant crime-solvers.

Estranged half-brothers Jonny and James reunite after their father's mysterious death. As they search for the truth, buried secrets reveal a conspiracy threatening to tear their family apart.

Ry, a college student with a chronic illness, escapes to Mallorca for the summer with her mother, where she unexpectedly falls for a local and begins to embrace living in the moment. But as her condition worsens and long-hidden family secrets come to light, everything she has found before summer's end is threatened.

After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power leads Prince Adam back to Eternia, where he discovers his home shattered under the fiendish rule of Skeletor. To save his family and his world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela and Duncan/Man-At-Arms, and embrace his true destiny as He-Man — the most powerful man in the universe.

Marfil, daughter of a powerful Spanish businessman, sees her life in New York turned upside down when she is kidnapped and released without explanation. Her father hires Sebastian Moore as bodyguard and, forced to spend every minute together, an inevitable attraction ignites in a world where nothing is as it seems.

After Santa Claus (codename: Red One) is kidnapped, the North Pole's Head of Security must team up with the world's most infamous tracker in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.

In the near future, a 'Grand Lottery' has been established - the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot. When Katie Kim mistakenly finds herself with the winning ticket, she reluctantly joins forces with amateur lottery protection agent Noel Cassidy who must get her to sundown in exchange for a piece of her prize.

Maia Marten, a brilliant London lawyer, has her life shattered by a single call on her morning run: her son has been taken. To get him back, she must keep running, obey every ruthless command, and trust no one-each second a test of how far a mother will go to save her child.

Alma Lancaster, 18, appears to lead a perfect life within a wealthy family who believes she is studying law. In secret, she pursues her true dream: filmmaking. On campus, she meets Vadim Arcadi, 20, a magnetic and solitary rebel with a troubled past. Forced to collaborate on a student film, they clash, grow closer and fall in love — despite themselves. But someone is watching them, determined to tear them apart and expose secrets that could destroy both Alma and Vadim.

The love between Noah and Nick seems unwavering despite their parents' attempts to separate them. But his job and her entry into college open up their lives to new relationships that will shake the foundations of both their relationship and the Leister family itself.

A troupe of ballerinas find themselves fighting for survival as they attempt to escape from a remote inn after their bus breaks down on the way to a dance competition.

Popular, outgoing Fujino is celebrated by her classmates for her funny comics in the class newspaper. One day, her teacher asks her to share the space with Kyomoto, a truant recluse whose beautiful artwork sparks a competitive fervor in Fujino. What starts as jealousy transforms when Fujino realizes their shared passion for drawing.

When an elusive thief whose high-stakes heists unfold along the iconic 101 freeway in Los Angeles eyes the score of a lifetime, with hopes of this being his final job, his path collides with a disillusioned insurance broker who is facing her own crossroads. Determined to crack the case, a relentless detective closes in on the operation, raising the stakes even higher.

Stephanie and Emily reunite on the beautiful island of Capri, Italy for Emily's extravagant wedding to a rich Italian businessman. Along with the glamorous guests, expect murder and betrayal to RSVP for a wedding with more twists and turns than the road from the Marina Grande to the Capri town square.

The UK Prime Minister and US President have a public rivalry that risks their countries' alliance. But when they become targets of a powerful enemy, they're forced to rely on each other as they go on a wild, multinational run. Allied with Noel, a brilliant MI6 agent, they must find a way to thwart a conspiracy that threatens the free world.