Oh, what a festival it was!
The 8th Annual Indy Shorts International Film Festival concluded at the end of July, but I am now just getting my bearings to break down some of my favorite films of the festival. Of the 253 films featured at this year’s festival, I was able to watch exactly 122 of them, so while I feel accomplished in an odd way…maybe I can try to complete an entire festival program in an upcoming year? Or maybe that’s insane?
As I was looking at the full line-up of films, I noticed that my favorites all leaned a little more comedic. I probably could have doubled this list–I loved so much at this year’s festival.
Without further ado…
Honorable Mention:
- A Bear Remembers for embracing the strange…I haven’t been able to forget a lot of the sound design…
- Chasers for not shying away from its characters’ insecurities before revealing a troublesome past…
- Forevergreen for its stunning animation right out of a storybook or fable…way to wreck me…
- Her Fight, His Name: The Story of Gwen Carr and Eric Garner for not just focusing on tragedy but also strength and resilience…
- An Ongoing List of Things Found in the Library Book Drop, Usually Being Used as Bookmarks for reminding us that we all connect with stories and leave a part of ourselves in them…one of the best titles of the year…
- Tango in Room 1310 for still believing in alluring, seductive romance…
- You Don’t Say! for not being afraid to embrace genre and musicality…
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35. Your Opinion, Please
A lot of us long for a simpler, kinder time. The older I get, the more I sound like one of my grandparents. Between 1997 and 2007, listeners to Yellowstone Public Radio in Montana could call in to talk about…anything. You don’t like what George W. Bush is doing with the government? We will listen. Do you have an opinion about local politics? Here’s two minutes to express yourself. Do you have a favorite poem? Tell us about it!
By the warm glow of your radio, you can hear American citizens discuss whatever topic they want in a clear, concise manner. Everyone’s opinion is allowed space and time, and director Marshall Granger’s film is warm, intelligent, and reminds you of a time when we stopped yelling at one another.
34. Quota
If this film reminds you at all of 2014’s A Single Life (one of the best nominations in the Animated Short Oscar category ever, if you ask me), there is a reason for that. Directors Job Roggeveen, Joris Oprins, and Marieke Blaauw worked on both cheeky, hilarious animated shorts. In their latest, the trio examines how selfish we can be when it comes to our own footprint on this planet. We think we know how we can cheat the system…until it’s too late. Explosively funny stuff, people.
33. Out for Delivery
Everyone has had a package delayed, but the package in Chelsea Christer’s Out for Delivery is much more important than a new pair of socks or that new kitchen gadget that you’ve been eyeing for months.
Joanna’s cancer has progressed aggressively, and her doctors are direct with her in that they cannot do anything else to prolong her life. When they recommend an option for Joanna to end her life on her own terms, she orders the medication…and then it gets delayed. And then delivered to the wrong address. Christer finds the dignity in the comedy around death and taking control of your own destiny, and that alone is stellar.
32. Middleground
There is nothing like the love of a mother, and that is reinforced so strongly throughout Alex Herz’s documentary. To turn the camera on your own family has to come with its own baggage, but this is such a tribute to how you show up for the ones you care about.
Herz’s younger brother, Griffin, is ready to live on his own, but a gap in residential support leads their mother, Karen, to living with Griffin and his three roommates until their housing is available. While this could be a story solely about Griffin living with Downs Syndrome, it’s really about the day-to-day lives during that fortnight. Many films featuring a person living with a disability keeps everyone at a distance for fear of offending or saying the wrong thing, but Herz’s chronicle is a warm embrace. It’s funny, engrossing, and a joy to behold.
31. Snow Bear
If the image of a lonely polar bear looking for a friend doesn’t make you consider buying a ticket to the North Pole, than I don’t know what will. Please don’t do that. I am not going to be held responsible for an uptick in polar bear attacks in 2025. Aaron Blaise’s film is a true wonder.
A lonely polar bear stalks the Artic for a friend. Orca whales do not want to play with him, and snow foxes might be intimidated by his big lug’s size. He takes matters in his own paws and builds himself a friend, but the warmer temperatures threaten to destroy both friendships and his living environment. Blaise’s film features no dialogue, but speaks volumes when it comes to sadness, loneliness, and the power of friendship. It’s absolutely gorgeous. The animation through this bear’s fur will remind you how impactful 2D animation can be, and his face is so expressive. It’s a stunner.
30. The Breakthrough Group
Everyone deserves a second chance, but it’s even more compelling when you witness a person take a chance on themselves to see them see their own potential. Ben Rekhi’s documentary is a true redemption story. Even if you have the life you always wanted, you would hope that people like this would support you if you found yourself down and out.
In Salt Lake City, a behavioral center opens its doors to show how some residents are taking the steps towards their own personal recoveries. While most battle addiction or demons stemming from incidents involving drugs and alcohol, our subjects participate in peer-led activities before they graduate. One young woman struggled with alcohol because she didn’t want to confront her sexuality. Another resident talks to a counselor because he feels like he wasted his life, and his actions will never catch up to his former potential. There is a throughline where a tough-as-nails leader tries to determine which person sneaked down to the pantry and stole candy and soda. When you’re watching this incident play out, you are not sure why they are going this hard over something seemingly meaningless, but everything carries weight in this facility. Rekhi’s direction and structure is so patient and forgiving.
29. The Sandwich Line
The phrase, “Magic Sandwich Dick Line” has entered our collective social consciousness, and we will never be the same…
There is something magical going on at a particular line inside a grocery store at the center of Jaime Schwarz’s comedy. Every time that Chloe has a hankering for a sandwich, a man asks her out. She has recently complained that she just wants “a normal romance” but maybe the world wants to give her something strangely specific to prove that love can, miracle of miracles, be found while waiting for a turkey club. Yes, a grilled cheese sandwich is worth the fourteen dollars if it includes an eventual hookup? Is that just me? There is a bold optimism coursing through this film’s veins, and I need this to be a recurring series…immediately.
28. The Pearl Comb
We all think we cannot be seduced the sound of a siren, but Ali Cook’s thrilling, gorgeous film offers a rebuttal to that suggestion.
When a fisherman’s wife seems to have cured someone of tuberculosis, it attracts the attention of a male doctor who seems bent on proving that some trickery or witchery is afoot. He asks her questions about her methods, but we sense some misogyny or arrogance in is questioning. Cook’s film is stunning–the production design, cinematography and costumes rival those found in a larger, feature film. Mysticism and horror are expertly blended, and it features one of the most terrifying shots you will see this year.
27. The Second Time Around
On a dark, rainy night, a woman stumbles into a café asking to see if she’s left her umbrella there. There is something strange about her presence: no one else seems to be on the street, but the waitress, Elle, is kind to her when she could’ve kept the door locked in her face. With the kitchen lights off in the background, The Woman’s features seem to glow inside the café. Her trench coat is a light shade of pink, and the rain has made her hair look like a frazzled crown.
Director Jack Howard keeps us guessing in terms of the overall tone. Is The Woman there to harm Elle? To warn her? Or does she just want to talk? The journey towards the end is so rewarding, and the energy between these two women intrigues you until the very last moment.
26. Every Man in New York is Named Andrew
There is a sense of cautious possibility throughout Nora Marris’ comedy about a young woman’s pursuit of love. Rememeber that feeling when you just wanted to be with someone? Marris captures that need so effortlessly in her film, and it just so happens that everyone our heroine pursues has some form of the same name.
Margo is trying so hard to find that missing puzzle piece, and she’s rather charming. What is everyone’s problem? Maybe a date to get piercings will go well? Nah. Maybe the cute guy at the laundromat can date as well as he flirts? Not so much. A lot of people have bemoaned that the “romantic comedy is dead” (sorry, Kate Hudson…), but Marris film is a rebuttal to that notion. With this film, she announces herself as a sharp, witty new voice.
25. Curtains
For those who have never had the pleasure or opportunity of experiencing the energy of backstage, let me assure you that Ophelia Wolf’s short comedy captures is perfectly. When an opera divo thinks announces that he is having a heart attack less than twenty minutes before the curtain rises, it’s up to the stage manager to maneuver the real-life drama backstage before the audience is any wiser. And Wolf places a lot of things in this young woman’s way. Stage managers and the people who work behind-the-scenes are the thankless artists who don’t get the accolades they deserve, but Wolf places them front and center. The script is witty and the direction is sharp. “Thank you, five!”
24. Going
The title of Rupert Ratcliffe’s film has a forward momentum to it, and that’s easily explained by how the film’s central characters are always moving. Val and Mike (Genevieve O’Reilly and Nicholas Pinnock, respectively) are a married couple traveling through the English countryside as they talk about bad bed and breakfasts or playfully debate who gets to decide where they go. The hills are green and scenic, but something feels off…
Ratcliffe unfolds his drama with quiet precision, but he never allows the emotional stakes fall behind the narrative’s drive. O’Reilly’s Val, we learn, has to sustain a level of control in order to keep her and Mike safe, but to explain why would undercut your experience of the film. If these characters were on their own, the story would be entirely different, and the connection between Pinnock and O’Reilly is steeped in history and storied love. I haven’t seen anything like it.
23. Break Room
You may not see a more relatable short film this year. Well, any year. In us lives anger that we must expel, but we are taught to suppress it. Director Emily Gross does more with one minute than some directors do with two full hours.
22. Tacocunr
Erin Brown Thomas’ film is furiously funny. Do you remember all of your passwords? Do you stress about the right amount of characters and symbols and spellings? I don’t either. Between this and her other Indy Shorts entry (the aforementioned Chasers), Thomas proves quite easily how her prowess for making this relatable and unbelievably funny.
21. Playing God
This ain’t Toy Story…
Just when you think all animated films need to be fluffy, cutesy, and colorful, Matteo Burani turns in a tour-de-force. A clay sculpture of a man comes to life in the middle of a darkened workshop. All around him are similar figures, but their faces are distorted, ugly, and snarling. They reach, claw and snarl. Burani’s film makes us ponder our own existence.
20. Houston, We Have a Crush
Liking someone can come out of nowhere, right? How much more “out of nowhere” can romance get when it comes to a forgetful astronaut and an innocent and lovelorn alien? Does it help that this adorable alien could be the corpulent, stout, and otherworldly cousin of Big Bird?
When Ditto (who I am already obsessed with…) discovers a phone left on his planet by a dreamy astronaut, he is immediately smitten. He watches video after video of this man’s family (is there anything sexier than a good dad?) and hopes that this man will return to see if he reciprocates his affection. Director Omer Ben-Shachar combines whimsy with that familiar romantic hope as we too look to the sky in hopes for love. Why wish upon a star when you can wish upon an astronaut?
19. Randy As Himself
What is real, and what is performance? Margaret Miller takes our obsessive love of true crime but gives its a conscious, pointed edge. When Randy’s wife is brutally murdered and a crew from Hollywood invades his town to give a series some unprecedented authenticity, it takes the quaint area by storm as Randy revisits the crime with a familiar but alien viewpoint.
As the widowed rancher, Jeff Perry strikes all the right notes as a man thrust into his own now-fictionalized trauma while Marin Hinkle, as a woman cast in a key role in the series within the film, is marvelously committed as someone whose new acting dreams feel very possible. When your big break comes to your doorstep, how do you say no?
18. Largo
The static of a radio is the first thing we hear in Max Burgoyne-Moore and Salvatore Scarpa’s affecting drama. We think a young boy, Musa, is playing or seeking imaginative adventure before we realize that what his heart wants is very real and very far away.
Musa is a Syrian refugee living in the UK, but he longs to be reunited with his mother and father. He constantly looks out towards the horizon as other resident, both adults and fellow children, tell him to go back to his own country. Early in the film, a small group of adults tease him about eating bacon in a sandwich–it will make your blood boil. Musa’s ally is Grace, his guardian, played by Tamsin Greig. When Musa believes he can finally reach his parents, he is determined to build a boat and venture out to sea. No child should have to endure the kind of racism or xenophobia that Musa encounters, and Scarpa and Burgoyne-Moore walk a delicate dance of childhood longing and reality.
17. Three Keenings
Screaming is a natural, understandable reaction when someone passes away. Sometimes we don’t even know our emotions are overtaking us until they happen. In Gaelic Celtic Culture, “keening” is a vocal lament practiced at funerals, but Oliver McGoldrick’s pitch black comedy shows how back-to-back ceremonies can take a toll.
Seamus O’Hara (featured in the Oscar-winning Live Action Short, An Irish Goodbye) plays Ian, a young man who steps in for his third funeral of the day when another participant backs out at the last minute. Initially, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be laughing at the film’s proceedings, but McGoldrick shows us how much pain and laughter live side by side. We can cry one minute, scream the next.
16. Susana
Putting yourself out there can be tough when it comes to a relationship, but the same can be said about making friends or new acquaintances. In Gerardo Coello Escalante and Amandine Thomas’ marvelous film, a middle-aged American woman arrives in Mexico City excited to soak up the culture, food, and music. When Susana makes casual connection with another group of American tourists, she opens up and allows herself to unfurl. This is peak Gloria Bell Cinema.
Escalante and Thomas pique our curiosity when it comes to privilege and respecting another country’s physical and emotional boundaries. We see how Mexican residents look at Susana, and we can’t help but ponder how those looks affect her. It affects us as we watch. Bonnie Hellman is fantastic.
15. The Dying Business
I have never thought about a funeral home going out of business or experiencing financial strain. Joe Duca’s documentary short reminded me of the businesses that I used to see all the time growing up and how they always felt part of the community. You never assume that the business of grief might experience grief itself.
In the opening scene of Duca’s thoughtful film, the funeral home in his family wins an award for longevity and profitability. While funeral homes all across the country are seen as havens to say goodbye to our loved ones, we never consider that they are a business that also has to track budgets and the bottom line. The pandemic changed how we plan and attend funerals, and a member of the family remarks that more people are cremating their relatives rather than having viewings and in-person services. Duca turns the lens onto his own family, and that timeline of the business serves as a remarkable throughline for how funerals are held and received. The Dying Business is as entertaining as it is reflective.
14. Single Residence Occupancy
There is barely any room to breathe in Omer Ben-Shachar’s film, and that is by design. A Chinese immigrant, who is living in Single Residence Occupany housing with her two children, has no room to breathe, and the director deliberately packs the frame to feel the walls closing in. Shirts hang on a low line to create some walls, but we can almost see the threads on the fabrics.
When this mother receives news that her bid for larger housing has been denied, she feels the walls closing in as she knows she has no time to alert her kids. What makes a home? Ben-Shachar strips everything away to let the emotions play clearly from beat to beat.
13. We Were
Sometimes our memories of our own past romances lurk in the boxes of our brains and hearts, but Jonah Haber’s tender short feels so present and immediate.
A summer camp sets the stage for our first heartbreak as getting-to-know each other games lead to Capture the Flag and pen pals at summer’s end. When our romantic hero grows older, time in libraries and in the park serve as the scene before being whisked off to college for new adventures. There is something precious, precocious and fragile in Haber’s hands., but, at the same time, it’s hopeful, energized, and sweet. Not all romances are alike, but we understand each other better than we realize. Using little dialogue, Haber’s touch remains sensitive as we navigate how one romance leads to another.
12. Endzgiving
After watching Tina Carbone’s horror comedy, I am sure of two things: You want to watch horror movies with her and you should be so lucky to be invited to a Friendsgiving thrown at her house.
Even if the world caught on fire (I am talking literally here since, you know, we are all kinds of aflame metaphorically at this point…), we still hold onto our traditions, including the holidays. In Carbone’s film, nothing can stand in the way of a group of friends banding together to celebrate with some (bloody) pumpkin pie to remind us why we are all thankful. When a zombie bites a guest arriving late, they have approximately one hour and three minutes until he starts chomping away at the other participants. Carbone’s hard cuts (she also edited the film) lead to a lot of laughter, but there is something innocently hopeful amid all the cheeky carnage. We can still break bread with each other…even if that bread is made out of brains.
11. Icebreakers
Audiences might be taken aback when they hear how queer competitive skaters talk about how the sport of figure skating is homophobic. I certainly was while watching Jocelyn Glatzer and Marlo Poras’ heart rendering documentary short, Icebreakers. Any time you see figure skating brought up in “the straight world,” the sport is viewed as extravagant, dramatic, and over-the-top (not to mention the sheer amount of strength and endurance you need). Yeah, people–it’s figure skating. And those are just some of the best things about it.
Icebreakers introduces us to Joel and Christian, a newly matched skating duo who explain that they never thought they would feel self-conscious about expressing themselves just because they were each performing with someone of the same gender. Christian details his tumultuous relationship with his mother, but the connection between these two athletes leaps off the screen. Glater and Poras introduce a wider audience to the presence of the Gay Games, and every single athlete we see on the ice has an enormous weight lifted off their shoulders. Many of the subjects in Icebreakers give us a lot to think about in terms of the bigger picture of the skating world, but the passion, dedication, and pure athleticism makes us realize why everyone laces up those blades.
10. The Power of Small
What if enormous generosity crossed your path? The kind of kindness that scares you with its possibilities? T.C. Johnstone’s film is not just one of my favorite documentaries of this entire season because of how he chronicles Terri Bullock’s initiative to spread that kindness throughout the world. This story has a ripple effect, and you cannot refuse its effects. To read or full review, click here.
9. Éiru
In this stunning film, a young girl’s enthusiasm to go to battle for her people will be tested when she becomes her community’s salvation.
Éiru can swing a sword and bellow like most of the soldiers in her village, but everyone thinks she is too small, too young, and too weak. When the town’s water supply mysteriously dries up, she is the only person slim enough to slide down the well to try and get it back. The hues of blue, red, and gold are vibrant and bold, while Giovanna Ferrari isn’t afraid to shy away from the story’s jagged edges and sharp turns as it explores kindness, generosity, and deciding your own mind.
8. A Love Letter to M
Every marriage begins with a proposal, and a proposal is only part of a couple’s romantic story. When André Holland’s Max asks Phoebe Tonkin’s Sasha to marry him, her eyes widen, and she asks him why. For some, it’s not the ideal immediate response, but it is an honest one. Sasha’s family does not approve of her relationship with Max, but Maria McIndoo’s film is a bold gesture of a film. It shows how people expose themselves and put themselves on the line for truly, romantic love. It’s agile and ripe with love. Read our interview with McIndoo and producer Sara McFarlane here.
7. Say As I Say
Just when you think Daniel Solé’s film is going to be one thing, it quietly shifts gears and becomes something more meaningful. I was blown away by the restraint in this drama.
Miriam Silverman and Maesie Kost star as Raquel and Eva, a mother and daughter who are volunteering in the kitchen of a synagogue during Shabbat service. As they sort through donated items for the annual food drive, Raquel answers the ringing phone, and a voice tells her that there is a bomb somewhere in the building. Solé’s could’ve leaned into something more thriller-like, but that’s not the story that he wants to tell. Silverman, a Tony Award winner for The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, carries so much on her face, and her chemistry with Kost is lovely.
6. Quaker
Giovanna Malina’s black-and-white drama is infused with so much real emotion that you might mistake it for a documentary at first. The set-up might seem simple: high school seniors are invited to say whatever they want (or say nothing) in the last Quaker meeting of the year before they go their separate ways. If you reveal your true feelings toward someone, how long will they carry that around? Does yelling at someone make you feel better for making someone else feel worse? Malina’s film is taut with tension and beautifully acted.
5. She Raised Me
Every gay man worships…someone. I have been a Julianne Moore devotee since her domestic-wife-in-turmoil double feature of Far From Heaven and The Hours. Some of us love a woman in entertainment when we are young, and such is the case for Ben Lewis’ Louie in his darkly funny film, She Raised Me.
Louie is ready to break up with his boyfriend Xander (Zane Phillips, still dreamy but playing a total dick) but that’s before he realizes that Xander’s mother is none other than his childhood idol, Marilyn Muff. There are several surprises swirling around this relationship, and it’s best to discover them on your own. Lewis taps into that obsessive crossroads of fan-fidelity and starlet-salvation so beautifully, even as the twists and turns get darker and darker.
4. A Friend of Dorothy
If you kicked your football into the backyard of Miriam Margolyes, you would wish for a life-changing friendship too…
When Alistair Nwachukwu’s JJ knocks on the front door of Margolyes’ Dorothy, she invites him inside for a few moments before asking him to open a can of prunes for her. When she spies him eyes her large bookshelf of plays, she takes a chance and asks him to pick one off the shelf. He admits that while his father expects him to play football or pursue a life in sports, JJ is much more passionate about plays and the performing arts. What blossoms is an unexpected friendship that shows that interpreting art knows no boundaries. It’s sweet but passionate and urgent. Read our full review of Lee Knight’s film.
3. Little Goodbyes
Justine Martin’s tribute to growing up is clinging to those moments of youthful magic. The kind of magic that you don’t even know is magic when you’re a kid. You only see it for what it is when you become older. Two young girls excitedly bounce around the city as their mother works an evening shift close to Christmas, and their encounters make them grow up little by little. It’s haunting but beautiful with the right amount of ache. Read our full review here.
2. The Traveler
Matthew Scheffler’s The Travelers was one of my biggest surprises at this year’s festival, and it features a fantastic central performance from Natalie Knepp.
Knepp plays a grieving widow in Victorian New England when she suspects an alarming presence in her home. Is her late husband, a poet, trying to reach back out to her as a final romantic gesture? Or is something more sinister lurking in the house and has only made itself known now that this woman is left to fend for herself? You will not believe where Scheffler’s film will take you.
1. The Singers
Many souls are lost as they down drink after drink in musty, smoky bars. You can find these bars not just in our country but all over the world. People stumble in before stumbling home. Sam Davis’ film is a marvel, a richly drawn fable about how anyone can feel down on their luck but also find salvation if they can muster up the courage to discover the right path.
In this particular watering hole, men compete for a humble prize: a six-pack of beer and one hundred dollars. How do you compete for this? You have to stand tall as the best singer in the entire joint. Just when you think one has it sewn up, another contenders steps in and his voice rings through the stale beer and cigarette smoke to stand, even if momentarily, triumphant. This is the film of the Everyman. If you have enough pluck, enough will, and enough bravery, you, too, can be a winner. Davis builds an alluring atmosphere and stands back to let these barflies really sing their hearts out.
Do any of these film pique your interest? Do any of these films, in your estimation, sound like they are up the Academy’s alley?
