Part of this year’s Where I Belong (Identity) Shorts. On a road trip with her younger sister, Charlie struggles to hide a secret addiction.

Part of this year’s Where I Belong (Identity) Shorts. A Uyghur father living in Southern China, Saramu accidently discovers that his 14-year-old elder daughter has received a possible love-letter. Desperate to resolve his doubt but unable to read Chinese mandarin, Saramu can only ask his younger daughter for help to read him the letter.

Part of this year’s Where I Belong (Identity) Shorts. CONFUSED BLOOD (혼혈) explores the dichotomous reality of navigating belonging for mixed-race people. The short film details the experience of a half-Korean (Richard) living in Seoul and his search for belonging within Korea’s society and culture.

Part of this year’s Where I Belong (Identity) Shorts. Iranian-American filmmaker Andy Sarjahani and his childhood friend Bubba Samuels go on a wild hog hunt in their native Ozarks where unexpected conversations unfold that have a lasting impact on their friendship.

Part of this year’s Where I Belong (Identity) Shorts. When Margot stumbles upon a video that her dying mother left behind for her, she discovers something truly unexpected.

Part of this year’s Where I Belong (Identity) Shorts. A pop culture essay film on the makeover movies we grew up loving—and all the ways they taught us that we needed to fix ourselves.
For more than a hundred years, movie makeovers have promised audiences that with a little help, any ugly duckling can transform into the belle of the ball. Why has this trope continued to capture our imaginations? And what has it taught us about ourselves? Featuring clips from nearly a hundred films, MAKEOVER MOVIE immerses us in the candy-colored, kinetic, and kaleidoscopic world of the makeover montage. Alongside these iconic images, the director and her friends—all women of color and/or queer women—share personal reflections on the racialized, heteronormative, and contradictory beauty standards at the core of the movie makeover.

Part of this year’s Not-So-Short Shorts. SHE MARCHES IN CHINATOWN is an inspiring story about belonging, identity, sisterhood, leadership, and a community that has flourished among a diverse group of women with backgrounds that represent a variety of sexual orientations, races, and ages. It is about a group that thrives despite being in a neighborhood targeted by hate and discrimination. As one superfan puts it, “Please don’t go away – Seattle needs you!”

Part of this year’s Not-So-Short Shorts. Resistance brews among the Indian immigrants who were stripped of their dignity when a reputed shipyard in Texas conscripted them as guest workers to repair the oil rigs and ships damaged after Hurricane Katrina.

Part of this year’s Not-So-Short Shorts. This film is set in South Korea in the year 2030. Jeonghwan Choi and Yujin Kang have been married for ten years. Yujin is worn out after failing to conceive through IVF treatment. The genius medical doctor, Dr. Samsin Kim, has been researching male pregnancy technology, which is now available publicly.

Part of this year’s Not-So-Short Shorts. Ling, a woman conducting music therapy for her dementia-stricken father, clashes with her older sister Munn’s cautious approach. But when Dad mistakes Ling for his former mistress, the sisters must face newly uncovered family secrets and their unresolved conflicts.

PRE-FEATURE TO “Killing the Violet”: Studying in an out-of-state college, Emily Sung returns home for her cousin's wedding. On this jovial evening, when everyone around her is celebrating love and marriage, Emily struggles to confront her traumatic past.

Part of this year’s Emotional Spectrum (aka Devastation) Shorts. Recorded in secret in Iran at the height of the women-led uprising, this documentary short follows an Iranian medical resident who risks her life to protect a fellow doctor from arrest by the country’s secret police.

Part of this year’s Emotional Spectrum (aka Devastation) Shorts. A birthday ceremony preparation gets upside down as something horrible takes place.

Part of this year’s Emotional Spectrum (aka Devastation) Shorts. Lam, a Vietnamese international student, welcomes her younger sister, Phuong, to her Chicago apartment. Phuong brings a DVD of their father’s funeral, which Lam could not attend.

Part of this year’s Emotional Spectrum (aka Devastation) Shorts. A dark comedy about a neurotic but driven 17-year-old Chinese-American violinist on a mission to get admitted to Harvard at any cost. After spotting a mistake in her application at the last minute, she embarks on a midnight rampage through her magnet high school, blackmailing a socially-awkward teenage hacker to deliver the perfect audition for the elusive Dean of Admissions before the deadline.

Part of this year’s Emotional Spectrum (aka Devastation) Shorts. A South Asian diasporic woman, tired of dating people who can’t keep up with her mutable cultural identity, decides to “frankenstein” together the ideal partner.

Part of this year’s Emotional Spectrum (aka Devastation) Shorts. As nightfall cast shadows on their secrets, the woman schemes under the shroud of darkness, returning to the house to share her clandestine plans with her partner in crime. Yet, an otherworldly aura permeates the air, revealing the lovers' true selves and dropping cryptic hints about the mysterious male corpse. Step by step, they are lured into a dance with the supernatural, spiraling into a world of trance and bewilderment, where the line between reality and the ethereal blurs into an enigmatic tale of passion and peril.

PRE-FEATURE TO “Blue Sunshine”: FISH BOY is a lyrical meditation on faith, love, and polyamory through the eyes of an Asian American teenager. When 16-year-old Patrick (played by Ian Chen, Fresh Off The Boat) questions his love for God, his self-discovery manifests in his skin.

PRE-FEATURE TO “New Wave”: To share his culture through food, Chef Tim Ma must defy monosodium glutamate's unsavory reputation.