Joe Swanberg

Cats and Trees

The relationships of three men are examined through their use of technology.

An escaped murderer is in pursuit of his ex-girlfriend, who has fled to start a new life in a small town.

Ellen is sleeping with her ex-boyfriend while trying to ignore the fact that he's looking for more than just sex. Her roommate, Patrick, isn't helping matters with his secretive and jealous behavior.

A man and woman must face the tension that builds between them during a long-distance relationship.

A family takes a journey into the world of adult entertainment.

When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of their victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back.

When a group of misfits is hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire one rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they had bargained for.

Filmmakers Joe Swanberg and Spencer Parsons discuss the Midwestern roots and work ethic of Lewis' output and how The Gore Gore Girls represents the shift into transgressive '70s cinema that would dominate the American horror landscape.

An actress and her filmmaker boyfriend experience turbulence in their relationship when she accepts a role in a werewolf film.

A pothead kid's show cartoonist in Los Angeles spends a weekend trying to sleep with his visiting house guest - a woman from New York who he met on Chatroulette.

Tension mounts between a director and his lead actress on the set of a sexually explicit low-budget film. As the actress and her co-star develop real feelings for each other, the director's jealousy erupts and he begins sabotaging his own production.

Jenny's life has changed significantly since she had a baby. her days of food activism and urban anthropology have been replaced by diapers and playtime at the park. When she inherits a cabin in Montana, she leaves the comfort of her Chicago high-rise and travels with her baby to a remote part of the country. While she waits for her husband to join her, she fashions a temporary life of independence for herself - one which takes an unsettling turn when she begins a dangerous relationship with the man her husband hired to fix the property.

Emily and Andrew, a young couple living in Memphis, agree to babysit their friend’s 6-month-old for a day. The experience causes them to examine their own relationship and their feelings about marriage and children.

A high school prom faces a deadly threat: a flesh-eating virus that spreads via a popular brand of bottled water.

From rocker to family man, this captivating debut reveals the strife we face when it’s time to grow up. The rhythm of Sully’s (Lawrence Levine, Gabi on the Roof In July) life drastically changes when he abandons Philadelphia’s gritty punk rock scene for suburban simplicity. Now, in a dull office job, Sully must support his family, while the lifestyle he had lead is tough to let go. Nostalgia puts him in a paralyzing daze of somber apathy, prompting his exasperated wife to beg him to focus on the present. When his reckless ex-bandmate arrives unexpectedly and drags Sully on a nightlong scheme, pulling him back into his old ways, Sully must decide what to sacrifice. The familiarity livens his soul and awakens his emotions, but when the safety of his family becomes endangered will Sully be able to decide what matters to him most?

Weekend trips, office parties, late night conversations, drinking on the job, marriage pressure, biological clocks, holding eye contact a second too long… you know what makes the line between “friends” and “more than friends” really blurry? Beer.

After an unexpected tragedy, Suzanne searches for the true meaning of Christmas during one sad, strange December in suburban Virginia.

Two journalists set out to document their friend's journey to reunite with his estranged sister. They track her to an undisclosed location where they are welcomed into the remote world of "Eden Parish," a self-sustained rural utopia composed of nearly two hundred members and overseen by a mysterious leader known only as "Father." It quickly becomes evident to the newcomers that this paradise may not be as it seems. Eden Parish harbors a twisted secret. What started as just another documentary shoot soon becomes a fight for survival.

While walking home from her latest OB appointment, a very pregnant Esther Woodhouse is brutally attacked and disfigured by a hooded assailant. This horrible event seems to be a blessing in disguise when Esther finds consolation in a support group. Her life of sadness and solitude is opened up to friendship, understanding, and even acceptance. However, friendship and understanding can be very dangerous things when accepted by the wrong people.

Made up entirely of stills, 'Paintbrush' presents portraits of ten users of a fictitious online social networking website. By detailing the information given by each user on their profile, the film explores themes surrounding identity, while also serving as a satire of online social networking.

Jeff, a wannabe writer flailing at his career, his romantic relationships and any effort to be a responsible adult, takes a road trip to flee his mundane life. After even that fails, he meets free-spirited motel clerk Cat, who revives his ambitions.

A brother and sister discover the secret behind the "timebox" a device that is used to keep schools on schedual, you hook four together and get a time machine!

After a breakup with her boyfriend, a young woman moves in with her older brother, his wife, and their 2-year-old son.

After an old friend's visit ends, Lori is feeling a bit down. Bored with her job, agitated at home, and frustrated with money problems, Lori takes out her anger on her ex-marine boyfriend, Anson. However, after a broken mug, a trip to the zoo and a case of the shingles Lori's mood changes.

The arrival of a handsome new farmhand threatens the balance between a farmer and his daughter.

An anthology film consisting of four segments, entitled "Hot Boys," "The Sleep Creep," "The Meat Man," and "Silver Bullets," each of which obliquely dramatizes an incident of sexual assault. The four stories take place in the same small American town on four different holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day. "What Fun We Were Having" screened publicly once at the 2011 Fantasia International Film Festival, but received no further distribution.

Two brothers have a really bad time on a fishing trip until a stranger makes them a bizarre but lucrative offer.

Nominated for two Chicago/Midwest Emmy awards including Outstanding Historical Documentary and Outstanding Off-Camera Directing, "90 Years of the Music Box Theatre" depicts filmmakers Werner Herzog, Lana Wachowski, Michael Shannon, Joe Swanberg, and more as they celebrate a 90-year-old cinema institution in Chicago, IL.

Caitlin, a young Chicago performance artist, struggles to create work that is both personal and political. A piece she performs about the BP oil spill sends her relationship into a tailspin because her onstage nudity bothers her boyfriend.

Billy is a fetish photographer whose models begin to turn up dead. Michael, a melancholic cop, is tasked with investigating him.

Small town artist Charley is a tortured man whose drinking binges blur with his sneaking suspicion that he might be a werewolf. He distances himself from those he loves and sinks deeper into solitude, as his flashes of memory of his grisly nighttime acts manifest themselves through his artwork.

A mysterious visitor spends the night at an apartment belonging to a young engaged couple and their friend. Over the course of the night and the following day he sleeps with all three roommates and then disappears, leading to conversations about God, life and filmmaking.

Autoerotic follows four interconnected Chicago couples as they explore the boundaries of self-pleasure and sexual exploration. Through a unique blend of outrageous comedy and in-your-face sex, Autoerotic insightfully illuminates the private sexual lives of America’s urbanites.

The story of two people caught in the routines of work and circles of friends. The days begin with an alarm and end with the fading sound of a television. Ron Hogan, a 28-year-old ATM parts purchaser, and Stacy Ryan, a 27-year-old, oddly charming courier, meet through a matchmaking Internet service and go through the routine of falling for one another.

A disgruntled veteran unable to adjust back into society justifies domestic terrorism by interpreting his actions with alien invasion.

Follows a young man who after his father is murdered starts making bad choices, goes through life-threatening consequences and, of course, gets into guns.

After his engagement ends badly, Josh decides to take advantage of his bachelor-party plans in Ojai, California, with the few friends still willing to join him. Focused on drugs and their own hangups, his self-absorbed friends refuse to confront the elephant in the room and ask Josh how he’s feeling. As welcome and unwelcome guests stop by, Josh will attempt to find some closure over this weekend with the guys.

Opting to sleep in the allegedly-haunted guest house while spending a weekend in the Hamptons with friends, Ruth, a lonely young woman in her mid-twenties who's had too much to drink, strikes up a conversation that leads to a sexual encounter with Michael, a burlap-draped ghost that casually appears before her. Through this inter-paranormal relation, Ruth contracts an STD with alarming effects.

Paul - a workaholic independent filmmaker - takes charge of his sleepless baby, Pearl, when his wife, Mary, returns to work. He is slowly driven crazy by his inability to work and becomes the jerk he thought he'd never be.

Two sisters, one white and one black, spend a week together at their famous father's summer home. A microscopic examination of the new American family unit, it's a deeply personal film about the human connections that bond us all together.

A mysterious coven helps unhappy wives murder their husbands. A deadbeat stoner turns a pizzeria into a video rental headshop, and a lost soul falls in love with a serial killer, in this queer romance cursed by black magic and the occult!

After moving to Chicago for art school, Sam begins turning tricks to help pay the bills. His longtime, long-distance boyfriend Aaron can't stand to be apart and finally joins him, determined to find enough work so that Sam can give up having sex for money. When the two decide to tie the knot and move to a state where they can marry, their financial worries intensify...until Aaron spies on Sam with a prominent client, and everything changes. This sweet and sexually explicit love story becomes an exhilarating extortion tale. contains graphic sexuality

A real romance filmed over five years. Josephine and Zefrey simmer in the white hot apocalypse of first love until the throw of a dart finds them on a spontaneous trip to the Maldives and cracks open the question -- is their love true or just a performance?

A spoof behind-the-scenes look at Joe Swanberg's (non-existent) new film, Birthday Suit, about a young couple's "on again, off again" sexual relationship. The (non-existent) film uses cutting edge technology developed at the WETA Workshop to create the illusion of graphic sexual content.

Jamie is 21. She's from Atlanta. She's come to Brooklyn to visit her friend Samantha, but she can't find her. Jamie meets a stranger named Charlie on the subway and spends 24 hours hanging out with him.

A kaleidoscopic film portrait of Shelly Brown, a twenty-three year-old alienated urban misfit recently released from a psychiatric hospital.

An American couple argues about the safety of a French girl after a night out.

Leading very separate lives, Christy and her boyfriend Buddy live together in her parent's basement with their baby Mikey. As Christy, a waitress and aspiring writer, and Buddy, a plumber's apprentice, struggle with the realities of their lives, questions are formed about obligations, consequences, and all the identities we employ to get through the day.

Ed and Richard are brothers. They're also con artists. Not incredibly successful ones, but they get by. Ed's the leader. Richard's a bit slow. Their old pal Henry, who used to work with them, gave up the con life to work as a security guard at a bank in rural Yorktown. Ed convinces Henry to get back in the game and help them pull their biggest con yet. Of course, they'll have to wade their way through Yorktown's quirky cast of characters to get what they want, which, as is often the case, seems to be ever-changing.

In a desperate search to create a follow-up to Joe Swanberg's 2011 film Uncle Kent, Kent Osborne travels to a comic book convention in San Diego where he loses his mind and confronts the end of the world.

Upon receiving a mysterious letter that her mother's grave has been vandalized, Marie travels to the desolate island town where she's buried. Just as she arrives, the island closes for the season, leaving Marie trapped in a nightmare.

Middle-aged Lonnie hasn't done much since he graduated high school. His only shot at greatness is to take his relationship to the next level.

Independent Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi is trying to make a television show. He persuades BRIC TV, a Brooklyn non-profit Arts organization, to finance a television show whose premise is that every episode will be about the making of the previous episode. In the process of creating the show, everything can-and does-go wrong. The cast, a who's who of Brooklyn's independent filmmaking community, includes Alex Karpovsky, Eleonore Hendricks, Dustin Defa, and Onur Tukel.

Young American Bodies is an American web series, which originally premiered on Nerve.com and currently airs on IFC and at IFC.com in the United States. Each short episode looks into the intersecting love lives of six twenty-somethings in Chicago. The series is produced and directed by Joe Swanberg, the director of Hannah Takes The Stairs and Nights and Weekends.