J'ai grandi ici

Host Scott Forrest presents a curated compilation of eight independent short films in this rapid-fire science-fiction feature. Genres collide, narratives twist, aesthetics clash, and even humor, both campy and dystopian, showcase the vast creative possibilities of each story's individual world, offering the viewer a brief glimpse into the lives of every character's attempt to survive the otherworldly chaos around them. Released in 2001, the selected shorts span original creation dates of 1997 to 2001; most of the featured filmmakers also appear as themselves in short video interviews to talk about their inspirations, creative process and motivations while working on their individual shorts.

A man sits at the table and eats his meal...with rather unusual effects.

After a catastrophic global war, a young filmmaker awakens in the carnage and seeks refuge in the only other survivor: an eccentric, ideologically opposed figure of the United States military. Together, they brave the toxic landscape in search of safety... and answers.

This exclusive luxury cruise presents itself as the perfect holiday and family utopia. However, all artificial facades of this attractive consumer product dissolve, as a psychedelic dream world unfolds, illusions break and the crude reality beyond superficial comfort is unveiled.

On Halloween night, an unexpected guest arrives, to reclaim the doll.

A clueless wannabe movie star moves to LA and goes viral for all the wrong reasons, only to evolve into a slightly less terrible version of himself. #blessed

A washed up actor performs night after night in a grimy theater to a nearly empty audience. However, everything changes when a clueless dog jumps on stage.

An electoral campaign is underway in an imaginary country. Two leaders fight over the voters, who cry in exasperation. The first leader is fat and whiny, the second smiling and aloof. A man with a laptop computer and a teenager with a stony face and muscular body look on as the political battle unfolds. An aggressive woman removes herself from the melancholy scene. After the victory of democratic optimism, the two observers kill the leader, who dies with a smile on his lips. Civil war breaks out.

Bobby breadcrumb lives a terrible life of hitting his head on doorways, running out of milk, and slipping on banana peels. In an effort to find meaning and change the script of his life, he journeys beyond the fourth wall to fight against the powers that be.

Moving Matter is the culmination of a material-led process with artists from dance, costume design and film that began with a study of old kitchen flooring about to be discarded. This flax-based material enters our orbit in the 1950s, where a measured homelife and prescribed domesticity offered a reassuring antidote to bomb scares, political turmoil, and paranormativity. Stability topples as the flooring becomes entangled in the lives of those who don the material as garments and shelters. This film was made through Moving Matter, a long-term research-creation project that offers a methodology for rethinking the dynamism between raw materials, garments, and the body. Moving Matter steers the locus of choreography and wearable design away from human hierarchy to instead support truer collaboration amongst all moving materials, both human and non-human, in this case… linoleum.

An influencer gets canceled and goes on a journey that forces him to view his life through the lens of social media.

An actress, lost in an unknown city, comes across an old lady who is just as lost in this city that she no longer recognizes.

The versatile artist, BEK Hyunjin ventures into theater direction, leaving the actors in a state of confusion. His unconventional direction unfolds into strange scenes on stage. Scenes of people howling, a woman's monologue, another woman lip-syncing a song appear in random order, and BEK Hyunjin himself appears on stage as a primitive man, a singer and a narrator.

Lakshya, a police constable gets some extra ordinary powers in his body after he is saved from a blast.

A young scientist studies the mechanics of time travel by having a conversation with a group of her future selves.

Filmmaker and artist Jack Smith described his own film as a “comedy set in a haunted movie studio.” Flaming Creatures begins humorously enough with several men and women, mostly of indeterminate gender, vamping it up in front of the camera and participating in a mock advertisement for an indelible, heart-shaped brand of lipstick. However, things take a dark, nightmarish turn when a transvestite chases, catches and begins molesting a woman. Soon, all of the titular “creatures” participate in a (mostly clothed) orgy that causes a massive earthquake. After the creatures are killed in the resulting chaos, a vampire dressed like an old Hollywood starlet rises from her coffin to resurrect the dead. All ends happily enough when the now undead creatures dance with each other, even though another orgy and earthquake loom over the end title card.

Fragments from Brussels, about the flow of the city, A cinema, A body, A film, and a wind that blows through the town. The film is a Schizomentry experience that blends real stories and fiction. After all, where is the border?

A girl trapped in a time loop leaves an AI replica to relive her final days. Glitches and burned-in subtitles reveal the machine’s fractured view, until the loop shifts to the real her — blurring the line between memory, code, and consciousness. "Told from the memory stream of a trapped A.I., the film visually glitches as it attempts to 'escape,' including encoded flashes of an 'ESC' key."

The restaurant opens. Customers eat. The restaurant closes. For one employee, this daily routine becomes his personal hell.

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