Damned on the run

The film takes a look at seven different twilight zones between the physical and virtual. We cannot escape from the grid but can we bend it from the inside?

In this 57-second short film, a dog-like doll faces another doll. It begins with an innocent, playful tone, but quickly turns dark and unsettling. Bach’s classical music adds a heavy, melancholic mood to the scene. The Dog of Sarandi Alley is a strange and brief story about violence, loneliness, and the secrets hidden behind the simple faces of toys.

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.

Following a failed suicide attempt, Sarah watches herself leave her body and become an empty vessel for anything to crawl into. When she re-enters her body she learns that she isn't alone.

A local museum curator who is dipping her toe back into the dating pool is targeted by a charming serial killer. When a fateful romantic getaway between the two becomes a tense game of cat and mouse, both must confront the madness within him.

A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.

Art, Love, and Dark Magic come together in this gothic tale of an eccentric man who summons a vengeful spirit to manifest his desires and make him a great artist.

Dancing Plague, a GTA V mod, flips the script. Holding H key forces male NPCs to dance uncontrollably, revealing the game's biased animations where female characters (often sex workers) have the flashiest moves. This disrupts the game's gender roles, making masculinity both playful and challenged. Interestingly, female characters ignore the male dance frenzy. This is a humorous critique of the game's gender politics. The mod's soundtrack, by Azu Tiwaline, blends electronic music with trance traditions, deepening the critique and adding an immersive ritualistic feel.

After a period of time where her hearing begins to overtake her sight, Casandra searches for the cause of her problem, isolating herself from society. She starts having visions that remind her of the past and promise an apocalyptic future.

Yukari Nishihara, 25, earns her living as an art model and aspires to become an actress. One day, while she was out, she saw “a man's face about to jump off the roof of a building”, and since then she has been suffering from a peculiar constitution: she sees a suicide while on her period, faints, and develops a fever. The goddess of love does not smile on Yukari, who is unable to become a sweet girl with a nice boyfriend. The only things that can save Yukari now are her best friend Hana, who has a keen intuition, and a suppository that can break a fever in one shot. On the day of an important audition, Yukari has decided that this is her last chance. However, Yukari realizes that she has forgotten her antipyretic suppositories, and her eyes meet those of another soon-to-be suicide victim. She is in a desperate situation. What does Yukari do?

"...The journey of a determined warrior seeking answers..."

Trapped and alone, a young man must confront the pain he's ignored when he finds himself face-to-face with consequence.

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?

Four friends leave Seattle for a weekend in a remote, rain-soaked corner of Washington State's rustic Skagit Valley. The foreboding October landscape begins to warp their minds, plunging each of them into alternate realities where they must grapple with personal demons, sexual tensions, and a sinister natural world as they claw their way back to sanity.

Amidst the wreckage of loss, a soul struggles with the devastation left in their wake, grappling with the irreversible impact of their actions and the destruction they can't escape.

After waking up with amnesia on the beach, the protagonist is pursued by the police to face the consequences of an unknown past. This soundscape uses tension as a tool to explore how uncertainty, anguish and urgency mobilize a body that would otherwise remain paralyzed in time.

“Omen, a dark and timeless traveler, emerges from the belly of a gutted sheep and finds himself in an unknown void. In this tormented space, a disturbing encounter awaits him: an Enchantress. Through silent revelations and hidden omens, a haunting and supernatural journey begins, in search of meaning beyond appearances.”

"A vampiric Elf awakens in his eerie dwelling, where the arrival of disturbing figures through a mysterious portal unsettles the atmosphere. An enigmatic and mystical journey into the unknown."

A folk singer in 17th-century Kerala discovers a mansion. Inside, he encounters an enigmatic cook and a powerful master, setting in motion a chain of events that changes his life.

A mysterious figure explores the uncanny and terrifying space between light and darkness.