Scanty Claus

A couple, Vlad and Sophy, navigate their relationship as well as their own struggles with mental health in the context of a highly connected, politically uncertain modern world while on a trip to a remote Canadian island in this avant-garde feature film. PREFACE TO A HISTORY, created with a tiny crew of four people, represents an experiment in using minimalist tools to create an overwhelming aesthetic experience in service of a simple, but specifically contemporary, story about two people attempting to navigate a fraying relationship amid all the anxieties and external pressures of modern adulthood in a technologically-interconnected and politically unstable era.

After the indomitable and beloved founder of a scrappy theater camp in upstate New York falls into a coma, the eccentric staff must band together with her clueless "crypto-bro" son to keep the thespian paradise afloat.

The Grand is in the tradition of improvisational comedies like Best In Show and This Is Spinal Tap. The story is set in the world of professional poker and follows six players who reach the final table of the world’s second most famous high stakes tournament, the Grand Championship of Poker.

Co-hosts Josh Bath and Samantha Newman have troubles with their early morning talk show when Josh gets dumped live on the air and battles through the five stages of grief.

Orson Welles presents a proposed film project to prospective investors in Spain. Speaking to an audience of wealthy arts patrons, Welles outlines his vision for an improvised, documentary-style fiction set in the world of bullfighting, centered on a solitary, existential matador who stands apart from his peers. As he expounds on cinema, performance, and the ritualized spectacle of death, the film captures a project that would ultimately remain unrealized.

At an orphanage, the children are sad because they received used defective toys as gifts. Professor Grampy sees the children while passing by in his sled and has an idea on how to give them a merry Christmas.

Aspiring director Corky St. Clair and the marginally talented amateur cast of his hokey small-town musical production go overboard when they learn that Broadway theater agent Mort Guffman will be in attendance.

Several comic greats pay tribute to the legendary stand-up stage founded by Budd Friedman in 1963.

When Brad gets fired from his job, he goes to reopen an old cinema, he enlists his frends to help him show the last film the cinema aired before it closed... Only they don't know, the film is in Italian. With everyone sitting ready they begin to dub the movie... on the fly!

In Netflix's first-ever crowd work special, Matt Rife gets up close and personal with an unpredictable Charlotte audience to riff on all things dreams.

A desperate actor's callback spirals when an embarrassing mishap with the group's intimidating captain forces them into a secret pact.

In post Civil War West Virginia, 9 year old Jamie's life is forever changed when he unexpectedly meets his Uncle Vernon.

Chelsea Bledsoe and her husband Graig throw a surprise intervention for her old high school boyfriend, Henry, with a mismatched group of acquaintances from back in the day to fill out the guest list.

Two couples have double-booked a weekend cottage - and when a therapist uses changework techniques to cure anxiety, the ex-military boyfriend is not best pleased.

Two young strangers meet in Naples and begin to flirt and dance in the street.

This film is a ternary tale, a rumour. The protagonists try by all means to communicate, but they don't know what to say to each other. They may be deaf, but they're certainly not dumb. They wander around hoping that the environment around them will listen and respond. So, like bewildered surveyors, our two characters wander through urban and natural spaces, changing distances as they see fit. Moving from refuge to building, they see how fragile our environments are. In the beginning, they stand beside a waterfall. At the end, they face concrete and glass.

Based on an incident in the life of Beat icon Neal Cassady and his wife, the painter Carolyn, the film tells the story of a railway brakeman whose wife invites a respected bishop over for dinner. However, the brakeman's Bohemian friends crash the party, with comic results. Pull My Daisy is a film that typifies the Beat Generation. Directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Daisy was adapted by Jack Kerouac from the third act of his play, Beat Generation; Kerouac also provided improvised narration.

Cecil Taylor was the grand master of free jazz piano. "All the Notes" captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded as one of the true giants of post-war music. Seated at his beloved and battered piano in his Brooklyn brownstone the maestro holds court with frequent stentorian pronouncements on life, art and music.

"All-Stars" is a hilarious commentary on the state of all youth sports today, fueled by the outrageous behavior of the desperate sports parent living vicariously through his or her child. In the vein of "Best in Show", where it's more about the dog owners than the dogs - "All-Stars" is about the adults involved in youth sports (parents, coaches, umpires, volunteers, board members, etc.) more than the kids. The end result is a funny, yet compelling spin on fast pitch softball as well as a unique state of affairs on the outlandish antics of a few crazed parents.

Queen of China (Hanoi Hanna), based on Ronald Tavel’s scenario, loosely refers to the real-life radio show host who broadcast antiwar propaganda to American soldiers in Vietnam. It is Mary Woronov’s showcase piece, in which she metes out physical and psychological abuse to Susan Bottomly, Angelina “Pepper” Davis, and Ingrid Superstar in a room at the Chelsea Hotel. At first, the cast tries to accurately adhere to Tavel’s scenario, but by reel two it all falls apart—the performers begin to use their real names and exhibit a sort of residual stress disorder that permeates the rest of the film.