Must Be Painful

Short film made with the help of the Sundance Film Institute and serving as a proof-of-concept for the subsequent feature film.

At the end of the 19th century, young Rosita and her cousin are engaged to be married, shortly before he has to leave for Cuba.

When, in a very strict Catholic school, a teacher enters a bathroom and surprises two students engaged in forbidden sexual practices, some of their classmates do not know whether to remain silent or rat out their own friends when questioned by school authorities.

An ex-soldier encounters many dangers in the small town he lives in.

A young girl buries in her soul a memory of a painful moment, when as a child she brought home an injured bird and her father burdened by his own weight of worries didn’t notice her feelings and longing for understanding. The girl took her father’s reaction as indifference and closed herself in her inner world longing for her father’s love and its manifestations. Since that moment she and her dad continued to grow apart, and as an adult she is no longer able to accept his endearments. The father suffers from guilt and searches for a way back to his daughter, trying to revive their lost relationship.

Ryan and Jennifer are opposites who definitely do not attract. At least that's what they always believed. When they met as twelve-year-olds, they disliked one another. When they met again as teenagers, they loathed each other. But when they meet in college, the uptight Ryan and the free-spirited Jennifer find that their differences bind them together and a rare friendship develops.

Darren Aronofsky’s AFI short opens with angry slacker Dave sitting in a dreary, empty junkyard. Dave stares into space, sips beer, and beats the hell out of a cracked guitar. We quickly realize the emptiness of the dump parallels the emptiness of Dave’s life which consists of smoking weed, staring at television screens and watching school children. Dave’s friend Pete is shortly introduced, along with their friend, Ari, who despite calling her pals losers, doesn’t seem to accomplishing much herself. These three are going nowhere fast. They’re the amoebas of life… protozoa….

Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field

A masseuse's journey to find the human touch.

John Woo's experimental short film, made during his time in college. The line between genuine love and violent obsession is blurred when a man falls for a girl and proceeds to tie her up with rope to him, making her follow him around and bend to his whims until tragedy ultimately befalls them both.

Hollywood beckons for recent film school grad Nick Chapman, who is out to capitalize on the momentum from his national award-winning student film. Studio executive Allen Habel seduces Nick with a dream deal to make his first feature, but once production gets rolling, corporate reality begins to intervene: Nick is unable to control a series of compromises to his high-minded vision, and it's all he can do to maintain his integrity in the midst of filmmaking chaos.

A hyper sensitive film student falls in love with an older woman.

A sensationalist television show unravels the sordid story of Luciano Fernández and analyzes the possible motives that led him to murder a child. (Inspired by a real event that occurred in the forest of Verrières, Paris, on May 27th, 1964.)

After Romaine is kidnapped at the hands of the shadowy Spicers, Detective Alfredo Pasta goes undercover to find his missing friend and root out an evil conspiracy in San Pancrisco.

Over the course of one frantic day, five university students try to keep their heads above water.

After being whacked on the head with a shovel, Valdis no longer shows interest in the things that used to make his life worthwhile: alcohol, techno, cars and fights. His friends desperately try to help him regain his memory, but nothing works.

Things become shrouded when The Loner discovers a dead body outside his home. His mind becomes a prison of contradiction, falsification and fear when a series of dreams push him to realize the truth.

Libuše and her husband Jaromír have been together for a long time, perhaps too long. It seems their lives have become mired in a vicious circle of enervation, which neither of them wants to admit. The couple might have spent the rest of their days like this were it not for the arrival of a motivational package from an agency called The Sun…

Bill is a reluctant astronaut in a fascist society.

With 4 weeks and a budget of $5,000, IF Media approached filmmaker Nash Edgerton and Blue-Tongue Films to produce video insert material for the 2005 Lexus Inside Film Awards. Edgerton agreed. But wanted the $5,000 in cash.