2026 FESTIVAL GUIDE
ALL • FRIDAY NIGHT • LIVE ACTION • ANIMATED • DOCUMENTARY

Animated SHORT
Have I Swallowed Your Dreams
6:04 minutes | 2024
A poetic conversation between an immigrant daughter and her mother about sacrifices and dreams.
Director: Clara Chan
Writer: Clara Chan
Producer: Clara Chan
Key Cast: Catherine Ip
Key Cast: Clara Chan

Animated SHORT
Retrieving Roadie
7:30 minutes | 2024
It’s just another dull business trip for a lonely pet food salesman until he rescues a dog who could change his life – if they survive a harrowing journey home.
Director: Luke Stone
Producer: Luke Stone
Producer: Blake Larson
Producer: David Craig Williams
Writer: David Craig Williams
Story Art: Blake Larson
Key Cast: Erika Harlacher-Stone
Key Cast: Sarah Miller-Crews
Animators: Maxine Carey-Gorey, Jackie Gorman, Susie Chong
Sound Design: Isaac Caldas
Re-Recording Mixer: Ricardo Watson

Animated SHORT
I HAVE BECOME
1:09 minutes | 2026
A paint-on-paint + risograph queer experimental animation about a transgender man's relationship with his body, younger self, and future self to show the grotesque beauty of tearing oneself apart to live truthfully.
Director: Lee J Holoubek
Music Composer: Xenia Foxx
Music Performer: Xenia Foxx, Nathan Stopar, Kayla Hagan, Jax Sinclair, Indigo Kozak
Sound Designer: Evens Wong, Gelatin Kind
Re-Recording Mixer: Evens Wong
Animator: Lee J Holoubek
Creative Supervisor: Kora Kosicka

Animated SHORT
Pow!
8:16 minutes | 2025
A Native American kid scrambles to charge his dying video game console at a bustling intertribal powwow.
Director: Joey Clift
Writer: Joey Clift
Executive Producers: Mik Moore, Harold Moss, Donick Cary, Joey Clift
Key Cast: Rainy Fields
Key Cast: Angela Startz
Key Cast: Jim Ruel
Key Cast: Joey Clift

Animated SHORT
When We Meet
0:45 minutes | 2025
Love in wartime. Inspired by words attributed to Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Completed as part of “To Gaza with Love: A Global Anijam.”
Animation: Jason Giglio
Concept: Claire Patoine, Jason Giglio
Sound Design: Claire Patoine, Jason Giglio
Story: Claire Patoine, Jason Giglio

Animated SHORT
Sunspark
11 minutes | 2026
While scavenging for spare parts, a lonely robot discovers someone who desperately needs his help.
Director: Danny Bourque
Writer: Danny Bourque
Producer: Danny Bourque
Animator: Danny Bourque

Animated SHORT
Once, a Second Time
7:30 minutes | 2025
Lump is a reclusive 20-something, trying to enjoy her fragile life with her lone friend, Jar. What little stability she has is shattered when her past finally catches up to her and she throws up a salmon in a dingy bar bathroom. To begin to thrive, she must decide if she can embrace vulnerability and open up not only to herself but to those who wish to help her.
Director: Sarah Rae Franklin
Writer: Sarah Rae Franklin, Mary Leah McNassar
Key Cast: Yvette Kinyon
Key Cast: Ollie Buerger
Music: Sarah Rae Franklin, The Eggboy

Animated SHORT
The Epic of Enkidu
9:26 minutes | 2025
When the catastrophic king Gilgamesh meets the grass-fed Enkidu, things don't go according to the clay tablets. A fractured take on the cuneiform tale, featuring doom, despair, deception, and sheep.
Director: Mike A Smith
Music: John Morgan Askew
Sound Design: Jason T Edwards

Animated SHORT
The Bugs in My Beard
1:10 minutes | 2026
Inspired by true events.
Writer, Illustrator, Animator, Narrator, Musician, Soundmaker: Michael Buchino

Animated SHORT
You Play Too Much
13:07 minutes | 2025
Lil’ Robbie (Fred Armisen) , an elementary school kid growing up in 1980’s Philadelphia has to navigate being a nerdy outsider in a tough environment. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, You Play Too Much is a series of stop motion animated vignettes about friendship, bullies, and the rules of the schoolyard that felt like the law at the time. Fred Armisen narrates these coming of age stories based on the life of director Rob Shaw.
Director: Rob Shaw
Writer: Rob Shaw
Key Cast: Fred Armisen