WFA 2021 Film Guide

My Mama, A Man is a short documentary about Julie Middleton and her desire to spend a day as a man. When Julie was a child she was desperate to be a boy, when she hit adolescence she felt she lost that boy inside of her. Now Julie is approaching her 60th birthday and she has made a list of 60 things she wants to do, and right near the top of that list is to be a man for a day.

This short follows Rebecca Thomassie, an Inuk woman, around Kangirsuk as she learns the 52 Inuktitut words for snow.

Sam gets on the subway to get home. He catches the eye of April. The two of them discover they have way more in common than where they’re heading. Sometimes you need a noisy place to have a quiet conversation.

Endless distractions threaten to destroy creativity.

On December 11, 2013, Víctor Álvarez Damián and other young men were arrested amid a joint security operation led by the local police of Veracruz, Mexico. Their whereabouts remains unknown to this day. Perla, Víctor’s mother, has been looking for him since then. Open the Earth portrays her painful and tireless fight to access to the truth and justice.

An old school-style video game character, with the face of Gaël Faye, assaulted by existential questions, is in quest for meaning. He begins an in-depth and psychedelic journey through a destructive and genesis virtual scenery, the character's quest makes us question our relationship with the world, our humanity, our obsolescence, our future.

Proxy is a sci-fi drama short set in the not too distant future. In a world where people hire ‘Proxys’- humans trained in the fine art of ’standing in’ for a lost loved one, a family member that has passed, a husband or wife that left, or an estranged daughter or son - Victoria tries to navigate the life of being one of the highest in demand proxies in the city while at the same time struggling with her own demons. This short explores the delicate state that is the human condition and the attempt to find succor in a time where ‘rent-a-humans’ abound.

In the year 2164, when rock 'n roll is banned, a group of underground rebels, led by a mad scientist, attempt to start a non-violent revolution by waking up the docile masses via a cloned rockstar sent on a guerrilla tour to "rock n roll them free from the tyranny". But they soon find out, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

In the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, two teenagers pursue young love in a region where violence may be inescapable.

A young recovering drug addict confronts her demons by befriending the grief-stricken deaf mother she mysteriously spies on, but instead forges a much deeper friendship than she ever anticipated - one built upon the shared trauma of the women’s pasts. Told in ASL and shot on a DSLR camera, Since August is a uniquely intimate story of healing and redemption that bears witness to the power of visual storytelling. The film showcases a diverse cast and crew of international women with the representation of a deaf actress in the role of Vedette.

Something disturbing is brewing out there. Strange figures appear. They are gathering. What do they want? Is it a menace or is it the salvation? The rise of the grouse king begins.

Old friends Tip and Brent go on a hallucinogenic mushroom trip through the desert to face their fears, doubts, and failures in hopes of coming to enlightenment... even if that just means learning how to change a tire.

Lydia attends a bereavement group for people who have lost a loved one to cancer. As she hears the different stories of loss around the group and how grief has manifested itself in so many different ways, she is triggered to remember different memories during her father’s illness where each stage of grief affected her own life.

STAY is a short film depicting two people going their separate ways. A story about connecting while departing. About loneliness in togetherness. A love story about sharing, taking, losing, wanting and not wanting one another.

After an unsuccessful attempt to renew his car registration, Dejan falls in a bureaucratic trap that tests his determination to be a responsible father.

This story is a sarcasm to today's society. This is a made up world, representing the stereotypes or tags of everyone, all labeled with different tags since birth including gender, body shame, social class, student score and job stereotype. People are tagged by others while they tag others in turn and are defined by these tags and hide their true selves.

Right before Soodeh Sharifzadegan’s second marriage, her 11-year-old son, Matiar is kidnapped. After considerable effort, Soodeh is forced to ask for the ransom money from her ex-husband. After Matiar’s release, Soodeh, being curious, comes to the sudden realization that it was all her son’s plan to provide the grounds for his father’s return.

Somewhere in the desert, a little boy is plunged by force into an intimidating and completely foreign new world: the world of camel racing. Will the distant hope of seeing his mother again give him the strength to overcome his fears and find his place in this hostile environment?

Within the walls of a white room, five people live in confinement. Every day, they are forced to participate in a vote that will allow the winner to achieve the promised reward of going outside. One of them will have the opportunity to achieve it.

An old woman prepares to die. Accompanied by her granddaughter, she reflects on the memories of her life, and on the profound experience of being human, before taking the next step into the unknown.

Bella is a struggling writer who gets a job assisting an elderly lady. She soon discovers that this job is a lot harder than she thought. Will she give up or gain a new perspective on life?

A young single mother struggles against ominous forces, whom she believes are bent on taking her infant daughter. This chilling female-driven narrative stars three phenomenal women from the de facto Netflix Ensemble, Catherine Curtin (Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black), Kana Hatakeyama (Orange is the New Black, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Maho Honda (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Maniac).

Official music video for The Narcissist by Brady Watt, Westside Gunn and DJ Premier. Concept and animation inspired by the lyrics. A narcissist experiences life and death through his various incarnations.

Trapped in an abandoned royal palace, a young prince must confront the unsettling secrets of his family’s past, escape evil forces and battle dark magic in order to survive.

The Year 1818: Set on a remote island at the extreme north of the British Isles, a mysterious man named Victor washes ashore, seemingly the sole survivor of a shipwreck. He is restored to health by the local inhabitants but guards the secrets of his haunted past and of an evil which has found its way to this remote world, hell-bent on vengeance. So starts the dramatic and violent chain of events in which the tale of Victor’s sinister experiments gradually emerges.