No Crying at the Dinner Table

YEAR 2019 RUNTIME 16 minutes LANGUAGE English, Vietnamese COUNTRY Canada

FILMMAKER Carol Nguyen

The Eyes of Summer

Collaboratively developed with members of my family, shortly after the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2010, a narrative was improvised around an investigation into my mother’s interactions with spirits. The film describes a population reeling from devastations of the past, where distinctions between the living and the dead are thinning.

“It took us two years to make! It was completed right before COVID-19 hit and has some eerie foreshadowing. ” – Rajee Samarasinghe

YEAR 2020 RUNTIME 15 minutes COUNTRY Sri Lanka, United States PREMIERE Chicago Premiere

FILMMAKER Rajee Samarasinghe

What You Left Behind

Throughout my father’s life, he struggled with a number of drug addictions, and after he unexpectedly passed away I began collecting an archive of letters, images, and recordings he left behind. The archive held a complex and revealing story of his relationship to prescription and illicit drugs, and glimmers of my distant relationship with him. This led me to consider how I might turn my distant relationship with my father, and his traumatic and sudden death into a purposeful document.

YEAR 2020 RUNTIME 6 minutes LANGUAGE English COUNTRY United States PREMIERE Chicago Premiere

FILMMAKER Jayce Kolinski

A Tiny Place That Is Hard To Watch

An American researcher, a Japanese translator, a Tokyo river transporting wildlife, garbage, death. Two women crash in love or lust to stories from the end of the world.

YEAR 2019 RUNTIME 39 minutes LANGUAGE Japanese COUNTRY Japan/USA PREMIERE Chicago Premiere

FILMMAKER Shelley Silver