Category: Video

In the small town of Binghamton, New York, there spins a 1925 carousel that once inspired Rod Serling and has since become a portal into…the Twilight Zone.

The Carousel a Documentary Short Films.

Official Selection: 

2016 Tribeca Film Festival (World Premiere)
2016 Tacoma Film Festival (Best Doc-Short Award)
2016 Nashville Film Festival
2016 LA Shorts Fest
2016 Indie Memphis Film Festival
2017 Cleveland International Film Festival
2017 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
2017 Oxford Film Festival
2017 Salem Film Festival
2017 Florida Film Festival
2017 RiverRun Film Festival

Directed: Jonathan Napolitano

Produced: Jonathan Napolitano, Kayleigh Napolitano

Director of Photography: Ty Morin

Edited: Jonathan Napolitano

Music: Llyod Rodgers

Cinematography: Ty Morin

Cast: William Finkenstein, Cortlandt Hull, Anne Serling

Executive producers: Matthew A. Stewart, Jonathan Napolitano

Fascinated by their work, Joe Fig re-creates artists and their studios in hard to believe miniature sculpture form.

Fig’s Representation is a Documentary Short Films.

Official Selection:

2017 Aspen Shortsfest (World Premiere)
2017 Rhode Island International Film Festival
2017 Nashville Film Festival
2017 Tacoma Film Festival
2017 New Haven Documentary Film Festival
More TBA

Directed: Jonathan Napolitano

Produced: Jonathan Napolitano, Kayleigh Napolitano

Executive Producer: Matthew A. Stewart

Director of Photography: Jonathan Napolitano

Edited: Jonathan Napolitano

Animation: John Mandato

Music: Llyod Rodgers

See and license the clips used at dissolve.com/millennial

To publish or broadcast this video, contact press@dissolve.com, or tweet us at @dissolve. Media outlet? Grab the media kit at http://bit.ly/GenMillAd

Want to work with an agency that really *does* get millennials? Hit up and-or.co!

Written and Directed by And/Or

Present by Dissolve

Back in 2014 stock house Dissolve released “This Is a Generic Brand Video” to well-deserved acclaim. Their newest poke at advertising tropes takes aim at tone-deaf marketers targeting humans born between 1980 and 2000.

From the release: “This Is a Generic Millennial Ad parody the multinational brands that pay lip service to the youth market with meaningless hashtags, misplaced emojis, slang that’s totes old, and stale pitches to “join the conversation.”

“Co-opting political protest to sell beverages? Cashing in on pride week? Making token gestures to environmentalism? It’s all here, over an irresistible montage of smiling millennial faces taking selfies, wearing VR goggles, and looking bored.
“This Is a Generic Millennial Ad was made entirely with Dissolve stock footage.”

A woman walking her dog alone in the bush has a strange encounter.

“Trespass” is the picks of Short of The Week’s Premiere by Staff Pick Premiere! on @Vimeo.

Director: Mirrah Foulkes

Screenplay: Mirrah Foulkes

Producer: Alex White

Cinematography: Ari Wegner

Cast: Sara West, Maya Stange

There is an eeriness that accompanies experiences in the forest. Even the mundane leaves rustling, a branch breaking can make your mind jump to sinister conclusions before reason has the chance to calm it back down. Maybe it’s being out of your element. Or that the silence and sparseness of nature allow space for your brain to wander. This is the picks of Short of The Week’s Premiere by Staff Pick Premiere, “Trespass,” we’re dropped instantly into this kind of heightened state. By recreating the tension felt in the forest, the film gives viewers room to project their own insecurities and ideas into the story and ultimately, come to their own ominous conclusions.

Filmmaker Mirrah Foulkes is an Australian actor, writer, and director known for her performances in Top of the Lake and the Animal Kingdom, as well as her short films “Dumpy Goes to the Big Smoke” and “Florence, Has Left The Building.” You may also recognize her from the hilariously cringe-worthy Vimeo classic “Spider” by Nash Edgerton.

In “Trespass,” which premiered at TIFF in 2016 and won the Erwin Radio Award for best Australian short at the Melbourne Film Festival, Foulkes wanted to create an atmosphere, unlike most thrillers. The protagonist, Rachel, walks her dog through the woods and comes across a young woman crying. Through the lingering details of the forest and sparse dialogue between the two, it’s difficult to get a clear read on the situation. Does this young woman need help? Should Rachel just continue on her way? “I was interested in the idea of trying to sustain the tension and suspense with as little hand-holding as possible for the audience,” she describes, “so that as a viewer, you’re almost having a parallel experience to the character Rachel.” As this tightly-wound interaction ends on an ambiguous note, we, the viewers, feel the same conflicted sense of worry and search for the same clues as Rachel. And that leaves us with the crux of the film: if you think someone is in trouble, do you try to help? Even if it means crossing boundaries that potentially shouldn’t be crossed?

A complex chick deals with a vanilla beau, a shitty brunch, and a dead coyote all in a Los Angeles day. There’s batshit crazy and then there’s good crazy…she fits somewhere in between.

A Comedy Drama Short film “Good Crazy” picks of the weeks by Staff Pick Premiere on @vimeo.

Director: Rosa Salazar

Screenplay: Rosa Salazar

Music director: Kevin Blumenfeld

Producer: Tobias Louie

Cast: Rosa Salazar, Jacob Wysocki, Graham Mackie, Matt Chute, Turen Robinson

It’s a word that flies out of our mouths in zillion different ways: CRAZY. There’s restraining-order crazy, elaborate-prom-posals crazy, a-trillion-views-on-Facebook crazy, grandma-just-got-a-sleeve-tattoo crazy, etc. In today’s vernacular, it’s kind of the every word and it’s often used to describe women, as the residue of ancient gender stereotypes still prevails in modern culture. Men should be the risk-takers, while women idly stand by and take care of a man should he fail. When a woman steps outside of these boundaries, it’s easy (and lazy) to label her as one of the “crazy” ones. In the case of this week’s Staff Pick Premiere “Good Crazy,” the behavior that a boyfriend perceives as exhaustingly excessive is his girlfriend’s perceived duty as a law-abiding, public-space-respecting, animal-loving human.

While partaking in very normal weekend activities with her average (read: vanilla/nice but boring) partner, Rosa goes above and beyond to make any disconcerting circumstance better even if she may appear to be outdoing herself. Ultimately, this Sundance 2017 short is about considering the intentions of those who go out of their way to turn a negative into a positive, no matter the results. About the main character’s particular brand of crazy in “Good Crazy,” director, writer, and star Rosa Salazar explain: “It’s about being a person who has an interesting code if you will. You see, there’s CRAZY crazy someone who is completely irrational and lacks the awareness to be a functional member of society. And then there’s GOOD crazy a person who fights the everyday injustices, a social crusader, often misunderstood and thus intimidating to others due to a severe case of ‘wokeness.’ Because women are by nature intuitive creatures, we possess that ‘wokeness’ and are unfortunately susceptible to being lumped in with the crazy crazies.”

I’m sure you’ve been there before standing on one end of the crazy spectrum, while, oblivious to you, a witness to your behavior thinks you’ve taken a one-way ticket to crazy-town. If so, you may identify with the sweet, harmless motives of Rosa in “Good Crazy,” and the comical train wreck that ensues.

Teen Andrea uses a male stripper to gain the respect and admiration of cool girl Daphne. Hot Seat, which is based on a true story, explores coming-of-age sexuality and the complexities of relationships between teen girls.

Director: Anna Kerrigan

Writer: Anna Kerrigan

Stars: Jess Gabor, Carmela Zumbado, Byron Quiros

Screenplay: Anna Kerrigan

Producers: Ashley Springer, Kati Rediger, Anna Kerrigan

Ask anyone you know about their first sexual experience and you’re bound to get a broad range of answers that, in different measure, include some confusion, awkwardness, and hilarity. Throw in high school insecurities and teenage friendships, and you get the tried-and-true recipe for countless Hollywood films. These coming-of-age stories are so ubiquitous that we can usually spot them from a mile away. Most often, they are about a young boy and a defining sexual experience that suddenly jolts him into manhood. And, let’s be real, they are most likely directed by men.

Which brings us to Anna Kerrigan’s “Hot Seat,” a refreshing and authentic take on burgeoning sexuality and female friendships, as it unfolds at an unusual 18th birthday party. Andrea, a shy wallflower, shows up at the party with a handmade friendship bracelet for Daphne, the cool birthday girl whose approval she is desperate to get. But the innocent party Andrea thought she was attending quickly escalates when the hired male stripper, Jonny Ca$h, shows up, pumping adrenaline into the room and testing the fragile teen ecosystem. Excited to push the boundaries of this new experience, the girls insist that Jonny Ca$h work overtime. But when his offer for a one-on-one performance on is met with reticence, it’s Andrea who seizes the moment to prove her friendship and sits on the “hot seat” with a captive audience.

Played by Jess Gabor in a breakout performance, Andrea is transformed into the queen of the party when a shocking event turns into a hilarious bonding experience. By placing a platonic relationship at the center of a sex-filled room, Kerrigan (creator of Staff Picked series The Impossibilities) draws from her own experiences and subverts expectations, allowing Andrea to feel empowered rather than victimized. “When you’re a teenager,” says Kerrigan, “you look to your peers to tell you how to feel about a moment.” Navigating these insecurities and knowing how to feel can be tricky for anyone, male or female, and “you don’t realize until later that the peers you idolized had no idea what they were doing either.” Based on her own true story, Kerrigan says she wanted to “capture the specific feeling of joyful, teen girl camaraderie and also to convey that it wasn’t really about the stripper’s relationship with us, it was about the relationships between us girls. He was really just a pawn.”

Mutants is a Canadian short drama film, directed by Alexandre Dostie and released in 2016. The film stars Joseph DeLorey as Keven, a teenager who, after being injured at baseball practice, is sent on an unexpected emotional journey of discovery.

In the summer of 1996, life throws a curveball in the face of Keven Guénette; and it strikes. Guided by his paraplegic baseball coach, Keven discovers the mutation, sex, and love.

The film’s cast also includes Francis La Haye and Sandrine Bisson. This short film is picks of weeks on @vimeo Staff Pick Premieres.

Awards: At TIFF, the film won the award for Best Canadian Short Film. At the 5th Canadian Screen Awards in 2017, the film won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Live Action Short Drama, and at the 19th Prix Iris in 2017, the film won the award for Best Short Film. Canadian Screen Award for Best Live Action Short Drama.

Director: Alexandre Dostie

Screenplay: Alexandre Dostie

Cast: Sandrine Bisson, Francis La Haye, Tanya Quirion, Jérémy Labonté, Joseph Delorey

Producers: Hany Ouichou, Gabrielle Tougas- Fréchette

A graffiti artist in his early 20s begins a 3½ year prison sentence for vandalism. He must attempt to cope with the struggles of his new life on the inside: sharing a cell with an aggressive murderer, being moved to high security, living 23 hours a day alone. An unlikely allay soon teaches him how to survive. Questions then begin to arise. Who can he trust? Will he ever find solace?

Director: Billy Boyd Cape

Screenplay: Molly Manning Walker

Story by: Molly Manning Walker

Cast: James Clossick, Edward Hayter, Jamal Renaldo, Kiosa Sukami, Claire Strugess, Steve Pinto, Howard Lee

Producers: Matthew Hodgkin, Nicholas White

Festivals & Screenings:

Premiere at London’s BFI – 2015
Bournemouth Emerging Arts Festival – 2015
In Competition – Camerimage Film Festival 2015
Reely and Truly A/W – 2015
Official Selection – London Short Film Festival 2016
In Competition – Royal Television Society Southern 2016
In Competition – Short Waves Festival 2016
VUE & GRM Daily Presents Your Cinema – 2016
Official Selection – Int. Filmfest Emden-Norderney 2016
Official Selection – IndieFlicks International Film Fest 2016
Official Selection – Malta Festival Poznan 2017

On the same day that known graffiti writer Vamp was sentenced to 3 years for vandalism, a BBC presenter, Stuart Hall, was given 15 months for the sexual assault of 13 young girls over 20 years, between the ages of 9 and 17. The contrast here is worrying evidence that in the event of two guilty verdicts, the courts seem to place more value on the inconvenience of spray paint on an old brick wall than they do in the lives of underage assault victims.

Disturbed by a justice system that at times is not so just, Molly Manning Walker found inspiration to write a short film, More Hate Than Fear, as a follow-up to a documentary of the same name, that she had made on the same subject. Viewing graffiti as the ultimate freedom of expression, she felt moved to help preserve it but also highlight what was happening to its artists. She explains: “Graffiti is freedom of speech, it’s a statement of unhappiness with the status quo. But it’s not graffiti that drove me to make this film – it’s the disproportionate prison sentences.” Walker tells Dazed, “what has become apparent is that we have a judicial system that values money and property over human life.”

“What has become apparent is that we have a judicial system that values money and property over human life” – Molly Manning Walker 

And unfortunately, her fears are backed by facts –  graffiti writers are being sentenced to years in prison and placed in high-risk facilities alongside violent offenders.

Written by Molly Manning Walker and directed by Billy Boyd Cape, the film tails a young graffiti artist struggling to navigate prison at the beginning of his sentence. After an altercation with his aggressive cellmate, the young prisoner returns to sketching as an escape. As days pass, he starts to come to terms with his circumstances, makes a friend and even learns a few tricks. By the end of the film, everything he comes to know is called into question once again, as he tries to figure out who he can trust. It’s a hard-hitting glimpse into the dark reality kids are facing in high-security prisons, for crimes as small as graffiti in an underground tunnel.

“… by putting a writer in prison, you are not deterring them; you are inspiring them.” – Harry Conway

In a society where the likes of McDonald’s, Adidas and Nike decorate their spaces and marketing campaigns with graffiti, when reporters regularly adopt street art as backdrops for broadcast and the style embellishes designer clothes worldwide, it seems almost farcical to suggest that society might be scared of the prolific art form. Rather, the fear of graffiti is governmental and stems from a fear of loss of control, as Cummings suggests in Walker’s earlier documentary.

However, the role the public plays is a different one altogether and boils down to a lack of awareness, one of the reasons this film was so important to both Walker and also the director, Billy Boyd Cape. Cape states it plainly: “In the minds of the general public, there is this belief that once someone is found guilty and gets locked up, they probably deserved it. There is no sympathy … There desperately needs to be a change in public perspective.”

A blind trust is being put in structures that are routinely failing to prioritize citizens’ well-being over public property. And in doing so, the punishment for costing the government money in damages is costing the government even more in over-filled prisons as well as generating a vicious cycle of offending.

Harry Conway, a subject of the original More Hate Than Fear documentary, deconstructs precisely why the unjust sentencing of graffiti writers does more harm than good. “Yes, it’s a crime and should be punishable,” he says. “But by putting a writer in prison, you are not deterring them; you are inspiring them.”

Conway explains how prison sentences for graffiti artists –  placing them in close proximity to higher risk criminals –  actually introduces them to a wider ring of criminal activity and sets them up with the know-how and connections to, as he puts it “live this life of crime.” Instead, Conway suggests a simple and effective solution for the crime – community service – as “a solid way of repaying their debt that also doesn’t cost the taxpayer anywhere near as much as paying for a prisoner.”

Our current sociopolitical climate has meant that youth political engagement has risen rapidly in the face of a government that refuses to listen to our demands for change. Artistic expression has always been a way to reject the status quo, while graffiti art is one of the longest standing avenues for this. When the system considers damage to private property more harmful to society than violence against underage victims, we have to ask whose interest that could even be in.

Unjust sentencing of non-violent offenders can only be seen as a gesture of performance to try and silence a generation that is disenfranchised but self-empowered. And the manner in which graffiti writers are being scapegoated is stubbornness to the detriment of our prison system, society as a whole and the lives of young artists. Branding them as severe criminals and treating them as such will, at best destroy any chance of rehabilitation, and at worst become a self-fulfilling prophecy – raising the question of who exactly has the right to disrespect and reduce another person’s freedom to just a threatening message for others.