M. Maggie - Vaporize
(4m, USA) dir. by Doug Henderson
Shot on a zero dollar budget as a ReverbNation contest winner, this music video dives deep into the emotion that spurred the inspired track. Feeling lost, stuck, or depressed is something most people can relate to, but sometimes what's holding us down is the last thing we'd expect.
Wild Horse Resolution
(6m, USA) dir. By Ben Masters
Wild Horse Management on public lands is a complete disaster. Nearly 50,000 Wild Horses and Burros are held in government holding costing taxpayers 50 Million annually while over twice the Appropriate Management Level of horses threaten overgrazing on 30 Million acres of public land. Activist TJ Holmes views the conundrum as a reproduction issue, not an overpopulation problem. For three weeks a year TJ Holmes wanders through Disappointment Valley in SouthWest Colorado darting Wild Horses with PZP, a fertility control vaccine that is reversible but keeps mares infertile for one year. Is this the humane solution the BLM has been searching for?
A Tree in the Sea
(19m, United Arab Emirates) dir. by Shahir Zag - film website
The last traditional fisherman of Fujairah fishes illegally in a marine reserve to keep a promise he made 65 years earlier.
Lay in Wait
(25m, USA) dir. by Jonathan Ade - film website
Maggie, a young married woman, awakens to the final morning of an extramarital camping trip with her lover, Robert. During the drive back home, she is shocked to discover her wedding ring is lost. The couple returns to the forest, and in the entangled thicket of nature, Maggie desperately searches for the symbol of her matrimony. As the day yields into night, the search becomes more and more punishing. What will be lost as the sun sets? And as it rises again, what will remain?
Effervescence
(14m, USA) dir. by Garret Whittington
Ed Monroe is a West Virginia whitewater rafting pioneer for over 31 years. With having the loss of his wife, newborn daughter and brother within the same month at such an early age, Ed turned to the whitewater as an escape only to discover his one true love that would save him.
Civil
(8m, US) dir. by Andrew Huggins - film website
Five individuals' lives will be changed forever on this fateful day in South Carolina, 1865.
Heartbreak & Beauty
(15m, Australia) dir. by Libby Banks, Nathan Basha, Robin Bryan, Genevieve Clay-Smith
Heartbreak and Beauty is an experimental short film that combines music, visual metaphor, dance and original poetry to express how we are all connected through our shared human experiences of love and loss, from the perspective of twelve people with an intellectual disability.