Dreamstates: Experimental

Dir. Various | Spain, Taiwan, U.S.

Run Time 6 shorts | 69 minutes

Step into the strange worlds and singular visions of these filmmakers. From euphoric dreams to jaded headspaces, these visceral films encourage joy, offer earnestness, and subvert the familiar. Feel the colors wash over you, succumb to the soundscapes, and enter a dreamstate.

Films in this program contain animated nudity, sexual situations, and use or reference to the use of substances and drugs.

Films

In blue tones, three people, a human, Angel, and a Demon, stand in front of a wall and look to the camera as snowflakes fall.

Dance of the Eternal (Mahler's 8th)

Ethan Krahn
Boston, MA | age 22

Dictated by the music of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, a girl must choose to follow the path of an angel or a demon, who mercilessly battles for her attention.

A blueish river reflects a building and is surrounded by lush grass.

SONGS OF GENTLE NIGHT

Tsu Kuei Chen
Taiwan | age 21

After death, they become a dark moon. A filmmaker reflects on his father after the death of his grandmother.

A family photo of a baby and mother are overlayed on each other in different color versions - blue, yellow, and black and white.

Retazos

Daniela Morales Morcillo
Evanston, IL | age 22

What do memories sound like? Through the process of scrap-booking Adriana recounts stories from her childhood and what it felt like to become a mother herself.

A bright blue sky with few clouds sits above greenish blue water that moves through lush vegetation and small mountains.

A Silent Bleat (Balar en silencio)

Sergio Arilla, Fabio Martín, Martín Espinosa
Spain | age 21

Displaced by force, the people of Tiermas returned to find a ghost town. Yet, in its empty windows and walls, the echoes of past dawns still lingered.

A young black woman, covered in green light, stares intently at something offscreen.

Munchiez

Sascha Lourdes Agenor
Hanover, NH | age 22

After a disastrous audition, a dancer spirals into a surreal psychic landscape where food and memory collide, while her former teacher confronts the same buried trauma that fractured their identities.

A website loading screen for an online course is full of vibrant colors of pinks, greens, and purples as a mouse hovers over the screen.

Bootstrapping for the Boobied

Stella Chen
Chicago, IL | age 22

Maxed out, burnt out, and sex-starved, Amber falls under the spell of a glamorous self-help guru. Repression evolves into possession as Amber molts into a new ego: a worksona.

Content Consideration

Animated nudity, sexual situations, and the use of substances/drugs