Encore: Block #7 and #8

ABOUT THE FILMS:

Kin: PROOF Block #7 

“Take Me Home,” 2023, Dir. Liz Sargent, 16 Min, USA

When Emily is reunited with her sister Anna after their mother’s passing, she struggles to reconnect to their Florida life. Anna’s Cognitive Disability makes communication challenging, and the tragedy makes rebuilding their home and relationship urgent. Their growth as sisters in Take Me Home creates a touching story on family, and the care that we all require from one another.

“The Weight of a Dog,” 2023, Dir. Lucy Sandler, 16 Min, USA

“The Weight of a Dog” follows new retiree Dawn’s trip to chaperone her adult daughter’s abortion, and explores Dawn’s unexpected revelations around her own life and its next phase that this experience brings up for her.

“Good Grief,” 2023, Dir. Megan Chumbley, 12 Min, USA

“Good Grief” is a dark comedy, set in Salt Lake City Utah at a Mormon Mortuary. We follow Avery, the estranged daughter of the deceased, as she navigates the egocentric personalities of her dysfunctional family. Numb to her own feelings, Avery’s attempts to connect with her deceased father get side-lined by her annoying cousin, erupting a series of even bigger problems simmering under the surface.

Bump in the Night: PROOF Block #8

“The Thaw,” 2023, Dirs. Sarah Wisner and Sean Temple, 17 Min, USA

THE THAW is set in the late 19th century in the challenging Vermont hills. Ruth and her aging parents, Alma and Timothy, struggle to subsist on a failing farm after Ruth is abandoned by her unfaithful husband. They turn to a remedy as old as the hills, a sleeping tea that allows the elderly and infirm to sleep out the winter months while frozen and packed in snow, to be safely revived in the spring. But when a storm blows in an early thaw, the ritual is broken and the sleepers wake too soon – to horrifying results.

“Manny Wolfe,” 2024, Dir. Trevor Neuhoff, 14 Min, USA

It’s 1947. Manny Wolfe is an actor exhausted by Tinseltown. He also happens to be a real werewolf. After nonstop rejection, Manny gets a job. Unfortunately he’s been typecast in a creature feature. Will Manny choose the big Hollywood role at the price of his own dignity and artistic integrity? He thinks that’s his only choice until he receives an unexpected offer from a fellow monster outcast.

“Alma Mater,” 2021, Dir. Matthew P. Higgins, 6 Min, USA

As Arthur (30s) turns the pages of his late father’s 1973 high school yearbook, he receives a phone call. The caller knows Arthur is reading the yearbook—and tells him to burn it immediately. The reason: a teacher from the high school murdered their friends and classmates.  The student body decided to burn all of the yearbooks…or so they thought. The tension reaches a boiling point when a menacing, silhouetted spirit suddenly lurks behind Arthur…

“FISHMONGER,” 2023, Dir. Neil Ferron, 23 Min, USA

In this supernatural dark comedy, a pathetic Irish fishmonger must survive a sex pact with an ancient fish creature in order to save his mother’s soul from burning in hell.