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PSYCHIC MURDER may only run ten minutes, but it crams in a surprising amount of tension, satire, and complexity into those frames. Directed and co-written by Brandon Block, the film tells the story of Billy (Will Bernish), a struggling young stand-up comic born with a three-fingered hand. Early on, Billy can’t quite find his voice on stage. His jokes lack confidence, and his physical differences are something he avoids fully embracing. The breakthrough comes when he begins folding his own disability into his material, using humor as a way to claim ownership over his body and his story. It’s a moment that feels both triumphant and slightly uneasy, as the film wisely doesn’t present self-deprecating humor as an uncomplicated solution.

Director and co-writer Brandon Christensen has long demonstrated an interest in using horror to explore more than just jump scares. The film’s setting—a quiet 1980s suburb where Halloween is still a community event—immediately feels familiar, yet the story avoids playing like a mere nostalgia cliche. Instead, it builds suspense by centering on Deena (Jessica Clement), a college student reluctantly taking a last-minute babysitting job while back home for the weekend. It’s a premise that sounds classic on paper. Still, Christensen and his brother Ryan give it a fresh twist by intersecting Deena’s ordeal with the investigation of Sheriff Rod (Ryan Robbins), who receives a chilling package suggesting a previous murder may only be the beginning.

Sometimes the most unexpected journeys carry the deepest emotional weight. DARUMA takes that familiar notion and reshapes it into a story that’s genuinely heartfelt in its humanity. At its core, this indie drama doesn’t hinge on disability as a narrative gimmick; instead, it highlights fully realized characters who happen to live with disabilities, allowing their complexities to take center stage. While the film started a little slowly, I wasn’t entirely sure where it was going, but it picked up in the second and third acts to offer a complete story that will get you in your feels!

THE INNKEEPERS is the type of ghost story that lingers long after the credits roll, not because it overwhelms you with cheap jolts, but because it patiently wraps you in unease until the silence itself feels threatening. Ti West’s 2011 indie gem has always thrived on atmosphere, and with Dark Sky Selects bringing it back in a fully restored 4K UHD steelcase release, its reputation as one of the most effective modern slow-burn horrors feels more solid than ever.

How do you confront a silence that’s lasted over four decades? Min Sook Lee’s THERE ARE NO WORDS begins with that question and carries it with determination through every frame. It’s a documentary that refuses to look away from a family’s wounds, even when the pain is too heavy to articulate. The result is a deeply personal film that expands far beyond one individual’s story, speaking to generational trauma and the complex intersections of memory, love, and loss.

Some short films lean on whimsy, but what makes THE GIRL WHO CRIED PEARLS compelling is how it threads the timeless qualities of a fable with the artistry of stop-motion animation. In just under twenty minutes, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski transform grief, devotion, and temptation into a cautionary tale that feels both rooted in centuries-old storytelling and strikingly relevant today.

Country music’s origins are often romanticized, but THE MUSIC WE CALL COUNTRY does something better: it traces the genre’s roots with detail and genuine affection for the people that shaped its sound. At just under an hour, Greg Gross’ documentary is concise yet not rushed, offering an exploration of the 1927 Bristol Sessions and the first wave of country superstars, including Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.

Family dinners are rarely as peaceful as the movies make them out to be. SUNDAY SAUCE leans into that chaos, delivering a bold, biting, and unexpectedly moving portrait of identity and inheritance—all packed into a brisk 14 minutes. Writer-director Matt Campanella’s short, fresh off its selection at the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival, proves that he has a knack for finding the emotional fault lines hidden beneath familiar rituals.

Some stories yell for your attention; others leave a lasting impression through moments told. ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS belongs to the latter. At only twenty-one minutes, Franz Böhm crafts an experience so immediate and emotionally raw that its brevity feels deceptive. This is not a war story told from afar, but an intimate portrait of survival shaped by those who lived its horror.

LARGO captures the enormity of global crises through the eyes of those most affected, offering an unfiltered look at the refugee experience from a child’s perspective without slipping into sentimentality. At just 19 minutes, the short is an emotional powerhouse, striking a balance between grief and hope.

FATHER is a film built on silence, endurance, and a kind of emotion that pulls the viewer into its world and refuses to let go. Directed by filmmaker Tereza Nvotová, the film has its world premiere at the 2025 Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section. Here, Nvotová presents a story that begins with a single, devastating mistake and spirals into an exploration of guilt, love, and the fragile limits of forgiveness.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR: AN AMERICAN POET is a compact but potent short film that dramatizes one of America’s most overlooked voices at a time when those words were desperately needed. Written and directed by Kane Stratton, the 10-minute drama reconstructs a moment from 1903 Dayton, Ohio, in which Dunbar, one of the first influential Black poets in American literature, stands against the incomplete promises of the Emancipation Proclamation forty years after it was signed. With a small cast and contained setting, the film succeeds in amplifying the timeless urgency of Dunbar’s call for compassion and sympathy.

BEYOND TRAINSPOTTING – THE WORLD OF IRVINE WELSH promises to take viewers further than the title that defined a generation, but what it ultimately delivers is a lively, sometimes messy documentary that never quite decides what it wants to be. Directed by Ray Burdis and Ian Jefferies, it assembles an impressive lineup of contributors—from rock icons like Iggy Pop and Bobby Gillespie to longtime collaborators like Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor—yet the strongest presence throughout is Irvine Welsh himself. His voice, his wit, and his honesty remain the film’s greatest strengths, even when the documentary around him struggles.

Hollywood history is full of improbable success stories, but few properties seem more unlikely in retrospect than the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.’ Four anthropomorphic turtles trained in martial arts by a rat in the sewers of New York hardly screams mainstream appeal, and yet the franchise became a worldwide cultural juggernaut. Writer-director Vin Nucatola seizes on this irony with his 2019 short ITALIAN TURTLES, a nine-minute comedy that imagines the pitch meeting where it all might have begun. Equal parts parody and affectionate nod, the film thrives on deadpan humor and exaggerated performances that lean into the absurdity of trying to explain something so bizarre in a corporate setting.

The premise of FRENCH LESSONS sounds deceptively simple: two men meet in Los Angeles for a conversation before leaving for Cannes. Yet in its eight-minute runtime, the short becomes an exploration of the endless tug-of-war between commerce and creativity. Directors Kyle Garrett Greenberg and Anna Maguire position the film at the intersection of satire and genuineness, offering a brisk but layered reflection on how ego, ambition, and industry can make even a simple meeting feel like a battle of wills.