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Sometimes the most powerful stories come in the smallest packages, and TOO GOOD proves that six minutes is more than enough time to spark laughter, provoke thought, and challenge long-held ideas about morality and judgment. The short opens the door to an afterlife that is far from solemn, instead giving viewers a sharp-edged, comic spin on the eternal question: what makes a person “good enough”?

Every year, haunted attractions across America open their gates to thrill seekers eager to be chased by chainsaws and scared by masked actors. For many, they are temporary playgrounds of fear. For Keith Boynton, Markoff’s Haunted Forest in Maryland was inspiration enough to build an entire feature film around — one that not only delivers the screams of a slasher but also captures the humanity of the people who bring such places to life. THE HAUNTED FOREST is at once a love letter to Halloween culture, a horror drama, and a character study. In trying to juggle all three, it sometimes frays at the edges, but its ambition is what makes it stand out in a crowded festival lineup.

SELF-HELP opens with a setup that feels all too believable in the modern age: a daughter watches her mother slip under the influence of a mysterious figure, and in desperation, she infiltrates the very group that threatens to consume her family. From there, director Erik Bloomquist and co-writer Carson Bloomquist craft a story that is part cult horror, part family drama, and part commentary on the manipulation of trust. It is a film rooted in modern anxieties, dressed in familiarity, but clever enough to find fresh angles.

Where DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS lured audiences with sleek elegance and erotic menace, Harry Kümel’s companion piece from 1971, MALPERTUIS, plunges headfirst into a labyrinth of myth, madness, and surrealism. Adapted from Jean Ray’s novel, it is a film that wears its strangeness proudly, offering an experience that feels more like wandering through a fever dream than following a conventional narrative. With its star power, elaborate production design, and ambitions, MALPERTUIS is both a fascinating artifact of European genre filmmaking and a divisive entry that continues to split audiences to this day.

DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS isn’t the kind of vampire film that lures its audience in with sharp teeth and spurts of blood. Instead, it glides into view with a quiet elegance, letting its atmosphere wash over you like waves against the Belgian shoreline where the story unfolds. From its very first moments, there’s a sense of unease lurking beneath the polished surfaces, as though the film is more interested in seduction than shocks. Harry Kümel, working at the height of his career, crafted something that plays as both a piece of Gothic horror and an artful exploration of desire, repression, and control.

Some horror stories rely on monsters, and then there are horror stories that reveal the monsters we’ve been taught to carry within ourselves. SKIN, written and directed by Urvashi Pathania, belongs squarely to the latter category. SKIN makes an immediate impression as a short film that utilizes genre tools to dissect a very real and corrosive issue: colorism and the pressures imposed on women of color to conform to Eurocentric ideals. This is the third indie film I've seen in the last two months that tackles this subject in one way or another, each equally as powerful with its own unique twists.

WE DO OUR BEST is a short film with the weight of something much larger. At just fourteen minutes, it’s easy to imagine this story getting lost in the crowd. Yet, once its premise is laid bare — a mother helping her daughter pose as an older woman for one night out in Manhattan — the emotional core proves impossible to shake. Written and directed by Hannah Rose Ammon, it’s a deeply personal story that has been transformed into something we can all connect with.

RECESSES is one of those shorts that proves you don’t need scale to make an impact. Dylan Trupiano sets the entire story inside an elementary school office, a space that feels both normal and yet charged with tension. It’s a quiet film on the surface—just a secretary and a boy waiting after a disciplinary incident—but the undercurrent is what gives it power. By the end of its fifteen minutes, it leaves you with the kind of silence that demands reflection.

PLASTIC SURGERY opens with the clinical stillness of a hospital, a space where routine and chaos constantly exchange places. This is the final shift for Dr. Terra, a physician preparing to step away on maternity leave, but her farewell to work quickly turns into something stranger. The emergency isn’t the kind with flashing alarms—it’s an invisible threat already embedded in her patients’ bodies, and perhaps in her own. Writer/Director Guy Trevellyan builds his short film on a foundation of real-world research into microplastics, crafting a story that resonates globally.

CLOUT is a short film that doesn’t waste time dressing up its message. Jordan Murphy Doidge has taken a simple but modern idea—what kids will do for online attention—and turned it into a story that feels immediate, unsettling, and believable. Instead of overwhelming the viewer with statistics or exaggerated warnings, the film illustrates how one teenager’s need for validation spirals out of control. That choice makes it far more effective than a lecture could ever be.

A wish at 11:11 feels harmless enough, until the wrong wish changes everything. In Mahnoor Euceph’s short film 11:11, the seemingly light premise—a teen girl wishes to be her crush’s type—becomes the foundation for a pointed exploration of identity, belonging, and the dangers of self-erasure. In just fifteen minutes, the film blends humor with an unshakable undercurrent of discomfort, crafting something both deeply specific and universally relatable. (It’s incredible to me that within a month, I saw two films with an incredibly similar story but that feel like two entirely different messages; both were so powerful in their own ways.)

THE STAND is a deeply felt portrait of responsibility, resilience, and love. In just 14 minutes, Oanh-Nhi Nguyen crafts a story that feels both intimate and universally relatable, centering on Quinn (Jovie Leigh), a young girl who helps her mother run a hectic food stand. When her mother is unexpectedly pulled away, Quinn teams up with her younger brother Liam (Kailen Jude) to keep the business running, determined to make enough to give their mom something she rarely gets — a night off.

LITTLE BIRD might only span 17 minutes, but it examines a story with the weight of a feature. Director Oanh-Nhi Nguyen takes audiences back to 80s Los Angeles, crafting a layered, empathetic portrait of displacement, survival, and the courage to stand against injustice. While many films explore the aftermath of the Vietnam War, few focus on what happened after refugees landed on American soil — the nuanced realities that existed between the headlines. Nguyen’s story narrows in on one woman, Linh Tran (Chantal Thuy), whose job forces her to confront those very truths.

MOSQUITOES (LE BAMBINE) takes the notion of a summer friendship and turns it into something far more complex and revealing. Set in 1997, the film follows eight-year-old Linda as she leaves her grandmother’s Swiss villa with her mother, Eva—a woman more like an unpredictable older sister than a parent. Their path leads them to Ferrara, Italy, where Linda meets sisters Azzurra and Marta. What begins as a chance encounter becomes an alliance, the three forming a self-declared gang to protect their youth and each other from the unreliable adults surrounding them.

In ANNO UNO, the screen isn’t filled with conflict in the traditional sense. There are no giant battles, no conspiracies, and not even much tension—at least not of the cinematic kind. Instead, Roberto Rossellini presents us with a series of meticulously staged conversations that feel less like drama and more like a historical transcript. It’s deliberate, dry, and at times difficult to stay engaged with, but beneath that lies a quiet, deeply reflective portrait of a nation learning how to lead itself.

Clocking in at just twelve minutes, WE ARE KINGS manages to articulate more about family, assimilation, and adolescent longing than some features do in ninety. Frank Sun’s quiet yet emotionally layered short unfolds mostly in a Chinese restaurant — and builds its world entirely through character behavior, cultural nuance, and a grounded sense of environment.

There’s no hero in MONEY TALK$, but there are so many stories — each bruised, each urgent, each tethered by a single hundred-dollar bill making its way through the desperate, messy arteries of 1981 New York City. In just 33 minutes, director Tony Mucci manages to capture something potent and sprawling: not just a snapshot of a city on the brink, but a mosaic of human motives wrapped around a currency that both binds and betrays everyone who comes into contact with it.

There’s something eerily quiet about the apocalypse in THE FIN. Syeyoung Park’s second feature sidesteps the usual dystopian fiction in favor of something leaner, stranger, and far more introspective. It’s less concerned with world-ending spectacle and more focused on the quieter collapse — the slow erosion of individuality, compassion, and trust in the name of progress. In this post-war, unified Korea, an ecological disaster has already happened. All that’s left is the cleanup crew — and the exploited mutants called Omegas, who were never given a choice.

There’s an eccentric kind of courage in telling a story that isn’t easily explained. LEGEND OF THE HAPPY WORKER, the surrealist satire from veteran editor-turned-director Duwayne Dunham, embraces that ambiguity with open arms and dusty boots. Set in a self-contained utopia built from scratch in the Utah desert, this film is more about philosophy than plot, and more about tone than resolution. But that doesn’t mean it lacks clarity—it just refuses to spoon-feed meaning in a world that’s anything but straightforward.

Stillness isn’t absence in SILENT LIGHT. It’s intention. It’s discomfort. And in Carlos Reygadas’ deeply spiritual 2007 drama—now given a pristine 4K restoration—it becomes the language through which heartbreak, betrayal, and devotion are explored. This isn’t a film that rushes toward answers. Instead, it demands that you sit with the tension and listen to the silences between words, between glances, between sunrise and sunset.

There are vampire films that seduce, others that scare, and then there are the rare few that leave a mark not with their fangs, but with their slow, psychological burn. HOW FAR DOES THE DARK GO? is one of those films. Directed by Bears Rebecca Fonté, this supernatural romance doesn't just draw blood—it asks what you’re willing to trade for power, connection, and control.

Some stories speak softly but leave you stunned. SORRY FOR YOUR COST is a perfect example of how to nail that idea. Writer-director Rosie Choo Pidcock crafts a deeply affecting short that doesn’t try to shout over its audience—it simply invites you to sit with uncomfortable truths. Running a brisk 15 minutes, this is a film that understands the power of restraint. Through intimate moments, cultural nuance, and quiet, yet devastating decisions, it captures a particular kind of heartbreak rarely addressed on screen: the toll of grief when it meets financial hardship.

Jeffrey Cohen’s THE BALLAD OF ISABEL WINSLOW doesn’t waste a second of its 15-minute runtime. This sharply dressed short manages to weave satire, social critique, romance, and high-stakes trickery into one delightfully witty package. Though compact in runtime, it feels complete—an entire world distilled into a single con. The world needs more period comedy; there’s something magical about dropping untamed humor into a timeframe that feels like it wasn’t meant for laughs.

IND, TALK TO ME is a film that will forever resonate with you. It blends personal storytelling with a lens that transforms real-life experiences into something visually exhilarating. This isn’t just a story about grief or self-discovery—it’s a film that captures raw emotion, turning personal pain into an artistic endeavor.

PERLA, set in 1980s Vienna, presents a captivating tale that intertwines personal ambition with political tension. The story follows Perla (Rebeka Poláková,) a Slovak painter who has sought refuge in Austria, leaving behind the constraints of communist Czechoslovakia. Her life takes an unexpected turn when Andrej (Noel Czuczor,) the estranged father of her daughter Julia (Carmen Diego,) reappears, claiming to be ill. This encounter propels Perla into a journey that challenges her newfound freedom and forces her to confront unresolved issues from her past.