Smedley Drive

Lark Chang-Yeh, US, 2025

Smedley Drive is the street my mother grew up on in a house built by my late grandfather in rural Pennsylvania. I asked my grandmother to draw the house on Smedley Drive by memory. She kept redrawing the floor and roof, over and over again—omitting details she couldn’t remember. As my grandmother’s memory fades, I long to learn more about her life—and the culture I’ve always felt disconnected from. I’ve reconstructed her memories by hand-splicing 16mm home video footage from a family in Minnesota, personal home videos, and original footage and scratching it with a needle to create an animation.

Lark Chang-Yeh

My Bouquet

Karina Zhou, US, 2023

My Bouquet follows a young space explorer and her sidekick, Otti, who travel around planets to collect flowers. This short and sweet film reflects the beauty and complex journey of processing grief and joy.

Karina Zhou

Texture of Origins

Marwa Nauman, Tunisia, United States, 2024

An experimental documentary about my grandfather’s happiest memory inter-cut with photographs from my childhood and overlaid text from Trinh Minh-Ha’s “Mechanical Eye, Electronic Ear and the Lure of Authenticity” (1984) and Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016). The layered text critiques the usual voices we listen for within the documentary and how international visual culture is ingrained within the English language.

Marwa Nauman

El Ratón Pérez

Camila Montero, Leo Pickard, US, 2024

El Ratón Pérez is a dark twist on the classic Latin-American folktale of El Ratoncito Pérez, in which a monstrous tooth-obsessed rat visits a young girl in her sleep.

Camila Montero

Perpetual Motion

Jiaqi Wang, China, 2024

FEATURING
Jiaqi Wang
Linlin Wang

Rooted in the intergenerational and realities of China, the film addresses how your existence is driven by a primal desire—one that has surged within you since birth—compelling you to confront the raw truth reflected in the deepest corners of consciousness’s black mirror. To find a path to explain yourself, to hypothesize, to argue with yourself, to reach conclusions and make choices—this obligation, like a perpetual motion machine, will follow you endlessly. From this moment on, you realize: no matter what, you must choose. There is no other way. Perhaps, what I’m calling for is this kind of courage.

Jiaqi Wang

Afterburn

Yasmine Rizk, Gabriel Jett, US, 2024

In 1991, the Oakland firestorm set Claremont Hills ablaze, devastating around 3,000 homes and leaving 1,520 acres of residential land in ruins. Jim Molesky, a survivor of the firestorm, now lives above the ashes of his previous home, which burned to the ground. Within his new house, he preserves the remnants of history that survived the flames— embodying California’s resilience as a state that must face wildfires every year.

Yasmine Rizk

Miau Mau

Luisa Bel Cardoso Head, US, 2024

Chaos ensues when a cat is left home alone for a few hours.

Luisa Bel Cardoso Head

Flickr Found

Addison Lee, US, 2024

Flickr Found is an experimental personal video essay about digital decay on the internet and the photo-sharing website Flickr. The piece travels along a dialogue between a curious personal archivist and the internet, both at odds for how to navigate an overwhelming digital environment.

Addison Lee

Mugshot

Lewi Thute, William Larsen, Batu Alpas, US, 2023

Mugshot is our Fall 2023 3D animated short completed at the California College of the Arts. This short follows Mug as he goes to get a haircut from a questionable barber.

Lewi Thute

The Ugliest Masterpiece

Rae Xiang, US, Sweden, 2024

Finding yourself one ugly masterpiece at a time. A story from my childhood—about creative journeys and the encouragement we need to take those very first steps.

Rae Xiang

Internal Embers

Alec Tufenkjian, US, 2024

Escaping the rising tensions in his home, a young Lebanese man has lucid visions and interactions of his deepest anxieties through the smoke of a hookah.

Alec Tufenkjian

Picard the Pika

Sophie Ring, US, 2024

Picard spends his life living in a strict, solitary routine. He doesn’t see the need nor want to change his attitude towards life and the pika around him. However as the seasons change and the monotonous life becomes too lonely, he might make a change.

Sophie Ring

Here, Now, Is Home

Candace Wong, US, 2023

Two people meet by chance in the afterlife to find meaning within their friendship following their death.

Candace Wong

Michael and Silas Rob a House

Flynn Gray, US, 2024

In Michael and Silas Rob a House, Michael and Silas rob a house.

Flynn Gray