2025 FESTIVALApril 2-12, 2025Lansing, MI

Unraveling Sanity Shorts

*FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE*
Are you a fan of being frightened? Well if you’re in for some edge-of-your-seat, anxiety-inducing thrillers, join us to have your sanity unraveled by these eerie shorts.

*NOTE: This program contains a film with the Content Warning: Self-Harm

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Strings

Sally joins a dream summer trip to Sicily with her childhood bestie Poppy, hoping to re-connect before they start university. Confronted with Poppy’s volatile new friend Alex, Sally is strangely drawn to the traditional puppets decorating their villa, and the strings that bind the two friends threaten to rip them apart. ‘Strings’ is produced by students aged 16-20 as part of Project Paradiso, a cross-cultural UK-Italy educational filmmaking initiative from Young Film Academy (YFA). Full details of Project Paradiso can be found at https://www.youngfilmacademy.co.uk/project-paradiso

  • DIRECTOR
    Ava Pearson, Eleanor Smith, Nina Zandvliet
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    15 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    English
  • COUNTRY
    United Kingdom

Treadmill

Dimitra, a nearly 50-year-old woman living with her manipulative elderly mother, Rea, faces a breaking point when she attempts to install a treadmill in her bedroom.

  • DIRECTOR
    George Kimissis
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    20 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    Greek
  • COUNTRY
    Greece

Transylvanie

*CONTENT WARNING: Self-Harm*
Ewa is a 10-year-old girl living in a high building in a quiet town. She’s an odd, lonely child and for good reason: she’s convinced of being a vampire. Fascinated by Hugo, 15, she dreams of turning him into a vampire too, so that she can overcome her loneliness. When Ewa opens up to him, she gets bullied by teenagers from the neighborhood. Hurt in her body and soul, she’s ready to act in the creepiest, sickest ways to prove her identity to the world.

  • DIRECTOR
    Rodrigue Huart
  • YEAR
    2023
  • RUNTIME
    15 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    French
  • COUNTRY
    France

A Light That Doesn’t Dim

Sister Jones has a life-changing decision: to go home and disappoint her family or to continue as a Mormon missionary in Mexico and betray herself amidst various familial and cultural pressures.

  • DIRECTOR
    Colby Barrios
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    19 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    Spanish
  • COUNTRY
    Not Specified

Strangers Like Us

In their early 30s, Laura and Elias settle into a new suburbian life by inviting another couple over for dinner. When the night gradually turns into an evening full of mysteriously surreal events, Laura feels like a stranger in her own life…

  • DIRECTOR
    Pipi Frostl, Felix Krisai
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    22 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    German
  • COUNTRY
    Austria

Shadow Dancer

An underestimated tap choreographer must fight her surreal and violent hallucinations in order to keep her grip on reality before she loses the biggest opportunity of her life.

  • DIRECTOR
    Nikki Groton
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    6 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    English
  • COUNTRY
    United States
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