2025 FESTIVALApril 2-12, 2025Lansing, MI

‘Film Imitates Life’ Shorts

*FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE*
Every film was once a story waiting to be told. Whether they come from a lived experience or the mind of a writer, these shorts hold up a mirror that lets us learn more about ourselves and each other.

  • An Old Friend
  • Lumen
  • Castling
  • Domestic Help
  • Rerun
  • Jedo’s Dead
  • Nani

An Old Friend

An imaginary friend (Jason Faunt) finds out his sole purpose is to bring happiness to his child, only to discover his child is a 90 year old man (Tom Skerritt) on his death bed

  • DIRECTOR
    Nuk Suwanchote
  • YEAR
    2025
  • RUNTIME
    14 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    English
  • COUNTRY
    United States
  • DIRECTOR
    Joel Rodgers, Patrick Marsh, Wesley Kersey, Nathan Thompkins, Isaac Maas
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    3 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    English
  • COUNTRY
    United States

Lumen

Claude, 70 years old, lives alone and compulsively buys lamps online, almost daily. An obsession that leads her to want, at all costs, a small Victorian porcelain lamp, a bit kitsch. But just when she thinks the deal is done with the saleswoman and she is about to brave the bad weather to go get it, the unthinkable happens: the object has been sold to someone else. Claude sees red. The lamp is hers and she is determined not to let it fall into the hands of other buyers, and consequently lose her chance to be around people, even briefly, in her dreary day.

  • DIRECTOR
    Stéphanie Bélanger
  • YEAR
    2023
  • RUNTIME
    13 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    French
  • COUNTRY
    Canada

Castling

A young man, disappointed in human relations, moves into a tower in the middle of nowhere. However the pleasant solitude gives in to dreams of intimacy, but perhaps for the last time.

  • DIRECTOR
    Federico Yang
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    10 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    Italian
  • COUNTRY
    Italy

Domestic Help

Thomas, a timid clown who wasn’t funny enough to make it in entertainment, gets placed in a domestic help position for Jennifer, a woman who needs assistance managing the day-to-day as she works on a never ending to-do list. Thomas is good at taking orders, but his job performance begins to suffer once he ‘notices’ the abandoned children in Jennifer’s backyard.

  • DIRECTOR
    Raveesh Jaiswal
  • YEAR
    2023
  • RUNTIME
    20 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    English
  • COUNTRY
    India

Rerun

Struggling after a breakup, a young woman crafts elaborate fantasies of running into her ex, which her best friend helpfully shatters with doses of reality.

  • DIRECTOR
    Meredith Dobbs
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    9 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    English
  • COUNTRY
    United States

Jedo’s Dead

When a young middle-eastern girl finds her grandfather dead, she is forced to grapple with the earthly rituals and spiritual loose-ends of loss.

  • DIRECTOR
    Sara Nimeh
  • YEAR
    2023
  • RUNTIME
    12 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    Arabic, English
  • COUNTRY
    United States

Nani

On the last day of Ramadan, a disowned daughter takes matters into her own hands, kidnapping her bedridden grandmother from her parents’ house for one final trip to the beach.

  • DIRECTOR
    Mainak Dhar
  • YEAR
    2024
  • RUNTIME
    10 Minutes
  • LANGUAGE
    Bengali, English, Spanish
  • COUNTRY
    United States
Check out other upcoming events
  • Fri, April 4 7:30 PM
  • The Robin Theatre
More Info
  • Fri, April 4 10:45 PM
  • Central United Methodist Church
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  • Fri, April 4 8:30 PM
  • Stage One
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  • Fri, April 4 8:30 PM
  • Impression 5 Expansion
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  • Fri, April 4 6:00 PM
  • Impression 5 Expansion
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  • Fri, April 4 6:00 PM
  • Central United Methodist Church
More Info
  • Fri, April 4 8:30 PM
  • Central United Methodist Church
More Info