Student Shorts (Sat, Oct 7, 11:00am)

Student films from San Diego and around the world highlight topics and issues on everyone’s mind.

86 min

I Have to Kill my Professor

Director: Jonathan Pickett

Producers: Analise Nelson, Brenna Ross, Riley McQuown, Margaret Mann

Cast: Gerardo Muñoz, Steve Froehlich, Andrew Benson

Synopsis: The escalating pressure of a difficult college course launches Adam into an anxiety-fueled plot to kill his professor.

Dated

Director: Daniel Lachman

Producer: Michael Price

Cast: Daniel Lachman, Summer Sorrenti, Samantha Westervelt

Synopsis: Over the course of a first date, a man and woman in their mid-20s discuss the notion of romance in the 21st century and reminisce about an earlier time period, but their night takes an unexpected turn.

Head Above Water

Director: Eric Shahinian

Producer: Yimei Maya Huang 

Cast: Chiz Schultz, Eileen Miller, Anne-Marie Agbodji, Alecia Hurst, Rose Hanish, Jose Ramos, Stephen Melton 

Synopsis: A devoted husband is forced to confront his doubts about remaining the caretaker of his wife suffering from Alzheimer's disease. 

Chicken Beauty Peagent

Director: Nurul Amirah Haris 

Producer: Jessica Novia Sutrisno, Eunice Tan Hui En 

Cast:  Haji Yusof, Santo Prabowo, Abdul Hakim 

Synopsis: They have style, confidence, long legs, big boobs and...gleaming feathers? Enter the world of chicken beauty pageants in Indonesia and Malaysia where champion pint-sized Serama chickens can fetch up to tens of thousands of dollars. Meet owners cuckoo over their prized poultry, chicken beauticians, pageant judges and enter the wacky and bizarre world of chicken beauty pageants. 

Uncle Tommy 

Director: Tan Shi Ying 

Producer: Tan Shi Ying 

Cast:  Tommy Yu

Synopsis: To certain cultures, methods of burial and last rites pose the only certainty in one's dealings with death. For isolated individuals, how their physical remains are managed poses a greater issue of dignity and respect. This short documentary brings us beyond the scene of death itself into the intricate processes that bring closure to the dead in the mortal world, through the work of undertaker Tommy Yu with the isolated elderly and deceased back in Singapore.

Slide 

Hurt People

Director: Gabriel Gaurano; Jayden Gillespie; Navin Bose

Producer: Mark Raines; Brad Kester

Synopsis: An exploration of the causes of bullying as seen through the eyes of Brandon, a young man unsure of his sexuality, after he is humiliated by his new friend.

Dibashram

Director: Weilee Yap 

Producer: Weilee Yap 

Synopsis: Our fiery red dot will not be where we are today if not for the migrant workers who tirelessly build our Home. Yet, they are, in many of our eyes, boorish workers who are to be shunned when we walk on the streets that they built. Here in Dibashram, a humble and cosy space tucked away in the busy streets of Rowell Road, these guys display their humanness that has been forgotten by the rest of us. It is where their souls come alive through the music that they play, the songs that they sing and the poems that they write.