Shorts Program #1: Bowling for Eva, Resettlement: Chicago Story, Boxed, A Spot For Frog, Falls Cry, The Chosen One, Separation Anxiety-Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM

Friday, June 02, 2023 @ 7:00pm

NJ Film Festival
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

After this content becomes available June 2nd at 12:00 am EDT, you'll have 23 hours 59 minutes to start watching. Once you begin, you'll have 24 hours to finish watching.

A Spot for Frog – Evan Bode (Syracuse, New York)

Locked out of the school art room, a creative nonbinary teen named Frog grapples with anxiety as they seek a new place to eat lunch. Imagination blurs with reality in this hybrid work of live action and animation about an artist's search for identity, belonging, and expression on the margins. 2022; 16 min.

Falls Cry – Joshua Wann (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

A story about one boy, living on one block, in one world. 2023; 6 min

Bowling for Eva – Aelfie Oudghiri (Brooklyn, New York)

A troubled teen girl spends her time trolling men online and bowling with her grandfather while becoming increasingly medicated by her psychiatrist. 2023; 12 min.

Resettlement: Chicago Story - Reina Higashitani (Chicago, Illinois)

Several years after the U.S. government’s forced incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, the Yamamoto family runs a struggling dry-cleaning business in Chicago. After getting into a physical altercation with another student at school, Mary is suspended and her chance of going to the upcoming dance contest now depends on getting back into her mother’s good graces. In order to win her mother’s favor, she helps out around the family business during her suspension. When a customer’s clothes go missing, Mary must come up with a plan to save face for the family. As a cinematic digital history project, Resettlement: Chicago Story is an original short narrative film that brings learners into a curated website and curriculum tool that maintains the world of the film while introducing primary and secondary sources that explain important concepts from the historical period. In English, Japanese, subtitled. 2022; 16 min.

Separation Anxiety – Corey Maloney (Brooklyn, New York)

When her life falls apart, a Brooklyn woman tries to find solace in the company of her younger sister. 2023; 11 min.

Boxed – Alam Virk (Roselle Park, New Jersey)

Boxed is a journey of man who relies on consumerism to fill his inner void as he descends into madness when his latest purchase - the ClapMaster - a tiny device to power lights with a simple clap, does not arrive on time. Things turn dark when a box larger than him shows up at his door. 2023; 8 min

The Chosen One – Elazar Fine (Los Angeles, California)

After impulsively shaving off his beard and sidelocks, Eli Eisenstein is violently thrown out of his Hasidic family home. He finds refuge with his estranged, ex-religious aunt Shifra, but inner turmoil forces him to flee her apartment in the middle of the night. Stumbling through the streets in a fragile state of mind, Eli experiences a nightmarish transformation that leads him right back to where he started. Over the course of this one painful night, Eli will come to realize that it’s much easier to shave your beard than to shed who you are. In Yiddish, subtitled. 2022; 19 min.