Screening at the New Jersey International Film Festival - available online for 24 hours starting at midnight with an in-person screening at 7:00pm
8 films in this package
Godzilla’s Day Off - Myra Sito Velasquez (New York, New York). Even monsters need to chillax! 2025; 3 min.
Miracle Under 34th Street - Owen Andrejco (Jersey City, New Jersey). Deep in depths under 34th Street Herald Square subway station, two meager rats spark an explosion of joy, warmth and material goodness. Miracle Under 34th Street is a hand-drawn with pencil on paper, created while I was living in Astoria, Queens. During my daily commute, I would sometimes bring my drawings to animate while on the W Train, the MTA line that plays a starring role in this short animation.2025; 2 min.
Paper Crane – Michael Amter (Somerset, New Jersey). A humble effort to honor Sadako Sasaki for the 80th anniversary of the historic events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki forever changing the world. Profoundly moved by her tremendous story. The creation of 1000 paper cranes to obtain a special wish, an attempt to save one’s life. An extraordinary display of grace, courage, dignity, and creativity in human history. This experimental animation is intended to be childlike as a reflection of Sadako Sasaki’s youth - as well as short in duration to contemplate this brief life. A memorial study inspired by the devotion to the traditional origami art form. 2025; 3 min.
Prison and Time – Evan Bode (Syracuse, New York). Filmmaker Evan Bode animates excerpts of an essay by writer & activist Marvin Wade, who speaks personally about his 25 years of incarceration—and the growth he achieved in spite of, not because of, the inhumane prison system around him. This collaboration was produced by Project Mend, an organization in Central New York which celebrates the lives and creative work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people as well as other individuals impacted by the criminal legal system. 2025; 7 min.
35 Days – Heidi Kumao (Ann Arbor, Michigan). 35 Days is an experimental, stop motion animation about what happens when a coalition of strangers answers the call to locate a missing cat during the pandemic lockdown of 2020. Created frame-by-frame using fabric cutouts and thread. 2025; 7 min.
I Exist – Martin Del Carpio (New York, New York). Jordan wakes up in a hospital after another night full of decadence and finds himself facing two very mysterious strangers who are not what they appear to be. Will it be too late for him? An existential horror film. 2025; 15 min.
Pizza Man – Sebastian Hunt (New York, New York). Overwhelmed by the evil forces of apathy and ennui, a struggling cartoonist is visited by his first (and greatest) creation: The Phenomenal Pizza Man. 2025; 16 min.
Dustsceawung – Matues Luna (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). A frustrated and heartbroken writer discovers that his robot vacuum shredded his rejected book into his own poetry, dedicated to the house’s Alexa. Fascinated, the man feeds the new author with the classics, but claims the work as his own, sparking a surreal clash between authorship, love, and cleaning. In Portuguese, subtitled. 2025; 21 min.
The Makin Waves Song of the Week is "ICE SS" by the Central Jersey punk act Sally Draper.
