Short Slot 2 - Searching for Home

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A WILDERNESS ACT

Directed by Nisogaabokwe Melonee Montano & Tom Deschenes
Narrative Short
United States | 12 min | 2024

What does “wilderness” mean to you? Guided by the wisdom of college professor Evan Larson and Anishinabe student Melonee Montano, we learn how the very definitions penned to protect our country’s most precious landscapes can destroy them instead. United by their desire to preserve the Red Pine forests of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area, the two join together to educate upcoming generations on how returning fire to the land, and returning the land to its people, can be healing for all.

BLACK SOIL RISING: An Alabama Family's Fight for a Legacy Stolen by Oil & Gas

Directed by Raya Salter
Documentary Short
United States | 13 min | 2025

100 family members, led by lawyer, activist, and fellow family member Raya Salter, return to the Alabama farm where there ancestors picked cotton to fight for a legacy stolen by oil and gas.

THE ILLEGAL

Directed by Amir Kiani
Narrative Short
United States | 15 min | 2024

A young asylum seeker must find a way to avoid deportation before his court hearing, as his new arrangement turns out to be an unexpected and unraveling affair.

ISRA'S INTERVIEW

Directed by Seung-hyun Kim
Narrative Short
Korea | 15 min | 2025

Feminist scholar and artist Susan Rennie uses her iPhone to insert her queer, octogenarian body into masterworks of art, disrupting the male gaze. This playful short follows a gallery exhibition of Rennie’s work, blending humor and sharp critique into an exuberant celebration of feminist art, aging, and identity.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER

Directed by Nateya Taylor
Documentary Short
United States | 12 min | 2024

Five water justice advocates discuss how Milwaukee’s Black communities are disproportionately being lead poisoned, and the debilitating effects it has on residents’ health, with hopes to see equitable change that will heal the water and Black resident’s relationship with it.

ZASTAVA BROTHERS

Directed by Pep Stojanovic
Documentary Short
United States | 22 min | 2025

Zastava Brothers is a documentary about the cars of former Yugoslavia and a group of immigrants now living in America who transcend their different backgrounds to form a bond over their love for those cars. As night falls on their first ever Sunday drive, they must spring to action when one of the cars begins to smoke.