Social & External
The people behind it
Claudia Stecher
Fishgirl
Marco Trotta
Surgeon
A healing and poetic essay on our intergenerational relationship with water.
A woman's journey to combatting her fear of intimacy - short film by Willow Bidwell.
A group of settlers traveling through the Oregon High Desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.
A stubborn house-cat struggles to adjust to his new, mysterious environment: The Woodlands. At the same time, a hardened stray cat desperately tries to change his mindset.
Pelangi is an Indonesian child born on Mars. Together with her robot friends, she embarks on a great journey that will determine the future of Earth. Can they overcome it?
When a marriage is threatened by a long excursion for work, domestic trouble is buffeted by family and friends.
After a diving excursion in the middle of the ocean, Lindsey is viciously sexually assaulted by Bruce, her instructor. She fends him of and they fall overboard into the water. Bruce grabs her and sinks her to the depths of the ocean. In this spiral of violence, she has no way to breathe.
Luca, a young man starting his adult life, is struggling with an inner battle after losing his mother. "Beyond Space" evokes strong and delicate emotions that are felt by every person throughout its lifetime.
Elara, a young violinist, is madly in love with Lucio, a Sicilian student. Their love blossoms, but suddenly Lucio must return to Italy to care for his sick niece. Elara struggles with loneliness and sadness, until she finds new inspiration in a dream.
Amidst cityscapes, an experimental short film unravels a woman's exploration of inner pain.
Two young women retreat to a remote holiday home. While one of them undertakes a medical abortion, the other quietly cares for her. A snake slithers around them, unnoticed.
A visual and interpretative journey through the filmography of Andrei Tarkovsky, in search of the hidden meaning behind the recurring presence of water — a central and mysterious element in his work. This video essay analyzes the scenes in which water appears, organizing them by theme: from everyday actions to metaphysical moments. An attempt to understand whether, behind the poetry of natural elements, lies a deeper message from the russian filmmaker.
In a world where water has become a scarce commodity, a young scavenger finds a source to satisfy her thirst.
When a trans Latinx mermaid defies her mother’s warnings, she is forced to confront the violent legacies of colonialism, environmental destruction and the danger of being desired in the human world. The BlackStar Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab is presented with support from Independence Public Media Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and Wyncote Foundation. This project has been supported by The Philadelphia Independent Media Fund administered by Scribe Video Center with funds provided by the Independence Public Media Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation.
Nabil has to deal with his fear of water caused by a trauma he had, which he tries, day after day, to fight.
A visual concoction of model photo-shoots, swimming routines, filmmaking, drowning, death and holocaust.
Eight-year-old Elvis’ world begins to sink when his mother marries an immigrant stranger for money.
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
Tempted away from Newcastle United to join Real Madrid, rising star Santiago Munez finds this latest change of fortune the greatest challenge yet - personally as well as professionally. He is reunited with Gavin Harris, though they must compete to be on the team, and estranged from fiancee Roz, whose nursing career keeps her back home.
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. The headstrong 16 year old then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
A young girl struggles to maintain her school grades while competing as a gymnast.
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
