This Festival was made possible from a City Initiative Grant from the City of Houston, through the Houston Arts Alliance.

join us for our NORTHWEST SHORTS
with talk-back afterwards with filmmakers

4th of Ohio, directed by Emily Wahl (19 minutes, 7 seconds)  Visiting rural Ohio during the Fourth of July in 2016, we turned an observational lens onto the people of Morrow County. Documenting a 95-year-old native, his multi-generational and multi-racial family and public celebrations of the national holiday, we created a short ethnography in cinéma vérité style.
 
No No Bad, directed by Claire Buss (12 minutes, 22 seconds). A dark, absurd comedy about projection, delusion, and desire.
 
Culture Trauma, directed by Jodi Darby (12 minutes) Diary style found footage survey of trauma experienced while growing up in 1970s and 1980s US death culture. All footage appropriated from the Prelinger Archive.
 
Hey Little Black Girl, directed by Lyntoria Newton (12 minutes, 36 seconds)  Sometimes even imagination is not a strong enough shield to protect us from the contamination of the world but once upon a time there was a little black girl. Through her imagination she propelled herself into a dimension of new surfaces with old echoes of the little black girls who came before her. This story is told through vignettes of little black girls of the past and present, meeting viewers at the intersection between youthful imagination and adult reality.
 
Lunch in Lima, directed by Gail Gilbert (5 minutes) The Bechel Film Festival is committed to women and diversity. This short film was 
selected, because it champions underrepresented voices and is an excellent example of the programing at BFF.
 
Unbuckled, directed by Tessa Ribitsch. (10 minutes, 24 seconds) Based on a true story.  A 27-year old woman chooses to undergo a minor procedure to have an intrauterine device inserted as a method of birth control. This hopeful young woman is happy with her choice and confident that the procedure will go smoothly. The procedure takes a turn for the worst and medical sensitivity disappears right on the table.
 
High Lakes, directed by Pam Minty (20 minutes) Experimental filmmaker Pam Minty spent the summer of 1994 doing laundry and cleaning rooms at Diamond Lake Resort. In this documentary, she returns to Diamond Lake to craft an elegiac meditation not only on the dreary work undertaken by the resort's current cleaning staff, but on the economic upheavals that have convulsed America throughout the twenty-first century. But High Lakes isn't overtly political. Minty trusts us to find the harsh truths that lurk between her beautifully composed images.