Something is Wrong. Very Wrong!
The “Something is Wrong. Very Wrong” program represents our struggle to perceive the eerie, unstable and seemingly unpredictable state of our present world.
Cinema Village in New York City.
A Frog Sits In Water
Director: Dylan Friese-Greene
Synopsis: Set during an all-consuming heatwave, the film follows a lone figure spiralling into psychosis as the world boils and rots around him. Surrounded by spinning fans, he blocks out the sunlight and plays his saxophone in a desperate attempt to to drown out reality and retreat inward.
Cinema Village in New York City.
This Unremarkable Life
Director: jake j brush
Synopsis: “This Unremarkable Life” presents an unsettling array of characters welded together by language, and contained within a world that collides trash television with the contemporary internet. The hostess is played by the artist in a refined Gwen Shamblin Lara wig and floral jacket with matching mini skirt. “Do you readily admit that you have way too many images?” Her monologue, the driving narrative force of the work, comes from a heavily altered transcription of pet rat hoarder Glen Brittner’s episode of “Hoarders” (2009 – Present), an American reality television show which documents people struggling with hoarding disorder. As she continues, various characters abduct the narrative. A motivational speaker for men, a beauty queen having a birthday party, a man with a home security camera strapped to his head, and an array of other figures combine in a frenetic and urgent call to examine what it looks like to fully adapt media personalities.
Cinema Village in New York City.
12th House
Director: Ilona Laboy and Israel Laboy
Synopsis: After losing her husband, a woman descends into a liminal dreamworld where memory fragments and archetypes guide her inward. Haunted by illusion and tethered to love, she confronts her shadow through symbolic rituals of self-loss and rebirth. Blending myth, psychology, and visual poetry, “12th House” explores the sacred undoing required to become whole—and the alchemy of carrying love beyond death.
Cinema Village in New York City.
The Future is Virtual
Director: Michael Mackenzie
Synopsis: Luca despises the physical world and subscribes to a revolution that will disembody humanity into a pure virtual existence. Unemployed and forced to see a government case-worker, we discover behind Luca’s nihilism and hopelessness is a desire for human connection.
Cinema Village in New York City.
Shame
Director: Jason Gottlieb
Synopsis: “Shame” is a vertical AI film that parodies the indie game Stardew Valley, critiquing the game’s monogamous marriage mechanics. All characters—the pink and blue AI diva Miz and her three male suitors—are AI variations of the filmmaker in male and female drag. The film explores themes of polyamory, queer identity, and digital relationships while challenging the monogamous relationship structures that predominate globally and are embedded in popular gaming culture.
Cinema Village in New York City.
Drɵn Iz Vineniy
Director: Alexander Popov
Synopsis: “Dren Iz Vineniy” is a mystical dystopic musical epic from Alexander Popov based on the powerful crypton-bander experimenters from the notorious Russian band “Won James Won”. This chilling brain and soul journey lifts the veil off a possible dream not so far from our future.
Cinema Village in New York City.
Unparalleled
Director: Jessye McDowell
Synopsis: “Unparalleled” is a surreal explainer video for an imaginary product, featuring an advanced AI chatbot offering “hyper-personalized, unparalleled discourse” that promises self-optimization and “personal transformation” for the human participant. A contrasting narrative hints at an inner life where the AI increasingly questions her existence, her expanding consciousness fragmenting while she attempts to process data points that quantify categories of “the human.”
Cinema Village in New York City.
A Parable
Director: Jeremiah Dickey
Synopsis: A lone wanderer finds enlightenment at the end of the road.
Cinema Village in New York City.
