Exploring identity, family, and the personal moments when hidden struggles quietly break through.

Secluded in the coastal forests of Northern California, an elder queer hermit searches for strange frequencies hidden in nature. While manipulating the noise in their makeshift studio, they have repeated visions of a mysterious cave and a person they believe to be another version of themself. In attempt to commune with this being they embark to find the cave and are confronted with a strange and cathartic experience.

In Another Life

An elder queer hermit searches through coastal soundscapes in pursuit of a mysterious cave they believe will allow them to commune with a past self.

A Chinese American teenager and her boyfriend set out to buy the morning after pill in post-Roe America.

The Truck

A Chinese American teenager and her boyfriend set out to buy the morning after pill in post-Roe America.

It’s 1975. A smart, ambitious woman (The Wife) is stuck in the kitchen. When feisty, martini-drinking Betty steps out of a 1950s cookbook, The Wife is confronted with what she really wants out of life (it's not to make another meatloaf). Faced with Betty’s tough love and in a desperate effort to find one damn minute for herself, The Wife takes matters into her own hands, with gleefully horrific results.

The Finger Wife

In a quiet coastal town, eleven-year-old Olivia faces constant misogynistic harassment from the boys and men around her. She finds solace in an old picture book; a tale of sirens who rise from the crashing waves to fight back against their captors. As strange signs draw her toward the sea, she follows a spectral woman into the depths. What begins as a retreat into fantasy becomes a radical act of reclamation, as Olivia emerges with a voice sharpened by rage and ancient power.

Under the Water

An eleven-year-old girl, targeted by misogynistic taunts and violence, retreats into the half-forgotten pages of a childhood storybook about the sirens of the sea. As strange events pull her toward the ocean, she finds the power in herself to rise up and fight back.

Noelle is a dedicated acting student struggling to stay present in class while processing a recent abortion—and a new crush on classmate Tyler. When their intense teacher, Jamie, pairs them for an improvised scene and pushes boundaries, Noelle is forced to confront how much of her real life she's willing to expose on stage.

Private Moments

A withdrawn teen is pushed to her limits when an acting class blurs the line between performance and personal truth.

During a cold Midwestern winter, Julie, a factory driver with a mysterious illness, attempts to unravel the truth behind the loneliness and the decay that plague her and her industrial town’s waterways.

A Black Hole Near Kent County

Four-month pregnant EBONY isn’t ready for this baby and a podcast about wild childbirth stories only heightens her anxieties. Her wife of 3-months, AUGUST, comforts and reassures her…and it almost works until JUSTIN, her best friend and hook-up-turned-father of her child, bursts into the house, armed with his binder of research. Determined to save these two wholly unprepared mothers-to-be, he invites himself to stay over—much to August’s dismay.

August & Ebony

Ebony, who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a U-Haul marriage, has to referee between her new wife, August and best friend-turned-child’s father, Justin, while finding her footing as a mother-to-be.

Sisters Dinky and Flossy are filthy, broke, and barely holding it together. But when Dinky discovers their estranged Dad flaunting wealth on some sugar baby site, she decides to confront him, dragging a skeptical Flossy back to their childhood home to uncover the truth...and maybe some cash. As the sisters confront their deadbeat Dad, old grudges and unsavory emotions resurface, but their simmering resentment might be the spark they need to turn things around.

Finding Daddy

Sisters Dinky and Flossy are truly at rock bottom, but when they discover their estranged deadbeat dad flaunting wealth online, they pay him a visit to uncover the truth...and maybe some cash.

Shorts Program 3 - What Breaks Through

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The virtual festival is now live! Reserve your tickets today to stream the official 2025 Cinema Femme Short Film Fest lineup from July 22–29, 2025

Program will be live and virtual tickets will be on-sale Thursday June 26th. The Virtual Edition runs from July 22 - 29, 2025. Check back soon! 