The Ties That BindVarious directors, USA, 2021, 65 minMay 11 - 17 Performance, video diaries, and the supernatural combine in this striking collection of shorts, featuring stories of enchantment, trauma, and resilience through the building and severing of bonds.

(SEIZURE WARNING AND WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF VIOLENCE)On a snowy Chicago night, lone Christabel finds herself wandering through the woods in a search for answers. Through a collection of rapidly flashing images of a scared and wounded girl, Christabel acts on a whim and offers Geraldine shelter for the night. We follow the girls’ journey home and, once inside, illusory and surreal bilateral windows guide us through a paralytic trance that ends in Christabel’s undoing. We are left with the girls to will themselves out of the darkness and into existence.

Christabel

Christabel lies asleep with open eyes and dreaming fearfully of the lady who knelt at the old oak tree.

Sofí­a Alfaro Q & A

Sofía Alfaro discusses Christabel with Amy Beste (Director of Public Programming for FVNMA) and Frédéric Moffet (Department Chair, FVNMA).

What happens when your family falls apart? How do you process trauma? When faced with these questions, I turned to the camera to help tell my story. At age 19, I naively got married to help my boyfriend gain citizenship. This decision impacted my life in unexpected ways and changed the way my family functioned for good. Now at age 22, I am trying to work through this trauma and move on. Using film as a way to process my emotions, I recorded some of my most raw emotion and most vulnerable moments to document my experience through very unique family problems.

Everyone Told Me Not to Make This

When faced with trauma and family baggage, I turn to the camera in a vlog and diary confessional style to document my experience, and to tell my story.

Emilie Q & A

Emilie discusses Everyone Told Me Not to Make This with Amy Beste (Director of Public Programming for FVNMA) and Frédéric Moffet (Department Chair, FVNMA).

"Flight Risk" is my most ambitious project to date, other than “Utopia” (a pilot episode that is currently in production) and is a prequel to the “Starseed + Her Psychic Warriors'' comic- and web-series, with events that take place even before the first comic book, which introduces Alice, Wren and Sage to the alien refugee, Starseed. My approach to this short film was to strip my origin story of all its science-fiction/fantastic elements and produce what remained: a series of flashback scenes. The result of this experiment was a down-to-earth drama that proves that at the heart of my maximalist, most outrageous work is very real, gritty humanity. My aspiration with this short film is to challenge genre conventions, blur audience demographics and exhibit strong writing and performances.

Flight Risk

This is a story about three old friends that have gone their separate ways and come back together out of necessity. It is about who is there for you at your ugliest, most desperate and when you feel the least like you deserve it.

Sophia Pierre Q & A

Sophia Pierre discusses Flight Risk with Amy Beste (Director of Public Programming for FVNMA) and Frédéric Moffet (Department Chair, FVNMA).

“Plastic Confessions” explores a mother-daughter dynamics during a meandering car ride through the desert. The daughter draws out her mother’s views, values, and desires in her own attempt to understand who she herself is. Once the identity of the filmmaker is revealed, we are left to wonder what was true, and what was veiled by memory and emotion.

Plastic Confessions

“Plastic Confessions” explores a mother-daughter dynamics during a meandering car ride through the desert.

Emily C Anshen Q & A

Emily C Anshen discusses Plastic Confessions with Amy Beste (Director of Public Programming for FVNMA) and Frédéric Moffet (Department Chair, FVNMA).

The story is generally about a girl in utopia. She found a card on the street and was attracted by the smell of the card. Then she accidently went to the the Peach Blossom Spring and started her never-coming back-adventure there.

Peach Blossom Spring

A young girl entered the illusory place called Peach Blossom Spring and started her adventure there.

Tiya Yuan Q & A

Tiya Yuan discusses Peach Blossom Spring with Amy Beste (Director of Public Programming for FVNMA) and Frédéric Moffet (Department Chair, FVNMA).

2021 FVNMAS Festival - Program 2 - The Ties That Bind

Virtual Admission

Gene Siskel Film Center

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