A program of engaging, real-life narratives in short bite-sized pieces, Reality Bites presents the year’s very best documentary shorts. From cinema verité, to essay films, animations and ob-docs, this package presents a hard-hitting dose of non-fiction shorts spanning the globe. At a time when truth is so often stranger than fiction, these films are not to be missed.

University student by day, escort by night, Andrea Werhun led a secret life under the alias “Mary Ann.” To her horror, Andrea discovers outrageous online reviews of Mary Ann's sexual performance written by self-proclaimed “hobbyists.” In this hybrid documentary, hobbyist and escort perspectives collide with hilarious and revealing results. And when the sex work narrative is controlled by johns, there are darker consequences than just a bad review. Modern Whore is a rare sex work narrative told and performed by the sex worker herself. The film is an adaptation of Modern Whore: A Memoir, the acclaimed illustrated art book created in collaboration with the film's director, Nicole Bazuin.

Modern Whore

Catch a movie with film buff Caroline Golum, as she shares her thoughts on the best places to see weird movies in New York City and the state of cinema itself. We accompany Caroline to three movie screenings over the course of a week: a new indie at Anthology Film Archives, a matinee double-feature of 1920’s comedies at MOMA, and a late night 1970’s Italian horror film at The Quad. These scenes are intercut with an interview with Caroline at her apartment in Brooklyn, which is covered in vintage movie paraphernalia.

Cinema Rules Everything Around Me

Abigail Goldman spends her work days as an investigator for a public defender’s office in Washington state, helping people who are seriously in trouble—which can mean hours of staring at grisly pictures of crime scenes, visiting morgues, even observing autopsies. By night, she dreams up gruesome events, which she then turns into tiny, precise dioramas. Rife with scenes of imminent death and brutal dismemberment, the fruits of Goldman’s painstaking labor would be adorable … if they weren’t so disturbing. In this new documentary short, we follow along as Goldman brings her miniature worlds of murder and mayhem to life with tweezers, paint, and resin, and meet the people who just can’t get enough of her twisted visions—where the final touch is always, in the artist’s words, “two or three brushstrokes of red paint.”

Dieorama

In this visceral impressionistic film the viewer is invited into the director's world as she experiences a menstrual cycle - from food cravings, to anxiety, to physical pain. Set almost entirely in the director’s bedroom, Just that time of the month uses a series of visceral visual metaphors to share the experience of having a period.

Just That Time of the Month

While the Space Race, the Arms Race, and a myriad of other Cold War competitions are common knowledge, few know that the United States and Soviet Union faced off to see which country could dig the deepest hole. This lack of public awareness is particularly surprising seeing that one of the countries may have also discovered Hell in the process.

The Deepest Hole

"The longer you do it, the more you want." The Viennese wanker wanks all day. While waiting for his inseminators, he tells about his sexual fantasies and his honour of being the biggest cum-whore of Vienna. When the doorbell rings, the wanker doesn't open. The computer screen and the camera of the filmmaker is in this film a reflecting mirror how fantasy and reality, how desire and memory become one.

The Wanker

This video essay tells the behind-the-scenes tale of Wim Wenders’ The State of Things and how an ill-fated collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola led to the blossoming of Jim Jarmusch’s breakthrough, Stranger Than Paradise. The juxtaposition of the two films leads to a larger meditation on stylistic and thematic unity, and how we watch films. The way art imitates life, directing styles can be continuous and cinema makes sense in retrospect are intelligently explored.

Stranger/Things

After the sunset, a man wanders between the edges of the highways and freeways gathering edible dead animals hit by a car. Liminality &amp; Communitas is an experimental documentary short film about the utilization of roadkill animals. The film investigates the border between life and death and the edges of the manmade world. Liminality &amp; Communitas is a visually rich one night journey during which temporal and eternal meet.

Liminality & Communitas

In 1968 Patty was a flight attendant, who realized she could smuggle strong weed in from Jamaica with relative ease, given her line of work. She is 77 years old now, and this is her version of what happened.

Patty Are You Bringing Weed in From Jamaica?

Reality Bites #1 

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2020 Sydney Underground Film Festival

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Check out the program below featuring short films made by female directors that featured at the 2020 festival. For one week only - don't miss it!

At last year's Sydney Underground Film Festival, we screened a wildly wonderful array of creative and bold films by female directors from Australia and around the world. In light of International Women’s Day (March 8th), we have put together an impressive program celebrating women in film. 

Here's what's coming up soon. Can't make it? No sweat. Many live streams will be available for on-demand viewing as well.