SF Short Film Festival presents:
KEEPSAKE

When Lily’s husband transports them back into their happiest memory together, she must choose whether to face the harsh reality of their present or start over in an idyllic past. The romantic gesture devolves into a surreal nightmare and Lily must find a way to save herself and her future.

ENTER, MACHINE

The short film is structured in three traditional acts, yet shot almost entirely from the fixed perspective of a motionless red sedan that never truly moves relative to the camera.

The audience feels as though stepping into a time machine, witnessing three devastating tragedies unfolding inside this single vehicle across different eras: Ryan’s joyful purchase of his first car quickly collapses into family ruin amid financial rage and abandonment; years (or moments) later, Ian’s secret affair with Mary spirals into vehicular manslaughter after a rage-fueled chase kills a food-stealing addict; finally, in a midnight forest, a bound and masked Ryan brutally slays an unknown opponent in the back seat, only for the car to lurch forward once in vain before snapping back to its original position—revealing the terrified original salesperson Hannah (kidnapped by Ryan) escaping from the trunk.

The film’s single futile movement delivers a sharp satire on humanity’s illusion of progress trapped in an unchanging cycle of destruction.

I WILL COME TO YOU

Orphaned as a baby, Julian grows up in a Catholic boys’ home. As he uncovers his family’s buried past, he becomes fixated on a new couple living in a secluded farmhouse. Under the guise of a singing lesson, Julian gains access to Esa, a celebrated opera singer, whose poise and control are quickly eroded by his unsettling confidence. What starts as discomfort slips into a brief, charged intimacy before Esa realizes she has made a grave mistake. Julian refuses her orders to leave.

LUCIA, THE WOMAN WITHOUT A FACE

Javier is haunted by a recurring nightmare - he's trapped in a strange house with something waiting for him in the basement. Despite his mother's reassurance that they're only dreams (solo son sueños), he can't shake the growing sense that an ominous presence is getting closer.

MY NAME IS JOHN

An otherworldly doppelgänger tries something new.

OH, DEER

When a couple's explosive argument is interrupted by a tragic accident, the night takes a turn they never saw coming.

THE RETURN

A man returns to the office for a mandatory meeting and discovers that workplace culture has mutated into something strange, ritualistic, and inhuman. The Return is a surreal workplace horror film about conformity, alienation, and the fear of being absorbed by the hive.

WIGHT

Marion, a young Chinese-American woman, returns to her childhood home in a cramped San Francisco Chinatown apartment, after her grandmother is hospitalized under mysterious circumstances. Back home, she navigates a strained relationship with her Auntie Lam and her cousin, Amelia, and processes her guilt for not being around during the incident. Marion steadily grows more paranoid and becomes determined to prove that her grandmother was attacked in a hate crime, only to find that the family is actually haunted by a Jiangshi, a vampire-like creature that takes the form of a reanimated corpse to drain the life force of its victims.

The short film— what a perfect genre. Like the perfect snack. Or the very best poem: intensity and imagination distilled down to the most crucial and poignant of words. Short films are the quintessential starting point, and for some filmmakers, the definitive end goal.

The San Francisco International Festival of Short Films was launched in 2006. Since then SF Shorts has showcased incredible engaging independent films that are quick to make a statement, tell a story or express an idea. Recently this festival merged with the 29 year old San Francisco IndieFest, combining SF Shorts' curatorial vision with SF IndieFest's festival presentation expertise. This combined event now presents one week of the best short films from around the world at an historic San Francisco art house theater.