2016

The body of a homeless woman is found in an abandoned New Hampshire farmhouse. Beside the body, lies a diary that documents a journey of starvation and the loss of sanity, but told with poignance, beauty, humor, and spirituality. For nearly four months, Linda Bishop, a prisoner of her own mind, survived on apples and rain water, waiting for God to save her, during one of the coldest winters on record. As her story unfolds from different perspectives, including her own, we learn about our systemic failure to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

In an investigation that spans the globe, filmmaker Sue Williams investigates the underbelly of the electronics industry and reveals how even the smallest devices have deadly environmental and health costs. From the intensely secretive factories in China, to a ravaged New York community and the high tech corridors of Silicon Valley, DEATH BY DESIGN tells a story of environmental degradation, of health tragedies, and the fast approaching tipping point between consumerism and sustainability.

Gabriel Valentine, 17, is a rising senior at Palmer High School. Since he was little, Gabriel has been drawn to film and video cameras and the impulse to help people tell their stories. At Palmer, Gabriel has been active in Terror TV, a school television program. In addition, he has produced short media pieces for Inside Out in Colorado Springs. For his YDA project, Gabriel wanted to investigate fatherhood through the eyes of those who’ve had strong fathers, and through his own eyes: since Gabriel was two, he’s been raised exclusively by one parent, his mother. When he turns the camera on her, the film becomes an intimate testament to parenthood in general as a mother and son come to deeper terms with their own special relationship in the absence of a father.

CODE documentary exposes the dearth of American female and minority software engineers and explores the reasons for this gender gap and digital divide. The film highlights breakthrough efforts that are producing more diverse programmers and shows how this critical gap can be closed. CODE asks: what would society gain from having more women and minorities code and how do we get there?

A female-driven road trip comedy about friendship, love and that awkward moment when your dead best friend still gets you to do stuff. Following the death of their friend, two girls in their late twenties embark on a road trip to spread his ashes. Seph and Alex take turns driving. Dan is in the glove compartment, in tupperware, decreasing in volume as the trip progresses.

BEWARE THE SLENDERMAN tells the story of the internet’s elusive Boogeyman and two 12-year-old girls who would kill for him. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier lured their best friend into the woods, stabbed her 19 times, then set out on an odyssey to meet the tall and faceless man known online as Slenderman. Shot over 18 months with heartbreaking access to the families of the would-be murderers, the film plunges deep down the rabbit hole of their crime, a Boogeyman and our society’s most impressionable consumers of media. The entrance to the internet can quickly lead us to its dark basement, within just a matter of clicks. How much do we hold children responsible for what they find there?