Strategies of Alterity

The New Machine

Amedeo Gallo

San Diego

In the animatic The New Machine, Judinian drone mechanic Theodore Floyd gains rank and prestige, but loses something less tangible. A chance encounter with a familiar face forces Floyd to confront the values he holds. Under all this pressure, he may just crack.

Revelations of a Leo Sun

Fred Villa

San Diego

Revelations of a Leo Sun explores the growth and coming of age of Celina Elumba. This personal film highlights Celina’s perception of the world and how she had been able to navigate her way through it.

Suspense

Hannah Rosenberg

San Diego

Suspense shares a multi-sided youth perspective on the event of a mass shooting scare that took place in Los Angeles in August 2019.

A Small Venture Through Asian Latino Food Fusion

Heather Aaron and Victoria Cardenas-Ortiz

San Diego/Temecula

Filmmaker’s Heather and Victoria set out on a little journey to explore Asian-Latino fusion foods. While both learning about each other’s cultures, and more about their own, they find that the two have a lot more similarities than both girls previously thought.

Heavy Punch

Jiashou Du

Beijing

A young man who had lost hope in life decides to train in boxing at the last minute of his life. He encounters a strong opponent in the ring, and he gradually finds a reason to live. This story really happened to my friend. He decides to play a supporting role in the film because he doesn't want to see himself in the past.

The General Store

Justin Marquez and Tyler Kim

San Diego

The General Store is a documentary observing the unique space and environment that is the General Store at UCSD. The documentary follows one of the workers named Zaya and her unique personality. See gives insight as to how the store functions and the people that work there, as well as what the General Store means as a worker and a student at UCSD.

Connection

Lok-In Cheung and Fiona Feng

San Diego

We asked random people on the street a series of questions: Do they have a relationship that they cherished? If so, how did they meet? How would they describe this person? What is the first impression? Is there a particular moment that they can share with us? We believe these questions can let us know this person a lot better because this comes from his/her deepest part in the heart.

Orgullosamente

Nancy Hernandez & Leslie Lopez-Santiago

San Diego

Edited by Leslie Lopez-Santiago and Nancy Hernandez with camera work by Xelestiál Moreno-Luz, Orgullosamente is a film focusing on the struggles of the LGBTQ communitty in Colombia. This film emphasizes the struggles trans women go through in order to survive.

Chevaliers

Pyper Zhang and Pengyu Lyu

Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province

A (fake/neo-realistic) documentary film about a modern chevalier, who is a food delivery rider.

Werk

Rae Kanoa Wang and Nosher Puri

San Diego

Werk depicts the artistry within drag and personal stories of two UCSD drag queens, Luna Deathwish and The Nebula. As two queens growing up in the 21st century, drag has been an important vehicle for their creativity and self-expression, and the growth of youth LGBTQ+ understanding. Werk aims to show the behind-the-scenes of these two queens and what their experience is as collegiate drag queens.

Lavender Cove

Robyn Carter

San Diego

In this film you will see a special small boutique in Pacific Beach, California. Lily opened Lavender Cove at just 18 years old, and the vibrancy and passion of her character is reflected in every detail of her merchandise.

Dad's Fix 'It Shop

Travis Stauffer

San Diego

The inspiration for creating this short documentary came from having the opportunity to follow my father around at his work. This was a special moment because I have never seen what his daily life is like. In the past, my father spent a lot of his time traveling with MLB sports teams providing Physical Therapy, which meant that he was hardly home and we never have seen what he does. Recently, my father founded his own institution where he practices and provides care to all who need it. After just opening, COVID-19 prevented myself and my sister from seeing what he does. Now that everything is beginning to open again, I was fortunate enough to capitalize on this opportunity. Being able to capture what makes my dad happy, and seeing him thrive in his work has been an extremely beneficial experience.

Tiny House

Wenjing Li

San Diego

A ‘tiny house” is a dwelling unit with a maximum of 400sq ft of floor area on empty lots. This film is about the current housing crisis and discusses the reasons why more and more people choose to live in a tiny house. (In fact , the tiny houses in San Diego actually just got approved by law back in the July 2020)

Rojas

Yen Agustin

San Diego

A documentary about a San Diego-based artist’s painting process and his figuring out ways to explain that process in order to help others learn to paint.

Love, Tabby

Zoe Zhou

San Diego

For this documentary, my focus is on my neighbor Mort who I had only met several times before this project. He seems to have no company whenever I meet him and because I know that we both live in a 2b2b apartment, it’s not likely that he is living alone. So I was really curious about the source of his emotional support since he appears to be disconnected with the society after retiring. I discovered that he was never married and has no children, but his niece doesn’t have a father that’s there for her because her mom and her biological father were only dating and later separated because of distance. Therefore, he got really involved raising his niece and they are very close.