2024 Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference

Shorts Program 6: You Get What You Give
TRT 104 MIN

Concept High
(USA, 6 MIN)

Writer/Director: Amos Posner
Cast: Carrie Keating, Lee Hubilla, Josue Ledesma, Marianne Hardart

A high school principal and school superintendent enter an English classroom to get to the bottom of a suspicious academic performance, only to find more duplicitous characters than they bargained for.

Fortune
(USA, 28 MIN)

Writer: Matthew Perkins, Corey Cott
Director: Matthew Perkins
Cast: Corey Cott, Chris Henry Coffey

In this Southern Gothic tale of greed, a blue-collar timber yard worker miraculously wins a massive lottery jackpot.

Maggie's Not Okay
(USA, 12 MIN)

Writer: Mouzam Makkar
Director: Vance Smith
Cast: Mouzam Makkar, Behzad Dabu, Clare Cooney, Paloma Nozicka

Maggie, a chronic people pleaser, is always getting pushed around. But when she tries to return a lost cat to his owner, Maggie is finally pushed too far and decides to push back… in a most unexpected way.

Sick Day
(USA, 12 MIN)

Writer/Director: Hughes Ransom
Cast: Amita Rao, James Adomian, Samiya Kahn, Malcolm Barrant

Sick Day follows Elara, a mid-20s assistant, as she enacts the perfect plan to get sent home sick in time to catch her Mom's musical. The only thing standing in the way is her textbook manchild of a boss, Billy King, the company president who holds her fate tightly in his grubby paws. Oh, and there's also this looming locust outbreak threatening to derail everything. Not really sure what's going on with it though? Anyway, Elara uses every tool at her disposal to convince Billy she is sick, taking increasingly desperate measures. But Billy ignores her and the locusts arrive, causing the office to shut down and leaving Elara with an important choice.

Vial
(USA, 15 MIN)

Writer: Alexandre Jerard Davis, Robert Capron, David Holmes
Director: Alexandre Jerard Davis
Cast: Joel Austin, Grayson Eddey, Susan Varon, Gabriel Michael

A relapsed parolee has two options: find clean urine or lose custody of his son and be sent back to prison.

Isme
(USA, 17 MIN)

Writer/Director: Leonardo Aguirre
Cast: Nia Jimenez, Yadira de la Riva, Alexandra Acosta

When Isme steals a necklace from a woman on her deathbed, she develops an obsession that leads her down a spiritually perilous path.

When Big People Lie
(USA, 14 MIN)

Writer: Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz, Pablo Cervera Gutierrez
Director: Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz
Cast: Kaden Quinn, Sasha Merci, Faruk Amireh, Diane Sargent

The riptide of adult choices drags young Elvis and his mother out to sea.