PBS Online Film Festival: June 16-July 31, 2014

For the third consecutive year, PBS is holding an online film festival: 25 short films available for free from June 16-July 31. Via Indiewire, here is the slate:

• “Tryouts” (Independent Lens) — Being a teenager isn’t easy, especially for Nayla, a Muslim-American girl who wants to join her high school’s cheerleading squad.
• “Border Bedazzlers”(Independent Lens) — Hoping to heal the divide between Mexico and the United States an inspired group of artists turn the border wall into a giant canvas.
• The Jazz Ticket” (POV) — Vince Womack has built a high school jazz powerhouse in one of L.A.’s toughest districts.
• “Why We Rise” (Center for Asian American Media) — Three brave young New Yorkers reveal what it’s like to grow up without having legal immigration status.
• “El Doctor” (Latino Public Broadcasting) — Worlds collide when an Arizona family hires an undocumented day laborer.
• “El Reloj”(Latino Public Broadcasting) — Experience a day in the life of a Zapotec grandfather and his city-born granddaughter.
• “You’re Dead to Me” (National Black Programming Consortium) — A mother and daughter revisit issues with each other on a tragic anniversary date.
• “My Dear Americans” (National Black Programming Consortium) — An Indian-American husband and wife adjust to immigrant life in an American suburb.
• “7 Day Gig” (National Black Programming Consortium) — A young man sits Shiva, mourns for his father’s death with strangers from the Internet.
• “Dog Save the Queen” (Pacific Islanders in Communications — PIC) — The Million Dollar Corgi Quest comes to the Island of Rarotonga, Cook Islands.
• “Islands? (PIC) — Vaine escapes her brutish “protector” and shares a daily, wordless love play with Tamatoa.
• “Lady Thunderhawks” (Vision Maker Media and Wisconsin Media Lab) — The Lady Thunderhawks varsity basketball team has become a pillar of hope for an entire community.
• “I Am an Aurora Hunter” (Alaska Public Media) — Alaskan Todd Salat is one of the best aurora borealis photographers in the world.
• “Westland”(Arkansas Educational Television Network- AETN) — Explore the life and art of reclusive Winslow, Arkansas, artist Tim West.
• “Diamond John” (AETN) — John Wesley Huddleston tries to support his wife and five daughters by digging for gold.
• “Overpass Light Brigade” (CET & ThinkTV) — Overpass Light Brigade tells the story behind Wisconsin’s Holders of the Lights.
• “Sorry About Tomorrow” (CET & ThinkTV) — Baldwin is using time travel in hopes of undoing everything that has recently been done to him and those he loves.
• “Yellow Wallpaper” (KLRU) — A woman descends into insanity as she struggles against the patriarchal institution that confines her.
• “Digging for Water” (KLRU) — When a well drill becomes stuck at 225 feet, a Haitian community must dig it out by hand in order to get water.
• “Will” (KQED — Film School Short) — Set during the attacks of 9/11, a young girl wishes she could go back in time.
• “First Match”(KQED — Film School Short) — A teenage female wrestler on an all-boy wrestling team faces her biggest challenge.
• “A Part of Me, A Part From Me” (Louisiana Public Broadcasting) — Lawrence goes to an old house by the lake and relives painful memories of his lost love.
• “North Star” (Vermont PBS) — Witness a haunting, poetic re-creation of a slave escaping from the South to New England.
• “Mad River Rising” (Vermont PBS) — An ageing farmer escapes his retirement home and finds himself back at his boyhood farm.
• “Calls from Home: Prison Radio in Appalachia”(WCVE PBS) — From the heart of Appalachia, a radio station broadcasts hip-hop and shout-outs behind bars.

Quite a diverse slate. Here is a trailer with clips from the upcoming movies:

Check out the PBS site here.

For the rest of the Indiewire article, go here.

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