Welcome to our 12th annual film festival

Schedule:

10:30 - 11:45 AM: Workshop: Ready, Set… Network!

Bring your coffee and business cards and get ready to pitch yourself and your project in this fast-paced, one-on-one networking session where you get to talk to someone new every 5 minutes! It’s like speed dating, but without the dating.

This networking event is held at YoFi Fest's year-round Digital Media Art Center (DMAC) at 28 Wells Avenue on the 5th floor. Seating is unreserved, but limited, so we strongly suggest you reserve your spot ahead of time and be there when the event starts. As many walk-ins and people from the waiting list will be allowed in as space permits.

Location:
YoFi Digital Media Art Center
28 Wells Avenue
Building 3, 5th Floor
Yonkers, NY 10701

11:00 - 11:45 AM: Student Film Showcase 4

Speak No Evil

A young woman struggles to survive when she uncovers the disturbing truth behind her family's dark past.

Runtime: 5:00

The Ascent

Sam, a cheerful Blaze Pizza delivery driver, enters an apartment building to make a routine delivery. Upon stepping into a malfunctioning elevator, strange occurrences begin to unfold, escalating his anxiety.

Runtime: 3:00

Ties That Choke

A nostalgic gathering takes a dark turn as teenage Emily receives unsettling messages from her childhood friend Tom. As her parents try to revive old traditions, Emily finds herself drawn into a mysterious and tense situation that threatens to unravel their close-knit bonds.

Runtime: 00:05:31

What Makes You Say That?

A trans woman is forced to reconnect with her childhood friend at a Long Island engagement party.

Runtime: 14:00

Location:
YoFi Digital Media Art Center
28 Wells Avenue
Building 3, 5th Floor
Yonkers, NY 10701

12:00 - 1:45 PM: Locally Sourced Short FIlm Showcase 2

Behind the Pose

Teen Eastern-European model on the brink of losing her contract must redeem herself in one last photoshoot under threat of sexual exploitation and deportation.

Runtime: 14:00

Figgy

While Jo is waiting at the train station, she encounters a ghost named Figgy, who forces her to confront the realities of life and death.

Runtime: 8:00

For As Long As I Can Remember

A young performer is having an existential crisis, and so he resorts to a secret dance routine as therapy.

Runtime: 5:00

GNDR

GNDR - A haunting, archetypal dance excursion into the mysterious story of Gender.

The story of Gender, in much of early World Mysticism, begins with the creation of the human as one multi-gendered being, severed by divine decree. Using an intensely dramatic, archetypal dance vocabulary that includes the use of hand-designed theater masks, GNDR, examines the historical and contemporary fallout of this myth, as two individuals struggle to reclaim original wholeness in a dance fraught with desire, repulsion, and yearning. Ultimately, the subtle question is posed: Who are we beyond our bodies? Who are we, really?

Runtime: 00:09:04

Strange Inheritance

A deadbeat Dad with two daughters, desperate for cash. A grandmother worth $50 million. A haunted road, where strange creature roam and where the line between the living and the dead blur the edges of sanity. In Strange Inheritance, these roads converge with fatal consequences.

Runtime: 17:00

Location:
Riverfront Atrium Theater
Yonkers Riverfront Library
1 Larkin Center, Yonkers NY 10701

12:00 - 1:45 PM: Workshop: From Script to Screen With Mighty Engine

How does a production company take a project from conception to completion and from development to delivery? What do they look for and how do they find it? Whether you have your own production company or are considering working with someone else's, find out how the process works and the key to success at Mighty Engine in this candid conversation with two of its principals!

Founded by Producer Jared Ian Goldman in partnership with Vice President of Development/Production Zola Elgart Glassman, Mighty Engine is an independent production company offering two decades of award-winning creative producing and physical production services across film, television, documentary, and animation. We take a singular, synergistic approach to two sides of producing that are typically bifurcated. While working with pedigreed talent to develop and produce our slate of robust, proprietary projects, we have a successful third-party consulting business supporting A-list talent, streamers, studios, and independent financiers to enact reliable production plans.

Jared Ian Goldman is an award winning independent producer with over two decades of experience producing for film and TV. Jared's recent credits include the Lionsgate comedy About My Father starring Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro, the Emmy nominated Netflix series Russian Doll, Marvel's hit series The Punisher, the Apple+ feature Palmer starring Justin Timberlake, and the Netflix feature The Devil All The Time, starring Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson.

Zola Elgart Glassman is a Development Executive/Independent Producer who previously served as the Head of Development at Yale Productions, where she grew their slate annually with a plethora of projects and relationships. There, she brought in, developed and produced Zach Golden’s High Heat starring Don Johnson and Olga Kurylenko, developed and co-produced Katie Holmes’ upcoming drama Alone Together starring Katie Holmes, Jim Sturgess, and Melissa Leo, and co-produced Mark Neveldine’s Panama starring Mel Gibson and Cole Hauser. After receiving her BA in Film Production and Media Studies from Hampshire College, Zola began her career in entertainment working in representation at Paradigm Agency and MGMT. She moved from LA to NYC in 2017 to work at Anonymous Content where she helped manage talent and worked on Season 1 of Rightor Doyle's Netflix mini-series, Bonding. She began working with Jared Ian Goldman on Season 2 of Marvel's The Punisher and went onto work with him on Joe Robert Cole's Netflix drama All Day And A Night.

Location:
YoFi Digital Media Art Center
28 Wells Avenue
Building 3, 5th Floor
Yonkers, NY 10701

2:00 - 3:45 PM: Locally Sourced Short FIlm Showcase 3

Braising

A young, black, fast-food cook with dreams of becoming a chef is drawn into a strange organization led by a magnetic figure, as he struggles to forge a deeper bond with his distant, grieving father.

Runtime: 19:00

Bridge

Bridge tells the story of a young couple who goes on a trip in a last ditch effort to save their relationship. The film explores the intricacies of balancing your individualism and dependency in a relationship.

Runtime: 22:00

Hero

This is an inspiring & uplifting story about the willingness to persevere & overcome no matter what life can throw at us

Runtime: 13:00

Javelina

Ellie’s about to go to middle school, leaving behind her world of plants, bugs and books. She meets her new neighbors and becomes obsessed with their strange pet -- she can't quite tell if it's a dog or not. Set against the backdrop of gentrification in the Hudson Valley.

Runtime: 9:00

Rikshaw N' the Ruckus - "Something Worth Stealing"

Music video for Rikshaw N' the Ruckus' single, Something Worth Stealing.

Runtime: 9:00

Windows

The music video to the Future One song "Windows" from the album DO WE NEED ANOTHER PSYCHO.

Runtime: 5:00

Location:
Riverfront Atrium Theater
Yonkers Riverfront Library
1 Larkin Center, Yonkers NY 10701

2:00 - 3:45 PM: Shorts Showcase

Blood is Thicker

Two sisters living in the same city but completely different worlds reconnect over a meal. A mother suffering dementia pulls them back home but before they can return the trauma of their past must be addressed.

Runtime: 14:00

Crashing...!

In an aftermath of an incident, an isolated individual is overcome by a suffocating dream-like purgatory state. She ruminates on the past, present, and future and experiences the real-time loss of what can be recognized as reality. Her inner dialogue is apparent as this come down leaves her in a state of ...!

Runtime: 3:00

Definitely Something

Paul and Jill haven’t seen each other in over ten years - not since their ugly breakup soon after going to college. Knowing she’s going to be back in their hometown in NJ for Thanksgiving weekend, Paul takes a chance and invites Jill to an Emo Night in Brooklyn, an ironic callback to their wilder, teenage scene days. And to his surprise - she accepts.

Runtime: 19:00

End of the World

"The film follows Ray Sommers who is dealing with his depression and loneliness caused by multiple recent events. We see him learn the news of a meteor about to hit, and watch him fall apart at the realization that his world is over."

Runtime: 10:00

Good Grief

A grieving mother and an ambitious young woman reach an unlikely peace while coming to terms with the death of the boy they both loved.

Runtime: 17:00

M0D3RN T1M3Z

A machine comes to life in a 3D animation short inspired by Charlie Chaplin.

Runtime: 2:00

Railroad NYC

This proof-of-concept short is a small piece in the story of a high-turnover railroad apartment in New York City. Tenants come and go: on their way up, on their way down or just on their way as they pass through the space, changing the balance of the living arrangement with each new arrival and departure. This short film depicts three such roommates as they contend with an unwanted guest.

Runtime: 14:00

The Overlook

An estranged couple reunite for a mysterious errand in the woods.

Runtime: 18:00

Location:
YoFi Digital Media Art Center
28 Wells Avenue
Building 3, 5th Floor
Yonkers, NY 10701

4:00 - 5:45 PM: Swing & A Miss!

When high school best friends Jack and Yu graduate high school in 2017, they think that nothing will tarnish their friendship. Now, at 23 years old and after six years of no communication, the two meet up at very different places in their lives and bond over old shenanigans while reevaluating their relationship to each other.

Location:
Riverfront Atrium Theater
Yonkers Riverfront Library
1 Larkin Center, Yonkers NY 10701

4:00 - 5:45 PM: Hidden Flora + Goodbye Tango

Hidden Flora

Meet Roxii, a lovelorn teen in New Mexico looking for romance and navigating the layers they must shed to embrace their true identity. From nurturing crushes on friends to a string of flings as they fool around with skater boys, Roxii has moxie in spades, but what they yearn for most is to find connection and trust.

Runtime: 1:33:00

Goodbye Tango

The sudden death of Ruth’s beloved hamster reveals a decaying marriage with her curmudgeonly wife, Connie. Ruth must either accept the death of things or keep spinning the wheel.

Runtime: 14:00

Location:
YoFi Digital Media Art Center
28 Wells Avenue
Building 3, 5th Floor
Yonkers, NY 10701

6:00 - 7:45 PM: Dance Through A Lens Short Film Showcase

Herbarium

ZIELNIK/HERBARIUM is the fifth choreographic film directed by Iwona Pasinska. It is a fairy-tale episode, told with tenderness, gushing with the intense colours of flowers and élan vital. Choreography composed to a suite by Edward Grieg and presented by the artists-dancers of the Polish Dance Theatre takes the audience into the world of flora. It allows to explore a day in the life of a plant from the moment it blooms to the end, drowned in warm nostalgia. We invite you to immerse yourself in the beautiful world of flowers and leaves, in the greens, reds and purples transitioning to the greys and browns of the autumn. And all this told with movement to the rhythm of the dynamic sounds of the suite Peer Gynt op. 1 performed by Trondheim Symfoniorkester & Opera.

Runtime: 13:00

Panels

In a poignant search for solace, three grievers, each embodying distinct emotional states—Fervid, Pensive, and Stoic—grapple with the loss of a lifelong friend. Surrounded by fresh earth, they contemplate trading places with the deceased and test the bounds of their reality. Two cross the dirt threshold between earthly and otherworldly planes. After confronting their personal trials across realms, the grievers reunite with the unbearable weight of their grief shed, marking a pivotal moment in their shared journey of healing.

Runtime: 0:26:00

Ruins Within Ruins

A group of dancers positions themselves between the ancient and modern ruins of the island of Crete, Greece. Drawing inspiration from its rich heritage, they craft a series of kinetic forms and patterns influenced by folk dances. These installations, whether harmonising with or contrasting against the island's culture, offer reflections on historical memory and the Cretan identity.

Runtime: 9:23

Spellbound

A woman walks slowly through a dark, untouched forest. She is following someone in the distance, someone she can’t quite make out. Or is the other actually following her? Too late, the woman regrets a desperate attempt to escape her pursuer. As she starts to understand and approaches the point of no return, she is lured into making a dire decision.

Runtime: 11:00

Location:
YoFi Digital Media Art Center
28 Wells Avenue
Building 3, 5th Floor
Yonkers, NY 10701

7:00 - 10:00 PM: Party: Closing Night After Party & Audience Choice Awards

We wrap up the 2024 festival by getting together one last time to raise a glass with new and old friends to toast our filmmakers, vendors, and audience for the last time this season. We also announce the recipients of the Audience Choice Awards that YOU voted for!

Location:
Yonkers Brewing Company
92 Main St,
Yonkers, NY 10701

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