presented by The Discover Indie Film Foundation
2025 Official Selection: Short Film – Sci-Fi
Talia’s depression keeps her locked in her apartment until she receives a HeLP-O, a paper butler robot that unfolds, cooks, and cleans, but can HeLP-O give Talia the help she really needs?
Director(s): Kevin O’Brien
Writer(s): James Kislingbury
Producer(s): Connor O’Brien, Kevin O’Brien
Key Cast: Quinn Francis, Kevin O’Brien, Caitlin Cutt
Country: United States
2025 Official Selection: Immersive Short – AR/VR/MR/360
Rui Barbosa is a historic Brazilian who lived in the later 19th to the 20th century. Famous for being an abolitionist, jurist and politician, he is waiting for his wife to get dressed to go to a party. While he waits, help him fix a historic scanned car and find out more about his house that would become a museum. This experience uses only hands as controllers to give the viewers an incredible immersive experience using Meta Quest 3. Put your seat belt and come back to the past!
Director(s): Dario Melo Maciel
Writer(s): Dario Melo Maciel
Producer(s): Dario Melo Maciel
Country: Brazil
Back To The Past will be part of the VR Pavilion
at the FI-LA 2025 Opening Night Gala
2025 Official Selection: Immersive Short – AR/VR/MR/360
Max Q is an animated 6DOF virtual reality film about a deep space survey team that finds their relationships pushed to the brink when they embark upon a dangerous search and rescue mission on an unexplored alien world.
Director(s): Joel Benjamin
Writer(s): Brad Riddell
Producer(s): Joel Benjamin, Brad Riddell
Key Cast: Arti Ishak, Antonio Rodriguez
Country: United States
Max Q will be part of the VR Pavilion
at the FI-LA 2025 Opening Night Gala
2025 Official Selection: Immersive Short – AR/VR/MR/360
A sonic visual 8K 4D 360 VR collaborative experience. Wind, Lasers, Chanting.. “paSSive poWer” aims at putting focus on the more subtle energies of human co-existence otherwise deemed as meekness. Or as filmmaker / artist JB ghuman JR has dubbed them, the “paSSive poWers.” Combining breathing / chanting / sensory & cerebral exploration into a immersive cinematic experience. Shot on the incredible 11K Insta360 TITAN Camera.
Director(s): JB Singh Ghuman, Jr.
Writer(s): JB Singh Ghuman, Jr.
Country: United States
paSSive poWer will be part of the VR Pavilion
at the FI-LA 2025 Opening Night Gala
2025 Official Selection: Screenplay – Feature Film
When a righteous sheriff is driven to desperation by his wife’s sickness, he decides to make a deal with the devil and agrees to sacrifice the souls of the living to a demonic machine on eighteen wheels.
Writer(s): Christy Price, Daniel Vidal Perez
2025 Official Selection: Screenplay – Pilot/Series
When a boy’s mother vanishes after a car crash, he’s thrust into a perilous quest. Guided by an eccentric uncle and aided by three unfamiliar allies, he must confront dark forces and his own doubts to rescue his mother before an important birthday.
Writer(s): Lynn H. Elliott
2025 Official Selection: Screenplay – Pilot/Series
When 15-year-old Nancy discovers she can talk to the dead, she becomes a link to an alternate universe and could be the key to saving both realties.
Writer(s):Mark Strauss
2025 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Short Film
A 14 year old boy breaks his arm and is stalked by the older sister of his crush.
Writer(s): Matt Stone
2025 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Short Film
A surprise birthday party spirals into paranoid chaos, as the birthday girl questions whether her friends know her secret, or just secretly hate her.
Writer(s): Haiba Khan
2025 Official Selection: Screenplay – Feature Film – LGBTQ+
The world’s greatest romance novelist has given up on love due to long-standing grief, but will his blossoming relationship with a younger man lead to a new chapter or the same tragic ending.
Writer(s): Suzy Stein & Fernando Perez