HOW TO THRIVE, 96min., Australia, Documentary
Directed by Duy Huynh
Is there a secret formula to happiness? Positive psychotherapist Marie McLeod takes 7 people on a transformative journey to learn the secret formula to happiness The film’s premise is; if we offer the science of happiness to people experiencing struggle; what difference would it make? Is happiness a learnable skill and can we teach people skills to live a happy, healthy and meaningful life? With unprecedented access; the result is an intimate, heartfelt and hopeful film that offers a rare glimpse into the lives of 7 people who make incredible transforms as a result of learning ‘How to Thrive?’

http://www.howtothrivefilm.com/
https://www.facebook.com/HowToThriveFilm/
https://www.instagram.com/howtothrivefilm/

Get to know producer Andrew Kelly & director Duy Huynh:

Duy Huynh, Director: As a first generation Vietnamese refugee, I have my own connection to early life adversity. Some of my earliest memories of life was being lifted into a tiny fishing trawler with over a hundred others below deck; violence at sea, loss of life, inhumane refugee camps and of course watching the consequences of this experience on family and friends.

Despite the impacts from these memories I found my way through and have always considered myself one of the lucky ones. For some of my contemporaries this experience created a lasting legacy of mental health challenges and I’ve always wished I could do more to help. What separates those of us who can undergo adversity and come through the other side ok, versus those for which adversity creates ongoing struggle. I thought if we could understand this better and package it up in a helpful way, then it would be a worthwhile mission.

This film is about some of what I’ve learnt from the sciences of thriving. Turns out there’s quite a lot of research available about how to live a happier, healthier and more meaningful life. These learnable skills are so essential in a world where loneliness and mental health challenges are steeply on the rise.

My vision is for a world where these ‘thriving skills’ are available to all of us, and film is an incredible medium to not only create this awareness but inspire action. Personal action, political action and systemic change to the way we think about mental health.

Andrew Kelly, Producer: I’d been working in the corporate film production world for some time and decided it was time to take my skills and use them for social impact. Duy presented wellbeing science and positive psychology to me and I knew this was an under-represented area we could really make a difference in. A chance meeting with our now lead presenter and Positive Psychotherapist sealed the deal for me. I knew we could make this work.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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The Confessions of Frannie Langton, 1 hour TV Series

Directed by Andrea Harkin

Written by Sara Collins

A beautiful and haunting tale about one woman's fight to tell her story, The Confessions of Frannie Langton leads you through laudanum-laced dressing rooms and dark-as-night back alleys, into the enthralling heart of Georgian London.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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MISSING STRING, 11min., Canada, Drama
Directed by Hugo Remy
Marie is a young woman who sees black strings coming out of people’s heads. She is the only one who sees them and she can guess people’s inner emotions by looking at their string. Everyone has a string, except her.

Get to know the filmmaker:

This is not an autobiographical film of course but I identify a lot to Marie. I have often got this feeling that something is wrong or missing with me without being able to fully grasp what it is. So making this film had an obvious therapeutic purpose to me. I would say that it was my main drive. I just needed a concept to tell a story about this feeling and I found it with this idea of those strings which everyone has except for the main character.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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I.M.L.A. ~ A Musical Graphic Novel, 83min., USA, Graphic Novel
Directed by Mae Edwards
A story about Queer Femmes of Color on their Hero’s Journey through Tinsel Town, as told in a musical video-ized graphic novel.

http://maeedwards.com/
https://www.instagram.com/imlanovel/

Get to know the filmmaker:

It was a tumultuous time politically in the United States, where statements were made by politicians suggesting rounding up and hanging the LGBTQ+ community . As an adult, I knew it was a misdirected attempt for power and control, unlikely to take hold. But my friends who were therapists and caregivers mentioned to me repeatedly how suicide prevention centers showed a quadruple spike of calls from young LGBTQ+ people, who were wracked with fear over those comments.

I created this musical graphic novel as encouragement to young people, for them to see themselves as heroes and for them to know we see the injustice and won’t stand for it… for them to feel love and support from our community and our allies.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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LIGHT, 5min., USA
Directed by Karla Santa Anna
In a world where a huge garbage island floats across our seas, fruit has very suspicious ancestry, and immigrant children are literally abandoned in the middle of nowhere, if one day the ocean rains upward…we would totally believe it. That’s how the world feels: very upside down.

Get to know the filmmaker:

One day I was thinking about the world and how upside down it feels, so that inspired me to write a very dystopic poem. Then I thought it would be cool to illustrate it with Midjourney (Art AI platform). Eventually I put sound effects,started editing, and even got to use a MOBY song that I really love. It all ended up as an experimental short, so as you see it was never a plan. I guess I allowed creativity to unfold and just let it happen as it went by.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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TOPLESS, 19min., UK, Drama/Romance
Directed by Patrick Jensen Hansted
After a few years, being in his late 20s without experience building relationships, Anthony finds himself in a vicious cycle of heartbreak as he continues searching for true love.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27044983/
https://www.instagram.com/toplessfilm/

Get to know the filmmaker:

I had several motives on my agenda. Firstly, I wanted to break the stigma of student filmmaking as it is often perceived as amateurish acting/ writing bland production design/”stick-it-on-a-tripod-and-don’t-move” cinematography. So I reached out to some of the best peers in their own respective fields in filmmaking and begged them to join and make something bigger than all of us.

Secondly, I wanted to tell my experience of being in the LGBTQ+ community. Especially that hookup culture when all you are looking for is love. My mom being super respectful and caring meant that I always had her back and till this day she’s the person I call for advice and gossip.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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ELEMENTS: BEAUTIFUL UNTRUE THINGS, 8min., Sweden
Directed by Amelia Finngåård
Elements is a solo choreography that is the intersection of nature, fashion, Venusian imagery, and movement. Elements is an exploration of dance/movement and the elements of nature, earth, sun, water and air. The natural influences and sounds of these elements merge with the art form of punking/whacking and fashion in the background of Västra Götaland’s scenic nature.

https://vimeo.com/768220860
https://instagram.com/beautiful_untrue_tingz

Get to know producer/star Alyssa Briteramos:
I wanted to begin to explore dance on film as another medium to express my ideas and archive my work. It was also a way to reconnect the specific style of dance I represent back to the medium that its inspired from, film.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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IN YOUR DREAMS, 3min., USA
Directed by Mike Krohn
In the future, a sentient robot finds that his dreams intrude on his waking life.

https://tinyurl.com/InYourDreamsFilm

Get to know the filmmaker:

What motivated you to make this film?

The Pandemic had shut down production. I wanted to make a film, so I decided to use Virtual Production techniques in Unreal Engine to make one on my computer. I wanted to show how cinematic and beautiful a film using Virtual Production can be, while moving the audience emotionally. I also wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to make a film featuring robots, space travel and exotic alien planets. I love that stuff, but you don’t get to do it much because they are very expensive to do in live action. Virtual Production makes them possible even on the limited budget of a short film.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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TED THE SHARK, 12min,. Colombia, Animation
Directed by Nathalia Rojas, Hector Acosta
Created by Nathalia Rojas
Ted is a six-year-old hammer shark with a big secret: His mind is connected to a human girl. This uniqueness often makes Ted alienated from his world (a feeling many of us are familiar with) however, little does he know how special this connection is.

http://www.tedtheshark.com/
https://www.instagram.com/tedeltiburon

Get to know creator Nathalia Rojas:

I was motivated by a desire to provide a fun and engaging tool for both children and adults to better understand and cope with complex emotions that can be difficult to express.

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE LEMONS, 13min., USA, Drama/Family
Directed by Caitlin Presberg
A young woman comes home after the death of her abusive father to reconnect with the sister she left behind.

https://www.instagram.com/itsnotaboutthelemons/

Get to know the filmmaker:
I made this film as my thesis. I wanted to tell a story about the healing and strength that occurs after a trauma. As a survivor myself this story was very close to home, and it allowed me to come to terms with a lot of things in my life. I found that a child has more strength than a hundred men, but we often overlook that.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

Subscribe to the podcast via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

MOSAIC, 8min., Canada, Documentary
Directed by Myriam Vaudry
A short documentary film bold and touching where the director, dealing with physical malformations, asks an artist to illustrate her syndrome in a drawing of herself. This process will help her see it from a different perceptive and grow toward self-acceptance.

Get to know the filmmaker:
First I wanted to inform people about my condition and the syndrome itself to help change de way that people looked at us. Then I realize I have to change the way I think people looked at me and how I want to look at myself and be ok about my body.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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RATS IN THE HOUSE, 13min,. USA, Drama/Family
Directed by Francesca Brice-Martin
A cheating husband tries to fix his marriage while dealing with his mistress who threatens to reveals the truth at Thanksgiving dinner.

https://www.instagram.com/francescabricemartin/

Get to know the filmmaker:

Well, I needed something for my intermediate film project to pass my classes, didn’t I? Just kidding!

I have been in relationships where I felt neglected or misunderstood, and I wanted to write a story that portrays how miscommunication can lead a couple to its ruins. And with this film, even though we follow Derek (the main character) thorough the whole story, I wanted to give a little background of every other character and explain why they behave the way they are. I also wanted to show that failure of a relationship is not necessarily the sole responsibility of one and sometimes it’s better to talk about your feelings so that the other person understands where you are coming from to work through it.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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OUTPATIENT, 26min., USA, Drama
Directed by Joseph Samuel Meyerson
Two young men attend weekly meetings in the basement of a church to satisfy the conditions of their parole.

https://instagram.com/outpatientfilm

Get to know the filmmaker:

It was an idea I’d had kicking around my head for some time. But I wanted to make something, and I’d written this much longer screenplay that was just totally unfeasible to shoot — we’re talking 200-person party scenes, car meets, ambulances, cop cars, high schools, three-minute tracking shots — so I found myself returning to the “three guys in a room” concept and just kind of wrote it from there.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

Subscribe to the podcast via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

CANCER/EVOLUTION Episode 1: The Dustbin of History, 60min., USA
Directed by Maggie Jones, Brad Jones
The newest hope for cancer is actually one of the oldest.
Buried for a century, the metabolic theory of cancer is overturning entrenched dogma and reshaping the future of cancer treatment.
Episode 1 of this 5-part docuseries addresses the history of the metabolic theory of cancer through the story of Nobel laureate Otto Warburg, a gay, Jewish scientist under aegis of the Nazis.

https://cancerevolution.film/
https://facebook.com/cancerevolutiondoc
https://twitter.com/cancerevolves
https://www.instagram.com/cancerevolutiondoc/

From co-director Maggie Jones:

The month of my 40th birthday, I was diagnosed with terminal, stage 4 lung cancer that had spread to my eye, liver, four tumors in my brain, and more than a dozen lymph nodes throughout my chest, neck and abdomen. My prognosis of six to eight months with conventional treatment seemed optimistic. My doctors were focused on making me comfortable. I was dying.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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QUICHE, 11min., Canada, Drama
Directed by Suzannah Moore
A nosy neighbor presses her way into the kitchen of a young mother, who ends up needing her.

Get to know the filmmaker:
My co-producer/collaborator (Adam Crosby) and I have worked together on a number of projects, but none of them were something I had written. We shared a vision in the type of tone we wanted to capture in our storytelling, and wanted to see how well we could bring it to life (tone can be one of the hardest things to skewer in filmmaking, in my opinion). We were both really drawn to the grounded, slice-of-life space, wherein the audience feels like a bit of a fly on the wall. I thought it would be neat to create a world inside of someone’s kitchen, because this is such a lived-in and often private space for many. In my writing, I was also exploring my own sadness, and my relationship to it. Eventually these pieces began to come together, and we made Quiche!

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

Subscribe to the podcast via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

RESERVATIONS, 11min., USA, Experimental
Directed by Tom White, John Leviege
While finding love can be unexpectant enough, the only thing even more unexpectant is finding out that same love, may have a past that’s hard to look past.

Get to know the filmmaker John Leviege:

I felt this was an important story to tell & I just couldn’t wait to put it on film. I can’t think of any obstacles (to make the film). The cast was amazing & my team made the process seamless.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

Subscribe to the podcast via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

MIND THIEF, 109min,. USA, Mystery/Thriller
Directed by Matt Steinauer
A novelist realizes that her neighbors may be under the mind control of unknown forces. Little does she realize how close and sinister its influence has become. MIND THIEF is a sci-fi thriller that takes us on a harrowing, sometimes humorous journey through the depths of the human psyche.

https://www.instagram.com/mindthiefmovie/

From filmmaker Matt Steinauer:

We were interested in doing our own take on the concept of Mind Control. Our intention was to create a movie that could cross genres and was multi-layered—a movie that we ourselves would want to see.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

Subscribe to the podcast via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

ALUCINAR, 5min., Canada, Animation
Directed by Margie Kelk, Lynne Slater
In a cold, lonely world, where buildings are like icebergs and people drift past each other on ice floes, Guy imagines belonging to a colony of penguins. From his window, he sees May, who also dreams of penguins. Inspired by the courage of penguins plunging off an ice floe into the unknown, he jumps off his own doorstep. Traversing dark waters, he searches the city’s streets looking for May. Connecting through their love of penguins, Guy and May are transformed. Overcoming their isolation, they face their world together.

https://margiekelk.com/
https://www.facebook.com/margie.kelk
https://twitter.com/margiekelk
https://www.instagram.com/mskelk

Get to know the filmmaker:
Lynne Slater, with whom I have been collaborating to produce short stop-motion films for the past five years, saw the little ceramic heads I had been making in my art practice and wanted to create a film with them. Two trips to Antarctica drew me into the world of penguins, and I sent Lynne videos my son had taken of the penguins while visiting South Georgia and other islands in Antarctica. Lynne and I also talked about the loneliness people had experienced during the shut-down of Toronto at the time of covid. Together these factors inspired us to create a story where lonely people find solace and identity in a world of penguins which inspires them, in turn, to share life’s experiences with each other.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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#1, 8min., USA
Directed by Dante Lundin
A broke comic shop owner and an obsessive collector fight over a rare issue one comic book.

https://sites.google.com/view/number1film/home
https://www.instagram.com/no.1film/

Get to know the filmmaker:

The inspirations for the film came together to create a story I felt passionate about. As a comic fan myself, I understand both arguments the characters in #1 make. It’s something that’s never been brought to screen in this way, and I felt I had to be the one to do it.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

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SCARLETT O., 6min., USA, Horror
Directed by Alexandra Tebano, Dale Johnson
A tortured woman is stuck in the purgatory in her own mind forced to relive the same excruciating moment over and over again.

Get to know the filmmakers:

Alexandra: I had found this script again, after years of sitting with it, and it still resonated so much with me. I had realized a lot of the same thought patterns and neurosis was still there, and I felt compelled to make it as the ultimate purge of these emotions and feelings. It felt that if I could really make it this time, I could.

Dale: My main motivation as executive producer was to support Alexandra who wrote it, acted in it, co-directed it and co-produced it.

You can sign up for the 7 day free trial at www.wildsound.ca (available on your streaming services and APPS). There is a DAILY film festival to watch, plus a selection of award winning films on the platform. Then it’s only $3.99 per month.

Subscribe to the podcast via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook