Films / Programs

First Look Student Film Section

The First Look Student Film Section is devoted to short films made by outstanding student filmmakers from around the world. Started in 2000 as a stand-alone event and dubbed by the Denver Post as “arguably the best niche festival in
Denver,” First Look continues to focus on finding the brightest new talents in filmmaking and bringing them and their works to Colorado. In addition to the Spike Lee Student Filmmaker Award, which was established in 2008, we are proud to
announce a partnership with Liberty Global that has allowed us to include three new international shorts packages. These films will open your eyes to the incredible work being done at film schools outside the United States—Mexico, Switzerland,
the United Kingdom, Iran, Germany, South Korea, Chile, Bolivia, The Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Israel, and the Czech Republic are all represented. This year, for the first time, we will award the Liberty Global International Student Filmmaker Award to an exemplary foreign filmmaker.

Sponsored By: Liberty Global

Benny
USA , 2011 , 14 min. An overweight teenager revisits an old friend—who is now a personal fitness trainer.... more
Deeper Than Yesterday
Australia , 2010 , 20 min. After three months underwater, the sailors have become savages. In the turbulence of the sea, Oleg fears his loss of humanity.... more
Abuelas
United Kingdom , 2011 , 9 min. In Buenos Aires, an old woman eagerly awaits the birth of her grandchild. However, a horrific turn of events mean that she must wait for decades to learn of the child’s fate.... more
Be Still
USA , 2011 , 17 min. Seeking redemption for past misdeeds, a loner and petty criminal reaches out to his estranged young son during a trek to the local carnival.... more
Big Muddy
USA , 2011 , 15 min. This short follows Andy, a teenage outlaw, forced into a life of crime by his nefarious mother Martha and her ne'er-do-well boyfriend Tommy—until a mysterious drifter, Donovan, shows up to settle a score.... more
Come On Down and Pick Me Up
USA , 2011 , 9 min. This doc paints the portrait of Fred Kress—a man within weeks of dying from terminal liver disease. After receiving the diagnosis, Fred turned his room into a neon hallucination, covering it with fluorescent alien masks... more
Commerce
USA , 2011 , 17 min. A spiraling compulsion threatens to alienate a businessman completely from his family—and leads to a chance meeting that could save or destroy him.... more
The Dust Machine
USA , 2011 , 15 min. A highly imaginative visual journey into a dark, microscopic world—and a meditation on the absurdities of the technological era.... more
Eva Is Leaving
Israel , 2011 , 16 min. Eldad, the owner of Eldad's Coffee Shop, suddenly finds religion. When he decides to make his coffee shop kosher to accentuate his newfound awakening, his wife and employee warn that old habits had better not die hard... more
Floating
Israel , 2010 , 30 min. Ruet is fat; Lilach is anorexic. Both have been sent by their parents to a children’s ward for treatment. Will the friendship they forge lead them to accept treeatment? Or will two rebellious girls with serious diseases... more
Fragomeni, the Last Round
Italy , 2011 , 13 min. A TV reporter goes to a hospital to interview an old man who has been mugged and injured. But once there, he finds that deadlines may take a backseat to the truth.... more
Life Is a Bitch
Czech Republic , 7 min. Being as free as a bird is not necessarily an enviable condition.... more
Lifelike
USA , 2011 , 10 min. A taxidermist coolly goes about his business.... more
Little Boat
USA , 2011 , 4 min. One little boat, one big journey.... more
Living Tiny
USA , 2011 , 7 min. A new vision of home is explored by three Californians who seek an alternative to traditional construction.... more
Neve & Sons
USA , 2011 , 8 min. Four generations after their great grandfather arrived from Italy and opened a flower shop, a family struggles to save the business—and his legacy.... more
No Wine Left Behind
USA , 15 min. An Iraq War hero leads a ragtag group of veterans as they try to conquer the wine industry.... more
Orbis Minor
USA , 2010 , 14 min. The effects of technological immersion on humans are contrasted in this experimental film. Through coded imagery, an expansive sound design, and four interviews with members of the Silent, Boomer, and Millennial Gen... more
People Involved
Czech Republic , 2010 , 26 min. After an accident kills her boyfriend, guilt-stricken Emily travels to Prague to confront Petr’s mother and father about their son’s unborn child.... more
Rocky Flats: Legacy
USA , 2011 , 22 min. This Colorado documentary is about former Rocky Flats nuclear workers who are fighting for their lives against the government, as well as those who have died waiting for help.... more
Safe & Sound
United Kingdom , 2011 , 27 min. Aman works as a janitor in a luxurious residential building in Iran. When it's time for him to get married back in his village, he decides to borrow a security guard's uniform to impress his fiancé’s family.... more
Salar
Bolivia , 2011 , 19 min. Two paths cross in an isolated Bolivian village: that of a disgruntled American doctor and a Bolivian salt miner who's just been stabbed in the hand.... more
Santiago from the Other Side
Mexico , 2011 , 11 min. Sometimes life has a surprise in store—sometimes two! Lucia is pregnant and wants to find the right moment to tell her longtime boyfriend Santiago. A party seems the ideal moment... more
A Scene at the Sea
South Korea , 2010 , 21 min. A father and son whose roles have reversed as junior becomes the caretaker of senior execute a delicate dance at the edge of the sea.... more
Shangri-La
USA , 2011 , 6 min. A Tibetan monk describes his transition into American life and the challenge of setting up a monastery for fellow exiled monks.... more
Stick
Netherlands , 2010 , 11 min. Len is on the playground when he meets a classmate who offers to introduce him to the mysteries of the fairer sex. There’s only one condition: Len must learn what to do with a stick.... more
Tasnim
Israel , 2011 , 12 min. Tasnim, a strong and opinionated 10-year-old, lives with her mother and siblings in a neglected Bedouin village. A surprise visit from her father forces her, for the first time in her life, to confront the conservative norms of the family tribe and the fact that she is no longer daddy's little girl.... more
Terrebonne
USA , 2010 , 14 min. Set on the imperiled coast of Louisiana, this is the meditative story of a brother and sister who encounter unexpected trouble when they venture deep into the swamp in search of the mythic ivory-billed woodpecker.... more
Till Summer Comes
Italy , 2011 , 16 min. If Nicholas, Daniel, and Lollo join forces, can they save their friendship in the face of divisive fate?... more
Topo Gigio Is Dead
Chile , 2010 , 23 min. After meeting unexpectedly at a funeral in Philadelphia, two Chileans seek to come to terms with their parents’ brutal past. Daniela is the daughter of a former political prisoner who was tortured; Tomas is the son of the physician that tortured him.... more
Tread Darkly
USA , 2011 , 13 min. In this short horror film, Ben brings his girlfriend to a seedy motel for a night of cheap, hot sex. Then strange things start happening.... more
Under
Canada , 2011 , 23 min. A love story about city girl Sydney, a relapsed drug addict who is convinced to journey to a country cabin by her fiancé in order to clean up.... more
Vending For Change
USA , 2011 , 13 min. In Denver, there are sign-flying homeless people on most street corners downtown. Weaving through them is a different group of homeless people who stand proud with newspapers and ask, “Dollar donation for the... more
The Visit
Germany , 2011 , 8 min. A tragicomic animated short about an old woman, who, to the horror of her son, is cooking up a meal in the middle of the night for her long-deceased friends.... more

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