Dustin Guy Defa

This eclectic, star-studded anthology follows diverse Chicagoans fumbling through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture. First dates, friends with benefits, couples with kids. Whatever your relationship status is, it's always complicated.

In late-90s suburbia, a lonely teenager meets a girl at school who introduces him to a mysterious late-night T.V. show — a vision of a supernatural world pulsing beneath their own. As time goes on, however, questions begin to arise about why the show sometimes seems more real than their own lives. In the pale glow of the television, their view of reality begins to crack.

Independent Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi is trying to make a television show. He persuades BRIC TV, a Brooklyn non-profit Arts organization, to finance a television show whose premise is that every episode will be about the making of the previous episode. In the process of creating the show, everything can-and does-go wrong. The cast, a who's who of Brooklyn's independent filmmaking community, includes Alex Karpovsky, Eleonore Hendricks, Dustin Defa, and Onur Tukel.

Eric returns home for a short visit and finds himself caught between reuniting with his sisters and chasing a victory with his old poker group. As the trip extends, Eric finds it increasingly difficult to avoid confrontations and revelations as his carefully constructed façade of his adulthood gives way to old childhood conflicts.

1950s America. Since his mother‘s confinement to an institution, Andy has lived in the shadow of his stoic father. A family acquaintance, Dr. Wallace Fiennes, employs the introverted young man as a photographer to document an asylum tour advocating for his increasingly controversial lobotomy procedure.

Anger rages in Philip as he awaits the publication of his second novel. He feels pushed out of his adopted home city by the constant crowds and noise, a deteriorating relationship with his photographer girlfriend Ashley, and his own indifference to promoting the novel. When Philip's idol Ike Zimmerman offers his isolated summer home as a refuge, he finally gets the peace and quiet to focus on his favorite subject: himself.

A woman is confronted by a stranger, who believes she’s been edited out of their story.

Set in the Mojave Desert, the film follows a broken-down comedian playing clubs across the Southwest, working his way to Los Angeles to meet his estranged daughter.

Independent Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi is trying to make a television show. He persuades BRIC TV, a Brooklyn non-profit Arts organization, to finance a television show whose premise is that every episode will be about the making of the previous episode. In the process of creating the show, everything can-and does-go wrong. The cast, a who's who of Brooklyn's independent filmmaking community, includes Alex Karpovsky, Eleonore Hendricks, Dustin Defa, and Onur Tukel.

A mysterious visitor spends the night at an apartment belonging to a young engaged couple and their friend. Over the course of the night and the following day he sleeps with all three roommates and then disappears, leading to conversations about God, life and filmmaking.

When their elderly neighbor suddenly drops dead, a young Brooklyn couple investigates signs of foul play.

Follows a variety of New York characters as they navigate personal relationships and unexpected problems over the course of one day.

Camila, a young Argentine theater director, travels from Buenos Aires to New York to attend an artistic residency to develop a Spanish translation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Upon her arrival, she begins to receive a series of mysterious postcards which set her down a winding path through her past and towards her future.

In a desperate search to create a follow-up to Joe Swanberg's 2011 film Uncle Kent, Kent Osborne travels to a comic book convention in San Diego where he loses his mind and confronts the end of the world.

Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.

A relationship drama set amid a winter van trip from New York to New Orleans. A loose continuation of the 2010 film.

Between surrealism, unusual characters, art and magic tricks, "Swim Little Fish Swim" is a dreamlike journey from childhood to adulthood.

Joel Potrykus calls fellow indie filmmakers during the pandemic crisis to check in and see how they're holding up.

Scenes from the working life of a male director: Defa sophisticatedly lampoons masculinity in filmmaking with this sly, surprising meta-movie. (Courtesy of Film Society of Lincoln Center.)

RICHARD'S WEDDING is an ensemble comedy that explores how the most enduring friendships require a mixture of envy, love and ridiculous egomania disguised as self-contempt. Alex and Tuna are on their way to Richard and Phoebe's wedding, to be reunited with a group of old friends. As they make their trek from Brooklyn to Central Park, they're joined by an ever-increasing number of friends with their own set of misgivings, self-righteousness, and violently annoying iPhone Apps.