Rick Schmidt

Two cabbies search San Francisco's Chinatown for a mysterious character who has disappeared with their $4000. Their quest leads them on a humorous, if mundane, journey which illuminates the many problems experienced by Chinese-Americans trying to assimilate into contemporary American society.

MIRAGE is about a old man, Jefe, who has a cult-like hold on his household of wayward, homeless new-age women, whoever Mike, his 20 year old henchman, can pick up at local bars and cafés in Santa Fe, NM and bring back to the adobe. Homelife starts disintegrating when a Native American woman, Lisa, falls in love with a Native American drifter, Freddie. Music from underground Chicago (Ill Ben, .org, Murlot, Jo-Fixxx-it, Saykay), Memphis (David Rookings, Olga, and Bluff City Backslides/Don MacGregor), and Santa Fe (Alex Maryol, Jonathan Grossman, Blood Drained Cows) supplies an energy pack, propelling the lovers forth toward their breakout finale.

In 2012 WHITE STORK ENTERPRISES insures that baby-hungrey couples will bear 'perfect' offsprings for a mere $100,000. By offering successful embryo fertilization through digital chip technology, STORK advertises that they can remove potential disease and negative personality traits from the embryo's genetic code for $5000 per item. Too good to be true? A con game? Well, a chip-like micro-fluidic device does exist ( developed in Tokyo) that increases the probability of successful in-vitro fertilization from 29% (eggs in a petri dish...) up to 88%. And genetic engineers are close to identifying the codes for various diseases. But after hearing the couples (and doctor's) real-life stories, it's sad to think that many delightful human peculiarities might disappear, when perfect people walk the earth.

A group of men are in search of the meaning to life but get caught in a web spun by Santa Flakey therapist Deirdre.

A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER is the story of a small-time gangster (Dick Richardson) writing his journal in a Mendocino, California, farmhouse, as he awaits a hit man who is coming to kill him. In this first part of a trilogy, realities continue to shift between the story, and the actual making of the film, as seen through unscripted scenes, real-life narrations by lead actors, and the real relationship that developed on the set between Richardson and the actress (Carolyn Zaremba) who played his girlfriend. A bumbling, local librarian (played by Ed Nylund) is mistaken for the "killer" and plays along with the game.

BLUES FOR THE AVATAR is a comedy about two oddball characters, a man Cheyenne, and a woman, Mary Jane, caught in the circumstances of being unwanted guests in other people's lives. His propensity for women has landed him in the middle of a horrendous breakup, while her quest for self-discovery leads her into what might be direct contact with an avatar ('...a spiritual being sent to earth to teach us enlightenment'). Their friends appear throughout the film, offering real-life stories of irony, outrageousness, and late 20th century angst.

Emerald Cities, completing the trilogy, is a story about a young woman who runs off from her Death Valley home to seek her fortune. Her drunken dad still stuck in his Santa suit from the local Christmas pagent, follows and soon comes in contact with the "new dark ages" of 1984. Juxtapositions of "on-the street" interviews (by Willie Boy Walker), punk performances by bands Flipper and The Mutants, TV shows of past-life hypnotism and nuclear destruction, and a crazed ex-con all finally intermix with the characters' own sagas.

THE HIGDEN MAN is a story about two small-town grifters trying to convince Heber Springs, Arkansas landowners to sell their lakefront property, running the story that the local dam will soon raise the water level and flood surrounding property.

A new-age drifter Brother Wiley comes to town to start a religion called Sol-Luna. Because he can walk the walk he recruits a make-shift disciple in Brother Wayne through the disciples encounters with townspeople we see stories of pain, triumph, and redemption and discover that we are "All our own Messiahs"!

When a San Francisco librarian decided to produce a filmed remake of the Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein musical Show Boat, a large number of actors and aspiring performers auditioned. The auditions, which included performances by nudists, tap-dancing nuns, and turtles were later televised, and this film includes that footage as well as interviews with the performers.

"MORGAN’S CAKE is the story of a young man (Morgan Schmidt-Feng) about to turn 18, and all the problems that are set to befall him. His girlfriend is pregnant, he’s just lost his job, his mother is deserting him for a career move to New York City, and his divorced dad (Willie Boy Walker) can barely afford the small office space in which they live. Morgan’s most pressing problem is whether or not to register for the draft, and Walker, in a bravura performance, shares a real-life story of how he avoided military service in the late 1960’s. After a series of fateful encounters, Morgan finally saves his sanity by baking a cake." (from Fandor.com)

LONELINESS IS SOUL features two young women, Meeka and Jessica who rent an Oakland apartment where an itinerate musician occasionally crashes. His presence in the household acts like a truth serum, somehow suddenly prompting everyone, including a strange "gift-giver" and prying landlord to tell their strangest real-life stories. His own hilarious tale about taking magic mushrooms on the beach helps convince the viewer that the only really "safe" path in life is to go directly for one's dream "full out," holding nothing back.

A single mother (Jody Esther) forms a bond beyond death with her young daughter in a coastal Washington town. Made as an homage to Jean Cocteau's Orphée (1950).

TEARS OF BANKERS follows the mortgage meltdown of Mr. Barry Norman's B&B, owned and operated by himself and his wife Brittany (Brittany Hannah) in the small town of Rome, Georgia. At the beginning, Norman states his distain for bankers; they will rule soon on his loan and prospects for the future ('ten words that decides basically the rest of my life'). Since Norman has kept his present financial problems secret from Brittany, she's remained confused by her husband's increasingly erratic behavior. As the loan deadline approaches, Norman wonders if he will again lose a house AND a wife (his second) to the machinations of the banking industry. Only a miracle can save him, as the money men move in for the kill.

14 stories on people of all walks of life

When a corporate movie chain invades Brunswick, Maine, tries to put the tiny Eveningstar Cinema (100 seats) out of business, they are confronted by a secret and fervent, mallet-wielding Women-Only Croquet Club, which protests them at every turn.

Chetzemoka's Curse is about a young, twenty-something woman, Maya (Maya Berthoud), who is haunted by the memory of her first love and her subsequent betrayal. She still feels the pain, works to exorcise it as she wiles away her life as a maid in a small town hotel. But her road to health seems to include passing the bad karma along. She encourages an older married man to run off with her and betray his wife and kids. Betrayal is in the air. Even an itinerant street musician sings about his infidelity. Bottom line, he says, is that he betrayed himself.

Thrown out of his crash pad after traveling the West Coast, a young man, David, hits the streets without money or direction. Fortunately a little girl, points him to a rooftop where other homeless people have crashed.

A Type-A woman, Maya, hitchhikes her way through Death Valley after a fatal car crash. She is frustrated while waiting for her car to be repaired, she talks to the town's many residents (mostly childless women and a roaming ghost named Robbie). Finally she mellows and decides to stay there for eternity.

The old west is certainly dead, but Colorado pack burro racers don't know it yet. Everett Winfield - played by five-time world champion burro racer Curtis Imrie - runs and breeds his own stock. But all is not well at the ranch. When a bank officer refuses him a home loan, Winfield unwisely flaunts the prospects of winning $5000 at an upcoming race as his 'employment record.' Of course it's no dice. As options narrow, his current girlfriend offers to share her homestead. But not one to relinquish his free-range freedoms, Winfield instead becomes involved with a young rodeo queen half his age, to the chagrin of his same-age niece. As morals slip, and the financial noose tightens, Winfield drifts toward setting things right, old-west style.