Junk Dump Film Festival 2026: Day Two

Museum of the Moving Image and Junk Dump Magazine will present Junk Dump’s sixth annual short film festival. Junk Dump Magazine is a not-for-profit arts organization that produces a semi-annual print publication and events like Junk Dump Film Festival, which highlights emerging and underrepresented filmmakers working at the intersection of video art and storytelling. The festival presents a curated program of narrative, animated, and experimental short films made by artists using unique processes to tell singular and engaging stories. 

This year’s selection was guest judged and curated by two New York–based filmmakers. Caroline Mariko Stucky (she/they) is an award-winning Swiss-Japanese cinematographer, and the founder and creative director of CM8 Productions, a film and video production company specializing in independent films, music videos, and fashion films. Sidney Rose White is a Texas-born actress, model, and illustrator based in New York City. She can be seen in Wes and Kyra, HULU’s Red Is the Color of Beauty, Awesome, and Schon! Magazine’s Sheltering with You.

Day Two programming will include a selection of nine experimental and animated shorts. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

Screening run time approx. 80 mins. 

Featuring: 

Through the Fog
Dir. William Bishop. 2026, 8 mins. U.S. 

Littlefish
Dir. Yuhyeon Byun. 2025, 9 mins. Czechia/U.S. A young woman relies on a magical rybička with the ability to answer any question to navigate her unresolved feelings for a man she once shared an intense connection with. 

The Frame
Dir. Caroline Johnson. 2025, 3 mins. U.S. How do you depict the undepictable? The frame: a container. a boundary. a moment. Is it a unit of time or space—or of both? The existence of a frame necessarily implies something within, and consequently something outside. The Frame is an exploration of spatial and temporal boundaries through the lens of paintings of the late Renaissance, when artists wrestled with how to portray that which, by definition, cannot be portrayed. 

Midnight Service
Dir. Kaylee Smith. 2025, 07 mins. U.S. On an evening exploring the liminal spaces of small-town Heber City, Utah, a girl lurks in the shadows, confronting her estranged contention with the religious culture. 

Sunset Smudge
Dir. Jesse LoCascio. 2025, 8 mins. U.S., Amidst a sweltering heat wave, a young woman grapples with the slow decay and inevitable demise of her once beautiful surroundings. 

Let us see you again – تاني نش و ف ك خلينا
Dir Lobna Morsi and Herlinde Raeman. 2026, 18 mins. Belgium. Let Us See You Again explores homecoming not as a destination, but as a journey between memory and present reality, belonging and transition. It is a tender, intergenerational epic about resilience, negotiation, and the continuous act of becoming. What do you see and hear in the quiet margins of a space when home is shaped by distance or time? How do you make room for a retour that is not merely a welcome, but also a farewell? 

Beneath the Concrete, the Forest 
Dir. Lev Omelchenko. 2026, 12 mins U.S. A short experimental documentary that takes us inside an ongoing struggle in the city of Atlanta, GA, between two sides to determine the future of Weelaunee, the biggest contiguous urban forest in the country. 

Atrium, or The Girl Who Painted Hats and Met the Sky
Dir. Zoe Napurano. 2026, 06 mins. U.S. A young hat painter dreams of a strange lady. 

Why Look at Animals 
Dir. Maya Perry. 2019, 8 mins. U.S. 

Lo Sguardo (The Gaze)
Dir. Gloria Zingales. 2024, 10 mins. U.S. When the news of an encroaching fire and an unsettling onlooker interrupt a night amongst friends, Sole—a young Italian woman—must return home alone. On her journey, Sole faces dangers that blur the line between reality and her own paranoia. Lo Sguardo is a short giallo thriller about the male gaze and its psychological effects on women.

Tickets: $17.50 / $12 senior and students / $10 youth / $7 MoMI members. There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. 

Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission.