What’s your trigger? We all have one. That one topic that whenever portrayed in film or described in stories instantly awakens intense emotions within you. From grieving parents to sacrifices of love and intimate interviews, these are the films that will have you weeping like the man cutting onions at the world’s busiest burger joint, screaming at the screen with rage or dizzy with despair.

Nominees

Play
Action Ilya Naishuller

Biting Elbows (Bad Motherf*cker)

An office escape turns into first-person action insanity in this music video from Russian punk rock band, Biting Elbows

Play
Drama Yolanda Ramke & Ben Howling

Cargo

**CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE** - Stranded in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, a man sets in motion an unlikely plan to protect the precious cargo he carries: his infant daughter

Play
Drama Andrew Renzi

Karaoke!

On a night out in New York City, a young man avoids his problems.

Play
Drama Linsey Stewart & Dane Clark

Margo Lily

A couple is determined to plant a tree in the middle of winter following the loss of their child.

Play
Documentary TJ Martin & Dan Lindsay

My Favorite Picture of You

Oscar-winners TJ Martin & Dan Lindsay direct a short tearjerker about TJ's grandparents as they explore memories of youth and struggle with age.

Play
Sci-Fi Jesse Atlas

RECORD/PLAY

War, fate, and a broken walkman transcend space and time in this sci-fi love story.

Play
Drama Jonathan Ng

Requiem For Romance

In this "crouching love, hidden breakup" story, inspired by 50's Shanghai water ink animation & kung fu films, themes of distance, tradition, art and longing dominate a telephonic conversation.

Play
Documentary Matan Rochlitz & Ivo Gormley

The Runners

Pounding the tarmac through the seasons, a band of runners are brazenly challenged with intimate questions as they pace their routes.

Play
Poem Collaborative

To This Day

An internet collaborative project, animators and motion artists brought their unique styles to 20 second segments of a Shane Koyczan poem in order to speak out against bullying.

Play
Documentary Zack Conkle

Wright's Law

Zany and unpredictable, Jeffrey Wright is loved by his physics students at Louisville Male High School. But, beyond teaching them how the world works, it’s his personal life that inspires them to be better people.

Honorable Mention

Few films this past year pushed as many boundaries as Noah—social, technical, legal. It captures the lonely sense of internet-feuled isolation that we’re all growing uncomfortably familiar with and does it all entirely from the perspective of a computer screen. It’s a film that would have undoubtedly made the nominees list if only it had not run amuck of its many copyright issues and been pulled offline. But in a way, it only seems right that it was here one moment for us to enjoy, then Snapchatted out of existence.

Play
Experimental Walter Woodman & Patrick Cederberg
ma

Noah

In a story that plays out entirely on a teenager's computer screen, Noah follows its eponymous protagonist as his relationship takes a rapid turn for the worse in this fascinating study of behavior (and romance) in the internet age. NSFW