Crush It All Weekend Long

To properly fall in love with the Crush, we highly recommend staying until Monday.

The Walla Walla Movie Crush is programmed thematically, comprised of short films packaged in hour-long blocks.  In each block, you’re likely to find a mix of animation, live-action, documentary, and music video.  

Blocks run 45 - 50 minutes total, with a few minutes leftover to enjoy conversation with visiting filmmakers (moderated by Movie Crush curator Warren Etheredge), transition between blocks, and refill your wine glass.

IMPORTANT: Please note that all content is unrated and may not be suitable for younger viewers.

⭐ = member of filmmaking team in attendance

❤️ = CrushFam (work has been shown at a previous Movie Crush and/or previously served as a Crush juror)

🏆 = 2021 Movie Crush award finalist

SCHEDULE OF FILMS

FRIDAY, JULY 9 | 6PM-10PM

6:00 PM: STOP. LOSS.
Presented by The Tronsrue Family Foundation

Just because a war ends doesn’t mean the suffering has. Here, three tales of survival, three vets struggling with the aftermath of their service - some more successfully than others. Whether wrangling bees, enduring a trip to the bodega or making a small world spin round and round, these women and men are trying to put their pasts behind them.

  • CARVING JOY (d. Shane Matthews, Joe Ventura)

  • MY WAR (d. Jojo Erholtz)

  • ERIC AND THE BEES (d. Erin Brethauer, Tim Hussin)

7:00 PM: BACK TO NORMAL?
Presented by Bill & Bonnie Szuch

As states and schools reopen, it is tempting to think we are returning to a time that once was; though, more likely, we will never be the same. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t learned from our shared pandemic experience. If these shorts teach us anything, it’s that compassion may just be our greatest cure.

  • EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW TO SURVIVE COVID 19… (d. Evan Gorski, Michael Dougherty)

  • INVISIBLE MONSTERS AND TOMATO SOUP (d. Stevie Borrello, Marcie LaCerte, Meghan McDonough)

  • FERTILE (d. Bianca Poletti) ❤️

  • THIS FOG (d. Jeff Stern)

  • THE WAIT (d. Nolt Vulthisak)

  • THE TIME TO HEAL (d. Chris Baron) ⭐

  • FOR WHEN IT’S TIME (d. Nick Ball)

  • SUCH A SHITTY TIME (d. Avra Fox-Lerner) ⭐🏆

8:00 PM: CRUEL & USUAL
Presented by Unincarcerated Productions

America’s penal system is broken… though some might argue it’s inhumane by design. These four cellblock docs offer an overview of injustices - from solitary confinement to parole boards to artful escape to harsh, post-prison realities. Justice may be blind, but we have no such excuse.

  • THE BOX (d. James Burns, Shal Ngo) ⭐🏆

  • THE JOY OF PAINTING WITH BOB ROSS & BANKSY (d. Unknown)

  • THE INTERVIEW (d. Jon Miller, Zach Russo) 🏆

  • EDWIN (d. Ya’Ke Smith) ❤️

9:00 PM: THE U.S. INTREPID
Presented by The Touring Co.

Rugged individualism: it ain’t what it used to be. Still, there are a collection of characters, both real and imagined, who represent a very American “ideal.” From the first drag prez to the youngest karate Hall-of-Famer, from Charles Bukowski to Marcel Belafontaine, these men, women, and probes step boldly from the frozen tundra to the furthest reaches of space, proving that nothing can stop those willing to blaze their own trails.

  • THE BEAUTY PRESIDENT (d. Whitney Skauge) ❤️

  • ICEBOUND (d. Drew Christie) ❤️⭐🏆

  • GOLDEN AGE KARATE (d. Sindha Agha)

  • CASSINI (d. Nate Milton) ❤️🏆

  • DEFLATED (d. Steve Collins)

  • ODD DUCK (d. Bill Plympton) ❤️

  • ONLY IN TOLEDO (d. Dan Lior)

  • MORNING MARCEL (d. DeMorge Brown) ❤️⭐🏆

  • NO LEADERS PLEASE (d. Joan Gratz) ❤️⭐🏆

SATurday, JULY 10 | 9AM-10PM

9:00 AM: LITTLE WATTS
Presented by Walla Walla Valley Honda

Whether you’re a kid or just a grown-up who remembers being one, you’ll enjoy these cartoons, documentaries and live-action shorts that capture the feelings and flailings of youth. From a girl’s first trip to the concert hall to three girls’ umpteenth mountain bike ride, from a grandparent’s tale of how to be a dragon to an elephant’s lessons in how to be a mom, these are stories fit and fun for all ages.

  • KENYA’S SYMPHONY (d. Carlos Douglas, Jr.)

  • COOL CRIMINAL (d. Aaron Bourget) ❤️⭐

  • RENAIDANCE (d. Zhike Yang, Wenjie Wu, Han Chen Chang)

  • GIRLS GOTTA EAT DIRT (d. Peter J. Vogt, Elliot Wilkinson-Ray, Delilah Cupp)

  • TULIP (d. Andrea Love, Phoebe Wall)

  • SIT STILL (d. Vincent René-Lortie)

  • FALLEN (d. Mia Blissett) ⭐

  • BANANAS GIRL (d. Shayna Connelly) ❤️

  • BANANA SPLIT (d. Andrea Love)

  • SHABA (d. Ami Vitale) 🏆

  • BARRY THE BEARABLE BEAR (d. John Osebold) ⭐

11:00 AM: HEAD START PROGRAM
Presented by University of Washington Department of Cinema & Media Studies

Malcolm Gladwell suggests it takes 10,000 hours to master any skill. These young moviemakers are already putting in the time creating shorts that portend brilliant careers. Each director is under the age of 18; each vision belies their youth.

  • IT’S NOT A HAPPY ENDING (d. Sasha Spiegel) 🏆

  • CEREAL (d. Dusan Brown) 🏆

  • DRIVE (d. Zelda Adams) ❤️

  • INSTINCT (d. Yinuo Wei) 🏆

  • DEJA VU (d. Annaka Moreland) ⭐

  • LOOK GOOD GAME GOOD (d. Taeho Choe)

  • NO FAN OF ANDY (d. Kai Tomizawa) 🏆

  • SOPHIE AND JACOB (d. Max Shoham) 🏆

  • THE REPORT (d. Sawyer Ensor-McDermott, Valeria Sanchez) ⭐

12:00 PM: BREAKING DAD

Anyone can father a child, but being a *good* dad takes a whole other layer of commitment and love. The quartet of fathers here — the shrink, the step-dad, the hunter and the ecdysiast-enthusiast — represent very different levels of parenting success.

  • DAVID (d. Zach Woods)

  • IRIS (d. AJ Marson, Kyle McFadden) ⭐🏆

  • CIERVO (d. Pilar Garcia-Fernandezesma)

  • IN FRANCE, MICHELLE IS A MAN’S NAME (d. Em Weinstein) 🏆

1:00 PM: WOMEN’S RITES

For more than fifty years, our government has been unable to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. (Of course, we’re pretty sure Congress has never passed the Bechdel Test.) Still, women-identifying individuals routinely face challenges men rarely consider. Here, we share intimate stories from the bedroom to the bathroom to the boardroom, from the weekend getaway in search of peace to the generational commitment in search of authenticity.

  • HE’S THE ONE (d. Jessie Kahnweiler) 🏆

  • SALES PER HOUR (d. Michelle Uranowitz, Daniel Jaffe)

  • LADIES ROOM (d. Alex Behles, Christine Santora)

  • THE RITUAL TO BEAUTY (d. Shenny de Los Angeles, Maria Marrone)

  • RETREAT (d. Jessie Kahnweiler)

  • DOUBLESPEAK (d. Hazel McKibbin) 🏆

  • BRIDGE POEM (d. Lucy Walker) ❤️

2:00 PM: FRINGE BENEFITS?

Do I belong? It’s not unusual to question where we fit in communities large, small, geographic, cultural, identity- or tolerance-based. It’s tough feeling like you don’t quite fit in, but perhaps there are also some positives to finding yourself on the outside looking in and looking on.

  • TRAMMEL (d. Christopher Bell)

  • VICKY & XINGYU (d. Eli Ayres, Shelby Chan, Yuyuan Chen, Georgina Chiou, Lexie Chu, Thomas Edgar-McNerney, Vicky Xingyu Gu, Lucy Hirschfeld, Tia Kemp, Mariam Khayat, Ruine Pan, Julianna Pantoja, Nia Sallie, Jose Guadalupe Sanchez III, Sonya Yang)

  • ALONE OUT HERE (d. Luke Cornish) 

  • POTLUCK (d. Will Dennis) ❤️

  • LAST STOP FOR LOST PROPERTY (d. Vicente Cueto)

3:00 PM: DATA BE NATURE

Perhaps our phones are now smarter than we are? As technology improves, it would seem we devolve, sucked deeper and deeper — blank stares into busy screens. Is it wiser to succumb to Big Data or return to Nature? I don’t know, but… iCare. Don’t you?

  • FOREVER (d. Mitch McGlocklin) ⭐🏆

  • LOVE FACTORY (d. David Borenstein)

  • SUPERCOLLIDER (d. Sean Pecknold) ❤️

  • FORGETTING NATURE (d. Ross Harrison)

  • ONE STAR REVIEWS: NATIONAL PARKS (d. Alex Massey)

  • NAVEL GAZERS (d. Kimmy Gatewood) ❤️⭐

4:00 PM: GOOD GRIEF

Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief always end in acceptance. How quickly we get there is what separates us oh-so-very-humans. Here, sons, daughters, grandkids, spouses, singers, animators, filmmakers, and poets come to terms with what comes after we choose to give over to the inevitable. In loss, we may still discover joy.

  • LETTER TO MY BODY (d. Elyse Kelly) ❤️

  • RASPBERRY (d. Julian Doan)

  • AGING (d. Jingqi Zhang)

  • UNTIL (d. Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick)

  • JUNG & RESTLESS (d. Joanna Priestley) ⭐

  • SAD UKULELE (d. Scout Durwood) ❤️⭐

  • GRAB MY HAND: A LETTER TO MY DAD (d. Camrus Johnson, Pedro Piccinini)

7:00 PM: LOVE IS A DRUG
Presented by Walla Walla Cannabis Company

Romance is addictive — always exhilarating, sometimes destructive, rarely simple. The fact that the high is often fleeting is what makes it so powerful, whether you’re woman, man, moth, monster, priest, or… Shia LaBeouf.

  • I CAN’T LIE (d. Jayla Kai)

  • WICHITA (d. Sergine Dumais) ⭐

  • MOTHBOY (d. Lyanne Rodriguez)

  • LOVE ME LIKE YOU HATE ME (d. Luke Turner)

  • HURLEY WALDRIP’S BIG CATCH (d. Patrick Neary) ❤️⭐

  • NICHOLS CANYON ROAD (d. Miranda July)

  • NO SONG WITHOUT YOU (d. Holly Warburton)

  • THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES (d. Lloyd Cramer, Scott Chestnut)

8:00 PM: RE. CREATION

Express yourself, if you dare. Creativity is high-risk/high-reward venture. Here, a gallery of intense innovators reveal the challenges of making work without going mad. From a voracious animator, to a limber spray-painter, from an activist photographer to an addictive Phil Collins, their stories remind us there is a direct correlation between Art and vulnerability.

  • THE TYPEWRITER (d. Ariel Avissar)

  • CRUMPLED TRUTHS (d. Aaron Bourget) ❤️⭐

  • THE FEAST (d. Trent Shy)

  • LA PLUME & LE PAPIER (d. Jacob Patrick)

  • IN THE AIR TONIGHT (d. Andrew Norman Wilson)

  • TRAVON (d. Nate Milton) ❤️

  • LEGACY (d. Brandon Haynes, Parker Foster)

  • NIGHT (d. Marissa Liu)

  • FRIDA (d. Laura Tejero Nuñez)

  • CONVERSATIONS WITH A WHALE (d. Anna Samo) ❤️🏆

  • PRESENT IMPERFECT (d. Kyle Stebbin)

9:00 PM: ADULTING

Sorry, Peter Pan, like it or not, you have to grow up. Doesn’t matter if you peaked in high school, sorely miss home, wish others spoke your language or teach others your own: denial is a poor substitute for maturation. Embrace responsibility as you age though, and counter-intuitively, you just might find yourself feeling liberated.

  • CLOSE TIES TO HOME COUNTRY (d. Akanksha Cruczynski) ⭐🏆

  • H.A.G.S. (d. Sean Wang) ❤️

  • LEARNING TAGALOG WITH KAYLA (d. Kayla Abuda Galang)

  • SOMEONE ELSE’S PROBLEM (d. Kimberly Stuckwisch)

  • PLAISIR (d. Molly Gillis) 🏆

sunDAY, JULY 11 | 12pM-5PM & 8pm-9PM

12:00 PM: GOOD SPORTS

The games people play have the power to improve the players. Competition with others can build community; competition with oneself can build esteem. Here, boxers, bowlers and ‘boarders remind what’s possible if we just, yup, do it.

  • TEAM MERYLAND (d. Gabriel Guarano)

  • RIGHT UP OUR ALLEY (d. Jay Christensen, Anthony Jaska)

  • MOVING MEDITATION (d. Joseph Fletcher)

  • YOU CAN’T STOP US (d. Oscar Hudson)

  • YOU AND THE THING THAT YOU LOVE (d. Nicholas Maher)

1:00 PM: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Hurry, hurry! Step right up and see the wild animals… before they forever disappear! Behind this curtain, we have a family turtle and an endangered tortoise. In this tank, all sorts of marine life, from crabs to coral. Over here, creepy-crawlies from wall-to-wallies. And, don’t forget the rabbit desperately seeking a new line of work. Right this way, if you dare!

  • CONNECTED (CRABS) (d. Ivan Hurzeler) ⭐

  • SNOWY (d. Kaitlyn Schwalje, Alex Wolf Lewis)

  • SAVE RALPH (d. Spencer Susser)

  • CONNECTED (FISH) (d. Ivan Hurzeler) ⭐

  • YORUGA (d. Federico Torrado Tobon)

  • BUG FARM (d. Lydia Cornett)

  • CONNECTED (CORAL) (d. Ivan Hurzeler) ⭐

  • LIFE BELOW WATER (d. Brian Schulz)

2:00 PM: BORDER PATROL

Borders divide people in many senses. Some may say they exist for good reason, others might argue the opposite on shaky grounds. Either way, these divisions, which can feel arbitrary, can often turn deadly. Here, four stories — two fact, two fiction — that urge us to reconsider the costs of our choices, from both sides.

  • SINCE YOU ARRIVED, MY HEART STOPPED BELONGING TO ME (d. Erin Semine Kökdil) ⭐🏆

  • BOUNDARIES (d. Christopher Bell)

  • ÁGUILAS (d. Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, Maite Zubiaurre)

  • BORDER (d. Shu Zhu, Ino Yang Popper)

3:00 PM: MOMMIES DEAREST

Motherhood is rife with misconceptions, figurative and literal. Still, there’s no greater nor more difficult a gig than giving and nurturing life. Here, neighbors shout the joys of pregnancy while others bemoan difficulties conceiving. Sons speak of their mothers’ loves while daughters sing of their roles in long, generational chains.

  • SIX FEET AWAY AND PREGNANT (d. Laura Clery) 

  • TEST — THE IVF FILM (d. Courtney Lamb) ⭐🏆

  • ORIGIN STORY (d. Aaron Bourget) ❤️⭐

  • MY MOM IN QUARANTINE — SPRING EDITION (d. Joshua Seftel) ❤️

    GODSPEED (d. Sade Abiodun) ⭐

  • I DON’T WANT TO HOLD UR BABY (d. Scout Durwood) ❤️⭐

  • AIDA (IN BETWEEN)  (d. Christopher W Graham) ⭐🏆

4:00 PM: MELA-NATION
Presented by Diana Knauf & Björn Levidow

Black Joy. Black Pride. Black Pain. Experiences of African-American lives are diverse, not monolithic. An hour can’t do justice, nor bring it, but it’s a start. Here, we share a broad range of tales tinged with tragedies and triumphs and all of life’s bumps and beauty between, from abominable ship hulls to exquisite concert halls and all those who have filled either.

  • BRUISER (d. Miles Warren)

  • RESPEK (d. Kamari Bright)

  • BODIES (d. Sade Abiodun) ⭐

  • “ENOUGH” (d. Caleb Slain) ⭐

  • 3 BROTHERS (d. Spike Lee) ❤️

  • WADE IN THE WATER (d. David Bianchi) 

  • AN EXCERPT OF RESILIENCE (d. D.K. Pan)

  • A CONCERTO IS A CONVERSATION (d. Ben Proudfoot, Kris Bowers) ❤️🏆

7:00 PM: Walla Walla Movie Crush Award Ceremony

Like good parents with their children, we love all of the movies we program equally. That’s why we have called upon multiple juries comprised of Oscar®-winners, nominees, cult heroes, and up-and-coming superstars to select this year’s best shorts. The presentation is a wildly entertaining, semi-formal celebration of talent and perseverance.

Awards will be announced for Best Narrative, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Best Youth Short, Best Screenplay, and Best Performance. Additionally, Warren will proclaim the winner of the Curator’s Choice Award as well as the winner of our first Short Script competition, and the dedicated movie-lovers who watched every single short this weekend (aka The Iron Ass Jury) will determine the 2021 Audience Award.