STRAW 2025: A Mother’s Silence Was Louder Than a Siren
A haunting look at grief, survival, and a mother’s quiet collapse in a world that never gave her room to fall.

A haunting look at grief, survival, and a mother’s quiet collapse in a world that never gave her room to fall.
This emotional, frightening, and dreamlike story examines the ways actresses are exploited in the name of art.
Years before Mexican director, Alfonso Cuaron, was winning Academy Awards for movies like Gravity (2013) and Roma(2018), he directed a small, intimate film about two best friends who decide to embark on an improvised road trip to spend time with an older, attractive woman who miraculously agrees to go with them. Y tu Mamá También is a deep journey into the raw sexuality and friendship of the young protagonists, as well as a subtle social and political commentary on Mexico at the time.
The film blends reality and the supernatural world together, leaving the viewer unsure of what’s real and what’s merely a figment of Michael’s agitated imagination.
“Trust your gut" is one of the most common pieces of advice you’ll receive during your lifetime. And as a person inclined to trust my intuition above all else, it’s the most common advice I find myself giving in real life and in my online socialising. But what happens when your gut is trying to warn you that something is seriously wrong without you being able to identify what triggered it in the first place? How can you act on a feeling or make it go away when you don’t have a clue about what could be wrong? How can you trust your intuition when you don’t know what makes it act out in the first place?
Miles Morales learns to be his own hero as he takes on the well loved mantle of Spider-Man in a multiverse of Spider-People.