The Animal House 

Welcome to a special episode of the Incluvie Movie Highlights. This summer we held the Incluvie Short Film Festival. The film festival discovers and brings to light some outstanding short films starring main characters from diverse backgrounds, who are often overlooked in Hollywood. The filmmakers and actors from the 3 winning films came in and talked about their process and what it was like to make the film.

Stand and Deliver is an inspirational classic from 1988 starring Edward James Olmos as Jaime Escalante, and his class of rag tag students in East Los Angeles. It’s the story of how a new teacher shows a motley group of students in the inner city with backgrounds as gang members, dishwashers, and mechanics — the power of self-determination. He teaches the teenagers to believe in themselves through algebra and calculus.

The short documentary and second place winner of the Incluvie Short Film Festival, Gender Outlaw: A Bodysurfing Story, challenges any simplistic understanding of trans people.

Spotlighting the legacy of the legendary Raymond Lewis through the love of a devoted daughter.

While prioritizing production value over substance, Flood depicts an emotionally taut family drama set during the farmland flooding of the Franco-Dutch war.

There is no aspect of this film that falls short, except perhaps in minor ways.