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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.

“Ad Astra” is a film that possesses similar beats to sci-fi classics, falling into the realm of cinematic hypnotism, and pulling us in with its mysteriously intoxicating identity.

Despite the film’s efforts to reframe its heroine with modern complexity, a certain emotional distance lingers.

The new biopic 'Elvis' highlights the beginning and end of the career of this rock and roll legend. The audience is taken on this journey knowing the tragic ending but not so much about what led him there. A large topic of discussion is the influences on Elvis that made him who he was as a singer, musician, and performer, which were blues, gospel, and country. Many of the songs that rose him to fame were songs by Black artists he heard growing up in primarily Black settings.

While the film didn’t hit me as emotionally as I wanted it to, I still enjoyed it. I simply wish there was a little more, particularly with the world building.

Many have interpreted Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon as a dream sequence, but what if the repetitive scenes we are given are not dreams but, a time loop.