Over the next four days, Oklahoma’s very own deadCenter Film Festival will be taking place to celebrate film in all its forms and the people who create it. It is the 25th anniversary of the festival, a number any attendee is sure to remember.
deadCenter Film Festival is one of 27 festivals in which filmmakers can qualify for the three short film categories at the Academy Awards. These categories are live action short, documentary short, and animated short. The first group of short films shown on night one, June 11, was an opportunity to highlight Oklahoma films. For day one of the festival, these are one-sentence reviews of those ten short films.
Palate Cleanser (2024) dir. Tori Lane Ross
…is a new addition in a long line of media about the inherent horror of healthcare inequality; a startling portrayal of how far one would go to secure medical care for a loved one.
The Daydream After Death (2024) dir. Ethan Holmes
…presents an intriguing premise about those first few minutes after death and what the brain experiences, but the delivery of the concept was dull and failed to live up to the concept.
Thin Places (2024) dir. Brit Hensel
…dives into the age-old question of whether love triumphs over death, offering the alternate perspective that perhaps love triumphs through death.
Slow Disco (2025) dir. Lauren Bumgarner
…showcases, through the music of St. Vincent and dance, that the greatest thing one can be in this world is authentically themselves.
The Thrilling Adventures of Amos Waters (2024) dir. Ella Janes
…is a stunning portrait of the cyclical nature of addiction and how it affects those we love, no matter how young they are.
Redbird (Totsu) [2024] dir. Emma Barrow
…is an essential portrayal of the danger Indigenous children face of being ripped from their communities and forced into white families.
Waiting On You… (2024) dir. Clarissa Cozzoni
…surprises the audience with its sincerity and charm, highlighting the intersection of dance and ASL, an underrepresented angle.
Missing You (2024) dir. Malu Andrade
…has great potential to pull at the heartstrings, but the acting performances fell flat and the timeline was momentarily confusing.
The Fall (2025) dir. Sayla Young Thompson
…contains great cinematography and tension, but falls just short of a true thriller or survival short that pulls the audience in.
A Film About Toby (2024) dir. Scotty Strout
…is a hilarious meta-comedy about the ridiculousness of student films, unafraid to laugh at itself and refusing to take itself seriously.
For in-depth reviews of both short and feature-length films, interviews with filmmakers, and overall coverage of the 25th Annual deadCenter Film Festival, keep an eye out for the July edition of the Oklahoma Observer.
