OFF 2026 - Program
Screening begins at 7:00pm on September 23 at the Geneva Megaplex All 10 films play in all auditoriums.
Film Lineup (Official Order)
Relationship to Patient
Suction (Q&A in Auditorium 8)
Baggage
Dear Pelican (Q&A in Auditorium 9)
I Hid My Heart Inside My Head (Q&A in Auditorium 8)
Intermission: 15 minutes
A Love Letter to My Parents (Q&A in Auditorium 8)
Moderator (Q&A in Auditorium 9)
Running Late
Do Not Watch (Q&A in Auditorium 9)
And The Moon Bloomed
Around 9:15pm, join us in Auditorium 8 for a brief award ceremony, where three filmmakers will each receive a $1,000 prize.
About the Films and Filmmakers
Listed in screening order. Synopses, biographies, and statements provided by the filmmakers.
Relationship to Patient
Directed by Caroline Creaghead
A woman arrives at the hospital to visit the man she's dating, but in navigating her way to his bedside she begins to question whether she really belongs there.
About the Director Caroline Creaghead is an independent filmmaker who makes comedies as dark as life. She wrote, directed, and produced the short film Relationship to Patient, which premiered at Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2024 and went on to win awards including Best Actress at Brussels Short Film Festival (awarded to Eleanore Pienta in the International Competition), Best Director at Cindependent, and Short of the Week's Best of 2024 Audience Choice Award. Creaghead won Best Pitch at BendFilm: Basecamp in 2024. She is also an alum of the Short to Feature Lab.
Previously, Creaghead produced the short films FLEX (Outfest, 2020) and Unicorn (Tribeca, 2022), both directed by Matt Porter and written by and starring Charles Gould. Her background is in comedy producing, having curated stand-up for Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), IFC, 92nd Street Y, The Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, and Janelle James Comedy Festival in New York City. She began her career working with Peabody Award-winning teams at The Colbert Report and Onion News Network.
Suction
Directed by KoDie King Romero Q&A in Auditorium 8
A young woman trying to make a perfect home is pitted against a demonic vacuum hell bent on tearing her and her world apart.
About the Director KoDie Romero grew up in Utah and has worked in the film industry there for several years. A longtime fan of horror, Suction is the perfect piece to show off his taste and skills as a director. Romero seeks to create films with real truth and feeling, but that are also a lot of fun to watch, as well as to create.
Baggage
Directed by Lucy Davidson
Three girlfriends check in their baggage at the airport, but one is carrying a little more than the others. As they travel along the conveyor belt to security, can she hide what's inside?
About the Director Lucy Davidson is an Australian stop-motion animation director. In 2022 she worked on Adam Elliot's latest feature film Memoir of a Snail (Annecy Crystal Award Winner 2024). Following this success, she was selected by Aardman Animation Studios Academy to direct her short film Baggage.
Dear Pelican
Directed by John Meier Q&A in Auditorium 9
In the spring of 2023, thousands of American White Pelicans were forced to abandon their nesting grounds on Gunnison Island as the receding waters of the Great Salt Lake exposed them to new dangers. A year later, only a fraction have returned, while others search for new refuge.
Now, a group of students from Emerson Elementary is bringing their voices to the Utah State Capitol, using poetry to share the story of the pelicans, symbols of resilience in a changing landscape. Through their words, they honor these majestic birds and inspire action to protect the lake they call home.
About the Director John Meier is an Emmy Award-winning documentarian who has earned accolades for producing roles on "This is Utah" on PBS Utah. His debut producing role on "Llama Nation" achieved acclaim at national film festivals, winning the Audience Choice Award at the Omaha Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Utah Film Festival. Passionate about the environment, John employs storytelling to reconnect people with their surroundings.
Director's Statement My goal for this film and my future projects is to inspire a deeper connection between individuals and the natural world. I hope to foster a greater appreciation for Great Salt Lake and our environment at this time of imperiled waters and ecosystem collapse.
I Hid My Heart Inside My Head
Directed by Luis Fernando Puente Salt Lake City, Utah Q&A in Auditorium 8
An LDS man wrestles with his faith as he comes to terms with his wife's inevitable death; tensions arise when the men of his congregation arrive to give a healing blessing to the frail and sickly woman.
About the Director Born in Monterrey, Mexico and emigrated to the US during his childhood, Luis Fernando Puente studied Media Arts at Brigham Young University, where he learned to develop his voice as a filmmaker. He focuses on the experiences of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. His recent work includes I Have No Tears, and I Must Cry, which was part of the official selection for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and El Moño, which he co-directed with Lizde Arias, and was a Golden Gate Award winner at the San Francisco International Film Festival. He is currently developing his first feature film along with a few other short films.
A Love Letter to My Parents
Directed by Mira Plummer Q&A in Auditorium 8
It's 1990. Amidst struggling in each of their households, Charles and Erica meet at Provo High School. Despite both growing up "Mormon," their backgrounds are at odds when Charles' hippie-long-hair and grungy-ripped-jeans are unacceptable in Erica's old-school, by-the-book household. Still, they fall in love and (oops!) get pregnant at 16. What others see as a tragedy, they see as something else entirely: a chance to finally be together and raise a family their way.
About the Director Since graduating from Brigham Young University's media arts program, Mira Plummer has been working in analog film development, scanning, and restoration. Her artistic background in fine art, photography, and music led to her interdisciplinary approach to filmmaking, which often incorporates analog and handmade elements. She is an advocate for women in film and volunteers to fundraise projects directed by marginalized women. In Fall 2026, she will continue her education as a Film/Video MFA student at the California Institute of the Arts.
Director's Statement My mom had four kids by the age of twenty-six. Her art from that time was scrapbooks for each of her babies containing hospital ID bands, baby pictures, collected postcards, old love letters, and photo booth strips. These books lay in basement closets until the production of this film.
In college, I noticed that a lot of female work is disregarded and took this production as an opportunity to highlight the female voices and multiple artistic disciplines around me. The entire film crew revolved around the art department, and my mother's forgotten scrapbooks were central to the storytelling.
As a Utah woman, learning to collage, sew, and bake felt like a rite of passage. Making this film was not only a love letter to my parents, but also a love letter to the often dismissed domestic arts I was raised with.
Moderator
Directed by Eli Staub Q&A in Auditorium 9
An immersive drama short film exposing the harrowing day in the life of a social media content moderator, based on true, anonymous stories.
About the Director Eli Staub is a writer and director from Burbank, California, and a graduate of USC's School of Cinematic Arts. He has written and directed a variety of films with an emphasis on exposing real-world issues and inspiring social change. Films he has directed have screened at NFFTY, Rhode Island, Comic-Con, Omeleto, and more.
Director’s Statement There are tens of thousands of social media content moderators worldwide. Their job is to sift through suspected violations of platform policy, including gore, hate speech, and the most disturbing content humanity has to offer. They make minimum wage, have little to no access to quality mental health services, and often leave with severe stress and anxiety disorders. Forced to sign an NDA and keep what they've seen to themselves, the job of the social media content moderator is rarely discussed, and has never been portrayed on screen. It's a horrifying violation of labor practices, and a frightening reminder of the dangers of social media.
Moderator tells the story of Eliza, a single mother who works the night shift at a company employed to moderate a popular social media platform. She tucks her daughter into bed, heads to work, and sits at her desk, where she is bombarded with her daily onslaught of disturbing images, videos, and text posts. We watch her decide what content should remain on the platform, while also seeing how this job has affected her and her desensitized colleagues who often resort to heartbreaking measures to cope with what they've seen.
However, most of the disturbing content in Moderator is left offscreen, heard, or implied, creating an unsettling atmosphere that responsibly and effectively puts the audience in the shoes of those who have this harrowing job without perpetuating the cycle of desensitization. Moderator exposes these inhumane conditions, while adding to the conversation about the harms of social media as a whole.
Having been a part of the first generation raised on social media, I am intimately aware of its power, ubiquity, and harm. Moderator is a cautionary tale that explores these traits in an honest, sobering, and immersive way.
Running Late
Directed by Alistair Nicholls
A stop-motion animated film about one man's surreal morning routine.
Director's Statement Hello! I'm Alistair Nicholls, a director and artist working in Norwich/London. I love embracing the tactile, handmade feel of stop-motion, showing the fingerprints and the slightly wobbly style of the medium.
Selected clients: Burberry, Salomon, Amnesty International, Nickelodeon. Won a Young Guns 21. Shortlisted for a Young Arrows award, 1.4 Award, and Royal Television Award.
Do Not Watch
Directed by Andy Matthews and Aaron Tharp Q&A in Auditorium 9
After an argument with his wife Courtney, Nick reluctantly starts digitizing his family's old home videos, only to uncover something that was never meant to be seen.
About the Directors Andy and Aaron are a directing duo who craft spine-chilling horror films that captivate audiences. Their passion lies in weaving suspense and gripping visuals into tales that will haunt viewers long after the credits roll.
And The Moon Bloomed
Directed by Stanley Q-Brick
And The Moon Bloomed is a LEGO stop-motion animation that revolves around a mysterious corporation that, following a groundbreaking discovery, seeks to commercialize life on the Moon. Between organic life and technological autonomy, the film reflects on the relationship between the minifigure, nature, and the machine. It explores dreaming operating systems, the interplay between nature and technology, and a distinctly plant-based cosmophobia.
About the Director Stanley Q-Brick is a German brickfilmer known for brickfilms with a distinct visual style. He has won first place in the Twenty-four Hour Animation Contests 2025 and 2026 with Eye To Eye With Creation and The Memory Discrepancy in Sector C, respectively; first place in the Tales of Terror Contest with The Doppelgänger from New Arcadia; and second place in the Brickfilm Rapidly All Week Long Contest 2024 with Shark Sharkman, Shark.
Award Ceremony: Around 9:15pm in Auditorium 8 Three filmmakers will each receive a $1,000 prize.
Our Jury
Thank you to our 2026 jury, made up of industry professionals and passionate film fans who have donated their time to make the Orem Film Festival happen. They will be among those judging the submitted films and voting on the winners of two of our $1,000 cash prizes. Learn more about them below!
Mekhai Lee
OFF Audience Award Winner - 2025
Director/Writer of Them That’s Not
Mekhai Lee is a proud graduate of the Drama program at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and the writer/director and co-creator of the web series For the Boys. He is a member of Ryan Murphy's Half-Initiative Director Program and was the 2022 Director's Fellow on HBO's "Succession." His short film "Them That's Not" premiered at NewfestPride '25 and has since screened at SXSW, Palm Springs International Shorts, and Chicago International Film Festival, where it received the Golden Hugo Award, making the film officially Academy Award eligible. He is repped by Gersh Agency and Insight Management.
Carli Mahas
Production Coordinator @ Utah Film Commission
Carli is an experienced film industry professional with over a decade of expertise, specializing in production support, state-level film incentives, and resource management. In her current role as Production Coordinator at the Utah Film Commission, she serves as a primary liaison for incoming productions while managing workforce development initiatives designed to train and foster new talent in the industry.
Scott Renshaw
Arts & Entertainment Editor @ Salt Lake City Weekly
Utah Film Critics Association Member
Scott Renshaw is the Arts & Entertainment Editor for Salt Lake City Weekly, where he has also been the primary film critic since 2001, as well as co-host of the Mousterpiece Melodies podcast. Before City Weekly, he served as film critic for City Weekly's Park City-based sister publication Mountain Times. As a freelance contributor, his writing has appeared in other regional newsweeklies, as well as at IndieWire and MiceChat. He was a founding member of the Online Film Critics Society, and a current member and past president of the Utah Film Critics Association.
Jahanara Saleh
Filmmaking Professor & Program Coordinator @ Southern Utah University
Jahanara Saleh is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has screened internationally and been featured on television networks and streaming platforms. Born and raised in Iran, her films often explore themes of identity, culture, and belonging. She is also a Filmmaking Professor and Program Coordinator at Southern Utah University.
Derek Mellus
Production Manager @ Utah Film Commission
Derek Mellus has served as the Production Manager for the Utah Film Commission since 2007, drawing on his prior experience in the Art and Locations departments for television series, commercials, and feature films. In his current capacity, Derek assists productions of all sizes, from student shorts to feature films, find the resources they need in Utah. His deep understanding of Utah's film industry and diverse landscapes, coupled with his enthusiasm for storytelling, makes him a valuable asset to filmmakers. He also served as the Artistic Coordinator running the Utah Arts Festival's Fear No Film Festival for 7 years.
Quian Redfern
Film Critic @ The Reel Fella
Quian Redfern is a Utah-based video editor, producer, and film critic with a passion for storytelling across sports, cinema, and culture. Through his work as an editor and his film criticism as The Reel Fella, he explores how movies move people, shape conversation, and reveal truth through image, sound, and emotion.
Trevor Allen
Orem Film Festival Founder & Festival Director
Trevor Allen is the founder and festival director of the Orem Film Festival, which held its first edition in September 2025. He started the festival to give independent and local filmmakers a place to screen their work on the big screen. He lives in Utah County, where he continues to make films and grow the festival year over year.
