General Admission / First-Come First-Served Seating
NoMi College Students
Short Films Showcase
Shorts Program I · Fresh Coast Film Festival / tc 2026
Courting Ice
A meditative short that weaves digital abstraction with imagery of Michigan's melting glaciers, exploring memory, nostalgia, and the disruption that rapid technological progress leaves in its wake.
Is It Worth It?
A 17-year-old's debut film — an intimate, brave look at the climate crisis and a road trip West, told through a teenager's honest and searching eyes.
The Cat and the Fox
A charming short built entirely from cardboard, foam, and watercolor paintings, bringing a playful animal fable to life through handmade ingenuity.
Old Guy and Tha Fish
A tongue-in-cheek animated retelling of The Old Man and the Sea, reimagined with a fresh, irreverent spirit.
Pomegranates
Inspired by Donald Sultan's work on display at the Dennos Museum Center, this short pairs original cinematography with a commissioned score by Hayden Schoensee.
Serenity
A time-based film that invites the viewer to slow down and notice the quiet beauty of undisturbed nature in northern Michigan — the ordinary made extraordinary.
Glacier
Inspired by Ice Into Oceans: Arctic Tracings by Cy Keener at the Dennos Museum Center, this collaborative short blends original filming, music, and graphics in a meditation on vanishing ice.
Jokes for the Chaser
A College for Creative Studies short shot on 8mm film, selected for the 2026 New Voices Ann Arbor Animation Festival, from a Traverse City local making waves in Detroit.
The Loon
A moving love letter to an Inuit print at the Dennos Museum Center, honoring Indigenous artistic traditions through a delicate cinematic response.
Nostalgia
Shot on an old digital camera and edited as a mashup of fleeting clips, this film captures the hazy warmth of growing up in the early 2000s — backyard summers and long evenings that live only in memory.
Cove Project #2
Inspired by the perspective-shifting work of Patrick Hughes, this iPhone-shot film finds natural optical illusions in water, waves, and shifting light at the beach — a study in perception and depth.
Whirlpools
Shot on a Canon 90D with an intense love for nature, this solo work — written, performed, filmed, scored, and edited by Brinks — is a deeply personal immersion in the natural world.
Of Two Worlds
A documentary from the University of Wisconsin–Superior exploring the hardship, growth, and resilience experienced by many Indigenous women. Subtitled.
SandLands
A Cinema 4D work probing humanity's evolving relationship with technology and the uncertain terrain ahead — rendered in shifting, temporal digital landscapes.
An Outlook on Your Life
A visual essay from a first-time filmmaker celebrating the beauty and complexity of everyday life, and the urgency of savoring every moment we're given.
College Student Films Showcase
Presented with support from Northwestern Michigan College
If you've ever wondered how the future generation sees our world, our human condition, or what their sense of humor is then you won't want to miss this special selection of short films from the enormously talented Visual Communications Program at Northwestern Michigan College with support from Caroline Schaefer-Hills — as well as students from University of Wisconsin-Superior and the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
Directors in attendance for a Q&A with the students following the films.