Cindependent Film Festival,
Cindependent Film Festival,
Sat, September 19, 2026
8:00 PM
$19.00
inc. $4 service chargeCindeTicket 15 After Dark 2026 Cindependent Film Festival
Cindependent After Dark is the wildest block of the festival. It’s an eclectic collection of shorts about a detective searching for a daycare worker, a puppet in an existential crisis, a wicked tree, and a shocking confrontation between apes and dodo birds.
MARY IS MISSING
Director: Aisling Byrne
Runtime: 24:39:00
When care worker Mary vanishes without a trace, Detective Foley arrives at the Yellow Tree Day Service, and investigations begin. As reports from the eyewitnesses become more and more confounding, we are asked to explore the reliability of truth, the strangeness of fiction, and the people we choose to believe.
MY BLACK IS CRACKING
Director: Bianca D. Lambert
Runtime: 7:53
When chin hairs sprout and deep lines appear, thirty-something Danni is thrust into a battle over how a Black woman is “supposed” to age — and who decides what “aging gracefully” really means.
APE SHIT
Director: Dahlia Jane Kressler
Runtime: 2:57:00
Two monkeys embark on a mission and as their shuttle lifts off it’s not even clear they’ll make it. They set their sights on a lush green planet galaxies away. The last hope for monkey-kind. A rocky landing, everything up in smoke. The monkeys were not sure who would be living here, and they certainly didn’t expect dodo birds. One question remains, can apes and birds live in harmony?
MEETING YOUR MAKER
Director: Gregory JM Kasunich
Runtime: 18:00
Life is hard. Puppets are soft. A feel-good movie about a puppet that kills himself.
Meeting Your Maker is a darkly whimsical short film that follows Otis, a beloved puppet on a long-running children’s show, as he faces an existential crisis just before the series’ milestone 300th episode.
Set against the vibrant chaos of a TV studio and the surreal backdrop of a puppeteer’s inner world, the story explores themes of identity, burnout, and the creative struggle, blurring the line between performer and creator in (hopefully) poignant and unexpectedly funny ways.
THE TAKING TREE
Director: D. Edward Lemmink
Runtime: 6:34
A wicked tree terrorizes passersby, and there’s only one man capable of ending its bloody killing spree.
PICTURE TAKER
Director: Joe Zappa
Runtime: 11:21
A private eye begins to see the same man in every photograph he’s ever taken.
THE INTIMACY COORDINATOR
Director: Louisa Connolly-Burnham
Runtime: 20:53
Kate is an intimacy coordinator. She is also a sex addict.
CindeTicket 15 After Dark 2026 Cindependent Film Festival
Cindependent After Dark is the wildest block of the festival. It’s an eclectic collection of shorts about a detective searching for a daycare worker, a puppet in an existential crisis, a wicked tree, and a shocking confrontation between apes and dodo birds.
MARY IS MISSING
Director: Aisling Byrne
Runtime: 24:39:00
When care worker Mary vanishes without a trace, Detective Foley arrives at the Yellow Tree Day Service, and investigations begin. As reports from the eyewitnesses become more and more confounding, we are asked to explore the reliability of truth, the strangeness of fiction, and the people we choose to believe.
MY BLACK IS CRACKING
Director: Bianca D. Lambert
Runtime: 7:53
When chin hairs sprout and deep lines appear, thirty-something Danni is thrust into a battle over how a Black woman is “supposed” to age — and who decides what “aging gracefully” really means.
APE SHIT
Director: Dahlia Jane Kressler
Runtime: 2:57:00
Two monkeys embark on a mission and as their shuttle lifts off it’s not even clear they’ll make it. They set their sights on a lush green planet galaxies away. The last hope for monkey-kind. A rocky landing, everything up in smoke. The monkeys were not sure who would be living here, and they certainly didn’t expect dodo birds. One question remains, can apes and birds live in harmony?
MEETING YOUR MAKER
Director: Gregory JM Kasunich
Runtime: 18:00
Life is hard. Puppets are soft. A feel-good movie about a puppet that kills himself.
Meeting Your Maker is a darkly whimsical short film that follows Otis, a beloved puppet on a long-running children’s show, as he faces an existential crisis just before the series’ milestone 300th episode.
Set against the vibrant chaos of a TV studio and the surreal backdrop of a puppeteer’s inner world, the story explores themes of identity, burnout, and the creative struggle, blurring the line between performer and creator in (hopefully) poignant and unexpectedly funny ways.
THE TAKING TREE
Director: D. Edward Lemmink
Runtime: 6:34
A wicked tree terrorizes passersby, and there’s only one man capable of ending its bloody killing spree.
PICTURE TAKER
Director: Joe Zappa
Runtime: 11:21
A private eye begins to see the same man in every photograph he’s ever taken.
THE INTIMACY COORDINATOR
Director: Louisa Connolly-Burnham
Runtime: 20:53
Kate is an intimacy coordinator. She is also a sex addict.
