Death Billiards is one of the four anime works that each received 38 million yen (about US$480,000) from the “2012 Young Animator Training Project.” Just like in 2010 and 2011, the animation labor group received 214.5 million yen (US$2.65 million) from the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, and it distributed most of those funds to studios who train young animators on-the-job. An old and a young man find themselves in a mysterious bar where they have to play a game of billiard. The bet: their lives.

Inspired by actual events in the late nineties when Hasidic Jews were recruited as mules to smuggle ecstasy from Europe into the United States.

Small town bookstore owner Jamie Vaughn learns that hers and other struggling local businesses face closure by a powerful Portland property developer, led by architect and former flame Sawyer O’Dell. As Valentine’s Day approaches and closure seems imminent, Jamie must not only hatch a heartfelt plan to save her beloved bookstore, but she must also sort out her past feelings for Sawyer.

Paris 1913. Coco Chanel is infatuated with the rich and handsome Boy Capel, but she is also compelled by her work. Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is about to be performed. The revolutionary dissonances of Igor’s work parallel Coco’s radical ideas. She wants to democratize women’s fashion; he wants to redefine musical taste. Coco attends the scandalous first performance of The Rite in a chic white dress. The music and ballet are criticized as too modern, too foreign. Coco is moved but Igor is inconsolable.

A woman struggles to hold her family together in the aftermath of the national financial crisis. Winner: Best Feature, Glass City Film Festival.

Sheffield, England. Gaz, a jobless steelworker in need of quick cash persuades his mates to bare it all in a one-night-only strip show.

In 1971, air-conditioner repairman and boat enthusiast Jim McCormick entertains his desire to ‘go down’ as a legend in the record books when the Gold Cup hydroplane boat race improbably comes to his small town of Madison, Indiana. Immediately, Jim seizes his opportunity to enter the contest. With a motley crew of fellow mechanics and friends at his side, Jim fixes up his old boat and brings hope to the blighted industrial city. Written by Sujit R. Varma

A washed-up trainer takes a self-destructive young boxer under his wing.

When the romantic secrets of his family members become public, the career and community standing of a respected bishop are threatened.

A young couple who struggle to rediscover love after their marriage.

When unstable Connie is tragically widowed, she finds it impossible to care for her delinquent adolescent daughter, Niki, forcing her son, Bill, to take his sister in. As the two begin to forge a healthy bond, well-meaning Bill implements his own method of treatment for Niki’s mental troubles, but, when turmoil persists, he must reconcile his beliefs with what actually may be best for his sister.

Cobain (15) tries to get his pregnant mother Mia to quit her self-destructive lifestyle. When she refuses to clean up her act, Cobain takes over.