Mary Pat Bentel

Who Invited Them

Adam and Margo's housewarming party goes well enough except there's this one mysterious couple lingering after the other guests have left.

Holly Slept Over

Audra confesses to her husband Noel that she had a lesbian fling in college with her roommate Holly. Things turn upside down when Holly visits their house and Noel suggests the idea of having a threesome after getting the idea stuck in his head from his friend Pete.

Amateur Night

Guy Carter, an insecure expectant father unable to find work in his field, accepts a job driving hookers around Los Angeles. One long and crazy evening proves to our hero that he is, in fact, up to the task of fatherhood.

The Midnight Swim

Spirit Lake is unusually deep. No diver has ever managed to find the bottom. When Dr. Amelia Brooks disappears during a deep-water dive, her three daughters travel home. They find themselves unable to let go and become drawn into the mysteries of the lake.

Spinners

In a small desert town, decimated by the economic recession, two teenagers (Jace and Derek) try to get by working as Sign Spinners. Harassment by local bullies leads Jace to make some unfortunate decisions. A single mom living out of her car steps in to help.

Animals

ANIMALS tells the story of Jude and Bobbie: a young couple that exist somewhere between homelessness and the fantasy of their imaginations. Though they masterfully con and steal in an attempt to stay one step ahead of their addiction, they are ultimately forced to face the reality of their situation when one of them gets hospitalized.

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Everything That Rises Must Converge is a hybrid documentary/fiction film. It follows four real-life adult film performers as they start their day at home, get in their cars and drive to work in a nondescript residential house in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. In between documentary scenes, we also encounter several fictional characters whose stories revolve around the same residential house where the performers work. Shown as a grid of four simultaneous images, the film weaves scenes of everyday life with moments of beauty, as well as the strange and absurd moments of apparent convergence.

Comma Boat

In Comma Boat, we're stuck in a mock-authoritarian fantasy--a power trip. The film centers around a director-character played by Trecartin who oscillates between feelings of omnipotence and self-doubt. As if a post-human, post-gendered reincarnation of the Fellini character in 8 ½, the director gloats and frets about professional and ethical transgressions. "I know I lied to get ahead," he admits at one point. "I've made up so many different alphabets just to get ahead in my field." The director is fancier now, but the fear nags that he might be "repeating" himself "like a dumb soldier ova and ova and ova and ova." The meta-connection to the artist's own career, while obvious, is also a decoy. All art, at some level, is about the artist. Here, reflexivity is the surface level, providing a decodable veneer that encases something more unsettling and complex. Single-channel and 3-channel versions.

Goodbye World

When a mysterious cyber-attack cripples civilization, a group of old college friends and lovers retreat to a remote country cabin, where they must cope with an uncertain future while navigating the minefield of their shared past.

She Said, She Said

A lesbian couple on the brink of divorce divide their possessions in mediation and through each object, we get a glimpse of their relationship and the sometimes humorous and sexy power that objects can hold on our lives and emotions.

Bold Native

Charlie Cranehill, an animal liberator wanted for domestic terrorism, emerges from the underground to coordinate a nationwide action as his estranged CEO father tries to find him before the FBI does.

Just Add Water

An offbeat romantic comedy about a decent guy, Ray Tuckby, with a dead-end life in the dead-end town of Trona, CA. After encouragement from a stranger whom he happens upon, Ray begins to dream again. He sheds the parasites in his life, musters the nerve to pursue his childhood love, and finally takes back his community by toppling the local teenage Meth-baron.