Roxie Mixtape #9: Side A

Roxie Mixtape is an on-going series celebrating diverse and engaging short works by Bay Area filmmakers. Join us for a night of unique, provocative and inspiring movies. Mixtape is an exciting and enticing mix of narrative, documentary, and experimental film. There is sure to be a little something for everyone in this program.

The Roxie Mixtape is part of Bay Visions, an ongoing series dedicated to spotlighting Bay Area cinema’s past, present, and future. Showcasing everything from documentaries to experimental films, narratives to shorts, this series highlights the fearless creativity of both emerging and established filmmakers.

Stick around for a Q&A with this year’s Mixtape filmmakers after the show!

Mixtape Side A will screen on May 20th at 6pm, films will appear in the order listed below.

In Reverie, Meryl is having a hard time discerning fantasy from reality, and the birds are acting weird too. Don’t read too closely into the bad omens.

Henry McClellan is an interdisciplinary artist, born and raised in the bay area, obsessed with animation. Experimental praxis, expanding into music, tattoo art and live action film.

Bird’s Nest is an animated retelling of the directors personal journey with his body as a transgender man from Texas.

Leo Pickard is a transgender filmmaker and musician from Austin, Texas. In his filmmaking practice, he pull from his personal experience to tell stories which discuss themes of queerness, interpersonal relationships, and the transgender body whether it be through explicit narratives consisting of characters and settings or through symbolic representation, multimedia animation and heavy use of metaphor, or a combination of both.

Eye Contact is an exploration of the visceral moment of recognition and vulnerability when a stranger’s gaze unexpectedly meets your own. It’s about how a brief glance can become a kind of portal, offering a glimpse into someone’s life. It’s about how memories can intrude on the present. It’s about distilling intimacy into its most elemental form.

Eva Lapadat Hoffman is a San Francisco–based film director and artist originally from Minnesota. Eva has written, directed, and produced four films. Her directorial debut, Gummy Worm, premiered at festivals in San Francisco and Minneapolis. Quiero, an experimental love letter to queer female friendship, toured notable Bay Area art spaces including Root Division and Gray Area Theater, where it won Best Experimental Short Film at the Love Lives in SF Film Fest. Her most recent film, Eye Contact, won second place at the San Jose Filmmaker Showcase and screened at the historic Roxie Theater as part of SF IndieFest.

In Sopinha, Lais finds an old cookbook while looking through old documents in her grandparent’s house in the brazilian countryside. As she remakes her grandmother’s mandioc stew, Lais reconnects with her memory.

Luis Bel Cardoso is a Brazilian stop motion filmmaker living in Oakland and recently graduated from the Fine Arts Animation program at California College of the Arts. Their films center around nostalgia, displacement, childhood and memory as an immigrant.

In ShoeBox, a Filipino kid discovers a pair of Jordans & embarks on a journey through his gentrified neighborhood to return home but stumbles across a young black man that wants the shoes. He begins to ask the question “whose shoes are these?”

Troy Tibayan is a Filipino-American filmmaker from the Bay Area, California. He strives to capture and create inspirational stories that represent the Asian American Pacific Islander community and are inclusive to all. From an early age, Troy has always shown extreme passion for films and filmmaking. He is constantly being drawn to utilizing film as his medium for storytelling and expressing himself creatively. Troy is thankful to be able to be a storyteller, filmmaker, and creative and share his love for motion pictures with others.

Meet the artists: Woody De Othello observes the multidisciplinary artist within his Oakland studio and the surrounding Northern California redwood forests. Through intimate verité and interview moments, De Othello shapes ceramic, wood, and bronze sculptures that transform everyday objects into expressive, anthropomorphic forms. Close, tactile imagery of his creative process pairs with quiet environmental portraits, exploring themes of ancestry, material duality, and the emotional resonance held within domestic objects.

Tyler McPherron is a Bay Area based Director of Photography and Director. He primarily works as a cinematographer across documentaries, commercials, and music-driven projects, with a focus on cinematic nonfiction storytelling rooted in empathy and emotional authenticity. Tyler’s work often centers on artists and creative communities. While he collaborates widely as a DP, he directs projects that align closely with his personal creative passions, particularly films exploring artistic process, identity, and cultural expression.

The Nature of the World is an abstract visual poem filmed across San Francisco, seen through a generational lens and exploring the turbulent existence of an individual navigating life’s complexities. Through evocative imagery and introspective narration, the film examines resilience, kinship, and the search for stability in an unforgiving world. Confronting inherited struggles and personal uncertainty, the protagonist reflects on endurance and belonging. Amid chaos, fleeting moments of beauty reveal a quiet thread of hope. In seeking to understand the essence of the world, the film suggests that meaning, however fragile, can offer grounding, and perhaps even a semblance of heaven, within an unpredictable existence.

Elie M. Khadra is a Bay Area–based director of photography and filmmaker. Raised in Lebanon, he began his career at Studio Vision before working in Dubai and later in Doha with Qatar’s National Television. Since 2015, he has been based in the United States. He has shot for outlets including The New York Times, ABC News, KQED Arts, The Economist, and more. In recent years, he has focused on independent films, producing, directing, and shooting narrative and documentary projects that are mission-driven, highlighting social justice, humanity, and stories that amplify marginalized voices.

Benjamin “BJ” McBride is a Bay Area based Emmy Award winning director and producer whose work sits at the intersection of justice, art and social impact. He’s led media partnerships with YouTube Health, XQ America and The REACH at The Kennedy Center. He is currently writing his first feature film BRTHRIGHT in New Orleans and working as the curatorial fellow for 1-800 Happy Birthday, a digital voicemail project/exhibition that focuses on remembering the lives of those taken due to police violence.

Gnobert is a gnome who lives in a stump and works in a tree. This short animated mockumentary gives a peek into the world of gnomes, who might be the very reason why you can never find that other sock. Also, Gnobert’s having an existential crisis. 

Diana Reyimjan is an artist based in San Francisco, making little comics and animations on the side to celebrate life! 

In Missing Boy, an amnesiac mother must investigate a distorted version of her home to find her missing son.

Nathan Aurellano is a Bay Area based filmmaker who draws from his identity as a second generation Filipino American in his approach to young adult malaise and familial memory. His work is a reflection on contemporary Asian American experiences and have screened with the Kearny Street Workshop and Balay Kreative.

All films included in this year’s Mixtape festival will feature Open Captions.