Masculinity & Me
Lurid monologues about rape and murder.
Casts & Crew
Also Directed by James Franco
Unused footage from Gus Van Sant's 1991 film My Own Private Idaho is re-contextualized in James Franco's tribute to River Phoenix.
Two genius brothers grow up and grow apart as one becomes a successful surgeon and the other pursues a drug-fueled high life.
Filmmakers James Franco and Travis Mathews re-imagine the lost 40 minutes from "Cruising" as a starting point to a broader exploration of sexual and creative freedom.
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
Birth of a Poet is a dramatic short film that captures the moment Stephen Dobyns transitions from a disillusioned journalist to an emerging poet. It is adapted from autobiographical poems.
Tom (Tennessee) Williams, an aspiring writer in his 20s, lives with and negligent father. Tom attempts to maintain peace in the family while also dealing with his depressed and anti-social sister. Struggling against the societal pressures and expectations of him, Tennessee is determined to hone in on his artistic talent and achieve greatness. Directed by James Franco, Tenn focuses on a young Tennessee Williams struggling to find his voice and at the same time his true self as a gay man in 1930's St. Louis.
A young actor arrives in Hollywood in 1969 during a transitional time in the Industry.
The story of writer Charles Bukowski's formative years from childhood to high school and his struggles with an abusive father, disfiguring acne, alcohol addiction, and his initial attempts at writing.
Based on the 1930 classic by Faulkner, it is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest to honor her wish to be buried in the nearby town of Jefferson.
La Passione is a decadent and beautifully shot trip that riffs on Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, if it were shot on acid and starred the ATL Twins as demons.
Also Directed by Russell Sheaffer
Santiago Gonzalez IV, a first generation Mexican-American, struggles with the tensions between his sexuality, nationality, and religion as he prepares for his college graduation.
'Monotony' explores themes of fantasy and desire through an examination of morning ritualism.
Exploring the musical concept of "release," this film is a haunting found-footage study in the plurality of visual and auditory meanings of the term. A series of collaborative works pairing artists working in visual and auditory mediums, the Études meditate on individual musical concepts through experiments with sound and film. Étude 1a: Release (I) is the first in this series and is directed by filmmaker Russell Sheaffer and composer Aaron Michael Smith.
A stop-motion documentary that asks men one of the crucial questions of our era: “What compels you to send pictures of your penis to non-consenting others?”
Masculinity/Femininity is an experimental film project interrogating normative notions of gender, sexuality and performance. Shot primarily on Super 8, the project merges academic and creative critique -- a document of gender de-construction rather than a documentary about gender construction.
A rumination on parenting, razor blades, facial hair, jello shots, Coyote Ugly, and Russell Crowe.
