Columbia University School of the Arts

The Set-Up is Kathryn Bigelow's student film at Columbia about the exploration of 'why violence in cinematic form is so seductive'. It featured two men beating each other to a pulp in a dark alley, while two professors analyzed the philosophy of it all on the soundtrack.

A woman misses her train and buys lunch in a café. When she returns to her table, a man is eating her salad.

This documentary tells of a man named John Vincent, who dreams of base jumping off the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City

After a rough, unsuccessful show at the club, a pitiful stand-up comedian goes to a convenience store in the middle of the night to get cigarettes, but only to desperately try to make a weary, Indian clerk laugh.

An mad, unhinged chef and his futile attempts at killing a cockroach in a restaurant kitchen. This film takes its cues from the giant-insect films of the 50's such as "Them!" (1954) and a nod in the direction of Kafka's "Metamorphosis."

Boy has a scary visit to the barber

The narrative unfolds as a timid young man, Cal, arrives for a date at the penthouse of June whose house resembles a whimsical modern art installation almost like Pee-Wee's Playhouse. He offers her roses, only to have them immediately rejected. What follows is a series of absurd, slapstick-inspired events—breaking a decorative bust, accidentally putting a fish in the June’s drink—that culminate in Cal posing shirtless on her indoor “beach” set, sparking June's creative epiphany and leading her to photograph him for a Vogue ad campaign. This short film was created in 1987 under the mentorship of Martin Scorsese while Gruber was a student at Columbia Film School, and has since earned a place in exhibitions at New York’s MoMA, cementing its status as a noteworthy artistic work.

A comedy set in a surreal school about a professor who lectures about Buddhism -- an ancient religion, and karma -- the law of cause and effect. He rambles on while becoming increasingly annoyed by a fly he attempts to squash, helping the class learn a valuable lesson about "karma express".

Based on the short story from Ernest Hemingway. It is 1915, in a mountain forest of the American Northeast. Young Nick Adams follows his father across lake Minnewaska, to an Indian Camp. Here, Nick learns that his father will try to help an Iroquois woman deliver a difficult birth.

Bolo McBane, a cowboy detective gets his first case watching over a dying woman's vegetable garden only to find that some things are just too hard to bury.

Shame and embarrassment propel Savannah, a gifted high school student, embarks on a journey through space and time to witness the prison convictions of her great-grandmother Etta Mae, her grand-aunt Olive, and her aunt Denise. The fanciful and chilling tales of a delightfully vain maid in the 1920s, a hopelessly depressed nanny in the 1950s, and a mother frustrated during the holiday season in the 1980s, help Savannah reconcile her feelings about her own past in this touching coming-of-age story. An imaginative, thoroughly engaging drama that speaks volumes about identity and self-worth.

A self-assured short film about a neighborhood swimming group in which two boys are forced into a confrontation by their coach. This ridiculous lesson in growing up leads to an unexpected understanding.

It's a revenge scheme. It's a dessert topping! It's a revenge scheme. It's a dessert topping! Gosh darn it, it's both! Puffy, the world's most vengeful cat tries to break up its owner's marriage.

An eleven year old girl living in rural Pennsylvania turns to her older brother to escape the clutches of their abusive father.

Playing hooky from school, Tony, a student/chorister at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, spends the afternoon at Central Park's Sailboat lake and retrieves a remote control device left behind by a pair of sailboat racers. Back in the schoolyard, Tony pretends that he has a car to go with the remote control. When another boy tries to take the control from him, it falls on the ground and a red remote-control sports car miraculously appears. The car "dances" to rap music and even brings Tony a can of soda. One day, a sinister-looking man with a briefcase steals the car and flees into the subway. Tony and his classmates pursue the thief to the Wall Street area and ask to inspect the briefcases of passing businessmen. Eluding the students, the crook hails a taxi and hurls the briefcase from the window. Next morning, Tony hears the sound of a sports car during a church service. Returning to its rightful owner, the magical car mysteriously reappears at the end of the processional.

A neurotic love story about a woman obsessed with a man who doesn’t love her.

A White New York pickpocket meets a trusting Black woman on her way through the city, and for the first time in his career, faces a moral dilemma.

It's the 1990s. Toby, just out of college in Wisconsin, comes to Manhattan to spend the summer with his older cousin, Packard, a gay man whose lover John R. has just died of AIDS. Toby is shy, the openly-gay society around him makes him nervous. Packard gives Toby a pair of John R.'s shoes; when Toby puts them on, he has powerful visions of the pre-AIDS scene in the 1970s, as if he's there. He also takes on a different personality when he wears the shoes, more sure of himself, able to express his interest in men. Wearing the shoes, Toby goes to a bar, hooks up with Dick, and wakes up in Dick's bed. How will he handle it? And what will happen to the shoes?

During a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, a young Wall Street investment banker and an old shoeshine man begin chatting and discussing their life philosophies.

Wall Street business executives Bowers and his assistant Lisa get stuck in an elevator where the lingo of commerce is transformed into the language of love.