© 2026 The Couch Critic
A swirling punk rock invocation for revolution.
Another installment of Toney Merritt’s Fragment series, The Birds and The Beasts is a hypnotizing meditation on nature and sounds that combines timelapse footage of a bird feeder with the trail camera footage of a mountain lion shot in real time. Set to a self-composed piece drawn from Merritt’s sound library, The Birds and The Beasts’ unique rhythm and two-part structure captures what it means to live in the wilderness through juxtaposing the power and majesty of the cougar with the spirit and freedom of the birds. A fragment of the seemingly mundane reality, the birds and the mountain lion turn into something far more meaningful: a reflection on multispecies relations and our peaceful co-existence with animals.
Juxtaposing spacious moving images of the everyday with a voiced reflection on the busy life and everyday mystical moments, A Vernacular of the Numinous is a poetic meditation on the extraordinary ordinary. A contemplative film inspired by an invitation to participate in Unpoetry at Seattle's Frye Art Museum in response to Hugh Hayden: American Vernacular, Freeman's A Vernacular of the Numinous is the latest addition to Cinema Divina--their offering of short films made through and for contemplative practice.
A narrated found footage collage film bringing together fragments of writing by the French Surrealist poet, essayist and philosopher, Antonin Artaud. Fragments of a Journal in Hell both looks at and exemplifies a self under siege, undergoing extreme psycho-physical states. At the same time, the film celebrates a improbably joyful artistic practice struggling to still create personal metaphors during a wartime of the self and the world.
A satirical drama based on a man who's never lost. Always the Perfectionist of the Year, the youngest ever to win a Perfectlimpyad. All his days start the same: wake up with a Perfect outfit, make an egg who adores you, look at the Perfect award wall right in front of you and read the news, looking for yourself, obviously. One day Saulius reads about an observation chair, which is out in the park – a place where you can judge others and feel better about yourself. However, this day is different: Saulius gets a Sun stroke, which turns his world upside down. He joins Narcissus Anonymous – but how long can he stay there?
From Seoul to Southwest, a Korean American teen follows her memories of patjuk, weaving Korean and Indigenous stories to redefine the meaning of home.
In 2035, Iris uses her AI for everything. But when her AI runs out of battery, she's left with... herself. Welcome to the future of helplessness.
A brief journey through our universe and the role we play in it.
An experimental collage-style film about a young artist searching for herself and a muse. At first she looks to the sky, finding only emptiness in its monochrome. But when she begins asking others how they see the world- the different “colors” of their skies- she discovers that true inspiration lies in the varying perspectives and creations of the people and artists around her.
A loving family portrait told through the preparation of traditional food preparation.
A student struggles to craft the perfect email to his teacher.
A simple gesture for a celebratory day.
An expanded cinema piece with live narration.
Between death and is a portrait of a funeral parlor in the heart of Baltimore City on the precipice of its own transition. The liminal states embedded in life, death, and grief are studied in this film. 108 West North Avenue was built in 1878 along Boundary Avenue as it was known then — just beyond the northern border of the city. It served the community as a funeral parlor from 1914 to 2021.
What if our dreams are not the product of our subconscious but are the residue of media we have yet to consume.
Statements made by presidents of the United States of America on glitched repeat, projected onto my face or hand as I work to make the video. And in opposition, portraits of artists in my creative family and community, who are unraveling and restructuring reality as you read this.
In the secluded mountains of the Shōwa era, a young girl accidentally creates a man by mixing discarded everyday objects with fragments of abstract memories.
Through a visual poem of words, dance, and matters, the colossal forms of cement mixers in a deserted factory become transformative spaces. The notion of labor and motherhood is redefined through these looming metallic bodies of resonance—concrete mixers treated as reproductive organs, sites of a life’s work.
Within the living matter of the garden, among the leaves and thorns, prayer-poems emerge. Garden maintenance becomes an ethical dilemma; pruning becomes a question of fragile ecosystems and the site’s memory—where community, cleanliness, and beautification confront vegetal time and its reverberations.
Going to humiliating and dangerous lengths to be seen.
