The Descartes Highlands (2017) online

The Descartes Highlands is based on the novel hailed by bestselling author Amy Tan as "darkly complex, exquisitely written. Wow!" A young man cares for his disabled mother and begins a dangerous affair with his next-door neighbor, leading him to resolve his mother's condition in a tragic and shocking conclusion. Intense, sensual, and deeply moving, this short film is a compelling statement about the general anxiety of the times we live in and our need to find meaning and love. Based on Eric Gamalinda's novel, The Descartes Highlands, a finalist for the Man Asian Prize, Gamalinda writes and directs a stellar cast of some of the most talented emerging actors today including Jennifer Betit Yen, Cronin Cullen, Kyle Minshew, and Lenore Wolf, among others, with gorgeous cinematography by Hideki Shiota, winner of best cinematography award of the Film Lab's 2016 72-Hour Shootout