This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the UC San Diego Film Festival’s experimental screening, which featured 16 student-produced short films. Despite a packed weekend of studying for midterms and attending the Pilipino Cultural Celebration, I carved out a two-hour window to check out the festival — and the experimental screening fit perfectly into my schedule. I’ll admit, I went in a bit apprehensive, unsure of what to expect. But I left genuinely blown away by the sheer creativity, emotional depth, and technical talent on display in each of the student films.
My personal favorite was “Breathless Dancing” by second-year student Nataly Pastukhov. The film opens with Pastukhov walking into frame. She sits down, lights a cigarette, and begins to smoke, before the film transitions into a scene of her dancing a ballet in an empty room with pieces of paper laid carefully in a grid.
This dance scene is layered atop a video of a much older performance of the same ballet piece. The differences between the two performances are clear. Where her movements were once sharp and distinct and her stamina full of energy, the current performance is lacking; she struggles to dance with the same enthusiasm as before, her breath ragged and wheezing. Watching this decline was jarring — a visceral reminder of how smoking can take a real, visible toll on the body. It was especially surprising given how normalized smoking has become among my peers.
By the end of the performance, the papers on the floor are strewn apart, and she is sprawled out on the floor, her heavy breathing and coughing clearly audible as she holds a Geek Bar in her hand. She has traded the ability to dance for smoking. The disarray of the once-ordered grid mirrors her physical breakdown. At the start, the contrast between past and present was subtle, and the paper grid remained undisturbed. But as she danced, her breath grew more labored and the papers gradually shifted. By the end, she lay collapsed among the disorganized sheets — some wrapped around her legs — a powerful visual metaphor for her unraveling.
Pastukhov’s film is simple in its imagery; there are no crazy effects or visuals. Yet, it successfully captures the slow erosion of vitality over time, and how small, habitual choices can accumulate into irreversible change. What makes “Breathless Dancing” particularly impactful is its refusal to moralize. Rather than shaming or pitying, it simply presents the reality of change — haunting, inevitable, and deeply human.
“Breathless Dancing” was just one example of the raw, personal storytelling that defined the experimental screening. Across the 16 experimental student films, a clear throughline emerged: an unflinching willingness to explore vulnerability, memory, and identity. Through fragmented narratives, intimate confessions, and abstract visual metaphors, the filmmakers prioritized emotional honesty over polished production — resulting in a screening that felt both deeply individual and collectively resonant.
In the small space of the Price Center Theater, the personal nature of the films truly shined. As an audience member, it felt like I was stepping into a shared diary full of confessions and quiet moments of raw truth. After each short film, the audience clapped in a collective moment of artistic appreciation and recognition of vulnerability. The UCSD Film Festival wasn’t just a showcase of student work; it was a celebration of self-expression and storytelling in its most basic form.
