how do you move in this world | short film

logline: a man attends a seminar in the woods and then heads home

run time: 2 min

year: 2026

past screenings: World Premiere screening July 29, 2026 in Chicago at Vastlab.

thoughts: you know that feeling when you’ve had a personal breakthrough, a sort of bird’s-eye look at the contours and shape of your life’s trajectory and it’s so galvanizing and activating that you commit to making mammoth changes right now right this second and then reality intercedes somehow - a phone call, a text, a knock at the door - and that moment vanishes, subsumed by the world outside your head? This film attempts to speak to that, exploring isolation in nature as well as the split between like intention and purpose and navigating the vagaries of the real world. The idea was born on a walk with my dog at a nearby nature park, where the video was also shot. Originally, the entire film would exist in the woods but during editing I added a highway shot and came up with the closing voiceover. learn more about the film at the video below which was made for the Vastlab screening, answering some of their questions about film and its conception.

a northern flicker films production | shot and edited by brian padian | music excerpted from “down the sky they sing” by scott unrein | voice by reginald k butters | sound design by tucky birdbath | written + directed by brian padian