Head to Oakland this weekend for yet another Bay Area summer film festival: the 15th annual Brainwash Movie Festival, this year at the American Steel Building (1960 Mandela Parkway). The selected twenty-three short films will be shown in two screenings, one on Friday and one on Saturday, starting around 9pm each night. Awards ceremony happens at the end of Program 2 on Saturday. Brainwash doesn't include synopses for the films, but below are four, two from each program, that look interesting:

Program 1 (Friday)

• Karl Tebbe's "Karaoke Show," an experiment in stop-motion to transform the filmmaker from a mediocre dancer to a great one.
• "East World," a fantasy short by Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Toda where someone/something called KUMA "gets off to a certain planet is led and approaches a big forest. And, KUMA sees a ghostly spectacle."

Program 2 (Saturday)

• "Stalk Much?", a twisted dark comedy about love and grief.
• Ken Glaser's incredibly weird but oddly compelling "I Dream In Stereo," a music video that accompanies a song (that sounds a bit like Queen) that Glaser wrote about dreaming and sound. Watch on YouTube here.

Tickets for each screening are $9, or festival goers can buy $20 festival passes that admit two people to each screening. Advance ticket holders can also take advantage of the BART shuttle from West Oakland station to the festival. [Map] Biking from West Oakland BART is also encouraged, it's only a 4/5 mile trip up Mandela Parkway. Bring chairs!