OBEX (2025) + New Films by ALBERT BIRNEY!

7th House is proud to present an evening of new films by Albert Birney, one of the most unique and distinctive contemporary filmmakers, featuring a selection of recent shorts followed by his new feature film OBEX! A Baltimore-based filmmaker and visual artist working across film, animation, performance, and video games, Birney has built an unmistakable cinematic universe rooted in tactile, handcrafted imagery, digital hauntology, surreal humor, and inventive DIY world-making—infusing his films (including Strawberry Mansion, Tux and Fanny, and Sylvio) with a sense of curiosity, offbeat warmth, and emotional sincerity that makes them feel at once whimsical, intimate, and wholly singular. For this one-night presentation, Birney has recorded an exclusive video introduction for 7th House audiences, along with a virtual Q&A that will follow the film.

OBEX

In pre-internet 1987, Conor and his dog Sandy live a life of seclusion, lost in the slow-rendering graphics of early Macs and televisions aglow with late-night horror movie marathons. But when he begins playing OBEX, a new and mysterious state-of-the-art computer game, he finds himself trapped in a low-tech but high-stakes analog hellscape as the line between reality and game begins to blur.

Audacious and uncanny, writer-director Albert Birney’s OBEX is a delightfully skewed lo-fi fantasy shot in striking black and white. Brimming with the endearingly childlike sense of play, curiosity, and imaginative make-believe that runs throughout Birney’s work, the film revisits the dawn of personal computing through the textures of late-’80s domestic life—VHS tapes stacked beside humming CRTs, dot-matrix printers chattering in dimly lit rooms. With the help of charmingyl lo-fi special effects, Birney conjures a world where obsolete machines seem charged with memory, mystery, and meaning, drawing on his lifelong love of early video games and their mythic, quest-driven missions. Channeling the spirit of classics like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy, OBEX gradually shifts from an intimate portrait of domestic solitude into a surreal analog odyssey that unfolds with the logic of an 8-bit adventure.

True to Birney’s intuitive, image-led process, the story began not with plot but with a constellation of objects and impressions—a cicada in a trash can, aging computers, a stack of discarded VHS tapes, his beloved dog—out of which the character of Conor and his world slowly emerged. Developed organically with a close-knit group of longtime collaborators, the film moves with the exploratory, improvisatory energy of a homespun creation. Co-starring alongside his real-life K9 companion, Birney himself stars as Conor, lending the work an especially intimate and quietly autobiographical resonance.

Created in collaboration with cinematographer/editor Pete Ohs and featuring a score by Animal Collective’s Josh Dibb, OBEX moves fluidly between analog reality and 8-bit imagination, nostalgia and unease. At once playful and melancholic, the film reflects on solitude, media saturation, and the strange intimacy we form with the technologies that shape our inner worlds—offering a surreally nostalgic nightmare that looks back to 1987 to better understand the loneliness of our always-online present.

Dir. Albert Birney, 2025, 90 mins, United States, English, Not Rated (Suggested PG-13), Digital.

PRECEDED BY:

TANK FANTASY (2025) – 5 mins.

Have you ever wanted to experience life as a fish?

Welcome to the Center for Marine Biology Cyberspace Studies. We’re so excited you are visiting us today!

GRUENFELD (2024) – 10 mins.

A knight in an accursed and shattered world tempts fate with a mysterious song.

FIREFLIES ALONG THE FENCE (2025) – 5 mins.

One of the light creatures comes close. It blinks right here, beside my arm. I can see the body. It is small, with wings.

Special thanks to Alexandra Fredericks of Oscilloscope Laboratories and Albert Birney.

Please email [email protected] or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.

ADVISORY DISCLAIMER

With some exception, The Philosophical Research Society’s 7th House Screenings does not typically provide advisory warnings about potentially upsetting content or subject matter, as sensitivities are particular to each viewer. Please be sure to read event listings, research on the web, or visit Common Sense Media, IMDb, and DoesTheDogDie.com for thorough info on content and age-appropriateness. If you have any specific content advisory questions, please email [email protected].

CONTENT DISCLAIMER

The views, opinions, and thoughts expressed within exhibited works are solely those of their creators and may not represent those of the Philosophical Research Society (PRS), its affiliates, or any individuals associated with PRS. Screenings are intended for educational and entertainment purposes.

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