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He may not have made a good movie since “Blue Jasmine,” but Woody Allen’s influence still reaches far and wide. Whether it’s the charming self-deprecation of Greta Gerwig’s “Frances Ha,” Ingrid Jungermann’s update on “Manhattan Murder Mystery” with the soon-to-be-released “Women Who Kill,” or the whimsical surrealism of “Approaching a Breakthrough,” a new short film from writer/director Noah Pritzker.

Read More: Meet the 2015 SXSW Filmmakers #12: Noah Pritzker’s ‘Quitters’ Sees a Family Falling Apart

Tightly scripted and engagingly shot, Pritzker’s short is indelibly of its time while tipping its hat to cinema’s past. Kieran Culkin plays Norman, a young man running away from his debt as well as indecision. The film begins with a nuanced argument between Norman and his girlfriend Claire (Mae Whitman) about the struggle for autonomy in romantic relationships.

As their bickering devolves, Norman is suddenly approached by his two former therapists,...

Short of the DayA harrowing and compelling short starring and directed by Josh Hutcherson

The most terrifying facet of extreme schizophrenia, I think, is the idea that the line between reality and delusion can at times not exist, that even though your senses might tell you something’s wrong or off, your mind won’t translate it into meaning. You learn you can’t trust yourself, basically, and that, to me, is the most frightening thing I can think of. We each are, at the end of every day, our only arbiters of the truth, and to learn you’re incapable of always telling or always accepting that truth from yourself must be its own kind of private hell.

Now, of course, I am describing an extreme sort of the disease, not everyone who suffers from schizophrenia suffers to that degree as there are in fact several medications that can help those afflicted lead normal lives. That...

"I've never been a goal-oriented person. I never have in my entire life set one goal, I don't think," admits Josh Hutcherson. We're meeting at his publicist's office in West Hollywood and I've just asked if, after spending half a decade playing, promoting and generally being Peeta from The Hunger Games, the 24-year-old wrapped up his time on the franchise with an idea of the next steps he wanted to take in his career. Hutcherson, his dark hair tousled and scruff dusting his square jawline, leans forward as he elaborates, "I think that the idea of a goal means that you're focused on getting there, instead of being in the moment."

While Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemswoth leveraged their franchise clout to land more blockbuster jobs, traversing the galaxy in action-adventure rom-coms or fighting off alien resurgences, Hutcherson took a step back. "It wasn't about, like, proving to people I could do something else, as much as...

Having established himself as an actor, Josh Hutcherson has now moved behind the camera. The Hunger Games co-star’s short film ‘Ape’ is the most buzzed-about entry with The Big Script, a five-video filmmaking series now available through Conde Nast Entertainment (Cne)’s owned-and-operated video platform The Scene.

The Big Script is a collaboration between Cne, Hutcherson’s Turkeyfoot Productions, and Indiginous Media, a studio founded in 2014 by a trio of entertianment industry vets. The project’s producers combed through thousands of screenplays from Hollywood’s Black List before settling on five to adapt into short films. The resulting videos range from 11 to 17 minutes in length, and four of them are directed by their writers. The lone exception is ‘Ape,’ which Hutcherson directed from a screenplay written by Jon Johnstone.

With The Big Script, Cne, Indiginous, and Turkeyfoot are hoping to introduce viewers to the “next generation of great storytellers,...

“Ape,” a psychological thriller directed by Josh Hutcherson (“The Hunger Games,” “The Kids Are Alright”), debuted today on the Conde Nast-owned digital platform The Scene. The fifteen-minute film stars Hutcherson as a schizophrenic teen battling hallucinations, with a script by Jon Johnstone.

The film is part of a new emerging filmmakers initiative from Conde Nast Entertainment, Indigenous Media, and Josh and Michelle Hutcherson’s Turkeyfoot Productions, called The Big Script. Citing an increase in major studio tent pole films, The Big Script aims to find and produce “independently created content that can thrive on digital/emerging platforms” and is “driven by unique voices.”

Read More: Female Filmmakers Are ‘Grossly Underrepresented’ When It Comes to Directing Opportunities, New Study Finds

Partnering with The Black List script database, the five films were chosen from over 2,000 submissions, with the only requirement being that the film feature characters in their late teens to late twenties.

You can add Josh Hutcherson to the list of actors who are also directors. The Hunger Games star makes his directorial debut with Ape, a new short about a young man (Hutcherson) with mental illness. The film is part of The Big Script, a series of five shorts produced by Hutcherson and his mom Michelle Hutcherson's Turkeyfoot Productions, Indigenous Media and Condé Nast Entertainment. "I've always wanted to direct," Hutcherson tells me. "Directing definitely preceded acting for me. Before I really actually started in the business, I was directing my friends in movies in Kentucky. But they hated every moment of it and would quit often, so I didn't finish one of those projects. Now I'm...