A N T I - V E N O M F O R A S N A K E
Director | Written by Gerardo Garcia | Produced by Val Tan & Alex Jiang
1993, East Village, New York. When a provocateur drag queen loses her soulmate to AIDS, she struggles to pay rent and must fight to save her home and legacy.
Watch the trailer here:
Visit the full website at: ckostopo.wixsite.com/antivenom
Writer & Director
Welcome to my narrative portfolio.
Below you will find a number of short films I wrote and directed.
Because of the nature of film festivals and premiere statuses, the bulk of my recent films are still unavailable for public online viewing. I am happy to provide private screening links for any of my work listed here, please reach out to me directly.
My early work, from 2016 - 2020, can be viewed publicly here.
U N T I L D E A T H D O U S P A R T
Writer, Director, Creator | Magical Realism
In a final act of love, a man turns his dead wife's body into a piano, in order to play their wedding march one last time and bring her back from the dead.
Currently in post-production.
E L A S T I C
Writer, Director, Creator | Queer Cinema
With the help of a rubber band, a closeted Catholic boy forces himself to masturbate to straight porn.
d o n ' t y o u w o n d e r ?
Writer, Director, Unreal Artist | Animation
When two extraterrestrial androids discover an uninhabitable planet Earth, they contemplate the meaning of life, religion, and human conquest.
Set 50,000 years in the future, "don't you wonder?" meditates on a post-human Earth through the lens of AI. This short film was written, directed, animated, and created solo by me.
Full short film:
F E V E R D R E A M S
Writer, Director, Creator | Experimental
Fallen sick, a young man begins to lucid dream to cope with his isolation, in a surrealist exploration of emotional estrangement, mental fatigue, and the toll of the pandemic.
L I T T L E R E D L I E
Writer, Director, Creator | Dark Comedy
Two boyfriends weigh the moral pros and cons of lying about their sexuality in order to donate blood.
P I E C E S
Writer, Director, Creator | Experimental
An experimental short film combining Google Earth with voicemails from my father to ponder the meaning of "home".
H E A R T B E A T S
Writer, Director, Creator | Visual Poem
At the stroke of midnight, a puppet awakes. "Heartbeats" explores freedom, confinement, and isolation through the metaphor of a dancing puppet, utilizing vertical cinema to emphasize the brutality of his loneliness.
A M O T H E R ' S S O L I L O Q U Y
Writer & Director • Student Academy Awards Semi-Finalist
D I R E C T O R ' S S T A T E M E N T
'A Mother's Soliloquy' was born out of personal experiences with addiction at a young age. Growing up in a family disrupted by alcohol took a toll on my own upbringing, and seemingly kept my family trapped in an incessant cycle of relapse and recovery.
Inspired by my own experience, 'A Mother's Soliloquy' aims to capture the violent, cyclical nature of alcoholism, and its disruptive effect on the family. Structured loosely around the 12 Steps of AA, the story sympathizes with those suffering from addiction, while attempting to explore the psychological toll that addiction may take. 'Soliloquy' presents a raw, visceral look at one woman's decision to drink, portraying relapse with unapologetic honesty as we see the path to recovery cut short.
Told without dialogue, much of the film is communicated visually and abstractly, with the human body becoming its own unspoken form of dialogue. Through this abstraction, the film attempts to create a more layered, intimate atmosphere, allowing audiences to follow the story while simultaneously projecting their own experiences. The film combines a deep, electronic score with an experimental visual journey in order to tell a poem of grief, loss, and addiction, and a mother's struggle to overcome her temptation.
I created this project in hopes of shedding light on the nature of alcoholism in a postmodern world. Despite touching the lives of millions each year, the effects of alcohol abuse are rarely discussed on-screen. Through 'Soliloquy', I hope to generate conversation about the struggles of recovery, and to relate my own story to the experiences of others. I hope to transport audiences into a new world, to take each viewer into an inward, psychological journey. I hope to speak directly to those who have been affected by alcoholism; those who face the daily struggle of the bottle, those mentally and emotionally hurt by its reach, and those forced to watch as friends and family suffer from addiction.
