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Apr 20, 2020 By Austin Trunick

Like music festivals, film festivals have all but vanished in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Tribeca Film Festival, which we’ve covered every April in New York for years now, has already gone the virtual festival route, and we’re warily looking ahead to some of UTR’s other favorite fests – New Orleans Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and New York Film Festival – with the expectation that they won’t be held as normal, if at all, in 2020. It’s understandable: this isn’t the time for people to be standing in tight lines, waiting to crowd into sold-out screening rooms.

Canceled film festivals are more than just a drag for movie fans. It’s been especially rough for independent filmmakers who’ve seen months (years?) of hard work suddenly stall out when a big premiere or competition has been put on indefinite hiatus. This is true for both features and shorts, the latter of which often play for their biggest audiences while they’re on the festival circuit. Some of these creators have taken to posting their films online, and we can at least help them get some extra eyes on their streams.

Alejandro Montoya Marin’s ten-minute comedy, PERPS, follows two stoners as they’re busted for lighting up outside a movie theater. Their arresting officer is clearly going through an emotional breakdown after his girlfriend left him for another guy. Seeing a way out of their predicament, they offer to beat the guy up in exchange for their release—but that doesn’t go as well as planned.

The movie made its debut February’s Santa Fe Film Festival, where it won the best New Mexico film award, and was meant to go on to the Dances With Films fest in Los Angeles before that event was delayed. The movie stars martial artist Tamas Nadas and famed muscle man actor Lou Ferrigno (Pumping Iron, Hercules, TV’s Incredible Hulk).

You can stream the full film below.