Mouse

Mouse made its debut at the Brooklyn Film Festival in 2025, where it nabbed the Best Narrative Feature and the Grand Chameleon Award. Director and writer Kenny Riches also stars in the crime drama which explores the consequences of obsession and loneliness.

Set in 2007 in Salt Lake City, Riches portrays middle-aged Denny, an eerily quiet petty thief weighed down with loneliness. When he’s not reading letters from their relatives in Japan with his mother (played by the director’s real-life mother, Hiroko Riches), he’s incessantly hopping from one low-wage job to another. All the while, he’s living the life of a thief, breaking into cars and stealing bikes.

As Denny’s loneliness continues to eat away at him, he signs up for a pen-pal service and starts an infatuation with Tess (Sarah Coffey). Little does he know, he’s being exploited.

Tess runs a pen-pal scam with her boyfriend, Maury (Kimball Farley), in Kansas City, Missouri. When things start to go south for them, they decide to drive to Salt Lake City to swindle Denny in person. It’s not long before Denny bites off more than he can chew.