The festival took place at Marcellus Free Library, 32 Maple Street, Marcellus NY on 16th November 2019. Here are the winners of the categories, as voted for by the audience. The Grand Prize winner is Radheya Jegatheva’s film “Hide & Seek”.
| Winner | Highly Commended |
| Animation | The Quiet | How & Why Don Jose Dissipated |
| Comedy | Robbery in Progress | Pledge It! |
| Drama | The Catch | Elephantbird |
| Female Filmmakers | Lola | |
| Family & Home | The Family Gathering | |
| Horror | Hide & Seek | |
| Children’s Movies | Bagold! | |
This is the whole schedule, with film title, duration, director, country of origin and supplied synopsis:
| 10:00am CHILDREN’S FILMS |
| Bagold! | 5.00 |
| Andrew O’Keefe | Australia |
| When a girl makes a magical discovery in her egg box, she sets
out to discover which of her chickens laid the golden egg. |
|
| Nasser Goes To Space | 10.00 |
| Mohamed Al Mahmeed | Qatar |
| Nasser, a creative young boy, envisions himself as a space
adventurer, and goes on a mission to find his parents’ love in an attempt to
save their marriage. |
|
| Sh’Hab | 13.00 |
| Amal Al-Muftah | Qatar |
| Upon hearing a myth about falling stars, a young girl’s
curiosity is sparked. When night falls on AlWakrah village, she sets out on
her father’s boat, with the assistance of her older brother, to chase the
fabled comets. |
| 10:45 ANIMATION |
| Balance | 3.63 |
| Raymond Limantara Sutisna | Singapore |
| “There isn’t enough room for the both of us.” Two painters
battle out what space they have to paint in their own style. |
|
| Bube Maises | 6.00 |
| Or levy | Israel |
| Yaffa is a 80 years old woman who live in a nursing home and has
dementia. the dementia causes her to live her childhood again. At that time,
her dad who was a business man was traveling the world and sending her
postcards from every country he visited, and she imagined her with him in his
adventures. at the end we find out that her daughter, Miri, is forging Yaffa
this postcards today to keep her mother happy. |
|
| How And Why Don Jose Dissipated | 12.63 |
| Moshe Ben-Avraham | Spain |
| A delighted bee disturbs the tranquility of vacationers on a
quiet pastoral island. Disturbing Don Jose in the middle of a relaxing gaze,
he spits at her and she falls into his drink. Attempting to save her from
drowning, Don Jose becomes emotionally attached to the bee. When the bee is
suddenly devoured by a duck, Don Jose starts his pursuit of the duck,
embarking on a chase of logic and a surrealistic journey into the depths of
his consciousness. |
|
| Legend Of Ancient Borneo | 8.72 |
| Geoffrey Sinn Chun Hou | Malaysia |
| Four warriors of a village in ancient Borneo were going after a
gang of reptiles savages who ravaged their village and took the village’s
sacred dragon skull, but they soon found out the truth behind their village’s
prosperity and the untold history of the dragon skull. |
|
| Out For A Spin | 1.72 |
| Abigail Spillane | United States |
| An exploration of the origins of film and animation and its
early use in spinning toys known as phenakistiscopes. |
|
| Play/Ground | 14.22 |
| Hanna Sköld | Sweden |
| With a mix of claymation and live action we enter the world of
Love, who’s 2 years old and struggles to get attention from his father and
connect to his Granny. But Loves father has no time, to see him or to listen,
since he’s totally preoccupied with trying go get grandma out of bed. |
|
| Sophie | 4.70 |
| Anna Cangellaris | United States |
| Sophie longs to be reborn while seeking to know her double. A
party in the hills of Los Angeles offers a corporeal shift to her
existence. |
|
| Synchronicity | 3.78 |
| Michelle Brand | United Kingdom |
| People come, people go – Yet everyone is moving in the same
direction. We all are sharing something that we are unaware of, creating one
big picture we are unable to see. The film explores the idea of how everyone
is connected in a way we may not realise. By sharing time, space and
movement, we overlap and create a bigger picture. |
|
| The Film Roll | 1.00 |
| Brook Pruitt | United States |
| Stop Motion of a Super 8 mm film cartridge sliding and rolling
into a Super 8 mm film camera then the film camera slides off the screen. |
|
| The Quiet | 10.00 |
| Radheya Jegatheva | Australia |
| When an astronaut ponders on the quietude of space, he comes
upon a startling self-realisation. |
|
| Turning | 1.85 |
| Linnéa Haviland | Sweden |
| Voices in a crowd stir violent emotions, microaggressions bring
up past traumas. Then a turning shifts the emotional landscape… A short
animated film about the emotional impact of homo- bi- and transphobia on
young people, and how support and community can help us grow. |
| 12:00 COMEDY |
| A Comedy | 4.32 |
| Jay Young | United States |
| A Husband briefly visits home during the work day. He and his wife have a conversation made
entirely of jokes, puns and one-liners. |
|
| Dog Gone | 7.07 |
| Tommy Wooldridge | United States |
| When a bumbling cartoonist loses his dog, he gets creative in
the frantic search to find his furry best friend. |
|
| Fart Force | 8.00 |
| Rob Imbs, Dominic Luongo | United States |
| Fart Force is an episodic docu-crime drama that follows the
lives of two Queen City detectives. |
|
| Pledge It | 13.22 |
| Rachael Sonnenberg | United States |
| Public school children around the country say the pledge of
allegiance every day, but for the second graders at Reileigh elementary
allegiance was not such an easy sell. A filmmaker explores the comical chain
of events that left classroom 3C in utter ruin, turning morning meeting into
morning anarchy. |
|
| Robbery In Progress | 8.02 |
| James Marlowe | United States |
| A wannabe bank robber picks the wrong day to begin his life of
crime. |
|
| The Big Questions In Life | 6.37 |
| Ingrid Hübscher | Germany |
| A little girl gets bored waiting for her mother at a cafe and
finds a boy to play with. |
| 1:00pm DRAMA |
| The Visit | 15.00 |
| Christian Werner | Germany |
| Klaus (60) works voluntary as a Santa Claus in a shopping mall.
After an exhausting day, he considers to hang up his job. But then, he gets a
call from the children’s intensive care unit. |
|
| A Family Tradition | 11.00 |
| Giuseppe Cardaci | Italy |
| It’s Mauro’s first birthday since his wife passed away. His two
daughters, Giulia and Clara, don’t seem to agree on a way to celebrate it:
one wants to continue with mum’s tradition, while the other wants to do
something new. Either way this will be the chance to finally reveal a secret
and find all together the carelessness that had been lost. |
|
| Angel’s Mirror | 14.00 |
| Cheng Chao | China |
| In China, in the early 1990’s, a little boy and his family have
just come to live in a large factory complex. As he explores his new
surroundings, he comes across other boys his age playing ping-pong — and
discovers that they are fascinated by a cute little girl who spends her days
looking out from the window of an upstairs apartment. Wanting to know more
about the girl, he comes up with his own unique way of starting a friendship
with her. |
|
| Elephantbird | 15.00 |
| Masoud Soheili | Afghanistan |
| A mini-bus is on a journey across the mountains to Kabul. Each
person on the bus has a reason to take this journey. An old man is traveling
to give a turkey to his grandchild, as his last wish before dying. However,
the main road is blocked by insurgents. They decide to use an alternative
road, which is not very secure, and there is still the possibility of getting
caught by insurgents. |
|
| Godspeed | 2.40 |
| Sunny Wai Yan Chan | United States |
| “Godspeed” is a story about a mother saying goodbye to
her son at the airport. The son wants a hug, but the reserved mother is
reluctant to do so. The seemingly small conflict between the two is amplified
by the close-ups of their faces, visualizing the weight of struggle each of
them is experiencing. |
|
| Hanged | 13.00 |
| Roqiye tavakoli | Iran |
| “Parvaneh is a hungry fourty-year-old girl.” |
|
| Shaholly | 3.42 |
| Wojciech Lorenc | United States |
| Shaholly Ayers, a congenital amputee, was once told that
she could never become a model. This
emotional film talks about her struggles, and eventual big break that allowed
her to live her dream, and change the way people perceive disability. With her unbridled spirit and tenacious
attitude, there is no telling what amazing things she may accomplish. |
|
| The Catch | 5.83 |
| Sam Avery | United States |
| Sometimes, it really is just a fish story… |
|
| The Interpreter | 3.27 |
| Martin Barandalla | Spain |
| Saioa and her mother Ana Mari go to pray to the Virgin. Saioa is
only an interpreter between her mother and the Virgin but, with a little
pressure, Saioa is also ready to ask for something else. |
|
| The Transaction | 3.00 |
| Matthieu VINEL | France |
| In the heart of the Ardèche mountains, an elegant young man
drives a 1965 Triumph TR4. On the winding road, he’s having a great time. He
looks great behind the wheel of the gleaming car! That’s what this beautiful
hitchhiker, picked up on the road, thinks… |
|
| Wonderland | 6.72 |
| Padrick Ritch | United States |
| A young woman makes one last trip to the beach before leaving
town. |
|
| Zero Gravity | 4.82 |
| Lukas Hablitzel | Germany |
| When two boys parents start splitting up, the older tells the
younger a story to make him understand |
| 2:45pm ENVIRONMENTAL |
| Big Oil | 1.57 |
| Felipe Sanchez | N/A |
| Oil powers the world. What happens when oil disappears? |
|
| Mni Wiconi: Water Is Life | 2.73 |
| Miguel Antonio Genz, Jeremias Galante | United States |
| A short film on the environment and how the fossil fuel industry
is affecting climate change. It’s a black and white hand drawn film dedicated
to Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Dakota Territory. The main theme is about the
Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The intention of the film is to create social
awareness regarding contamination of natural resources. |
| 3:00pm FAMILY AND HOME |
| Ba Guan – Ah Gong | 13.83 |
| Clifford Miu | Taiwan |
| Summer of 04′, post-SARS. Taipei, Taiwan. Initially distracted
by his western-influenced cousin Tina, Eleven year old Chris eventually
discovers that his reluctant mother and his two uncles have decided to pull
the plug on his beloved grandfather. The film depicts the impacts of medical
intubation on loved ones, seen from the eyes of an eleven year old boy. |
|
| Family Ties: Interviews In Clay | 3.13 |
| Stephan Leeper | United States |
| Animated self-portraits reflecting on family members and
meaningful moments. |
|
| Milk | 12.48 |
| Samiramis Kia | Canada |
| In this family drama, a Russian immigrant couple do all they can
to provide help to their daughter while facing their differences. |
|
| Mother | 3.13 |
| Ejun Hong | Korea |
| Mother is about my 92-year-old grandfather, who lost his mother
when he was only 3-year-old. He now
has Alzheimer’s and is living the last days of his life. I love and respect
him very much, so I wanted to pay tribute to him by creating a film that
shows his challenging yet successful life. Setting his mother as the central
theme of the film, I wanted to deliver a message that the love between a
mother and son never fades away.
Mother made my grandfather experience the everlasting love between him
and his mother in a way he never has. |
|
| The Family Gathering | 9.98 |
| Nicole Brokaw | United States |
| The Family Gathering is a short documentary co-produced by
Nicole Brokaw and Elanor Harris on artists in the glassworking community of
Corning, New York. The film dives into the story of a family of glassmakers
from the Hands-On Glass Hot Glass Studio. |
| 4:00pm FEMALE FILMMAKERS |
| A Family Recipe That Cannot Be Followed Written Down | 2.30 |
| Elaine Zhang | United States |
| A first-generation Chinese-American woman mourns her immigrant
father by following the traditional family recipe that she learned from him
as a little girl. |
|
| A Girl Like Me | 7.90 |
| Melissa Glasscock | United States |
| This animated short highlights accomplishments of women in the
fields of science, engineering, technology, math, the arts, sports and
humanitarian work. |
|
| Amir Ali | 20.00 |
| Shiva | Iran |
| Amir Ali is a teenage boy whose parents are getting a divorce.
His mother has left their home and Amir Ali has one task to do before he
takes off with his sister: he has to find a red folder containing important
documents and take it to his mother. |
|
| Lola | 7.00 |
| Ella McKeon | United States |
| A young girl has trouble fitting in and begins to create her own
reality. |
|
| Oblivion | 15.00 |
| Fatemeh Mohammadi | Iran |
| Mehrbanoo tries everything to make her husband’s life, who is
suffering from Alzheimer’s, worth living. Rental issues and the absence of
their children and grandchildren take their toll in this sensitive portrayal |
| 5:00pm HORROR |
| Across The Street | 4.98 |
| Caden H. Hollander | United States |
| After a lonely teenage boy (Jacob Morilak) has a bag of candy
stolen on Halloween, he must go on an insane bizarre adventure to retrieve
it! |
|
| Hide And Seek | 9.97 |
| Radheya Jegatheva | Australia |
| Want to find yourself? Be careful what you wish for. Yifei, a university student who struggles with his identity and longs to ‘find himself’, picks up an abandoned USB. Curious, he plugs it into his laptop to find two images: one which says ‘HIDE’, the other shows a disturbing image. This triggers a curiosity where throughout his day he begins to see a numbered countdown. Will he find himself? Be careful what you wish for. |
|
| Pogo | 3.33 |
| Ella McKeon | United States |
| Based on the true life events of a man who wanted to be a clown
but had far worse intentions. |
|
| Quiet | 4.05 |
| Donovan Colan, Acadia Colan | Canada |
| Alone in his house after school one day, a boy hears something
strange in the attic and realizes he might not be the only one there. |
|
| The Butcher Shop | 5.50 |
| Ella McKeon | United States |
| A group of friends make a day around going to an ‘Escape Room’,
but they soon find, there is no escape. |
|
| Whitexploitation | 3.27 |
| Riccardo Menicatti, Bruno Ugioli | Italy |
| Two agents grill a guy suspected to hide a secret. CAUTION:
Contains offensive language. |
|
| Not Present | 3.50 |
| Ian Potter | United States |
| Two friends out camping face a horrific situation – but in
reality, do they at all? |
| 6:00pm Announcement of Winners |
November 2, 2019