The first-ever Shortie Film Festival showcasing independent and international films 30 minutes or less, will be held October 3rd and 4th 2019 in Brooklyn, New York. The festival fosters and propels emerging and provocative filmmaking with two days of screenings, Q&As, and afterparties for an audience seeking new voices and perspectives.
The Shortie Film Festival received over 300 submission – of all genres and subject matter without censure – from more than 40 countries in its first open call. Entries must have been produced within the last two years.
The culmination of the festival is the awards ceremony. All screened films will be eligible for Best Film, selected by the festival’s jury. Awards will also be presented in eight other categories: Best Social Justice/Investigative Film, Best Fiction, Best Documentary, Best First Film, Best Director, Best Cinematographer, Best Soundtrack
Short Film Festival will be held at ASI Studios, 110 Waterbury Street, Brooklyn.
Film higlights include:
SPIRIT
DOCUMENTARY
AUSTRALIA, 2019
19 MIN
When Saraswati arrives as the first educated daughter-in-law in a Himalayan village, she wonders how she will ever feel at home. But faced with the scepticism of an older generation of women, she grows determined to succeed.
As the village’s ten-day Pandav Lila festival approaches, the film offers a window onto the everyday work and spiritual practices that bind people to each other and the land. An intimate story of longing and belonging in India’s sacred mountains, ‘Spirit’ explores what it takes to make a home in a remote community in the thralls of change. Spirit emerged out of Dr Jane Dyson’s ongoing ethnographic work in the village since
Alongside her academic writing, Jane and Ross’s first film in the village (Lifelines, 2014) explored the impacts of social and economic change in the region. With Spirit, they were interested in ideas of belonging in the context of these shifts. They wanted to explore the work, time and love that goes into creating a sense of place, but also how it feels.
Jane’s long-term relationships in the village provides the basis for these conversations. Meanwhile, the extraordinary performances of the little known Pandav Lila festival – which is unique to the region – provides a powerful lens through which to tell these stories.
BROKEN WAVES
DOCUMENTARY
CANADA, 2019
21 MIN
When journalists and international aid leave, what remains of a humanitarian crisis? What are the traces left by the uprooting of millions of humans? What do we remember from the journey of anonymous crowds?
In Broken waves, we follow the photographer Frédéric Séguin in a pilgrimage, during which he returns to the highlights of the Syrian refugee crisis and tries to find the people he has photographed between 2015 and 2017.
In the fields, once muddy and full of tents, nature is taking back its rights. On the banks of the Greek Islands, the waves have already forgotten the tragedies of yesterday. But yet, scars remain alive in those who have been uprooted.
HURRICANE
DOCUMENTARY
USA, 2019
25 MIN
NYC PREMIERE
Land is the only thing worth killing, worth fighting, worth lying, and worth dying for.
After a devastating hurricane lays waste to their homes, Barbudans must overcome a second and potentially even greater threat––the sale of their island to foreign interests in the name of rebuilding, upending 300 years of communal land ownership.