WINNERS

MONTH OF MAY

Wicked Plans

Style Dayne, the Pizza Guy from Deadpool stars as a foreign extremist from Amadajiya, who accidentally chooses Halloween to enact a moment of terror. To his surprise, he discovers that North American life and culture is truly special, unique and sweet.

Best Director (Under 40min) - Lee Chambers

Best Lead (Male) - Style Dayne

Thirst

A woman with multiple sclerosis encounters two Native homeless men, one of them hearing impaired, who illegally access a water line, in order to survive.

Best Short Film on Nature & Wildlife (Under 40min)- Directed by Patricia M Fox

lava flow

A volcano’s eruption as both a familiar, and a dramatic event – a fascinosum of colours, forms and sounds

Special Jury Award - Manfred Neuwirth

Morning at Midnight

A depressed man seeks confort in meeting strangers in a restaurant, hoping to fill the void his ex left.

Best Screenplay (Under40min) - Carlos Silva Vallejo
Best Cinematography - Diego Tenorio

Mother's Day Memories

A woman's struggle with Alzheimer's leads to family conflict between her stubborn husband and her son as they fight over how best to love and care for her. Her son wants her to be diagnosed and treated medically, while her husband denies her condition but insists she follow a home regimen to improve her memory. But soon tragedy will lead to the revelation of a long-held family secret.

Best Producer (Under 40 min) - Bill Hoversten , Matthew Michael Ross

Morte Et Dabo

Inspired by a poem titled 'A Dying Gay Man', the film recites my grief at the height of the AIDS crisis. I saw my future dire with thoughts of death on so many levels and foresaw a doom that people neither recognized nor empathized with. I still remorse the loss of life from that time.

Special Jury Award- Rubén Möller ( Motion Picture Work )

How Much for the Exam

Librophileas is suffering from a big headache, apparently caused by Copyman’s scheme to organize university exam fraud. Copyman sends his butler to gather the bribe from students and deliver it to the professor. Librophileas will try to stop him. Maybe it’s not too late?

Best Animated Short Film (Under 40min) - Directed by Ivica Valentić

I'm Not Alone

Todd wakes to another routine day until breaking news comes in that we are all under attack, but he doesn’t know from whom or what. Todd, along with others, is warned to stay indoors and prepare for the worst. Todd’s main concern isn’t about himself but his wife, Lisa, whom he desperately tries to get in touch with. As the night goes on multiple intruders surprise Todd by attacking him in his house. As Todd fights off intruders he manages to get in touch with Lisa. Todd lets Lisa know that he is not alone through all this madness.
Lisa then tells Todd that she has been taken and that their next-door neighbor, Mr. Irvin, is behind it all. Just so happens that Mr. Irvin stops by to check on Todd, but Todd knocks out Mr. Irvin and then ties him up. Mr. Irvin is confused but Todd is determined to get the truth out of him one way or another.

Best Emerging Filmmaker (Over 40min) - Scott Schlueter

Identity Check

After two decades of controlling the world’s Virtual Reality market, MDI and its founder, Douglas McKinney, are in complete financial ruin. His toughest rival, multi-billionaire Blake Harper, founder of HarperSoft, is making a quick stop to buy what is left of MDI on his way to Tokyo for a five-day trade summit/mini-vacation. It has also been agreed that during their brief meeting, Harper will be buying one other thing: namely, McKinney’s entire identity as a human being.

Harper’s legal guru, world-renown corporate attorney Sherri Prentiss, has choreographed every detail of both this acquisition and their Japanese excursion and tries to make quick work of the meeting. McKinney and his attorney, Magdalene Walsh, offer little resistance to the takeover.

Best Lead-Female (Under 40min) -Heather Drew

A Flash of Beauty

A Flash of Beauty: Bigfoot Revealed presents interviews from researchers and eyewitnesses. The film covers historical accounts of Bigfoot, the significance within the indigenous cultures, and the emotional impact of a Bigfoot experience.

Best Director (Documentary Film) - Brett Eichenberger

A Little Touch of Harry

Harry Little is a veteran filmmaker - 36 features in 36 years - and while he was hot and trendy in the Eighties, he's considered a little out of touch with today's audiences. Be that as it may, Harry is happy in his little corner of Filmland, turning out his yearly feature for a small but dedicated audience. Harry only really has two problems. The first is the studios, whose twelve-year-old business school graduates view him as an extinct species and are reluctant to distribute his films. The second is his four ex-wives, all of whom have tried to kill him at one time or another. And as our story opens, one of them finally gets the job done.

Special Jury Award - Neill Fleeman

Diaspora

Eva (astonishing newcomer Yuliia Guzhva) has left her homeland of Ukraine with nothing more than a few belongings. She has come to Canada in search of a new life, though the only language she speaks is Ukrainian. Upon arriving, she finds a cold and hard city filled with immigrants from all other corners of the world and spirals into self-sabotage while trying to keep it all together. Eva's journey to discover her way takes her into some unique and challenging situations. Ultimately, Eva finds and loses connection with a host of new people, and finds where she belongs in places she never expected. Written and directed in twenty-five different languages and cast with actors who are all new Canadians, DIASPORA is an unconventional, quirky, emotional and psychological portrait of the loneliness and despair Eva faces in her new homeland while poignantly exploring the importance of language and culture in finding oneself.

Best Film (Over 40min) - Directed by Deco Dawson

Best Producer - Kyle Irving, Rebecca Gibson, Hannah Johnson

Pretty

Linda” (ing: “Pretty”) is a Brazilian film from 2021, of the suspense genre in
black and white (Noir) directed and produced by Alexandre Mourani and starring by Guedis Stabille & Ana Morelli. The plot revolves around Carlos and Joana,
where Carlos arrives at his apartment exhausted and hears noises that leads him to to commit a crime (?).

Best Emerging Filmmaker (Under40min)- Alexandre Mourani

Seeking the Lost Ones

My father Rudolf Teutsch was an early member of the NSDAP, later a soldier and in the Waffen SS. After he never wanted to talk to me about this past, his second wife gave me information about his life over 40 years ago.
In 2021, I re-enacted this conversation with an actress in a reading and confronted it with the statements of six Jews from France, Germany and Israel about their life stories, which they confided in me.
Their descriptions are integrated into the historical context of emigration to Palestine, child transports to England, the Nuremberg Race Laws, persecution and deportation, up to the founding of Israel in 1948.
The film also shows how different their encounters with the post-war world in Germany were, and how life in Israel is for them today.
Thus the closing words of the 94-year-old Alex Fried, touched by the centuries-old connection of Jews to European culture, his feeling of seeing himself as a citizen of the world, his desire to contribute to a better world.

Best Documentary Film(Over 40min) -Directed By Michael Teutsch

Gurucool

Teaching is a profession that creates all other professions and a teacher truly has the power to nourish the soul of each child.
GURUCOOL is a conversation among Indian educators to recognize significant gaps in the 21st century education system. It is about delving into the past and looking at the present to highlight the missing link in education that is a must have for the future. It is about coming together to address the gap!
We hope to answer questions like: What is the true purpose of education? What is the future of education in this age of digital revolution that is moving technology ahead of people? How do we make education a flourishing experience for each child?

Best Emerging Filmmaker (Documentary
Under40min) - Sangita Iyer

Fake News

Two microprocessors converse in a park, sitting on a bench. This is Willy and Jimmy, two personalized microprocessors.
Willy and Jimmy are old microprocessors from 1998 that have been retired for 20 years, growing old, but also slowly becoming senile.

Best Emerging Filmmaker(Animated/Under 40min) - Joachim Weber