WINNERS

MONTH OF SEPTEMBER

When the Woodlark Sings

After his bachelor party, a 45-year-old man wakes up in the middle of the forest but cannot find his way out. On the way he meets a young woman with memory problems who knows the way out of the forest despite all the circumstances. They make a deal: he helps her get her memories back and she takes him out of the forest. - But their journey out of the forest together takes them down paths they didn't expect.

Best Director - Ana Bilic

We Should Be Strangers

A young couple decides to break up at a rest stop during a road trip for their anniversary.

Best screenplay - Nicolas Taylor

The Truth Is A Foot

A lonely Bigfoot tries to find others just like him but Bigfoot are hard to find, even if you are one

Best Animated Film (Over 40min) Kevin Getz & Jameson Rafter

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Two brothers inherit a 67 Dodge Dart and go drag racing. Shot on an iPhone this story is about overcoming obstacles on the track and in life. Being the slowest car at the track the brothers do whatever they have to to win.

Best Producer - Anthony James Natoli

Return to the End

A widow man joins a remote celebration organized by his sister on occasion of his 65th birthday. His son and daughter join the virtual meeting too from their individual homes. The event, which remotely summons other characters close to the family, unleashes painful wounds from the past, exposes threats from the present, and casts fears about the future. Some old emotional wounds become irreparable, poignant memories remain unforgettable, hard decisions are inevitable. The ending may be also a new beginning with a glimpse of hope.

Best film - Directed by Gustavo Letelier
Best Support (Female) - Paula Leoncini

Sunflower

After Earth is attacked by a threat unlike any other, a Scientist searches for Humanity's last hope for survival.

Special Jury Award (Technical Excellence) - Bryan Edwards

Project Skyquake

After strange trumpet-like sounds in the sky have been reported at locations around the world, a wannabe journalist sets out to investigate with her best friend, but they soon find themselves facing an encounter with terrifying results.

Best Emerging Filmmaker - József Gallai

Othaniel

Othaniel is a unique modern retelling of Shakespeare's famous classic Othello, updating the timeless story, while maintaining its original themes and dialog, in a contemporary urban setting.

Originally in Venice, Italy, we bring our story to Los Angeles, where Hollywood and fame are the main characters, conquering many successful individuals, and Othaniel a war hero, as well as the first black General is no exception.

Jealousy and envy of Othaniel’s success eventually begin to rear its ugly head, as Iago his right-hand man, plots his downfall using social media to falsely implicate Othaniel's wife, Desi, and Cassio in a love affair.

Special Jury Award ( Fine adaptation of Othello) Spencer Longmore
Best Producer - Megan Lennon, Nick Montalvo,Spencer Longmore, Damaine Radcliff

Hellhole

A U.S. Air Force pilot wakes up in a desolate desert, unsure of how he got there. Upon encountering a mysterious plague doctor, he finds himself on a journey through the nine circles of hell. Unsure if he is dead or alive, he seeks answers and ultimately redemption.

This film is a contemporary reference to Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem “Inferno”. The film explores such existential notions as heaven and hell, the afterlife, consciousness and mortality.

Best Original Score - Deon Lee

Boneless

During a business trip to Venice, a couple offers a ride to a mysterious hitchhiker.
A wrong path at the very wrong time will lead our people in the midst of an intergalactic war between humans and aliens.

Special Jury Award - Dario Bagatin

Like a PowerPoint

A man and woman negotiate the expectations of their romance.

Best Emerging Filmmaker - Pat Bradley, Melanie Gretchen

Duplicitous Minds

Mysterious world of magic, a journey of hypnotism, heists, illusions and fun with many thrilling twists and turns. The entire film is structured like a long form magic trick with hidden clues, symbols and meanings. The theme of the movie is the choice between love (The Queen of Hearts) and power (The Ace). The dichotomy of one man’s lust for power (Ace of Spades) and one man’s loyalty to love (Queen of Hearts) propels our lead into a labyrinth of traversing a heart torn in two. It's a battle between traditional magic vs digital magic as a Magician and the Artist (a crooked businessman) team up for a heist that turns into a magic trick and an illusion onto itself.

The film opens with The Magician performing on stage with The Assistant. The Magician shows the audience how magic works by manipulating the Ace to the top of a pile of cards where every card he turns over becomes an Ace. After revealing the trick, he then magically turns the Queen of Hearts into an Ace right before their eyes.

Behind the scenes, the Magician is in a love relationship with the Assistant. A mysterious man enters the magic parlor and introduces trouble to the couple. The mysterious man who calls himself “The Artist” offers the Magician a deal. The Magician ultimately decides to do a heist job for the Artist to obtain a valuable painting.

It is revealed that the Artist works in the surveillance business and is able to manipulate CCTV cameras for his benefit. In twist of events, it is revealed that The Assistant has been working for the Artist the entire time, with the plan being a setup to steal valuable diamonds hidden behind the painting and to have The Magician take the fall for the heist. The Artist flaunts his power and control over the Assistant through his usage of blackmail video surveillance. But in the end, the tables are turned and the audience learns that The Magician and The Assistant were really in control the entire time.

Just like the beginning of the magic trick, the Magician had turned his queen into the ace and they both disappear into the sunset with the money and diamonds from the heist.

Best Lead(Female) - Catalina Yue

Broken Circle

In Ancient Greece, in the time of Agamemnon, Odysseus, Menelaus and Achilles, shortly before the Trojan War, events are reversed and the order of things changes. Young Electra while is in an existential quest for truth, she's being trapped in the crack of time.

Best Screen Play - Demetrios Katis
Best Lead (Female) -Vaia Kofou

Americanized

Growing up in Oakland’s hip-hop culture, Eng struggles with her Chinese American identity. To her high school basketball team, she’s just that girl who sits on the bench; but to the Asian kids she’s "Americanized." As her sophomore year of high school comes to an end, Eng tries to find a sense of belonging within the two worlds that don't accept her.

Best Short Film on African Americans, natives & visible minorities - directed by Erica Eng

Best Sound Designing - Bo Pang

4Ur Protection

Following a college student through a normal day at school when she is suddenly forced to deal with an active shooter situation. The architectural thesis concept behind the film focuses on diminishing a wearer’s sense of fear in public spaces through a capsule collection of bullet-resistant and 3D-printed protective performance-wear.

Best Director - Caylee Sacks

India's Children?

'India's children?' focuses on the fundamental right of life and liberty and the significance of education in ensuring the same. It aims to explore various scenarios of how 'normal' acts, which happen around us every single day, cause discomfort, and anxiety creating a hostile environment for the people facing them.
Children pick up on everything that we do and each time they are exposed to a situation where problematic behaviour is normalised, it gets ingrained in their brain, prompting them to do the exact same thing and tread down a wrong path. Finally, the film tweaks situations a little to demonstrate how a small step can go a long way in teaching our youngsters to be more open and accepting of everyone around us.

All it takes is a little nudge in the right direction to make them functional contributing members of the society and treat humans as humans - flawed confused beings, trying to make sense of the chaos around.

Best Documentary(Under 40 min) Directed by Imtiyaz Khalid

Butterfly

Butterfly is a metaphoric story of transformation, encased within a body of motion, which holds a powerful sway over imagination. Cocooned within a multi-layered reality of life Parvaneh gracefully carries her guarded wounds by dancing on the path she trusts, is unfolding before her. Dancing to her is thinking in movement, to know as you go along, to improvise, rather than calculation of a trajectory in advance of its social execution. As she proceeds step by step, she grows wiser, along the various paths of her entanglement in a tantalizing yet textured world around her that keeps changing. So as she.

Best Director - Joseph Hovsepian
Best Cinematography

Ashes to Ashes

sitcom/romance about tragic events that happened a year ago, when John had tragically lost the wife he loved dearly from a heart-attack. At the same time Lauren dreadfully lost her husband when he was arguing on his cellphone with his talent manager and walked into the path of an oncoming bus. Each of the deceased were taken to the same funeral home for services at the same time, and later to the crematorium where the funeral home put the wrong names on the funeral urns. Fate is the only explanation for the mix-up as Lauren was given an urn bigger than her head, and John received one that fit in the palm of his hand. They both finally found the time to mee to exchange the urns at Laurens apartment.

Best Emerging Filmmaker - George Zouvelos
Best Support (Female) - Deanna Doyle

Uncle Bill

Bill is a lonely soul and feels sorry for himself and his miserable life. He shuts people out and is unpleasant and unfriendly to everybody.
Out of the blue one day he receives a phone call from a social worker informing him that his sister has died suddenly and is asked to look after her daughter, Tia. Tia's father had separated from her mother years before and is uncontactable, so Bill is the next of kin. He reluctantly accepts to look after Tia, but only for a few days. When Tia arrives her natural charm and vitality wins Bill over and he gradually finds he is enjoying spending his time
with her. He starts seeing life in a more positive light and when the social worker phones one day to inform him that she has finally been able to make contact with Tia's father, Bill has to confront his own feelings for her. When Tia tells him that she wants to stay with him rather than go and live with her father overseas, he abruptly dismisses the social worker's offer. The last scene shows how they have grown to appreciate each other.

Best Short Film - Directed by Joachim E.H. Lang

Special Jury Award - Marla Tia, Sofie Mueller

Angst

Jay, a teenager with an aptitude towards academics, is often bullied due to his speech impediment and eccentric social skills. With the mounting pressure of meeting expectations from his family, he gets diagnosed with depression. His family undermines the severity of his depression (as Asian households are known to), causing Jay's mental health to decline even further. In fear of the growing isolation, Jay decides to rekindle his relationship with his family, no matter the cost.

Best Emerging Filmmaker - Shaji Kamalasanan & Yasim Kolathayil

Isn’t that just my life

Adapted from a short story by Dorothy Parker, a woman accepts an invitation to a dine at an elegant party only to discover she has been sat between a toad and a Greek God. We get to look inside her mind as she deliberates her plan of attack.

It’s a stage worthy one woman show that lets you into a single gal’s inner-most thoughts... when she is... alone... at the social event of the season. Let the theatrics begin!

Special Jury award(For screen adaptation of Dorothy Parker) - Jessi May Stevenson