This performance is SOLD OUT
From more than 250 entries our festival selection committee has chosen 9 finalists. We will screen each short film and our jury will select the “Best Overall” film at the conclusion of the program.
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Our Jury:
Monty Cole – Monty has directed for Steppenwolf, Center Theatre Group, The Goodman Theatre, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Victory Gardens Theater, the Center for New Performance, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Alley Theatre and others. His re-interpretations of classics from Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape to Hamlet have received awards and critical praise in Chicago. His short film Sons of Toledo was our juried short competition winner in 2022.
*** Extreme Thanks to our Short Film Selection committee: Anne Evasick, Jennifer Turner Smith, and Deborah Alves for their work over the last six months to view, rate and select our finalists from close to 250 submissions. Bravo!
2023 MVIFF SHORT FILM FINALISTS
“OUTSIDE LINE” – (19:51) Directed by Jack Gordon, United States
Rajah Caruth wasn’t supposed to be a NASCAR driver. As a Black kid growing up in Washington D.C., he had no connections and little representation in the industry. Determined to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a driver, he pursued the only path he saw available: virtual racing. He made a name for himself in the online world of iRacing, leveraging his rapidly growing talents and personal brand into a spot in a real-life race car. In the few short years since Caruth first got into a car, he has risen to NASCAR’s penultimate racing series, with his sights set at the top. This short documentary tells his story and follows him as he prepares for a bold new chapter in his racing career.
“THE OLD YOUNG CROW” – (12:00) Directed by Liam LoPinto, Japan/USA
An Iranian boy befriends an old Japanese woman at a graveyard in Tokyo
“RIVER” – (14:00) Directed by Rafal Sokolowski and Kanat Umurbekov, USA
River, a trans woman, returns home to attend the funeral of her estranged father. She arrives consumed by regret for not seeing him before he passed, but instead of closure, she finds that the funeral has been staged and that her father faked his death to lure her into ‘conversion therapy’.
“THE VACATION” – (9:27) Directed by Jarreau Carrillo, United States
In Flatbush, Brooklyn, four friends are stuck in their car after it breaks down on the way to the beach on the last day of the summer.
“LEGENDS OF THE MOUNTAIN” – (15:00) Directed by Nuala Dalton, Ireland
Tales of outlaws and fairies reveal themselves as more than superstition. Over the centuries they have reconnected storytellers and their listeners with ancestral wisdom, the sacred and ‘The Otherworld’. In this short film, interviews with three historians explore the historical context through which the stories emerged, and excerpts of these old tales are shared once more.
“NEW LIVES” – (19:54) Directed by Joey Schweitzer, United States
A psychological portrait of a Holocaust survivor navigating the trauma of her past with the pressures of assimilation, in 1950s Brooklyn.
“PUFFERFISH” – (14:59) Directed by Mohammad Kamal Alavi, Iran
Ava is an Iranian, 9 years old girl. There is a religious rite in the school and the teachers sing hymns for the children. A song that is an instruction to “be a good girl”.
After school, Ava goes to the birthday party of her cousin who is her best friend, Pouya, but with the presence of uninvited guests, the birthday takes a different form for Ava…
These guests influence Ava’s decisions and choices at the moments. In the end, an unexpected event puts Ava in a big dilemma..
“ALGORITHM TAKEDOWN” – (4:00) Directed by Alex Budovsky, United States
Featuring Hip Hop Timpanist Jonathan Haas with the NYU Hip Hop Orcastra. “Algorithm Takedown” is an animated music video that is commissioned by Music Professor of Percussion Studies Jonathan Haas who teaches at New York University and is based on the music written by legendary drummer Lenny White, who recorded with Miles Davis and Chick Corea. In perfect synchronization animation follows and underlines the lyrics written and performed by rapper Walter West.
“CAREER DAY” – (10:00) Directed by Jason Robinson and Chris Hooper, United States
A once promising 90’s pop star and his boy band reunite for his daughter’s elementary school Career Day and go viral.
