2011 Short Films

21
Director: Csaba Bene Perlenberg
Short Film 29 minutes Sweden 2011
The story of a mother and son and what is soon to be lost – forever.

Amanda
Director: Michael Tanner Cusumano
Short Film 14 minutes USA 2010
AMANDA is the compelling story about a girl named Amanda, a popular and carefree seventeen year old high school student who had it all. A wealthy family, great friends and a handsome boyfriend, Ryan. However, Amanda risked all of that when she decided to drink and drive, and in an instant she lost it all. Amanda’s life turns from carefree teenage bliss into her own living nightmare as she tries to come to terms with the tragic results of her own decisions.

ashley lynn
Director: Travis Herbert Chapman
Short Film 30 minutes USA 2010
‘ashley lynn’ tells the story of a brother and sister, Grey and Grace, who grew up with an abusive father, Jacob. Grace has moved on, but Grey hasn’t. He is returning home from college to confront his dying father, and a past that includes a dark, unspeakable family secret.

Bad Influences
Director: Kate Emery
Short Film 16 minutes USA 2010
Enter the hilariously sick mind of Jillian, a timid hypochondriac with a vivid imagination. Instead of making real friends, she hangs out with the diseases she thinks she has: Influenza, Asthma and Mono. Jillian moves into a rural, germ-ridden town just in time for her freshman year of high school. Her ‘friends’ tag along, ready to keep her safe from the hazards of a ninth-grade social life. When a renegade upperclassman named Dave encourages Jillian to emerge from her shell, she must make a real human connection or remain sick forever.

Bubblegum Smackers
Director: Lindsay Garvin
Short Film 17 minutes USA 2011
Walter Wilder and Sam Hart are two tough private investigators who are hired by Jessica Rogers to find her missing best friend, Frank. Lately, missing persons reports have become all too familiar. Walter and Sam discover that all leads point towards a gangster boss by the name of Big Pop. Now they must protect Jessica and find Frank before they are captured by Big Pop and his gang, but this will take more than smarts and bravery, it involves growing up and over coming fears.

Burundi Film Center – Five Short Films (Presented in one program)
Burundi, Canada 2011
Easy Call
Director: Angelo Arakaza 9 minutes
A young woman’s foray into prostitution brings shocking consequences to her family nightmare as she tries to come to terms with the tragic results of her own decisions.

Knock Knock (Who’s Dead?)
Director: Grâce Nzeyiman 11 minutes
A morbid comedy following Rukwi’s botched attempts to earn a living by collecting the dead.

Mission: Montreal
Director: Natacha Songore 9 minutes,
Lionel sells out his family and friends in a desperate attempt to move to Canada.

Pigfoot
Director: Aster Ntirampeba 7 minutes
A porter in Bujumbura tries to make a name for himself by working at a slaughterhouse.

The Return of Old Man Kabura
Director: Patrick Ngendakumana 7 minutes
An 82-year-old refugee comes home to Burundi and tries to rebuild his life after 38 years in exile.

El Baile (The Dance)
Director: Jonathan Bennett
Short Film 15 minutes USA 2010
El Baile is the story of two brothers, Ricardo and Hernan Saragossa, Hispanic immigrants. They work during the day to get by, they play soccer at night to live. The only certainty in their lives is the love of one another. They have carved a living by the sweat of their backs and their refusal to give up. The perfect team, Ricardo makes the play Hernan finishes it. Their foundation is shaken when Ricardo decides to take a chance on his future. Suddenly the virtues that have sustained them threaten to tear them apart. Ricardo pursues soccer as a profession and sees a happier life. Hernan sees wasted opportunity and a life of uncertainty. Ricardo struggles with his responsibility to his brother at the same time knowing that a life without soccer would be joyless. The two of them struggle with anger and feelings of abandonment. El Baile is a human story, a drama set against the backdrop of the world’s most beautiful game.

Fatakra (Firecracker)
Director: Soham Mehta
Short Film 19 minutes USA 2010
Naveen left India to chase his dreams in America. Today, three years and a recession later, his wife and son join him.

Finding Soil
Director: Torch Eberhart
Short Film 8 minutes USA 2010
Sometimes the best decision isn’t always the one we would like to make. Unfortunately, for ex-convict, Thomas, the last few years his past criminal record has held him from possible work and forced him to homelessness. But Thomas has a daughter and he’s desperate to give her more than love. Broken and hopeless, Thomas clings all he has into a desperate last effort. He loves his daughter, and will give anything for her betterment…even her.

God of Love
Director: Luke Matheny
Short Film 18 minutes USA 2010
Lounge-singing darts champion Raymond Goodfellow finds his prayers are answered — literally — when he receives a mysterious package of  love-inducing darts. The catch is that the one woman he loves — Kelly, a drummer in his band — is already in love with Ray’s best friend Fozzie, the guitarist in the band. But when Ray uses the darts in a loony scheme to resolve this strange romantic triangle, he learns a surprising lesson about unrequited love and discovers his own place in the universe.

Heroes
Director: Mia Tagg
Short Film 11 minutes United Kingdom 2011
This personal drama takes place on a high mountain pass in a remote part of Snowdonia, Wales. Harry and Pam are on a holiday revisiting places they used to go 20 years ago when they first met. They drive up a tortuous mountain road arguing all the way and park on the highest point, where they encounter their own past and several other people who have their own reasons for being on the road that day – a rugged old welsh man, Tudor, who is walking up to the now dead village where he used to live, and Pete, a weary looking young man who is struggling up with his infant son in a pushchair. Their motives for making the journey are revealed, and realities they return to reveal that everyone on the hill that day has battled greater obstacles than the climb, including time itself, on a hero’s quest to retrieve a part of themselves they all fear losing forever.

Missile Crisis
Director: Jaye Davidson
Short Film 15 minutes USA 2010

“Missile Crisis” Clip 1 from Jaye Sarah Davidson on Vimeo.

Missile Crisis is a coming-of-age drama set in South Florida that follows brothers Miles (13) and Danny (9) as they cope with the escalation of both the Cuban Missile Crisis and their parents’ marital tensions.To ease his younger brother’s fears about the domestic and international crises, Miles concocts a scheme: launch model rockets to blow up the Cuban missiles. With their father building a makeshift fallout shelter and their mother seeking solace from relatives on the telephone, Miles and Danny gather up the resources needed to fire their rockets in the direction of Cuba. Using a local beach as their launch site, Miles and Danny watch their plan ‘succeed’ when one of their rockets flies into the horizon. When they return home, they see Walter Cronkite announcing the end of the nuclear buildup on the evening news. Danny is elated, Miles is relieved. One crisis solved. However, when Miles overhears his parents finalizing their divorce plans that night, he must come to terms with the fact that even his most imaginative plans cannot always protect his little brother from reality.

Perseverance
Director: Mark Owen
Short Film 11 minutes United Kingdom 2011
We begin with Chloe, enjoying herself at a nightclub with some friends. As the night progresses, she ventures away from the main dance floor and into a side room with a male stranger, who she’s grown to flirt with throughout the night. Things soon take a turn for the worse as Chloe turns down the man’s offer to leave the club with him. Hurt by her rejection, the man results to physical force and restrains Chloe to the point of raping her. After the brutal attack is over, Chloe realizes her troubles are only beginning, as she cannot contemplate how to get over this new ordeal in front of her. Back at home, alone and tired, she tries to find ways to pass the time, but time itself crawls along, when she can think of nothing else. Breaking down with emotion at every other moment, Chloe desperately tries to find solace via her own means, in an attempt to resume life in normal fashion.

Plight of the Earth Fairy
Director: Kim Sheridan
Short Film 10 minutes USA 2010
Living in the shadow of the Tooth Fairy, the Earth Fairy has an identity crisis and seeks professional help.
This film was created as part of the 48-Hour Film Project, in which a short narrative film — containing several very specific elements — had to be written, filmed, and produced within 48 hours. Kim Sheridan accepted this challenge, but took it one step further. She chose to do it all with a cast and crew of only two: herself and her husband. Kim wrote, directed, produced, filmed, starred, co-edited, and created the musical score.

Se Verlas Al Reves (They See Upside)
Director: Pablo Arreba
Short Film 5 minutes Spain 2011
A palindrome love story.

Smolarze (Charcoal Burners)
Director: Piotr Zlotorowicz
Short Film 15 minutes Poland 2010
Every summer, Marek and Janina work as charcoal burners in the Bieszczady Mountains. Far from civilization, in the heart of the mountains, they live according to the rhythm set by nature.  The documentary joins the man and the woman from dawn till dusk, observing the slow passage of time. A visual anthem to the beauty of life.

So Long
Director: Charles Frisby
Short Film 3 minutes USA 2011
A recently widowed woman deals with the loss of her husband and finds closure.

Some Jobs Are Simple
Director: Jim Evans
Short Film 13 minutes USA 2011
Based on the short story by award winning author Chet Williamson, Some Jobs Are Simple is the story of a married woman who is in need of quick cash. Her solution is to set up an insurance job, the theft of her jewelry. To accomplish this, she retains the services of Joe (if that’s really his name), a hard edged looking criminal with a glare in his eye that tells you he is not a man to mess with. For Joe, this job is a simple walk in the park, or so he thinks.

The Balance
Director: Trent Duncan
Short Film 20 minutes USA 2011
Edward (Dusty Sorg), a physician at BRG Corp, stumbles upon evidence that his Pharmaceutical Corporation is releasing a miracle-cure drug with deadly long-term side effects. Now John Xavier (Anthony M. Bertram), a BRG project manager, is willing to leverage thousands of lives with millions of dollars in order to silence the threat posed against his company.

The Escape
Director: James Connelly
Short Film 25 minutes USA 2010

The Escape – movie trailer from Paul Merryman on Vimeo.

England. 1792. In one of the country’s filthiest prisons, Jasper, a man old in his years, works as the hangman’s assistant. He cleans up the bodies of the dead, prepares prisoners for their deaths, and is the man responsible for tying the hangman’s noose. Surrounded by the sickness of the living and the stench of the executed, Jasper’s world is further darkened when his only son, William, is condemned to death for thievery. Furious with William’s transgression, Jasper refuses the frail boy’s plea for affection, but his anger opens the door to deeper resentments rooted in his haunted past. In the depths of his anguish, Jasper discovers a startling fact that forces him to reconsider his relationship with William and wonder if his resentment has long been misplaced. No longer willing to stand by and participate in his son’s execution, Jasper concocts an escape plan with his only ally inside the dark dungeon, the sympathetic prison doctor. Together they set out to deliver William from the hangman’s noose.

The Falling Man
Director: Harry Santiago
Short Film 23 minutes USA 2010
An undocumented immigrant man struggles, risks his life and leaves his family in Mexico to pursue his dream of working in a restaurant, and one day open a restaurant of his own, hoping to reunite with his family in America. He ends up working in a world famous restaurant located in New York City. In Memory of all the undocumented immigrants that died in the Twin Towers and were never included in the 9/11 list.

The Lone Warrior
Director: Stephen Griffin
Short Film 17 minutes USA 2010
The Lone Warrior chronicles the journey of Hanshiro, a master samurai who carries the most coveted weapon in all of Japan – a legendary sword that prevents its owner from dying in combat. For Hanshiro however, this extraordinary gift came with a price. The sword possesses a curse that deprives him from achieving any joy or honor from fighting, and has caused him to resign from the samurai lifestyle and become a vagrant traveler. When Dorin Munesuke, a prominent samurai lord, discovers Hanshiro’s whereabouts and beckons him to fight once more, bloody conflict erupts between the two men to determine if Hanshiro will regain his honor.

The Policy Of Murder
Director: Scott Dissinger
Short Film 13 minutes USA 2010
Infidelity leads to a tangled network of uneasy alliances between a scorned wife, a jilted mistress, professional hit men, and an insurance company in a chase for the only thing that really matters… money.

You’ve Got Hell
Director: Stephen McKendree
Short Film 25 minutes USA 2010
After discovering each other on the Internet, a young man and woman plan to meet but their respective best friends attempt to talk them out of it with fantastic horror stories of Internet dating gone bad.