Boston Short Film Festival

22/07/2024

Boston Short Film Festival Closes Another Great Edition, Announces Awards Winners of 2024:

“Programming for the Boston Short Film Festival is always an exhilarating experience.” says Festival Director Kris De Meester. “Each year, we are privileged to receive over two thousand entries from filmmakers across the globe, showcasing diverse voices and perspectives. The selection process is both challenging and rewarding, as we strive to curate a lineup that represents the highest standards of creativity and storytelling. Our commitment to excellence ensures that the final selection is of the utmost quality, offering our audience an unforgettable cinematic journey. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to engage with such a talented and passionate community of filmmakers."

This year’s edition of the Boston Short Film Festival featured a great selection of 38 short films originating from the U.S. and around the world. (The festival’s online section, the OFF ON Selection, remains available for streaming until July 26, more info https://www.bostonshortfilmfestival.org/streamingonline).

With this year's panel of jury members having cast their final votes, the Boston Short Film Festival is delighted to announce to you today the award winners for its 2024 edition:

Best Narrative Short Film:
Nisei (United States) by Darren Haruo Rae

Best Documentary Short Film:
Frank and His Dogs (United States) by Owen Markham

Best Animated Short Film:
Tennis, Oranges (United States) by Sean Pecknold

Best Underground Short Film:
Reep (United States) by Jakub Blank

Best Experimental Short Film:
I Woke Up in the Morning (United States) by Lilan Yang, Yutong Shi

Best LGBTQ+ Film:
A Body Like Mine (Germany) by Maja Classen and Puck

Best Super Short Film:
The Water Ghost (United Kingdom) by Hongzhou Xue

Best Actor (F/M/X) :
Jorge Gabino in The Fuse (Switzerland) by Kevin Haefelin

Best Boston Film:
Vic's Vac Shack (United States) by Will Dorney

Congratulations to al filmmakers! And finally, a big thank you to all guests for coming out to enjoy four evenings of short film cinema, we hope to see you all back next year.

19/07/2024

Our award show is tonight and is hosted by and ! Thank you all for the amazing turnout this week and see you at the ceremony! And the winners are……

16/07/2024

The Fuse (Switzerland) by Kevin Haefelin, FRIDAY JULY 19, 2024 AT 7PM.

Cassius, a worn-down Latinx gladiator of modern life fights to make a living as a nighttime garbage man in the concrete arena of the Bronx. One night he’s inevitably laid off and faces his fear of becoming a homeless pariah. On his own terms, he sets up his final farewell but a fuse unexpectedly defaults him and makes him wonder through the night in quest of his truth.

16/07/2024

Vic's Vac Shack (United States) by Will Dorney, FRIDAY JULY 19, 2024 AT 7PM.

A vacuum repairman who blackmails customers faces his day of reckoning.

16/07/2024

Forsaken (Tunisia) by Aziz Shennawy, FRIDAY JULY 19, 2024 AT 7PM.

Mariem, in her thirties, decides to treat herself to a vacation. She finds the body of a Sub-Saharan African man drowned in front of her balcony. No one bothered to offer him any help. Upon discovering the victim's identity, humanity prevailed over fear and the strangeness of "the other".

16/07/2024

Black Dragon (United States) by Alexander Thompson, FRIDAY JULY 19, 2024 AT 7PM.

Vietnam, 1968. A feared American colonel nicknamed “the Black Dragon” by Vietnamese locals must face his inner shadow when his platoon presents him with a captured Vietcong girl who harbors some very unusual powers. A Jungian psychological thriller/parable examining the capacity for monstrous evil lurking within us all, the film is loosely inspired by the My Lai Massacre, one of America’s most pernicious wartime atrocities.

16/07/2024

Frank and His Dogs (United States) by Owen Markham, FRIDAY JULY 19, 2024 AT 7PM.

An aging Irishman lives a simple yet busy life amongst his friends and his dogs.

16/07/2024

Thirstygirl (United States) by Alexandra Qin, FRIDAY JULY 19, 2024 AT 7PM.

On a road trip with her younger sister, Charlie struggles to hide a secret addiction.

16/07/2024

Inside You (Ukraine) by Erik Sémashkin, FRIDAY JULY 19, 2024 AT 7PM.

A grape gets eaten. It then begins a long and perilous journey within the human body.

15/07/2024

A Body Like Mine (Germany) by Maja Classen and Puck, this is a R-RATED film and will be the last film to be screened on THURSDAY JULY 18, 2024 AT 7PM.

A Body Like Mine is the poetic portrait of a young artist and activist named Puck. Puck is not her legal name, it is a character the artist has created and transforms into during her performances. As co-writer and protagonist of the film, the artist talks about how Puck's existence helps her to feel more grounded in a world she experiences as overwhelming. While Puck dares to do wild things, such as q***r post p**n and wrestling, Puck's creator herself shares her vulnerability. In the film she contemplates the discrepancy between herself and her character: She talks about how she is often misunderstood, judged, and fetishized. How she is assigned gender stereotypes she doesn’t want to conform to. Puck’s activism consists of her visibility as a proud Black person and of staging herself as part of phantasies and images that bodies like hers traditionally have been banished from. A Body Like Mine is a fairy-tale like documentary. Conceived through the artistic collaboration between Puck and director Maja Classen, the film allows for an intimate and moving glimpse into Puck's lifestyle, her inspirations, fears and experiences.

15/07/2024

The Bleacher (United States) by Nicole Daddona, Adam Wilder, THURSDAY JULY 18, 2024 AT 7PM.

A woman's life is upended when the disappearance of her sock at the laundromat causes her to get sucked into a washing machine unraveling the age-old question - where do all the missing socks go??

15/07/2024

Reep (United States) by Jakub Blank, THURSDAY JULY 18, 2024 AT 7PM.

A young man spends his weekends summoning the power of god.

15/07/2024

European Man... American Beach (United States) by Rex Shannon THURSDAY JULY 18, 2024 AT 7PM.

A European man goes naked to an American beach. A clothed American beachgoer takes offense and a brawl ensues.

15/07/2024

Tennis, Oranges (United States) by Sean Pecknold THURSDAY JULY 18, 2024 AT 7PM.

A robotic vacuum suffering from burnout quits its job at a hospital and sets out to find community and a greater purpose on a quiet street where two lonely rabbits are stuck in perpetual loops.

15/07/2024

Kiss/Crash (United Kingdom) by Adam Cole THURSDAY JULY 18, 2024 AT 7PM

What destruction is triggered by romance? What pleasure is there in a car crash?

14/07/2024

The Feast (Georgia) by Mariam Bitsadze, WEDNESDAY JULY 17, 2024 AT 7PM.

"The Feast" portrays the life of a Georgian housewife who spends a day preparing a sumptuous supper for her husband's friends. Despite her efforts, she feels like an outsider and struggles to integrate into the group. As the day progresses, she confronts the societal expectations placed upon her as a woman and begins to question her own sense of identity.

Through her journey, the protagonist experiences a range of emotions and obstacles that ultimately lead her to a realisation about her own destiny.

14/07/2024

Nisei (United States) by Darren Haruo Rae, WEDNESDAY JULY 17, 2024 AT 7PM.

Inspired by stories from my grandfather, Nisei follows the journey of two Japanese-American brothers through World War II, Minoru and John Miyasaki. Stripped of their citizenship and placed in internment camps, they volunteer for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an all Japanese-American unit that sacrificed everything, to prove their loyalty to a country that doesn’t want them. Torn between country and family, they must face the enemy overseas along with adversity back home.

14/07/2024

Pet Store (United States) by Joanna Rothkopf, WEDNESDAY JULY 17, 2024 AT 7PM.

Larry Wallach insists that exotic pet ownership is safe and ethical and anyone who disagrees should visit Sloth Encounters, his petting zoo next to a freeway on Long Island, to see for themselves.

14/07/2024

In Another Life (United States) by Lauren Marie Dake, WEDNESDAY JULY 17, 2024 AT 7PM.

In Another Life is a 16mm handmade film comprised of a series of vignettes that explore an experimental approach to storytelling. Ideas of what could have been, what has come to pass, and what was lost and found fill the space of the frame. As if within a nightmare or dream, flashes of images appear like apparitions or memories.

14/07/2024

First Night (United States) by Haneol Lee, WEDNESDAY JULY 17, 2024 AT 7PM.

A newly immigrated Korean father goes into a deli trying to order food for his family– only with the help of a dictionary.

14/07/2024

I Woke Up in the Morning (United States) by Lilan Yang, Yutong Shi, WEDNESDAY JULY 17, 2024 AT 7PM.

In a cycle from the populated city of Boston in the winter to the unoccupied Chihuahuan desert in the summer, there's always the sense of dissatisfaction about where one situtates oneself in time and space, longing for things that one seeks without realizing that things one wishes to preserve have already slipped away.

14/07/2024

Wood Dove (United States) by David Jonathan Orr, WEDNESDAY JULY 17, 2024 AT 7PM.

Animated video, made entirely from still images of dove feathers for a song by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

14/07/2024

Daughter of Mine (United States) by Vanessa Martino, TUESDAY JULY 16, 2024 AT 7PM.

In 1973, seven-year-old Joan D’Alessandro asked her mother Rosemarie if she could deliver a box of Girls Scout cookies to the neighbor and that was the last time Rosemarie saw Joan alive. Twenty years later, under the threat of the murderer’s impending release, with the help of her community, Rosemarie fought to keep him in prison. In her fight, Rosemarie D’Alessandro began a movement, bringing awareness to the impact parole hearings had on the well-being of families that have lost children to violent crime. As she fought for other families, her’s began to break apart. Rosemarie became a symbol of hope for her community and a rallying point for victims' parents nationwide. She found strength in her memories of Joan and the belief that something good should come from what happened to her. In Daughter of Mine, Rosemarie D’Alessandro recounts the story of Joan’s brutal murder and the nearly 50-year battle to keep her daughter's killer in prison. Filmmaker Vanessa Martino examines the crime that left an enduring mark on her quiet suburban hometown, and how they rallied behind the strength of a mother to make landmark changes to the justice system.

14/07/2024

Nøkkelbarn (Norway) by Sindre Mangen Haram, TUESDAY JULY 16, 2024 AT 7PM.

When twelve-year-old Erik is forced to choose which parent should have to move out during an ugly divorce, he struggles in the aftermath of his decision and how it ends up altering his relationships not only with his parents, but his two younger brothers as well.

14/07/2024

The Ride (Saudi Arabia) by Hania Ahmed Bakhashwain, TUESDAY JULY 16, 2024 AT 7PM.

Aliyah, 42, is a single mother who makes her day’s earnings by working as an Uber driver in what was once a very secluded society. She goes through unpleasant encounters in her daily job.

Used to these hardships that she's faced with, Aliyah is conflicted when she has to end a ride service when she gets an urgent call to pick up her daughter from school.

14/07/2024

The Water Ghost (United Kingdom) by Hongzhou Xue, TUESDAY JULY 16, 2024 AT 7PM.

An epic on the smallest scale. A romantic poem about my childhood. A subjective fantasy that changes the memories of the past. False memory can reveal the true self.

14/07/2024

Domar (France) by Alcibiade Cohen, TUESDAY JULY 16, 2024 AT 7PM.

Maria, a young Argentinian woman, evolves in a men's world : rodeo. The day before qualifying for the famous "Jesus Maria" tournament, for the first time open to women, she must make a choice: speak or let fate decide for her...

14/07/2024

Are you ready for one of the best short film festivals in the US! We have an amazing selection for you and are almost sold out. So grab your free tickets on our website before it is too late!

21/06/2024

BOSTON SHORT FILM FESTIVAL IS BACK!
Join us in-person (FREE ENTRY!) at Capitol Theatre in Arlington (July 16-19, 2024), or check out our online program (streaming July 9-26). This year, we've selected 38 short films from around the USA and the globe for you to discover!
MORE INFO AND FREE TICKETS: www.bostonshortfilmfestival.org

27/07/2023

Meet Jordanian filmmaker Ahmad Alyaseer. His film 'Our Males and Females' won the awards for Best Narrative Short Film and Best LGBTQ+ Film at our festival this year. iFilmFestival had an exclusive one-on-one with him on his experience as a filmmaker.

Ahmad Alyaseer is a Jordanian director, producer and writer. He recently directed the Emmy Award nominated kids show (Ahlan Simsim - Sesame Workshop). His Sci-Fi experimental feature (When Time Becomes a Woman, 2012) was screened at various film festivals including Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival. Ahmad...