Short Slot 3
Thursday: 10:00 pm – Bagels & More
Friday: 1:30 pm – Rock County Historical Society
Saturday: 6:30 pm – Cheese People/ Nikki’s Café
Lifted
Category: Short Film
Country: USA
Language: English
Rating: PG
Runtime: 5
Director: Zachary Goldberg
Producer: Sarah Sellman
LIFTED tells an ethereal story of a fleeting kinship formed between two lonely children. Sara (Beatrice Miller) makes a fascinating discovery when a boy (Brandon Buescher) endowed with the power of flight crashes behind her home.
From Zachary Goldberg, this empathetic fantasy is grounded in the emotional journey of its characters.. the boy who fell from the sky and the girl who found him. LIFTED was completed as a thesis film for NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Film & Television Department.
House, A Home
Category: Short Film
Country: USA
Language: English
Rating: PG
Runtime: 7
Director: Daniel Fickle
Producer: Mark C. Smith
Website: A House, A Home
The Lone Fir Cemetery is the resting place for many of the people who founded and influenced the history of Portland, Oregon.
When a benefit album titled Dearly Departed was commissioned by Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery, singer-songwriters from the Pacific Northwest were approached and asked to write a song about a specific person buried at Lone Fir.
Adam Shearer (Weinland) chose to write about James C. Hawthorne, a doctor and humanist who cared for the mentally ill. Shearer enlisted the help of Adam Selzer (M. Ward, Norfolk & Western) and together they wrote A House, A Home. The song tells a story about two of Dr. Hawthorne’s patients whose love for each other is unrealized until they pass away. The music video for A House, A Home begins at the last line of the song ”You die knowing he’ll bury you next to your love in the ground…” and continues the story.
Bounce
Category: Short Film
Country: USA
Language: English
Rating: PG
Runtime: 6
Director: John Akre
Producer: John Akre
My father died very suddenly, and left me before I could tell him all the things I wanted to tell him. After his body floated away, I discovered him again through the photo albums that he left behind. These albums were full of images that I had never seen before, images from his childhood. An image of him with a pogo stick led me to buying a similar pogo stick at a garage sale and using that pogo stick to reach his head up in the sky.
When a friend was making a documentary about pogo sticks, I volunteered to do an interview, but I don’t remember doing it. I saw the film, but didn’t even recognize myself in it. When I left the film, I saw the pogo stick, which I had ridden to the screening, had been stolen.
‘Bounce’ is based on a dream I had after the death of my father. It is an animated short that uses clay and cut-out construction paper to tell the story of the death of my father and the rediscovery of his life after his death from his photo albums. It is told in silent movie style, with inter-titles, and a minimalist soundtrack made up of water sounds.
My Friend Erhan
Category: Short Film
Country: Turkey,United Kingdom
Language: English
Rating: PG
Runtime: 12
Director: Khurrum M. Sultan
Producer: Bedii Akin
Nur and her new friend Erhan are young children in a orphanage. One day Erhan the mute gets into trouble because of Nur and takes the blame for her, which leaves her feeling guilty. Tahir, the head of the orphanage wants to teach the kids a lesson and gives Erhan a goat to look after, which will be slaughtered later to feed the kids. Nur manages to lose the goat as well and panics, because she doesn’t want her friend to get into trouble for her again. She sets off on an adventurous journey to find and return the goat, but comes back empty handed, yet having learned the importance of honesty and responsibility. Just as she confesses to the head of the orphanage, it turns out that Erhan had actually found and been looking after the goat. Erhan thanks and forgives her. Nur is redeemed.
Memento Mori
Category: Short Film
Country: USA
Language: English
Rating: PG
Runtime: 11
Director: Karen Erbach
Producer: Susan Kerns
Emmanuel never quite recovered from losing his mother when he was a child. He devotes his life to traveling town to town in his showman’s wagon, and he enters a small, quintessentially American village circa the early 1900s. He encourages the townspeople to have their photos taken, and afterward, he steals their most prized possessions. Then he meets Violet, a young woman who also has lost her mother, and he feels a kinship with her. Her story allows him to question his own actions. Emmanuel starts to wonder if revenge is the best form of healing, and he eventually has a change of heart.
Wait for Rain
Category: Short Film
Country: Canada
Language: English
Rating: PG
Runtime: 14
Director: Kyle Rideout
Producer: Josh Epstein
Website: Kyle Rideout
Facebook: Motion 58 Entertainment
A warming planet has made water scarce, food a rarity, and wearing plants like jewelry fashionable. James, a hapless office worker, becomes obsessed with nurturing his plant in order to obtain the respect of his peers and risks everything to not Wait for Rain.