WINNERS

MONTH OF DECEMBER

Ultimate Sacrifices

After a stellar high school career as a top marksman and leader in the JROTC program at San Diego High School, Jennifer Moreno, a warrior, nurse, and US Army captain, became a core member of the Cultural Support Team in Afghanistan. The joint, elite female squad took part in the most dangerous combat operations in war-torn Afghanistan while providing allied forces a means to communicate with the women of that country. Her mentor, battled buddy sister remember her life and legacy from an underprivileged background, her career in the military, to her sacrifice in the line of duty.

Best Documentary - Directed by Daniel Leonard Bernardi

The Gap Between Her Legs

The Gap Between Her Legs is an experimental story about love and loss. It takes place both inside the theatre, and the real world. Bulimic girl Bella Corriveau heists from Montreal to Vancouver, with the savings of her dad's bank account. Over a latte at a French cafe on Main, she starts a love affair with anorexic girl Ivanka Jiang, a Harvard Lawyer top honors graduate.

Best Emerging Filmmaker (Over 40min) - Betty Jiang

The Forgetting Device

A man begins to suspect that something strange and sinister is responsible for his recent memory loss.

"The Forgetting Device" stars Jarod Joseph one of the stars of the hit CW series "The 100". The film also features Anand Rajaram, from the hit PBS series "Odd Squad".

"The Forgetting Device" features an unforgettable original score composed by the CSA winning duo of Rob Carli and Kristjan Bergey ("Murdoch Mysteries" and "Frankie Drake Mysteries").

Best Screenplay (under 40min) - Chris Remerowski

The Breakdown.jpg

After being raped, a young woman is gaslighted by those closest to her.

Best Producer (Under 40min) - Clarence Williams IV, Christina Araujo-Williams & Dione Williams

Best Lead (Female) - Summer Marie Thomas

(Shared)

One Pint at a Time

Craft beer generates tens of billions of dollars annually for the US economy. Despite beer’s Egyptian and African heritage, these traditions have been mostly forgotten and are rarely found in American brewing culture. Today, Black-owned breweries make up less than 1% of the nearly 9,000 breweries in operation. Eager to shift the historical perception of who makes and drinks beer, Black brewers, brand owners and influencers across the country are reshaping the craft beer industry and the future of America’s favorite adult beverage.

Best Film on African Americans, natives & visible minorities - Directed by Aaron Hosé

Best Producer (Over 40min/ Documentary) - Aaron Hosé & Brigitte Hosé

My Choice

Mike, a young university student with a white knight complex, pursues Janne, a newly paralyzed girl who doesn't reciprocate the same feelings.

Best Emerging Film Maker(Under 40 min) - Yasong Wang

(Shared)

Mt. Suswa - Life In A Volcano

Volcanoes are temperamental, dangerous and deadly. Not the ideal place for wildlife. But Mt. Suswa in Kenya is a volcano like no other: it hosts a multitude of life both above and below its
surface. Underground tunnels were formed thousands of years ago by rivers of lava whose outer layers cooled and solidified while the core continued to flow. Once the fluid lava evacuated itself completely, massive subterranean tubes were left behind.
One of these caverns is the “Baboon Parliament” as the local Masai named it. Remarkably, Suswa is the only known place in the world where olive baboons roost in caves. It is an almost unique behaviour among primates that gives us a glimpse over the reasons that drove hominids to find shelter into caves in pre-historic times.
Surprisingly so far no film has ever been made exclusively about this natural history wonder.
Mt. Suswa’s rugged flanks conceal an untouched treasure trove of biodiversity hidden inside its craters and in the deep and mysterious scars left behind by its turbulent past. But the mountain's true colours are locked up within an aura of mystique: Mt. Suswa is a fortress protected by its own inaccessibility. Its bastions are steep, barren and sharp, discouraging any unwanted visitors.
(Featured mammal species: olive baboon, rock hyrax, bat-eared fox, african wild dog, spotted hyena, kirk’s dik-dik, klipspringer, large-eared free-tailed bat, African elephant…).

Best Film on Nature & Wildlife (Over 40min) - Directed by - Oliver Goetzl

Best Cinematography - Ivo Nörenberg, Giuseppe Bucciarelli, Oliver Goetzl, Alain Lusignan & Lars Pfeiffer

The Other Woman

Based on one of Zizi’s dreams, her dark desire surfaces, becomes visible, is not veiled any more. In a dream, the logic of time and action as well as cultural censorship are abolished. The content of a dream can manifest in bizarre, senseless actions running parallel to 'normal' ones and no one in the dream is taking notice.
The story of the dream is about two women, one representing herself being confronted with the other woman, her rival. Two complete diverse characters appear on the screen, Zizi, a ‘wild’ woman, who does not seem to care about conventions and the conventional, bourgeois mother, who thrives from her secure family structure. But is Zizi's ecstatic fit in front of the crucifix not just an act of desperation as 'the thing' * remains unattainable? The conventional woman seems to possess what Zizi cannot have, but does she want it, or better ‘what is it that she wants’?
It seems that she does not want to submit to convention and that she needs to remain ‘Other’. This force of the indefinable thing which is driving her acting out is emphasized by the sound of her breath, which might raise discomfort in the viewer.
This impossible desire and its repercussions are revealed in the film. Today, these ecstatic fits are still diagnosed in cultures in which women’s emancipation is impossible.

Best Lead(female/Under 40 min) - George Hanover

(Shared)

Road 721

Road 721 is an allegory about global warming. Set in a number of California forests it tells the tale of Sam, a photo journalist from Los Angeles whose dream has been to write an essay about the state of forestry in the Redwoods as well as other wooded areas in the Western United States.

What he encounters on his journey is mysterious, puzzling and ultimately terrifying.

Road 721 is an environmental ghost story. A cautionary tale about our careless attitude toward the natural world and what occurs as a result of it.

Honorable Mention - Lucinda Luvaas

Her Own End

A mental institution patient runs into the woods in search of freedom.

Best Director (Under 40 min) - Dani Ben Halevi

Fade To Blue

Follow the story of Jason Libby, a Trans man who found his home through the world of Drag where he transforms into the remarkable “Jay Blue”.

Special jury award (Under 40 min) - Directed by Ember Lou Crowley

Liturgy of anti-tank obstacles

The reality in Ukraine split into before and after the war. Every citizen is trying to contribute to the nationwide resistance. Many people retrained for the needs of the military. Sculptors and metalworkers now make anti-tank obstacles. In the art workshops, among the artwork, anti-tank obstacles are being produced. The artists make the anti-tank obstacles, surrounded by the sculptures of angels, Cossacks, and famous Ukrainian personalities. Statues stand in the corners like a silent army. Multiple copies of Jesus Christ, like a terracotta army, froze in various poses and waiting. Masters weld metal for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Best Documentary(Under 40min) Directed by Dmytro Sukholytkyy
& Sobchuk

Hope For Christmas

This holiday drama short is based on a small town's psychologist being brought out of retirement on Christmas Eve, to analyze a new visitor to town, who is accused of killing Santa Claus.

The story is set in the 1930s after a stranger causes turmoil to the mundane lives of the townspeople. In their paranoia they tie him up and accuse him of murder, then call in the retired local psychologist to analyze what to do.

Once his patients, these townspeople hover over the discussion between the Dr and the Stranger, until the end. The tables are turned and we learn it's the Dr, who is guilty for causing all this darkness, to the townspeople. .. and the stranger becomes the savior.

Best Film (Under 40 min) Directed by Alexandre Belke

Hero of the Desert

A young woman in her forties named Ana, who lives in the city Prishtina, rushing to work, had an accident and hit a man around 30s, named Nadif. She tries to send the boy to the hospital, but he refuses because he is an illegal immigrant and fears that he will be deported by the state. Ana decides to take him home to be treated. She undertakes to take care of him. During this time, until the boy recovers, unknowingly they fall in love, but when they try to sleep together, the sad Nadif runs out of bed and gets out. When he leaves the house, he suddenly goes out to his homeland, to his past, to a desert where three rude men castrate him because Nadifi has made love to a girl from his village. Desperate, Nadif turns to Anna and tells her the truth, He can’t be a man and has nothing to offer her. He runs away from Anna's house and returns to his immigrant friends with whom he lives under a bridge on the outskirts of the city. One day Ana comes to the bridge and looks for Nadif. After an honest conversation, she convinces him to go back to her house and live with her, because despite all, she loves him.

Best Director(Under 40min) - Lorena Sopi

Finding Light

Illuminated through the story of Holocaust survivor Naomi Warren, "Finding Light" takes the audience on a journey that is simultaneously situated in the past while making relevant connections to the present through the lens of dance.

Special jury award - Paul Michael Bloodgood & Karen Bernstein

Consequenses

Three vignettes illustrating the consequences of misogynies

Best Emerging Film Maker - Jeffrey Marc Davis

(Shared)

Day of the Dead

High in the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico, the Purépecha people have enjoyed the same way of life for hundreds of years Filmed in several small towns, each with a unique twist on the custom, Day of the Dead: a Celebration of Life, presents an introduction to an ancient culture by focusing on one of their most colorful traditions.

Best Director(Over 40min) - Denise Richards

Awakening

Sofia, a struggling Marine Archeologist thesis student, on a quest to find Atlantis as a means to redeem herself for her sister, Eevi’s apparent drowning for which she blames herself, discovers the demons of her childhood are back to haunt her when she is faced with another family death. Guided by a series of unlikely thalassic companions, Sofia is forced to set off on a personal journey to conquer her fears, manifest in thalassophobia, through freediving - will she find the way to let Eevi go before she too is pulled under into the abyss?

Best Film (Over 40min) - Directed by Yolanda Torres