SCHEDULE & BLOCK INFORMATION TBD (LIKELY SPRING 2021)
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ABE’S STORY (IRELAND)
SYNOPSIS: Set in Victorian London, Abe an overworked Irish writer draws inspiration from his day job in the theatre to write a bloody brilliant novel.
RATINGS GUIDE: All Audiences / Family Friendly
DIRECTOR: Adam H. Stewart
GENRE: Horror, Fantasy, Comedy
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Adam H Stewart is an award-winning director, animator and editor. Born and raised in the Dublin mountains, he is a naturalised US citizen. He got his first break in the film industry when he worked with Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning costume designer Charles Knode on Braveheart. Following this early experience in feature film, Adam studied with the legendary production designer Bob Boyle (North by Northwest) and Oscar winner Frank Pierson (Cool Hand Luke) at the American Film Institute (AFI) in Hollywood, CA, from which he graduated with an MFA in Production Design. Adam’s career has been varied and thrilling. He animated a key VFX sequence for Ocean’s Eleven. He worked in Prague on Wonder Woman; on the opening titles for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, on Penny Dreadful Season 3, and for Brownbag on the hit children’s TV show Vampirina.
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BLACK FOREST SANATORIUM (CANADA)
SYNOPSIS: Starving for companionship, Quinn pursues an unorthodox approach to resolving their intense loneliness during a visit to a local sanatorium.
RATINGS GUIDE: Brief Nudity, Intense Imagery
GENRE: The Beyond, Fantastic
PREMIERE STATUS: USA Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Diana Thorneycroft is a Winnipeg artist who has exhibited various bodies of work across Canada, the United States and Europe, as well as in Moscow, Tokyo and Sydney. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2016 Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction, an Assistance to Visual Arts Long-term Grant from the Canada Council, several Senior Arts Grants from the Manitoba Arts Council and a Fleck Fellowship from the Banff Centre for the Arts. As a visual artist who has been making work for over 40 years, Thorneycroft’s practice has always been to find the appropriate medium to express ideas she finds of interest. After completing the 8 city touring installation Black Forest (dark waters), Thorneycroft decided to pursue similar content in the form of a stop-motion animation entitled Black Forest Sanatorium. It is her attention to detail and the application of the grotesque that aligns this film with her other work.
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CHEF GIANTS (USA)
SYNOPSIS: Two goblins behold and scold the great chef giants.
RATINGS GUIDE: All Audiences / Family Friendly, Mild Language
DIRECTOR: Troy DeWinne
GENRE: Fantasy, Comedy
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Troy DeWinne is a writer and director from San Antonio, Texas. He has a bachelor’s degree in radio-television-film from the University of Texas at Austin and has been selected in multiple prestigious film festivals.
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DARK RIDE (USA)
SYNOPSIS: An experimental animation about mass entertainment, technology, and anxiety.
RATINGS GUIDE: Intense Imagery
DIRECTOR: Josh Funk
GENRE: The Beyond
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Josh Funk mixes practical effects such as stop-motion, and miniatures with live actors, to create otherworldly and surreal short films.
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FAST FEUD! (USA)
SYNOPSIS: A young couples date night goes awry after they foolishly attempt to eat a forbidden food.
RATINGS GUIDE: Strong Violence, Strong Language
DIRECTOR: Graham Gillett
GENRE: Comedy, The Beyond
PREMIERE STATUS: World Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Director/ Animator living in Los Angeles. I enjoy making animations/ shorts that have dark twists you (hopefully) don’t see coming!
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MEANWHILE, AT THE ABANDONED FACTORY (AUSTRALIA)
SYNOPSIS: Meanwhile, at the Abandoned Factory celebrates the heyday of cliff-hanger TV serials. Can our intrepid reporter find her way out of this classic dilemma?
RATINGS GUIDE: Mild Language
DIRECTOR: Michael Cusack
GENRE: Comedy
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Michael Cusack was born in Manchester in the UK and moved to Adelaide South Australia when he was 11 years old. His first major award was an Australian Film Institute Award in 1985 for the short film Waltzing Matilda. In collaboration with his Producer, Richard Chataway, he was responsible for setting up the animation department at the South Australian Film Corporation. Since then Michael has forged a flourishing career as director of both high end television commercials and a growing number of award winning short films. Michael has received the prestigious Master’s Chair Award from the Adelaide Advertising and Design Club a record six times and, together with his producer Richard Chataway, received the President’s Award from The Adelaide Art Directors for outstanding achievements in TV/Cinema. In 2002 he was made an Honorary Member of the Australian Cinematographer’s Society in recognition of his contributions to the National Film Industry.
In 2006 he was again awarded an AFI for Best Short Animation for his film Gargoyle. He has recently been made a member of the Australian Cinema Pioneers. He has received numerous other awards and nominations over his long career. His film, the highly acclaimed Sleight of Hand picked up thirty six national and international awards and was eligible for consideration in the 2014 Academy Awards. His last film “After All” was in the International Competition in Annecy. Michael was recently the subject of a major retrospective of his work at the Melbourne International Animation Film Festival. Michael is frequently in demand as a speaker and has been invited onto the judging panels of many major commercial and film festivals.
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ONE LAST MONSTER (USA)
SYNOPSIS: Empress Eura confronts her greatest challenge as the ruler of the distant world of Adin when she is forced to face her prejudices and to choose between trusting or killing a monster who arrives on Adin with a warning that could save or destroy her people.
RATINGS GUIDE: All Audiences / Family Friendly, Mild Language, Mild Violence
DIRECTOR: Gene Kim
GENRE: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, The Fantastic
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’SBIO: Gene Kim is a 32 year old Korean-American storyboard artist/writer/director who interned at Pixar and worked at Disney’s Blue Sky Studios and left to pursue screenwriting/content development. He is a fan of the electric guitar, running marathons, soccer and rabbits.
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PASSAGE (INDIA / USA)
SYNOPSIS:Finding herself in a state of limbo, an Indian woman revisits her immigration journey and voyages through a tempestuous emotional landscape of memory, identity, belonging and the illusion of the American dream.
RATINGS GUIDE: Mild Violence
DIRECTOR: Asavari Kumar
GENRE: Fantastic
PREMIERE STATUS: Regional Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Asavari is a Filmmaker & Visual Artist from New Delhi, India currently based in Los Angeles. She owns and operates the studio Supernova Design through which she creates commercial and personal projects while collaborating with POC and women artists. Select clients include – Warner Bros., Google, YouTube, Headspace & Disney Asavari’s award winning films, new media work and graphic narratives have been showcased at numerous festivals and exhibition spaces. Select showings include the Los Angeles Zine Fest, Ottawa International Animation Festival, St. Louis International Film Festival & the American Documentary and Animation Festival. Her projects have also been featured in Adobe Create Magazine, Cartoon Brew, AWN and Animation Reporter Magazine. Drawn to cross cultural narratives, Asavari uses character driven storytelling to parse her evolving cultural and political identity.
Through her body of work, she hopes to generate a discourse surrounding ideas of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ and find where her own narratives intersect with those around her. Asavari holds a BFA in Animation Film Design from the National Institute of Design, and an MFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts. She is a former artist in residence for Adobe Aero and is currently exploring how Augmented Reality can be a compelling medium for telling personal stories.
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QUIRKISTADOR (LUXEMBOURG)
SYNOPSIS: A team of explorers is navigating the oceans in search of fame and fortune. Particularly incompetent and constantly out of luck, they are faced with every kind of unexpected obstacles and are plunged into the wildest and craziest adventures.
RATINGS GUIDE: All Audiences / Family Friendly
DIRECTOR: Laurent Witz
GENRE: Comedy
PREMIERE STATUS: Regional Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Laurent Witz is a filmmaker. Witz and fellow producer Alexandre Espigares won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the 2013 film Mr. Hublot. Born in Haguenau in 1975. He graduated from the Metz Fine Arts Institute. A self-taught 3D artist, he directed four student short films before working as an artistic director, an animator, a team supervisor or an assistant director on a lot of different projects.
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SPARK (USA)
SYNOPSIS:In a dystopian, off world factory, a worn out worker robot discovers a golden record that plays a single song that gives him a new purpose in life with a funky rhythm and hip new groove.
RATINGS GUIDE: All Audiences / Family Friendly
DIRECTOR: Charles Benevento & Matthew Colglazier
GENRE: Sci-Fi, Comedy
PREMIERE STATUS: International Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’SBIO: Matt Colglazier is a 3D Generalist, focusing in modeling and look development, and the Co-Director, Charles Benevento is a Character Animator and Previs Artist
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THE ANIMATOR (USA)
SYNOPSIS: An animator takes his anger out on the source of his frustration… his puppets.
RATINGS GUIDE: Violence
DIRECTOR: Trent Shy
GENRE: Horror, Comedy, The Beyond
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Trent Shy is an American Stop Motion animator that specializes in clay animation. He started animating clay on his kitchen floor and now operates as a professional one man studio out of Charleston, SC. His animations have been viewed over 100 million times on Youtube and he’s also worked for large companies like MTV. Most of his work is in the horror genre and he attributes his love of the genre to “too many horror films as a child”.
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THE BREAKFAST NOOK (USA)
SYNOPSIS: Love, Lies, Death, & Breakfast… Follow Honest Joe as he tries to solve the murder of close friend in this daring but classic Breakfast Noir.
RATINGS GUIDE: All Audiences / Family Friendly
DIRECTOR: Will Crespo
GENRE: Comedy, Noir
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’SBIO: Will Crespo is an Animator and Filmmaker from Chicago. In 2009, after dropping out of college and becoming homeless, Will got a job at a comedy theater. There he began making films and practicing animation in his spare time. He has since worked in Digital Media for Companies such as Epic Rap Battles of History, Philip DeFranco, Pluto TV and more. Today he continues his education in animation and hopes to produce more original work.
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THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN (USA)
SYNOPSIS: In this handcrafted puppet epic, a lone samurai and his odd companion, a cursed severed head, seek vengeance in a haunted world.
RATINGS GUIDE: Mild Violence, Intense Imagery
DIRECTOR: Kevin McTurk
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: A professional creature effects artist, cinematographer, model maker, and puppeteer, Kevin McTurk has been working in the effects industry for over 20 years.Kevin moved to Los Angeles in 1992 and began his career in special make-up effects at Stan Winston Studios, working on Batman Returns, Interview with a Vampire, and the Jurassic Park films. He has worked for many effects companies over the years, including the Jim Henson Creature Shop, Amalgamated Dynamics, and Spectral Motion.
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THEOURGIA (USA)
SYNOPSIS: God was defeated before history by the prince of darkness.
RATINGS GUIDE: Mild Violence, Brief Nudity
DIRECTOR: Jorge Jaramillo
GENRE: Horror, Fantasy, The Beyond
PREMIERE STATUS: Regional Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Jorge Jaramillo is a Colombian film director and animator living and working in Los Angeles, California. From a very young age, Jorge discovered movies and animation, and this taste quickly became a passionthat led him to study and see as many animated films as he could, focused specially on Japanese anime, which still strongly influences his work. After studying animation at Lasalle College, Jorge quickly began working on big animated productions in his country, which led him not only to improve his technique but also planted an interest in storytelling and direction.
His personal projects, include the short film “Push it!”, that got a special mention on Poland Pepsi Film Festival in 2010, and “RED”, which was featured at the New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF). On 2015 Jorge’s Graphic Novel “Elena” is was published by Line webtoon. Jorge Jaramillo is a young director that surprises with his unique style. High contrasts, strong colors and shapes are the elements always present on his creepy and surreal images. His obscure visual proposal led him to conceive and direct great music videos and also to work in major Hollywood movies such as “Pacific Rim uprising”, “XXX3 – The return of Xander Cage”, and most recently Netflix’s “Cowboy Bebop.”
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TIDES ARE CHANGING (USA)
SYNOPSIS: An animated short film about a mythical Selkie and a Scottish girl standing together against assault.
RATINGS GUIDE: Mild Violence
DIRECTOR: Dinah Kalaha & María Bjarnadóttir
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’SBIO: We are Dinah Kalaha & Maria Bjarnadottir, a visual development artist and an animator who are passionate about telling magical and meaningful stories through animation. We co-directed Tides Are Changing as our senior thesis film at Ringling College of Art and Design. We come from very different backgrounds, Dinah growing up and moving around the mountains of Pennsylvania her whole life, and Maria being born in Iceland in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by elves and other legends. But what brought us together is our shared love of mythology, fantasy, and a passion for creating impactful stories.
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TOO LATE (CANADA)
SYNOPSIS: Deep into the small hours of the night, drenched in black coffee and paperwork, a lonely office worker’s sanity starts to slip away.
RATINGS GUIDE: Adult Content, Intense Imagery
DIRECTOR: Roy Stein
GENRE: Horror, The Beyond, Fantastic
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: A film Animator (Blue Sky/ Bron) and first time filmmaker with credits including ”The Willoughbys”, “The Little Prince” and “Ferdinand” among others. “Too Late”, Roy’s directorial debut, is a dark love letter to his early artistic influences.
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TRAGIC MAGIC (USA)
SYNOPSIS: An elderly wizard and his impatient apprentice’s day is disrupted when Death arrives. Will their combined magic skills be enough to defeat him?
RATINGS GUIDE: All Audiences / Family Friendly, Mild Violence
DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Clark
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMIERE STATUS: Utah Premiere
AWARDS NOMINATIONS: TBD
DIRECTOR’S BIO: Independent animator Geoff Clark grew up in the Bay Area, and has worked in the fields of video games, corporate video, and instruction. He is trained in 3D modeling, animation, compositing, and special effects. In his spare time, he enjoys making his own independent animated films.
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