Independent Shorts Awards

When a strict academy enforces its dress codes, Rory can’t help but feel targeted by the apparent sexist rules. However, she soon discovers that she isn’t alone in her feelings towards the school and must somehow find a way to take a stand for her fellow female peers.
Directed by Madison Bishop (USA)

America faces a crisis, with a political environment that demonizes Hispanic and Latino immigrants. This film takes a positive, emotional look at real Hispanic and Latino stories… putting a face to the diversity that adds to the fabric of America. 
Directed by John X. Carey (USA)

“Just a Plastic Bottle” was conceived in Koh Phangan, Thailand, after seeing, and getting, a plastic bottle that was floating in the ocean. The tourist chose to channel her angry thoughts on plastic pollution into a poem. The short film “Just a Plastic Bottle” is based on that poem and reflects the inner turmoil of a depressed patient, and mother, dealing with the realities of plastic and her emotions as a consequence.
Directed by Marcia Thompson (UK)

On a return trip home, Tom and Jake make a discovery that forces them to face their morality and changes their lives forever.
Directed by Sean George (USA)

A father’s deal with the mob to save his son takes a dark turn when he is forced to choose between his son’s life and his morals after the arrangement forces him to cover up the murder of an innocent child.
Directed by Tang (USA)

Set in a dystopian society where individuals are forced to go around wearing labels indicating their sexuality and gender. When the government removes ‘Asexual’ from the pool of available option, Penelope, is forced to enroll in a sexual deviancy hospital where, at the end of the treatment, she will be required to select a new label. Throughout her journey, Penelope will see/feel things and meet people that will inform her final decision of refusing to select a label for herself.
Directed by Vittoria Rizzardi Penalosa (UK)

A surveillance and intelligence specialist who is under suspicion by his employer, finds both his personal and professional worlds on an unstoppable collision course. On his final international assignment, his decisions will come under question, his movements will be tracked and ultimately retribution dispatched. 
Directed by Mark Solter (USA)

A young woman, after the one more family mourning, is at the monumental cemetery of Verano and has a liberating dialogue, or rather a monologue, with her granny Giulia in front of her tomb. Trough her words and the images spinning in her mind, we’re plunged into a sort of parallel world, with a an extremely blurring border with reality. This world is an absolutely literary one, inhabited by poetic quotes, paintings, statues of rare beauty and characters who, although missing and probably unreal, make the protagonist’s suffering more bearable.
Directed by Marco Reale (Italy)

Comedic look at an important issue (suicide).
Directed by Lawrence (USA)

A poet with depression seeks inspiration in his past. Suddenly, he will find out that the things and people he lost have always been close to him. But that closeness will not be enough for him.
Directed by Alberto Martín-Aragón (Spain)

Twelve Year Old Mildred must lead her family through the hardships of Depression-Era America. Can a girl so young meet the challenges that lay ahead?
Directed by Michael Ricci (USA)

Maximal reduced conversation of a couple on the #metoo movement where stereotypes brake through.
Directed by Dieter Grohmann (Austria)

“The Land of the Gods” deals with the relationship between a man and his native land of Tuscany. It looks into the close rapport that man can nurture with a place, the living cord that binds us to a certain point. Here this man relates the emotional resonance for his attachment, this link woven through the ages, solid yet delicate.

This land that gave birth to him continued to sculpt him, to transform him until he has shed his old skin, and one no longer knows if it is this man who has created this land, or the lands has fashioned the man. Intimately connected, a mutual alchemy performed by each on the other, they are now as one.
Directed by Marc Lepelletier (France)

A trip from Paris to Berlin, from Baudelaire to Techno, from the past to the present, from the old to the new….
Directed by Benjamin Hembus (Germany)