Independent Shorts Awards

Two parents struggle with their beloved Mexican musical tradition when their son requests a love song for another boy.
Directed by Adelina Anthony (USA)

Rayna, a girl with a supernatural ability to pick locks, helps Zeke, a charismatic misfit, break into a car. Afterwards, he asks her to join his gang: ‘The Car Stealers” a group of ethical car thieves who steal back stolen cars. After Rayna steals a bike, Zeke introduces her to the Car Stealers and unveils their mission: when he was a kid, he was supposed to inherit his dad’s sick 2001 Lexus. Unfortunately, an evil repo man, Herbert Franklin, got it first. The Car Stealers steal back the Lexus. But the owner of the stolen bike is waiting at their headquarters with a gun. Bob the dog (a member of Car Stealers) has a heart attack and Rayna quits the gang.
Directed by Christopher Guerrero (USA)

A genomic scientist creates a bioengineering program for soldiers and decides to destroy it, the only problem is he falls in love with a CIA agent who tries to stop him.
Directed by Ruvin Orbach (USA)

“Transgression(s)” stages the secrets and mutual lies of a couple told from the perspective of a middle-aged african-american woman that thinks that the relationship between she and her husband has been clarified after a conversation. But the husband, that tells her, like a voice of her conscience, that she is a liar and that she’s hiding something, is the one which is actually hiding the biggest secret.
Directed by Eric Weber (USA)

While at a gay men’s bathhouse, three men – each harboring their own latent contempt for women – are visited by a mysterious stranger known only as “The Woman.” Through surreal dreams and memories, she engages in a battle of wits with each man, exposing the misogyny that lurks just behind the steam.
Directed by Brad McDermott (Canada)

A parent tries to cover up the news of the death of grandpa from their kid, but the cover-ups always somehow go wrong.
Directed by Runze Qiu (USA)

The story of a woman going through the change who must learn to harness the symptoms of menopause as a source of power, as a way to combat evil, as a way to get through it. (this file is the two-part opening to the web-series).
Created by Amy Buchwald and Danny Woodburn (USA)

After his lover dies, a writer teaches a class to mysterious locals in a small town. Based on award winning short story by Richard Hall.
Directed by David Bobrow  and Rebecca Reyes (USA)

As children, we viewed the world through the lenses of our imaginations. The carpet became lava, the shadows formed monsters, the family minivan was a spaceship. But the older we got, the more reality set in, and soon we forgot the magic our minds could create. We invite you to step back into your childhood and take a look through the lens once again in this stop-motion sensation, “Imagination.”
Directed by Marc Donahue and Roth Rind (USA)

Emily has had a rough life plagued with sadness and misfortune but now she will have to face it in the form of “The Other” whether she survives or not will be up to her.
Directed by Mahaut de Coustin (Canada)

Zenaida is the living story of almost a century in the history of Cuba. She portrays us, the Cubans, tells us about racism, emigration and what there would be to be politically correct according to her.
Directed by Enrique Rottenberg (Cuba)

“Scraping coconut” documents the health impacts and cultural and culinary traditions surrounding coconut, as remembered and experienced by Afro-Ecuadorians in the northern coastal region of Esmeraldas, Ecuador. The documentary is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted and shot between 2012 and 2017 in various locations in the province of Esmeraldas, and in Quito, Ecuador. Through the voices of medical and culinary specialists, as well as Afro-Ecuadorian cultural and culinary experts, the film offers a unique window into ancestral cooking methods and medicinal traditions in coastal Ecuador. It also offers insights into the socio-economic and health impacts and value of the consumption and use of traditional foods and medicinal practices, as lived and told by Afro-Ecuadorians themselves.
Directed by Pilar Egüez Guevara (Ecuador)

A cynical, downtrodden reporter investigates a small-town supernatural tale, that must be believed to be seen.
Written by Jeremy Storey (USA)

For the past 50 years, Mojo has been entertaining audiences around the world. He’s a musician, singer and songwriter and the leader of Mojo and the Bayou Gypsies. About 6 years ago, I discovered his music searching for a soundtrack for 10 ‘Soldier Story’ mini-documentaries created to engage the support of the creation of a National Museum of the US Army. These stories of Army combat veterans were impactful and emotional and Mojo’s composition ‘Lights on the Bayou’, a beautiful and haunting ballad in the cajun style, was the perfect fit. This introduced me to Mojo and the discovery that there is more to his music and more to the man than his Cajun accordion. This documentary looks into the making of a man who gives something every day, lives life to the fullest, and all his friends are friends for life.
Directed by Joe Gallo (USA)