2017 Festival

Award sponsored by Sprung Structures
Nominees: How Hipolito Vaszquez Found Magic Where He Never Expected, Cuerdas
Jury: Allan Boss, Cheryl Taylor, Lorna James, Joanne Klein, Scott Lepp

Award sponsored by the Okotoks Arts Council

Nominees: Douglas Munro csc (The Caravan Film), Hampus Linden (Memory of You)
Jury: Chase Gardiner, Nick Thomas, Craig Wrobleski

Nominees: Geoff Manchester (I Phub You), Beau Shiminsky (It’s All In Your Head)
Jury: Frank Laratta, Mitch Lee, James Fonnyadt

Nominees: Tomas Esteras (Mr. Dennton), Nicolas Manfredi (Taking the Plunge)
Jury: Ken Filewych, Neshe Delici

Nominees: Elisabeth Mainy, Lina D. Mena, Vegard Holter, Andrea Sorestrand (Hope), Michael Chen (LOST)
Jury: Kjirsten Gallagher, Trevor Smith

Nominees: Lidia Milette and Ramon Lazaro (Director’s Cut), Sergi Marti (Blue Division)
Jury: Christopher Craddock, Jason Long, Kevin Doree

Nominees: Hannah Jane Zirke (LOST), Henry Douthwaite (CATCH)
Jury: Gigi Saul Guerrero, Rhonda Fisekci

Award sponsored by Dawgs Baseball
Team: Damfinos

Team: Damfinos

Team: Black Diamond Crew

Team: A Second Sun

Team: Damfinos

This year’s feature film offered an inside look aboard The Caravan where adventurers young and old grapple with route-finding, mother nature and group dynamics in an epic horse-drawn experience across America.

The Caravan film follows the exploits of an eclectic group of international carriage drivers and horse riders as they journey across the American south from California to Florida over 5 months and 2,500 miles.

Leading this group of relative strangers is Gerard Paagman with his team of elegant Friesian horses fresh off filming The Hunger Games – Catching Fire. Challenging the limits of disability is Michael Muir, Great Grandson of the visionary John Muir, Father of the National Parks and co-founder the Sierra Club, a conservation movement in the U.S..

This epic journey weaves it’s way through iconic landscapes, up and over mountains, through vast deserts, under tall pine forests, to bayous and down the backroads of America. The film explores the complexities of group dynamics, the relationship we share with our horses in this modern world and the surprising connections made along the route.

Everyone came to The Caravan laden with their individual expectations but united by their love of the horse, what happened on the journey was something they will never forget.

The supermarket is about to close. As Adrien, a young cashier, sees different generations of love as the shoppers pass, he cannot take his eyes off the beautiful blue-eyed brunette standing at the end of the line. Maybe a chance to follow his heart..

Director: Matias Rubio
Nomination: Best Picture

Hipólito Vázquez is an old talent’s scout, that, among his loyal partner Cholo, is looking for a little child whose supposed to “do magic with the football”.

Director: Justin Brunelle

In the 1890’s, a photographer and his assistant scaled one of the Canadian Rockies most daunting mountains to take one of the regions first summit photographs in history.

Director: Matthieu Boivineau
Nomination: Best Screenplay – Matthieu Boivineau

A large cherry tree in a garden. A family, memories, moments of life and time passes, tirelessly. Through the four seasons, the cherry tree evolves and this family also. Like a poem about passing time and an ode to nature.

Director: Sergi Marti
Nomination: Best Screenplay – Sergi Marti

Leningrad, summer 1943. German attempts to conquer the strategic location of Leningrad have failed miserably. Hitler, desperate, will need his best men… He will need the Spanish soldiers of the… BLUE DIVISION.

Director: Hila Mutayn

Little and helpless man facing giant animal, in its most wild and threatening figure.

Director: Tabatha Golat

Loving newlywed husband Paul Seger is making the other guys in the neighbourhood look bad. Time for The United Guys Network to step in and teach him how to be a ‘real’ husband.

Director: Zoe Slusar

This uniquely animated short film captures a fantastic character and reveals his words of wisdom through moving pictures and words.

Director: Nils Janlert
Nominations: Best Cinematography – Hampus Linden
Winner: Best Performance – Emil Jonsson

Adam is going to dinner with his wife, when he is disrupted by something from his past. A story about a love that never was, shot in one single take.

Director: Justin Krul

This film is a look into the mind of Stephen Hair as he describes his love for his career of acting and why this is so important to him.

Director: Paul Cooke and Dominic Rees-Roberts
Nomination: Best Performer – Henry Douthwaite

In a near future where all antibiotics have failed, Tom and his young daughter, Amy, are quarantined in their home during a lethal pandemic.

Director: Vlad Buzaianu
Winner: Best Cinematography – Alexandru Pavel

In a world where people are able to record, buy and sell dreams, many are starting to lose the ability of dreaming.

Director: Michael Chen
Nomination: Best Performer – Hannah Jane Zirke, and Best Art Direction

A little girl finds a stuffed rabbit and tries to reunite it with it’s owner.

Director: Tofigh Amani

This story is about a threesome family that live in the ant’s apartment in one of the deserts of Iraq after the war. One day a strange thing happens that changes their…

Director: Justin Krul

A young ballet dancer is struggling with here choices about her future as a dancer.

Director: Alvaro Rodriguez Areny

World War II. Arthur, British Royal Air Force pilot, flees cross-country after his plain crashes. He begins a fight for survival in which he will encounter more than German enemies.

Director: Shawna Koski

A journey through a world of shadows and music.

Director: Fabrice Bracq
Winner: Best Picture

A woman tells a great story to her baby. In a tale with princes and princesses, she passes her story on her daughter.

Director: Brian J. Larson

An animated music video about the life (and love) cycles of a drone bee

Director: Shannon Hunt
Nomination: Best Sound Design – Geoff Manchester

After an incident that leaves the world around him silent, Kurtis discovers what it means to communicate in a technologically consumed society.

Director: Sarah Heinrich

Will projects his fears onto the helpless bird that just doesn’t seem to be open for this kind of mental training.

Director: Daniel Foreman

Raven is the craftiest of all creatures. Be transported into a magical animated world where Raven is flying blindly in the endless night. The story is adapted from an ancient Haida (North Pacific Coast First Nations) myth.

Director: Nolan Briggs

A young girl takes matters into her own hands when her tea party is disrupted.

Director: Esther Lalanne, Xing Yao, Valentin Sabin, Camille Verninas, and Chao-Hao Yang

Charlie, a little boy with ridiculous big teeth, always hides behind his scarf to avoid the teasing from his classmates.

Director: Tom Robinson

An animated change purse separated from its lady at the laundromat must find a way back to her.

Director: Nicolás Conte

On his usual way back from school Juancito, a lonely country boy, meets a little horse which seems to be abandoned.

Director: John Osborne

A short animated film in which a crosswalk sign comes to life.

Director: Ruslan Bokach

Shadow Dancers show the actions of humans have consequences.

Director: Nicholas Manfredi, Elizabeth Ku-Herrero, Thaddaeus Andreades, and Marie Raoult
Winner: Audience Choice

When a young mans marriage proposal is put in jeopardy he is forced to dive into unknown waters to salvage his plans.

Director: Leonid Rakhmanin

He is only 70 cm tall, he is naughty and curious as a child. We don’t know where he comes from, but his clumsy movements and his desire to explore the world sometimes lead to real chaos!

Director: Brooklyn Reiter and Sierra Slough

Sometimes it is hard being a girl and no one should be bullies. Zooom 2016 festival Winner!!

Director: Greg Jeffs
Nomination: Best Sound Design – Beau Shiminsky

A bedtime story about the monster in the closet

Director: Chantal Beaulne
Winner: Best Art Direction

An old woman confronts her childhood imaginary friend, who has taken up residence in the walls of her home.

Director: Saman Hosseinuor

The barber started cutting the boys hair while watching a football game on Tv.

Director: Piero Tonin

A pilgrim carrying a heavy burden travels through a dark forest to a radiant valley.

Director: Desiree Bilton

You can surf anywhere – even 1500m above sea level and 1000km away from the nearest ocean, on the Kananaskis River.

Director: Mark Brocking

Our hero is a young waiter for hire who gets caught up in a murder plot during a party and eventually rescues the damsel in distress.

Director: Chantal Kapiniak

A girl accidentally brings her teddy bear to life not knowing it would become evil.

Director: Pedro Solís García
Nomination: Best Picture

María’s routine at school is altered by the arrival of a very special child. Soon, they become close friends.

Director: Pol Diggler
Nomination: Best Writing – Lidia Milette and Ramon Lazaro

An indie filmmaking crew shoots the first snuff movie with a plot.

Director: Jesse Foster

Within the confines of a Brooklyn tenement-housing bathroom, a man’s fate is sealed.

Director: Nadia Zygouri and Aris Pavlidis

Two people are feasting. They are discommoded by flies. Time draws to a close. The rude awakening occurs when they realize where they are currently standing.

Director: Alex Napiwocki

Two recovering alcoholics, escaping zombie apocalypse, find refuge in a bar. They soon learn zombies don’t attack the drunk.

Director: Giulio Manicardi

A mysterious serial killer hosts a macabre show, where he tries and executes his victims in live streaming., leaving the final verdict in the hands of the Net public, which can decide to kill or spare the victim with simples ” Like “.

Director: Jamie Cooper

A brother and sister looking to recapture their youth, decide to explore an abandoned WW1 bunker deep in the heart of the British countryside. The pair stumble across a girl nailed to a chair, beaten, gagged and barely alive. When the captor returns to finish the job the three must frantically try to navigate the many bunker tunnels to escape.

Director: Peter Böving

Five people in a diner who spin a yarn about potato dishes.

Director: Rob Jacobsen

Every year a small town sends to people to the abandoned factory to see if The Skinner has returned to demand the sacrifice of a mother.

Director: Chris Friesen

A fake movie trailer for a childhood game in the style of Michael Bay.

Director: Ivan Villamel Sanchez
Winner: Best Overall Sound

On a cold winter night, Laura reads herbrother David the story of a strange creature that attacks children. Suddenly, a shiver runs Laura’s body, feeling a strange presence in the house. It’s him.

Director: Mark Brocking
Winner: Best Editing – James Gilmore

Two cut off but living heads wake up in a fridge and manage to escape while trying to avoid a psycho barber.

Director: Oliver Robertson

When two naive film students go deep into the forest to record sound effects, they overhear someone getting murdered.

Director: Soudabeh Kamrani

The young man was pouring coffee for himself, he see’ s himself in the coffee, Drinks the whole cup, puts it on the saucer upside down & starts to turn the pages of a book that suddenly the cup starts to tremble ….

Director: Max Ponischowski

Marcus wakes up in the middle of the night and gets a visit from a strange creature with unnatural powers. The man calls himself a Nighthob and opens up about the fact, that Marcus doesn’t know what life he has lived so far in secret . The adventure begins.

Director: Jim and Nick Zounis

A brief tale of a werewolf and his strong obsession with the full moon.

Director: Adam A. Losurdo
Nomination: Best Art Direction

A senseless wandering ghoul roaming through a world of the hunger-less undead and accepting yet resentful humans will soon discover a craving that leaves him completely and utterly without hope.

Director: Randy Brososky

Daniel Plight, a security guard, develops superpowers after he is wounded with a mystical knife. Along with Michelle Striker, a scientist with enhanced fighting abilities, Daniel must discover the secret behind his new powers, and learn the difference between feeling special and being special.

Director: Fabio Soares

At Salt’ n Sugar, a popcorn bar in the middle of nowhere, LILY a bored waitress, is going to turn her life around when two fishy strangers show up in the bar.