It has been 10 days filled with family, action and dramatic tales displayed on the small screen. This year’s venue of films was its biggest yet, with directors and film companies from all around the world submitting their work to this year’s Edmonton Film Fest.
New to this year’s festival was an event called “Shorts for Shorts.” A premiere of 10 animated shorts films curated professionally by the Edmonton International Film Fest’s co-producer Sydney Moule.
“We got around 400 submissions but that ranges between features and shorts. I’d say around 60 per cent are shorts. This package specifically is centered around family friendly content. It was difficult to narrow it down to just ten but we get there eventually,” said Moule.
Every film ran no longer then ten minutes, however this time restraint did not limit the amount of detailed character development and storytelling in these films. This collection even garnered the attention of the Academy of Motion Pictures, which means one lucky film could have a shot qualifying for an Oscar nomination.
“We are one of the 100 film festivals world-wide that is academy qualifying, so that means that any short film that wins our Grand Jury Prize is submitted for the Oscars for consideration,” said Moule.
The grand jury prize winner was a film called Weekends. It is a story of a young boy shuffling between the homes of his recently divorced parents. Surreal dream-like moments mixed with the domestic realities of a broken up family in this animated film set in 1980s Toronto.
The festival wrapped up last Saturday but most of the films displayed are on the Edmonton Film Fest’s website
