HollyShorts 3. The 2020 Oscar-Qualifying Winners

by Nathaniel R

This is the first year The Film Experience has covered the HollyShorts Film Festival. We intended to do more but you know how it is with time. It flies! For the final piece, I thought I'd review a few of the winners. The Complete Winners List from the festival is presented in alphabetical order with capsule reviews of three Oscar qualifiers and a few more for good measure...

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HollyShorts 1 "Action Packed"

HollyShorts, now in its 16th year, is an Oscar-Qualifying festival. Even better, it's a festival that's specifically devoted to short films so it's quite the showcase for its official selections. Team Experience thought we'd look at some of the films for you. Perhaps they'll pop up later in Oscar longslists or even as nominees!?

by Ben Miller

When it comes to action films, short form might be an ideal medium to take it all in.  The 16th annual HollyShorts Film Festival showcased their action block this week and proved that to be the case. A quick disclaimer, though: the term “action” is pretty broadly deployed here.  Of the eight films showcased, I would classify three as actual action movies, but we’ll go with it.

The reviews are presented alphabetically...

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Abe’s NewFest Wrap

By Abe Friedtanzer 

Saltanat Nauruz stars in "Welcome to the USA"

There are so many film festivals going on right now, and I’m very glad that I was able to screen so many selections from NewFest. I had the chance to watch fifteen films from the  32nd edition of the New York LGBTQ Film Festival, which took place online this year, representing more than a third of the feature slate. I had already seen Uncle Frank at Sundance, and I would definitely recommend that Alan Ball film, which comes to Amazon Prime on November 25th.

Here are NewFest’s jury prize winners for this year... 

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Chi Film Fest: Palestine's Oscar submission "Gaza Mon Amour"

by Nick Taylor

I felt much warmer towards Gaza Mon Amour at its conclusion than when it began. The gradual expansion of its story and stabilization of its aesthetic strategies are what got me on its side. At its core, Gaza Mon Amour is buoyed by the mutual, barely spoken ardor between fisherman Issa (Salim Daw) and dressmaker Siham (Hiam Abbass), but the script gives near-equal attention to their work lives and the friends and family members that populate their lives. It’s an admirable scope, though one might wonder when Tarzan and Arab Nasser, the twin sibling writer/director duo behind Palestine’s International Film submission, are going to move their story forward. It’s not clear for the first half hour whether the film will find itself or collapse entirely...

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Abe’s AFI Fest Wrap

By Abe Friedtanzer

This was my first year covering AFI Fest, and also my first time covering a virtual festival during the festival itself. It was a positive experience on both fronts, and the viewing platform I used – the AFI Fest app for Roku – worked pretty well and including plenty of interesting conversations with talent.

AFI announced the following winners:

Audience Award - Narrative Feature WOLFWALKERS (DIR Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart)
Audience Award - Documentary Feature 76 DAYS (DIR Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous)
Audience Award - Short Film LONELY BLUE NIGHT (DIR Johnson Cheng)
Grand Jury Prize – Animation TIGER AND OX (호랑이와 소) (DIR Seunghee Kim)
Grand Jury Prize – Live Action PILLARS (DIR Haley Elizabeth Anderson)
Special Mention - BLACK GOAT (DIR Yi Tang)
Special Mention  MAALBEEK (DIR Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis)
Special Mention UMBILICAL (DIR Danski Tang)

I personally had the chance to screen 17 films, which represent a third of the features shown. I also saw 6 of the other films at Sundance, but it hardly seems fair to include some of my favorites, like Nine Days and Farewell Amor, in this piece since I already cited them in my Sundance wrap. Without further ado, I submit my choices for the best of this year’s AFI Fest...

Abe’s 'Jury-of-One' Top Five AFI Fest 2020 Films 

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