HIGHLIGHTS – MAY 2018 DOCUMENTARY Short Film Festival

AUDIENCE AWARD WINNERS:

BEST FILM: REMAND

BEST SUBJECT MATTERS: WILDLAND

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: REMAND

BEST MUSIC: PROJECT 1948

Watch the Audience FEEDBACK Videos:

PROJECT 1948, 13min., Bosnia, Documentary

REMAND, 40min., Uganda, Documentary

THE UNDERGROUND ARTIST, USA, 3min., Documentary

MOTHERS & METHADONE, 11min, Canada, Documentary

WILDLAND, 25min., USA, Documentary

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The theme of the May 2018 DOCUMENTARY FEEDBACK Film Festival was “Repairing”. Every single film was about a world or characters needing to fix or repair the situations that they are currently in.

Documentary shorts festivals are easily the hardest to program for many reasons. The main two are because there are so many well made doc shorts that are over 20 minutes in length. And many of those said films have deep and emotionally hard to watch subjects. So you don’t want to overwelm the audience with so many different and important subjects in just one sitting.

So you have to give them the old “little of this, little of that!”. You have to make sure the right TONE is hit from film to film while making sure each piece has breathing room to separate themselves.

It’s still fascinating to me how many great documentary shorts are out there. And where they are coming from. For all of our other festivals the desire and goal is to entertain the audience. For the documentary shorts the desire is twofold: To entertain, and to inform/educate the audience. Nobody wants to be told what to think so the documentary filmmaker must engage the audience first and foremost before any sort of information or education takes place. It’s a fine line to master and many of them do – especially the films we show are our events.

See you at the festivals.

– Matthew Toffolo