The Short Film Awards Foundation Announces 2015 SOFIE Award Winners

United States, December 1, 2015 (Newswire.com) - The Short Film Awards, founded by award-winning writer, producer and director, Cindy Birch, and presented by The Sitota Collection of luxury scented soy candles, announced the 2015 SOFIE Award winners at The 2nd annual awards presentation on Saturday, November 21st, hosted by platinum-selling music artist and actor Driicky Graham and actress Jasmine Love at Symphony Space’s Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre on Broadway in New York City.

Winners were chosen from five nominees each in 19 short film categories and awarded the beautiful and coveted SOFIE Award statuette, designed and manufactured by RS Owens. Each nominee also received an official Nominees Medal.

"It was one of the best celebrations of film I have ever been to, and I hope to be a part of it again!"

Michael, Weinstein

The organization’s second Call for Entries season drew hundreds of entries from over 40 countries. An official Review Committee of film professionals and experts were charged to carefully consider each submission and nominate the top five short films for each of the categories. Then, a special group of film and entertainment powerbrokers were invited to review the nominated films and choose one winner for each of the 19 categories.

The Thalia Theatre was full of film lovers and SOFIE Award nominees who had come from as far as Argentina and the United Kingdom. “Your work matters,” Founder and Director Cindy Birch told the 2015 nominees, “Every judge expressed amazement over your shorts and how your films have inspired and informed them.”

The winners and brief film information are as follows:

·      Outstanding Technical Work in a Short Film: 

“The Emotional Dimensions of the James River”

Director and Producer:  Michelle Marquez

Michelle Marquez, a fifteen-year old scientist and artist, has won awards for her neuroscientific research into how music and images can trigger emotional states. What she found was that changing a specific mathematical characteristic of the music or image, the “fractal dimension,” triggered different emotional states in the person listening to the music or viewing the images.

After her discovery, Michelle wanted to “combine science with art in a way that could reach a large audience.” To achieve that goal, she decided to make a film using the James River in Virginia as a subject.

This experimental film provides an emotional roller coaster experience that was musically and visually designed based on Michelle’s neuroscience research project that correlates a mathematical parameter (fractal dimension) of sounds and images with the selective triggering of emotional states. Enlighten yourself by looking at the world from your personal point of view while dreaming inside your curiosity. Michelle conceptualized, produced and directed this short film in collaboration with Patrick Gregory and the music of Lincoln Mitchell.

·      Outstanding Styling in a Short Film: 

“Cassandra”

Director:  Guy-Roger Duvert

Producers:  Guy-Roger Duvert, Rudolph Falaise

Two thieves infiltrate a besieged medieval city, in order to retrieve an artifact. They thought they had nothing to lose. They were wrong...

·      Best Editing in a Narrative, Dramatic or Comedic Short Film: 

“The Man Who Fed His Shadow”

Director:  Mario Garefo

Producer:  Filiki Eteria

Editor- Yannis Chalkiadakis

A man intrudes into rich people’s dinners claiming that he can collect the food from their table and feed his shadow, which, curiously enough, is a female figure.

·      Best Editing in a Documentary Short Film: 

“Globe Trot”

Director, Producer and Editor:  Mitchell Rose

An international crowd-sourced dance-film project, as 50 filmmakers, on all seven continents, each shoot two seconds of dance by choreographer Bebe Miller.

·      Best Writing in a Narrative, Dramatic or Comedic Short Film: 

“Greece”

Director, Producer and Writer:  Sarah Deakins

On a rainy afternoon in a British nursing home, a woman struggles to make a last connection with her seemingly catatonic mother.

·      Best Writing in a Documentary Short Film: 

“Against the Grain: A Filmmaker’s Lament”

Director and Writer:  Patrick Shanahan

Producer:  Patrick Shanahan, Beau Vorous

At first glance this short documentary, Against the Grain, may appear to be a narrative short film, though this is Patrick Shanahan speaking from his own real life experiences. Cinematographer Beau Vorous and director Patrick Shanahan wanted to create a film with poetic, short film aesthetics and at the same time, tell a true story of one struggling film maker’s opinion on filmstock and the encroachment of digital media.

·      Best Director of a Narrative, Dramatic or Comedic Short Film: 

“Sleeping Death”

Director and Producer:  David Casademunt

Irene, a six-year old girl, wants to go to see her mother who’s very ill. But Silvia, her older sister who’s fifteen, has orders of not going to the hospital whatever happens. Retain her little sister will be a hard task cause the little one believes having the remedy to heal her mother: something she has read in a fairytale.

·      Best Editing in a Documentary Short Film: 

“Thank You Stan”

Director and Producer:  Tony White

A personal animated tribute to the later great soccer legend, Sir Stanley Matthews, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

·      Best Supporting Actress in a Short Film: 

Tracy Brooks Swope as Tippy in “Dante and Beatrice: A Family Film”

Director:  David Steven Simon

Producers:  David Steven Simon, Simon Feldman, Fredric B. Blankfain

An hilarious, free wheeling, throw back homage to the great comedies of the 70's and 80's: a mockumentary shot all over New York (especially Arthur Avenue in the Bronx! Shout out to our Italian peeps!). It's focus: two families and two kids in love that leads to one all out domestic war. The ad line: "It Was Love At First Fight." The basic message: love and life are not etched in black and white. Literally.

·      Best Supporting Actor in a Short Film: 

Alexander Alexeyev as Gustav in “The Way Out” (also “Der Auftritt”)

Director and Producer:  Mikhail Uchitelev

Almost all the Jews get deported or killed in the first weeks of the Nazi's occupation of a city. A theater director rescues and hides an opera diva, a Jewess, from the Nazis in the cellar of the theater. The Nazi commandant begins hunting for hidden Jews and the opera diva is the most wanted. With the threat of death looming, the theater director and the opera diva try to find the way out.

·      Best Actress in a Short Film: 

Heide Simon as Thea in “The Late Bird” (also “Der späte Vogel”)

Director:  Sascha Vredenburg

Producer:  Felix Ruple, Simon Riedl

A crashed astronaut opens to the 71 year old Thea the possibility to start again and to exchange the tristesse of her village with the endless wideness of the space.

·      Best Actor in a Short Film: 

Stelio Savante as Demas in “Once We Were Slaves”

Director:  Dallas Jenkins

Producer:  Dallas Jenkins, Pete McDonough

The story of an influential event 2000 years ago from the viewpoint of two people who had a unique perspective.

·      Best Short Film from the Vault: 

“Natsanat”

Directed and Produced by:  Cheryl Halpern, Mitchell Stuart

Natsanat tells the story of a courageous group of women who fought against the oppressive regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam during the decades long struggle for the freedom of the Ethiopian people. Their willingness to sacrifice all that they had to stand up against injustice sparked social and political change that resonates in the country to this day.

·      Best Long Short Film: 

“If the Trees Could Talk”

Director:  Michael Weinstein

Producers:  Blake Brewer, Michael Weinstein

Twenty-five-time award winning film: A young Jewish girl and her family escape the ghetto and seek refuge in the forest. Struggling to survive, their horror is compounded by what may be the girl's ultimate demise. Can she be saved by a spiritual force more powerful than we can imagine?

·      Best Animated Short Film: 

“The Present”

Director:  Jacob Frey

Producer:  Jacob Frey, Anna Matacz

Jake spends most of his time playing videogames indoors until his mum decides to give him a present.

·      Best Documentary Short Film: 

“Not Anymore: A Story of Revolution”

Director:  Matthew VanDyke

Producers:  Matthew VanDyke and Nour Kelze

A short film about the conflict in Syria as experienced by a 32 year old rebel commander, Mowya, and a 24-year old female journalist, Nour, in Aleppo, Syria. The film clearly and concisely shows why Syrians are fighting for their freedom, told through the emotional words of two powerful characters whose lives have been torn apart by war.

·      Best Comedic Short Film: 

“After Eric: Part of That World”

Director: Marcus J. Richardson

Producer:  Marcus J. Richardson, Lucy Thackeray, Ashley David

This film follows the story of the real Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid as she tries to exist as 'Part of That World'.

·      Best Dramatic Short Film: 

“Frog”

Director:  Tyler Wallach

Producer:  Jonathan Bucari, Lenny Emery

After school, Danny, an innocent 11 year old, retreats to his refuge, the frog pond. After catching a frog, he steps outside his comfort zone and ventures further upstream. It is here, in dark woods, that he comes face to face with the neighborhood bullies. They proceed to teach him a cruel lesson. Frog is a story of innocence, cruelty and triumph that focuses on Danny’s quest to seek justice.

·      Best Narrative Short Film: 

“Get Some”

Director:  The Horton Brothers

Producer:  Andy Ryder

After a viral pandemic takes its grip on the planet turning humans into flesh-craving mutants, TV adventurer Hunter Smith (Warren Brown) fights back by presenting Get Some, a reality show in which he tracks and kills the infected for the entertainment of the surviving population.

For more information on all of the 2015 SOFIE Award winning films and filmmakers, please visit theshortfilmawards.com/press.php.