The Hollywood-in-the-Making block hosts an intense, often violent array of shorts from the minds of six up-and-coming directors, each displaying the potential for Hollywood fame.
IN-PERSON: Sunday 9/19 at 2:45 PM in Theater #2
ONLINE: Available Friday, 9/17 from 7:00 PM through Sunday, 9/19, 9:00 PM
*The filmmaker of Derelict is expected to be present for a discussion following the in-person screening.
60 Seconds
18 mins | US | Color | Action, Suspense | 🏆 🎬
What if you had only minutes to pull off your next heist? Dixon and his crew – Caleb, the tech genius, and Benny, the muscle – are about to find out when they target a remote desert casino.
by John Quigley
A Detroit native with a career spanning more than 30 years, John (aka “Quig”) used his innovative and indelible directorial style in storytelling from a music video perspective to write, produce, and film his directorial film debut 60 Seconds. Quig’s impressive portfolio over the past 30 years includes work on numerous projects with music’s heavy hitters like Eminem, Kid Rock, 50 Cent, and countless others and has earned numerous industry accolades for his cutting-edge work on many music videos, documentaries and commercials. Quig brings his expertise as a cameraman and editor while still filling the role of director in production (and post-production). This self-funded short film project is the hopeful transition to showcase his ability to direct in a narrative form, and incorporate more work on television and features into the creative
Derelict
21 mins | US | Color | Suspense, Crime | 🍊 🦩 🏆 🎬
Meth has become seemingly impossible to score for Adam, a struggling addict. He must go to great lengths in order to get his next fix in the small town of Altha, Florida.
by Mitchell Cole
Mitchell is a filmmaker and actor based in Tallahassee, FL. Most of his work is based on his hometown of Northwest-Florida, also known as “The Florida Panhandle”. His work often examines unusual protagonists of questionable morals, challenging audiences to take a closer look at the true definition of good and evil.
Mitchell says: Don’t do drugs.
Barrier
9 mins | Netherlands | In French | B&W | Drama, War | 🏆
September 1944. Two Canadian soldiers find a boy washed up on the Dutch beach. Where did he come from and can he be trusted?
by Niels Bourgonje
Niels is an award-winning short film and commercial director based in Amsterdam. Niels graduated with the short thriller Burn, which was selected for several international film festivals winning numerous awards. Since then, his short films have consistently been selected for Academy Award qualifying festivals like Palm Springs ShortFest, Seattle International Film Festival, HollyShorts International Film Festival, Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, Odense International Film Festival, Izmir International Short Film Festival, Brussels Short Film Festival and Leuven Kortfilm. His most recent films, Turn It Around and Swipe, garnered over one hundred film festival selections. His latest films are Woodland Cemetary and Barrier. He is currently developing his feature debut.
Dhulo
The Scapegoat
25 mins | India | In Bengali | Color | Drama, Suspense | 🏆
A young firebrand woman decides to stand up against the patriarchy and politics-of-hate that has begun to infiltrate her rural Bengali village and threatens to destroy her way of life.
by Tathagata Ghosh
A Berlinale Talents 2021 alumnus, Tathagata has always believed in telling stories of people from different social backgrounds. People who do not have a voice of their own. His last short films Miss Man and Doitto (The Demon) have traveled to numerous prestigious international film festivals like Tallahassee Film Festival, BFI Flare, Out on Film, Coalition of South Asian Film Festivals (CoSAFF), Tallgrass Film Festival, Cheries-Cheris, Wicked Queer, International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala and have won several awards. The Demon is currently streaming on Disney+Hotstar and Cinemapreneur and Mangsho (The Meat) is streaming on MovieSaints.
Cocaine
7 mins | US | Color | Crime, Suspense | 🍊 🦩 🏆 🎬
Danny, an ascending lieutenant in a Miami gang, has his plans interrupted when his associate gets caught up with a rival biker gang.
by Justen Mann
Justen is a writer and director living in Jacksonville, FL. He has won multiple awards for the short films, Self Hell, A Wake, and Metaphysical Education. Justen also directs and produces the YouTube channel “Mann Shorts” which releases a weekly show about Dungeons and Dragons. The channel has nearly 150,000 subscribers.
Мерген
Mergen
26 mins | Kazakhstan | In Kazakh | Color | Suspense, Adventure, Fantasy | 🏆 ✏️ 🎬
On the strife-torn Central Asian steppe, the boy Mergen must defend his family in the place of his absent father. He will do so with courage, cunning, and above all, a mystical gift from his grandmother. An ambitious first film from a student of Kazakh National Academy of Arts and shot completely on-location in Kazakhstan.
by Raiymbek Alzhanov
Raiymbek was born in 1994, on the 21st of February, on a sunny Monday in Almaty, Kazakhstan. From an early childhood, he loved Lego and as he got older, he tried to create mise-en-scenes and tell stories like in his favorite comics with the help of a construction kit and a film camera. During his school years, he was fond of stage fighting, dancing and performing in amateur theater. In 2017, he graduated from the Kazakh National Academy of Arts named after T. Zhurgenov with a degree in directing narrative film, and in 2019 he completed an internship at NYFA, in Los Angeles. In his debut Mergen, the author tries himself in the genre of folklore fantasy with a reference to one of the most difficult periods in Kazakh history.