IMDbPro and MDC’s Miami Film Festival Announce. Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Film Festival and IMDbPro (www.imdbpro.com), the essential resource for entertainment industry professionals, today unveiled 25 finalists in the Festival’s IMDbPro Short Film Competition. The 25 finalists were selected by a programming committee of filmmakers, cinephiles and film industry professionals in Miami and internationally, under the direction of the Festival’s Director of Programming, and will all screen at the Festival and compete for the Grand Jury selection of the best short film of the year, to be presented at the Festival’s Awards Night Gala on March 17. The Short Film Competition Grand Jury will include IMDb Founder and CEO Col Needham and others to be announced, and the winning filmmaker will receive a $2,500 cash prize.
The internationally renowned Miami Film Festival, which celebrates its 35th anniversary edition this year, will take place March 9 – 18, 2018 at venues across Miami. Tickets go on sale to members of the Miami Film Society on February 9, 2018 and the general public on February 16, 2018 at www.miamifilmfestival.com
“We congratulate the finalists of the IMDbPro Short Film Competition and are pleased that all submissions were exclusively received and processed via the IMDbPro Withoutabox service, which connects filmmakers and film festivals,” said Matt Kumin, Head of IMDbPro. “This short film competition is one of the many ways we help filmmakers get discovered by a global audience and advance their careers.”
“The short film is an art form unto itself,” said Miami Film Festival director Jaie Laplante. “Life comes at us in short bursts, and these 25 wonderful films expertly capture the brief sensations of insight we are momentarily afforded in the enormous volume of information that crowds our lives.”
Highlights among the 25 finalists of the Festival’s 2018 IMDbPro Short Film Competition include:
Adrián Cárdenas, a Cuban-American writer/director from Miami and former Major League baseball player for the Chicago Cubs, will present his NYU Tisch School of the Arts master’s thesis film, “Canoe Poems.”
Six new animated shorts will compete from the National Film Board of Canada, this category’s defending champion. The 2017 Miami Film Festival’s Best Short-winning film was the NFB’s “The Head Vanishes,” by Franck Dion.
Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei and Oscar-nominee Minnie Driver star in Jocelyn Stamat ’s unusual sci-fi/horror entry, “Laboratory Conditions.”
Three-time and currently Oscar-nominated makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji’s work in the physical transformation of 2018 Oscar nominee Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour is profiled in “The Human Face.”
Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel returns to the competition for a third consecutive time with the BAFTA-nominated “A Drowning Man,” first presented as a Palme d’Or candidate at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
Miami-born Michael Arcos will present his eclectic “This My Favorite Mural” and Miami-educated Sara Werner will present “The Things They Left Behind,” based on a story by Stephen King.
The complete list of 25 films in the Festival’s IMDbPro Short Film Competition are here at www.miamifilmfestival.com
