2023 SCFF Jury & Winners
2023 SCFF Winners
2023 SCFF Winners
BEST COMEDIC FEATURE: Fantasy A Gets a Mattress
2023 / USA / 80 Min / Directed by: Noah Zoltan Sofian and David Norman Lewis
Fantasy A, real-life autistic Seattle rapper, suffers trials and tribulations from total creeps as he attempts to become a superstar. After being kicked out of his group home onto the grim summer streets, Fantasy A sets off on an odyssey to achieve fame and find a good mattress to sleep on in this ensemble comedy filmed entirely on location in Seattle.
BEST DRAMATIC FEATURE: Cautionary Tale
2023 / USA / 87 Min / Directed by: Christopher Zawadzki
A children's TV show host, after the loss of his daughter, attempts to find solace in Bangkok after meeting the lead singer of an all-girl Thai rock band.
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Wounded Psyche
2023 / Iran / 83 Min / Directed by: Meysam Jafarinejadsedehi
Maysam (wounded psyche) sees himself as an indirect result of the Iran-Iraq war. His father is a war lacerated and his mother is a stand-offish religious person who, along with many misfortunes and her failure in her relationship with God, have left many wounds on his psyche. Maysam decides to commit suicide. Is there anything that will bring him back to life at the end? It took 21 years to make this movie.
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT: This is Not a Film
2023 / Iran / 4 Min / Directed by: Mahdi Hassanieh
Two deaf people are busy talking in a café. The world around them is kinder in the silence of judgments.
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT: RUNNER UP:
Where the Light Cannot Reach
2023 / USA / 6 Min / Directed by: Ryan Williams-Abrams
A woman wakes up alone in an unfamiliar house. Disoriented and drenched in water, she finds herself gripping a steering wheel. Flashes of incoherent memories flood her mind as she tries to piece together how she got here. Beginning to acclimate to her surroundings, she finds that she cannot escape her dream-state of consciousness. Through the windows, a black void is pierced by a beam of light. She has a growing sense that this beacon's overwhelming presence is searching for her in the darkness.
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT: HONORABLE MENTION: Strawberry Shake
2023 / USA / 16 Min / Directed by: Dianne Bellino
A troubled young mother tries to win back her two kids with a pet rabbit and pink dessert.
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: Traditional Brazilian Family KATU
2023 / Brazil / 25 Min / Directed by: Rodrigo Sena
The Guardians of the Atlantic Forest and their resistance to current problems in contemporary challenges such as the environment and agribusiness, evangelization in villages, drug abuse, indigenous education and higher education.
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: RUNNER UP:
Tickling the Earth
2023 / Portugal / 16 Min / Directed by: MJ Sousa
Those who pass by Santa Clara ( Azores ) can contemplate the view of sparkling strings in the same tone as the reflection of fish in the sea. But these strings move on the earth. Those who build them are also on land but they live to the rhythm of the sea. Human hands mark the compass with the nature that surrounds them. They play with their strings from the sea to the land and with the wind, they dance together the same melody.
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: HONORABLE MENTION:
The Exchange Girl
2023 / USA / 9 Min / Directed by: George Larkin
The Exchange Girl is a short documentary about women working in dangerous conditions in silent film post-production. Those positions did provide women with an entry point to film work, but those jobs suddenly disappeared with the coming of sound. The film also explores how Margaret Booth, one of the great editors, started her legendary career that way. I'm a filmmaker and college professor in Los Angeles, and this is based on my PhD research at Berkeley and my book out with Routledge.
BEST ANIMATED SHORT: On the Haunt
2023 / Canada / 2 Min / Directed by: Joy Zhou
When missing 8th-grader Penny Liu returns to her eerie New England town as a ghost, she’s determined, along with her mystery-solving, ride-or-die BFF, to hunt down the one who dun it.
2023 SCFF Jury
2023 SCFF Jury
Laura Jean Shannon
Laura Jean (LJ) SHANNON (Specialty Costume Designer / Associate Producer) Laura Jean Shannon or LJ, as she is known by her peers, is currently serving as the Super Hero/Specialty Costume Designer as well as Associate Producer for the smash hit, THE BOYS based on Garth Ennis’ Graphic novels for Amazon and Sony, as well as the much anticipated spin off GEN V. In the past six years, LJ has carved a niche out with her amazing team, designing and building Superheroes, Villains, Robots and Creatures of all kinds. Their work can be seen in practically built mechanized, illuminated and fully functional creations on hit shows including, BLACK LIGHTNING,TITANS, DOOM PATROL and STARGIRL for DC comics and Warner Brother’s. LJ has enjoyed helping realize the vision for several other TV projects including the feminist period drama GOOD GIRLS REVOLT, the Science Fiction anthology PHILLIP K. DICK: ELECTRIC DREAMS and the pilots for PREACHER and FUTUREMAN. Shannon’s recent film credits include: RED ONE and JUMANJI, WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, directed by Jake Kasdan as well as JUNGLE BOOK, CHEF and IRON MAN, all directed by Jon Favreau. The latter earned Shannon a nomination for The Costume Design Guild Award for Excellence in Contemporary Film Design. Other films she has designed include: TWO GUNS, directed by Baltazar Kormakur, SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD, directed by Edgar Wright; and many more. Shannon’s work has a wide range. She began her career in NYC designing indie cult classics such as REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, directed by Darren Aronofsky; THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS, directed by Rose Troche and MADE, directed by Jon Favreau. Over the years she has had the pleasure of designing many genres including family favorites like ZATHURA and ELF, which afforded Shannon a spot on the prestigious costume exhibition “50 Designers/50 Costumes: Concept to Character,” curated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Laura Jean is a voting member of The Academy, an honor she takes very seriously come Oscar time. Shannon holds IATSE membership on both coasts with The Costume Design Guild, Local 892 in Los Angeles and United Scenic Artists, Local 829 in NYC. Shannon enjoys working all over the globe and calls a farm in central New York her home, which she shares with her wonderful family, furry, feathered and flesh.
Diana Riesman
Diana Riesman is co-founder and executive director of Wharton Studio Museum (WSM) in Ithaca, New York, a nonprofit that preserves and celebrates the role Ithaca and the region played in early 20th century moviemaking. She manages WSM's day-to-day operations and all its events, programming, projects and exhibits, as well as fundraising and community outreach. Riesman is spearheading the effort, in partnership with Friends of Stewart Park (she's Board President of FSP) and the City of Ithaca, to develop a section of the historic Wharton Studio building in Stewart Park into the Wharton Studio & Café. She launched the Finger Lakes Film Trail in 2018, in collaboration with the George Eastman Museum in Rochester and the Case Research Lab in Auburn. In 2021, Riesman co-taught, with Professor Denise N. Green, a Cornell University class called Serial Style and Ithaca Silent Film History, part of the university’s Learn Where You Live initiative.
In the early 80s in NYC, Riesman worked in publishing, as a production assistant for ABC Afterschool Specials, and as a development assistant to the late director Frank Perry (The Swimmer, David and Lisa, Mommie Dearest) before moving to Los Angeles in 1985. In L.A., Riesman worked at Writers & Artists Agency, Tri-Star Pictures, and Film and General Productions, before venturing out on her own to write and produce. Riesman served as co-producer of award-winning radio programs To The Point, Which Way, LA?, Good Food, and Hollywood Wrap for NPR affiliate KCRW in Santa Monica from 1996-2001. She moved to Ithaca in 2001.
In 2004, Riesman founded The Nest, a preschool program now in its twentieth year of operation, and in 2014 completed her third term as a Trustee in the Village of Cayuga Heights.
Riesman is a member of Upstate
Molly Ryan
Molly Ryan (she/her) is the Director of Cornell Cinema at Cornell University. She is passionate about the cinema as a site for critical inquiry, cultural enrichment, and interdisciplinary exchange. She completed her undergraduate studies in History and Literature at Harvard College and received a master’s degree in film studies from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Her research interests center on political violence and sound in European cinema. Prior to coming to Cornell, she oversaw public engagement programs at the Harvard Art Museums. She also served as a student curator for the inaugural Sands International Film Festival of St Andrews and creatively directed events for the On the Rocks Arts Festival, the largest student-run arts festival in the UK.
Michael D. Richardson
Michael D. Richardson has been a member of the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures since 1998. He is the inaugural director of the Program in Screen Cultures. He is actively involved in the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF): he is the European Film Programming Consultant and a regular Event and Talkback moderator, presenter, and discussant. His research interests encompass 20th- and 21st-century German literature, theater, and film, from the Weimar Republic to contemporary Germany as well as contemporary world cinema. His current research focuses on three areas: constructions of history in recent German cinema, Holocaust cinema, and the image of Hitler in American and German popular culture. He is the author of Revolutionary Theater and The Classical Heritage: Inheritance and Appropriation from Weimar to the GDR (2007), and coeditor of A New History of German Cinema (2012) and Visualizing the Holocaust: Documents, Aesthetics, and Memory (2008). His essays have appeared in Telos, Colloquia Germanica, New German Critique, Stanford Literature Review, and in several anthologies. He is also a member of the editorial board of New German Critique.
A.P. Boland
A.P. Boland worked as a freight railroad conductor before leaving to attend the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. During his time at AFI, A.P. worked in the offices of Dark Castle Entertainment and Ghost House Productions. A.P. is also an accomplished long-distance hiker, having completed a 2,200 mile thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2016. A.P. is currently working on various film and television projects.