Every day people are being replaced by machines worldwide. After 1,400 years, thousands of muezzins in Cairo are no longer calling people to pray as wireless receivers replace them in reciting the adhan. CAIRO IN ONE BREATH unfolds as the Adhan Unification Project takes hold and as Egypt undergoes Revolution and regime change.
2016
Best of Fest
Documentary Feature
Egypt, United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
20 minutes
Director:
Anna Kipervaser
Special Jury Award for Truth in Storytelling
Narrative Feature
United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
35 minutes
Director:
Chris Brown
THE OTHER KIDS follows six teenagers as they struggle through their final days of high school in the small, gold rush town of Sonora, CA. ISAAC, a Mexican national abandoned as a child by his family, barely treads water in a culture hostile to non-whites. Poor and living on his own in an abandoned trailer, Isaac works three jobs (landscaping, dishwashing and metalworking), studies hard, and dreams of someday becoming a diplomat. Isaac's girlfriend, SIENNA, a stable-hand and natural cowgirl, is forced to cope not only with the brutal dissolution of her family, but with her parents' violent objections to her relationship with Isaac.
Special Jury Award
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
28 minutes
Director:
Colby Holt
When he cant afford a retirement community, a nursing home, or a caregiver, Rudy Hendricks and his husband are forced to move back to his hometown in Kentucky to care for his ailing conservative father. Along the way, he grows closer with his single mother, sister and his gay but repressed best friend who never left home.
Special Jury Award
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
34 minutes
Director:
Zach Bandler, Kelly Blatz
A moving performance by Anthony Heald (Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Boston Public) highlights THE STAIRS, as an older man who hires a male escort for company on Christmas Eve. Faced with the realities of his own loneliness, he finds a strange kinship with the young man in this late-night exploration of solitude, intimacy and the basic human need for connection.
Special Jury Award
Narrative Short
Serbia
Runtime:
10 minutes
Director:
Luka Popadic
Two fishing buddies, Big brother and some fish stew. BAITS AND HOOKS is a black comedy inspired by the style oft he Czech New Wave about how two workers of an old factory face the transition from socialism to capitalism. A short and sweet film about friendship and cooking, but also about a generation of workers who have to deal with the changed system.
Documentary Short
United States
Runtime:
15 minutes
Director:
Paul Zehrer
BEING SEEN will change the way you see people with developmental disabilities. A combination of funny, acerbic, and heart-wrenching, these peoples candid and articulate self-awareness quickly shatter preconceptions of the disabled. BEING SEEN explores the poorly understood subculture of people living with "developmental disabilities."
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
27 minutes
Director:
Craig Barnes
Parallel lives intersect when Jack, a nostalgic sci-fi enthusiast, serendipitously connects with the wistful Amelia over a misdialed number in dashed hopes of procuring a relic from his favorite childhood franchise. Their isolated existence and underlying need for friendship is further brought to light by the seemingly mundane circumstances of a stoic cab driver, who volunteers most of his free time in support of a failing neighborhood movie theater and the old man who tenuously owns it, and a young woman under pressure to forsake her dreams in favor of returning home to care for her aging parents.
Documentary Short
United States
Runtime:
26 minutes
Director:
Patrica McInroy
After growing up and living under slavery, Clara Brown was freed in 1859 when her owner, George Brown, died in Kentucky. After coming to Colorado, which was not even a state yet, she amassed a savings of $10,000 through her own business as well as investments in real estate and mining. Often referred to as 'Aunt' Clara Brown, she gained a reputation of kindness as she searched endlessly for her daughter.
Narrative Feature
Singapore
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
30 minutes
Director:
Patrick Daly, Joel Fendelman
When Marie takes a job as a maid in Singapore to support her family in the Philippines, she trades one set of hardships for another. Betrayed by her husband, she begins to build a new life for herself. As she gets caught up in the new life she is building in Singapore, she is forced to choose between her personal aspirations and family responsibilities back home.
Documentary Short
United States
Runtime:
58 minutes
Director:
Marc Kornblatt
In the midst of the U.S. presidential primaries, a man travels across the country asking people from all walks of life to address the issues of the day.