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Last updated on Sunday, July 29, 2018
(INDIANAPOLIS) - Nonprofit arts organization Heartland Film, Inc. has selected film winners across seven categories for their Indy Shorts International Film Festival (Indy Shorts), Indianapolis’s first ever short film festival and an Academy Award®-qualifying event.
Inaugural short film festival honors films for outstanding quality - five winners receive cash prizes and two automatically qualify for the Academy Awards®
Indy Shorts exclusively features short films less than 40 minutes in length, and with more thn 100 films shown, the festival is one of the largest of its kind in the Midwest.
"We are thrilled about the high quality films we received and were able to showcase during our first ever Indy Shorts," said Heartland Film President Craig Prater. "The award-winning films that were ultimately selected by the Finalist Juries represent the powerful filmmaking that we are striving to achieve at Heartland Film. These are films that do much more than entertain - they educate their audience and inform different viewpoints from around the world."
Indy Shorts selected and honored films in several categories, with winners receiving grand cash prizes of up to $5,000 and automatic Academy Award®-qualification for two winners. Those categories include: Best Narrative Short Film ($5,000 Grand Prize/Academy Award®-qualified), Best Documentary Short Film ($5,000 Grand Prize/Academy Award®-qualified), Best Animated Short Film ($5,000 Grand Prize), Indiana Spotlight Competition ($2,500 Grand Prize), High School Film Competition ($2,500 Grand Prize), Best Student Film, and Student Choice Award. Audience Choice Award Winners will be announced post-Festival.
Below is a complete listing of the award-winning films, as selected by the Indy Shorts Finalist Juries of film professionals, academics and critics:
Indy Shorts' Award-Winning Films:
Best Narrative Short Film - "Abu Adnan"
Director: Sylvia Le Fanu
Best Documentary Short Film - "Zion"
Director: Floyd Russ
Best Animated Short Film - "The Burden"
Director/Writer: Niki Lindroth von Bahr
Indiana Spotlight Competition - "When Kids Wrote the Headlines"
Director/Writer: Michael Husain
High School Film Competition - "Middleweight"
Director/Writer: Jeremy Kemp
Best Student Film - "$30 to Antarctica"
Director/Writer: Joey Chu
Student Choice Award - "Opening Night"
Director/Writer: Margaret Bialis
Indy Shorts has earned the special designation of being a qualifying festival for the Annual Academy Awards® within the Live Action and Documentary short film categories. This means that the winner of the Grand Prize for Best Narrative Short Film and Grand Prize for Best Documentary Short film will each qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the Annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.
About Heartland Film, Inc.
Heartland Film is a nonprofit arts organization founded in 1991 with the mission to inspire filmmakers and audiences through the transformative power of film. Heartland Film is a supporter of purposeful filmmaking, providing an outlet for filmmakers and storytellers from all over the world to be creative and honored for their work. The films selected for the Festival do more than just entertain; they inspire and uplift, educate and inform, and shift audiences' perspectives on the world. For more information, visit heartlandfilm.org.
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