Best of Fest

Documentary Feature
Egypt, United States
Run time:
80 minutes
Director(s):
Anna Kipervaser

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.

Cairo in One Breath

Special Jury Award for Truth in Storytelling

Narrative Feature
United States
Run time:
95 minutes
Director(s):
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.

The Other Kids

Special Jury Award

Narrative Short
United States
Run time:
28m:0s
Director(s):
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.

Down Home
Narrative Short
United States
Run time:
34m:0s
Director(s):
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.

The Stairs
Narrative Short
Serbia
Run time:
10m:0s
Director(s):
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.

Baits and Hooks