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by Eugie Foster

2011 Film Festival Awards

The Dragon*Con Independent Short Film Festival awards ceremony took place on Monday, September 4th. Clips were shown from each of three finalists in 13 categories (Animated Comedy, Animated Drama, Animated Fantasy, Animated Surrealism, Comedy, Dark Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Horror Comedy, Music Video, Science Fiction, Thriller) as well as the four features in the festival. The finalists, as well as the winners, are listed below.

Best Animated Short was chosen from the 1st place winners in the four animated categories. Best Short Film was chosen from the 1st place winners in the nine live-action categories. An Honorable Mention was given to a film that, due to particularly intense competition, did not place first in its category. This was a juried competition.

Best Short Film: Invasion from Planet Schrump
Best Animated Film: Odokuro
Honorable Mention: The Lone Warrior

Animated Comedy

1st Place: Bedtime For Timmy
Bear-Horse
Frowning

Animated Drama

1st Place: Gilded Age Gladiator
Junk Palace
Milo

Animated Fantasy

1st Place: Dream Giver
The Lady ParaNorma
Moonfishing

Animated Surrealism

1st Place: Odokuro
5 Minutes Each
Masks

Comedy

1st Place: Sudden Death
Bear Force One
Shadow Puppets

Dark Comedy

1st Place: A Cup of Tea
Abra Cadaver
Balls

Drama

1st Place: Invasion from Planet Schrump
The Lone Warrior
Triplets (Mitsugo)

Fantasy

1st Place: Time’s Up, Eve
Early Birds
My Good Fortune

Horror

1st Place: The Furred Man
Lamaze Of The Dead
Making Friends

Horror Comedy

1st Place: Plush
Certified
Get Off My Porch

Music Video

1st Place: Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
G33K & G4M3R GIRLS
I Just Want To (Dance)

Science Fiction

1st Place: James Vs Reality
Blunderkind
Once Upon a Time in 1972

Thriller

1st Place: Suffer
Deadbeat
Easier Ways To Make A Living

Feature Film

1st Place: The Millennium Bug
by Film Fest Admin

Game On

Written by Jason C. Miller, Jamison Boaz, Russell Ali, Felicia Day, and Sandeep Parikh; Directed by Kim Evey & Sean Becker; Produced by Jason C. Miller

Zaboo convinces Codex to resume game play by transporting them to a world of inspiring song and dance. Vibrant costumes and a large cast of extras give it an over-the-top look and feel.

4 min
by Film Fest Admin

Laugh

Written by Olufemi S. Sowemimo; Directed by Anthony McHie; Produced by Anthony McHie, Bola Mustapha, Sue-Ellen Chitunya

Laugh, explores unemployed stand-up comedian Jeremy Keane as his world comes crashing down around him in an apocalyptic end. While fighting to retain his humanity, what does our young hero choose to speak about when he hits the record button on his trusty camera?

18 min
by Film Fest Admin

Odokuro

Directed by Aurelio Voltaire

The skeleton of a rat-monkey comes to life in a room full of cursed objects in this Gothic tale with a sci-fi twist. Narrated by electro-Goth rocker, Gary Numan.
This is the 5th film in Aurelio Voltaire’s award-winning “Chimerascope” series of animated, experimental films. See the other four films at voltaire.net.

6 min
by Film Fest Admin

Followed

Written by Mark Stokes, Maureen Cooke & Will McIntosh; Directed/Produced by James Kicklighter

From Hugo-award winning writer Will McIntosh, Followed is a socially conscious monster movie in which zombies symbolize society’s disadvantaged and oppressed.

20 min
by Film Fest Admin

The Man Who Moved Manhattan

Directed by Rob Ludacer

In the summer of 1824, a retired ship’s carpenter known as Lozier walked into Centre Street Market in Manhattan and made a stirring claim: Because of the over-construction on the battery, the island of Manhattan had begun to sink into the harbor. To ease the panicking public, and persuade the naysayers, he revealed that the mayor had given him permission to do the unthinkable. Lozier was to oversee a project to saw the island in half, tow it out into the harbor, turn it around, and reattach it to the mainland.

11 min
by Film Fest Admin

The Candy Shop

Written by Charlie Wetzel; Directed/Produced by Brandon McCormick

Twelve-year-old Jimmy works hard selling newspapers to help his family survive during the depression. His world seems brightened by the new candy shop that opens across the street and by its bizarre owner (Doug Jones – Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy), but Jimmy quickly figures out that something is wrong, and that the candy is not what it appears to be. A fairytale/parable about the child sex trafficking.

30 min
by Film Fest Admin

A Cup of Tea

Written/Produced by Kevin Walsh; Directed by Barrett Amato

When a beautiful young woman sits down at a quaint outdoor café, she has no idea that the jerk who shares her table is no garden variety creep, but a psychopath with a disturbing agenda that gives new meaning to the term ‘hitting on’ her. It’s the age old story of boy meets girl, boy tries to murder girl, boy and girl engage in a surreal courtship dance with the help of a muffin, some honey, and a cup of tea.

11 min
by Film Fest Admin

Animation’s Graveyard

Directed by Mark Smith & Emilie Caileux

In May of 2001, America’s most trusted provider of family entertainment laid off nearly 600 workers from its Animation Department. Now for the first time, the story can be told from the 2D perspective of the laid-off cartoon characters. Whatever happened to these beloved hand-drawn characters? They were shipped to Australia to work on cheap, Direct-to-video sequels…

4 min
by Film Fest Admin

Nasty Stuff (Cosas Feas)

Written/Directed by Isaac Ezban; Produced by Isaac Ezban, Miriam Mercado, Pamela Hernandezn

Kriko Krakinsky is a lonely, 11-year-old boy that dislikes sports, insects, and most of what goes on in his house. At night he listens to the screams coming from his older brother’s room, who lives there with his girlfriend. When Kriko´s father tells him that “nasty stuff” is going on there, he imagines horrible things and his first sex ed class only makes it worse. But when he begins to discover what’s going on around him, he finds his imagination was insufficient. Nasty Stuff is a story of the sexual discovery, bizarre immigrants, and scorpions.

This is a film you will have to see to believe, and will burn itself into your brain.

29min
by Film Fest Admin

The Lost Explorer

Written by Kit Hesketh Harvey & Patrick McGrath; Directed by Tim Walker; Produced by Ben Pugh & Rory Aiken

Adapted from the short story by Patrick McGrath, The Lost Explorer centers on a young girl called Evelyn who, on discovering an explorer from Africa dying of malaria at the foot of her garden, manages to keep his existence and his fate a secret from her parents.

20 min
by Film Fest Admin

5 Minutes Each

Written/Directed/Produced by Vojin Vosovic

5 Minutes Each is a metaphorical story about the constant struggle of the artist to reach those five minutes of limelight. A tale about an upswing and downfall, with the climax appearing concurrently and unexpectedly. The hermetical life of artists, who are enclosed into their own world of ideas, striving to create the epochal masterpiece. Even if they succeed, the image they create is the reflection of themselves. And with the same fervor, they repeat the process in endless cycles.

10 min
by Film Fest Admin

Spoiled Rotten

Written by J. Alan Peeples & Kelli D. Meyer; Directed/Produced by J. Alan Peeples

What happens to a normal, happy family when a zombie attack leaves 4-year-old Tommy craving human flesh? A headshot with the family rifle would finish it, and his father wants to do just that, but his mother can’t bear to face the end of Tommy’s existence. As Tommy decomposes, his mother’s sanity wastes away as well. Just how far will a mother go to hold onto her son?

16 min
by Film Fest Admin

The Millennium Bug

Written/Directed by Kenneth Cran; Produced by James Cran & Kenneth Cran

On New Year’s Eve 1999, Byron Haskin takes his new wife and teenage daughter camping in the mountains, hoping to escape any Y2K madness. But madness finds them in the form of the inbred hillbilly Crawford clan, who abduct the Haskins to refresh their stagnant gene pool. Bloody carnage between the families ensues, but no one is expecting the monstrous horror hibernating beneath the forest floor. Unseen for 1,000 years, this Millennium Bug is hungry… and December 31st just happens to be its birthday.

88 min
by Film Fest Admin

Once Upon a Time in 1972

Written and Directed by Chris Lukeman; Produced by Anne Lukeman

Once Upon a Time in 1972is a transistorpunk-science fiction-action-adventure-period piece. It follows the scientist hero, Spring Heeled Jack, through one crazy night in the possibly-alternate early seventies. This retro techno fairy tale follows Jack as he investigates a strange rift in space, battles a giant robot, and still manages to get the girl.

14 min