Movie Magic: Filmmakers preview movies selected for upcoming Riverside Short Film Festival

The films selected for the festival include “A Coffin for Life” by Sajjad Jiyar Jahan Fard, “Amidst the Quiet” by Darina Zhunussova, “Born to Stay” by Anahita Sahar Babaei, “Dancing in the Shadows” by Elliot Bloom and Alexandra Gordon-Gibson, “Forest Under Stress” by Michal Joy Hall Bravo Ramarez and Rachel Lee Hall, “Fostering” by Andrey Kashpersky, “God’s Eye” by Jane Gull, “IN UNISON!” by Camille de la Poaze, “Initiation” by Taras Lesiuk, “Le Temps des Ronces” by Geoffroy Virgery, “Pretty Boy” by Kevin Coleman-Cohen, “Remittance” by Ashleigh Coffelt, “Sugar People” by Suzana Dinevski, “The Fight in the Dog” by Pamela Jikiemi, “The Light to the Guide” by Xiang Cao and “Working Memories” by Brent Malin.

The internationally made films come to New Haven from Iran, Latvia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belarus, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Macedonia. 

Virgery, a moviemaker from Bordeaux, France, told The Missourian via email that his music-filled video “Le Temps des Ronces” was a very special, personal piece.

“My grandmother has Alzheimer’s Disease, so I wanted to recreate a story where she began a journey, (where) she remembers meeting her husband,” said Virgery, who has been making films for 10 years. “I wanted something easy to shoot, (so I could) direct my grandmother as well because she is the main character. It was not easy because she is not an actress, but she did very well.”

This is Virgery’s first time having a film choen for the Riverside Short Film Festival, which is one of five short film specific festivals in the country and the only of its kind in Missouri. 

“I was very happy about the official selection,” he said. “My goal is, above all, to inspire as many emotions as possible to the spectators so they feel what I felt while making this music video.”

Each film shown at the festival has been vetted by the planning committee and several volunteers, who screen hundreds of films each year as part of the selection process. 

Tara Steffens, Riverside Film Festival’s director, said the selection process is her favorite part of the festival.

“After everyone has watched the films, we get on a call and talk through each film and if it will be selected,” she said. “Some years it’s over 1,000 films, and we’ll have a few extra screeners we have come in to help. But the board watches every single film sent in. Anything selected (for the festival) is a film that we are excited for the audience to see — any film officially selected is usually unique in its own way.”

Submissions for the festival are made through FilmFreeway, which Riverside Film Festival board member Leigh Kellmann Kolb described as an online portal for filmmakers to enter their films into festivals and for festival organizers to watch and choose the films. 

Kolb said she loves working with Saunders and Steffens when it comes to choosing the films for the festival. “We each bring something different to the table, and discussing the selections is such a collaborative experience,” she said.

“Utilizing this helped us organize the submissions better, accept a lot of films from all around the world, and communicate with the submitters easily,” said Andrew Saunders, a Riverside Short Film Festival producer. 

Since its inception in 2015, the Riverside Film Festival has shown at least one movie made in every single country of the world. 

Last year’s film festival, for example, included films from Australia, Iran, Canada, Turkey, Serbia, Spain, the Czech Republic and the U.S. The films ranged from animated films to sci-fi thrillers to documentaries and dark comedies. 

Steffens said there is no specific theme for the festival. Instead, all submissions are required to fit in the “short film” category, which requires all films to be under 30 minutes. 

“We have documentaries, music videos, comedies, dramas, animation — anything that fits into the “short” category,” she said. 

For example, “Amidst the Quiet” is a Latvian film directed by Darina Zhunussova, a first-time filmmaker, who won the Best Female Director award at the International World Film Awards in January. 

The less than 10 minute movie is described as having “a lot of love and a lot of fear — fear of vulnerability, being afraid to trust each other enough to open up and discuss emotions and feelings with full honesty.” 

The film, which uses movement and body language instead of dialogue, was recently honored by panelists at the Berlin Indie Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, for “Best Dance Film,” and “Best Original Score.”  

One of the domestic films included in the festival is “Forest Under Stress,” a collaboration project between Michal Hall Bravo Ramirez and Rachel Lee Hall, a mother-daughter duo. The film focuses on Rachel Lee Hall, an advocate for the southern Oregon forest and the diminishing annual water supply that is adversely affecting the forest’s root systems. Since its spring release in 2022, the film has been selected for inclusion at 26 different film festivals.

Another filmmaker in this year’s film festival is Taras Lesiuk, from Ontario, Canada. 

“I’ve been making films since the first time I closed one eye and used my other eye as the camera,” Lesuik told The Missourian. “Before I had any actual camera equipment, I vividly remember making tons of movies visually in my head. I would use toys to build out my scenes and get really close to them to visualize the shots. Of course, it would take me over 20 years to look back on this and recognize the significance of my childhood in relation to filmmaking in those moments, but at the time it felt like toys were solely created for how I used (them) — to make movies in my head.”

Lesiuk’s film, “Initiation,” was recently included in the Toronto Short Film Festival, which is considered the largest short-film festival in Canada. 

Lesiuk described the film as a comedy that focuses on a “group of older boys convincing a younger kid to seemingly commit a crime, but with a twist.”  

“It was actually inspired by an interaction I had whilst riding my bike,” Lesiuk said. “I was listening to music and had stopped at a red light. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a man experiencing homelessness who was trying to get my attention. Immediately I went into defensive and averted my gaze as I didn’t want to be bothered by this person, but he was persistent. Eventually, I took out my earbud and looked at him with a scolding, ‘What?’ and in that moment I realized he was holding my wallet. It had apparently fallen out of my back pocket a few yards back as I biked and he ran after me to try and give it back. I felt completely embarrassed both for losing my wallet, but more importantly for projecting a situation to a person based on their initial appearance.” 

Lesiuk said that encounter “led to the kernel of inspiration for the film.”

“It is my modern take on the old adage — don’t always judge a book by its cover,” said Lesiuk, who will be making his Riverside Film Festival debut this year. 

One of the films in this year’s festival has a regional connection. 

“Pretty Boy” writer, director and producer Kevin Coleman-Cohen is from the St. Louis region. 

The movie, which runs for just over 17 minutes, details the experience a young, Black teen as he navigates the “dangerous world of survival” and human trafficking on the streets of St. Louis. The film was shot entirely in St. Louis.

“I see my job as an artist is to bring attention and awareness to this issue of undervalued and underexposed groups of people that are often invisible,” said Coleman-Cohen, who also shared that the film has been selected for inclusion at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival, where it could be qualified for consideration and nomination for an Academy Award.

Kolb said she is excited to see how audiences react to this year’s films. 

“Audience members are often enthusiastic and excited to see a wide variety of international and domestic films, as well as enjoying the historic Walt Theatre and downtown New Haven,” Kolb said. “I will often be in the ticket booth or lobby during the film screenings, and I love hearing the audience’s reactions to the films and being able to greet them and discuss their feedback as they leave the theater.”

Audience members will also be given a chance to vote on one of the awards, “Audience Choice,” at the Riverside Short Film Festival. 

“Most years it has gone to a different film than we had picked to win ourselves,” Saunders said. “I think that helps speak to the power of art impacting different people in different ways. I love it when we get super original concepts submitted. While many short films can feel very similar when there are 1,000 plus to go through, it’s amazing when something surprises us in style, concept or story.”

The film festival, which was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is typically attended by 50-100 people. Organizers are hoping for similar, if not larger crowds, of moviegoers this year. 

Tickets for the film festival can be purchased in advance at filmfreeway.com/RiversideShortFilmFestival/tickets or in-person at the Walt Theatre ticket office the day of the festival.