


Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI)
SHORT FILM SHOWCASE
Celebrating International Women's Day 2007


9 films, 84 minutes total

(In alphabetical order)


ARPOADOR / 4 minutes
Director: Fernanda Ramos / Rio de Janeiro, Brazil


Synopsis: A day at Arpoador (Brazil), told with still photographs.

Director Bio: Since graduating in Cinema Studies from São Paulo University, Fernanda has been working in the audiovisual market for eight years. She has directed projects featuring photographic animation, video installations, theatrical performances, opening titles for feature films, video-clips and video-screenplays, alongside her work as a freelance photographer on graphic projects.

She is a sought-after speaker who has participated in numerous panels, courses and workshops. She has been interviewed about her work for print, electronic and television media.

Selected for Special Screening: Flickerfest, Sydney, Australia 2007 
Official Selection: 14 Gramado CineVideo, Special Jury Award Winner 2006
                  Official Selection: Canadian Film Centre's WorldWide Short Film Festival 2006
                   Official Selection: Mexico_ Expresion En Corto 2006                   
Official Selection: Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival 2005


A WARM, COMFORTING HOME / 3 minutes
Director: Annette Apitz / New York, USA


Film Synopsis: Using '60s home movies of the filmmaker as well as quotes and events from her life, the director examines her complicated relationship with her mother.

Director Bio: Annette received her B.A. at McGill University in Montreal and her M.F.A from Columbia University's Film School. Screenings for her short films include the Hamptons Film Festival, the Palm Springs Short Film Festival, the KarlovyVary Film Festival, the Florida Film Festival, PBS, HBO Latin America, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and MOMA. For her thesis film, A River in India, Annette received the New Line Cinema Award at Columbia and won awards at the Austin Film Festival, the Crested Butte Reel Fest and Film Fest New Haven. Annette is currently developing her first feature film, Fighting Fish, and is completing her script Phoenix, a thriller.

NYWIFT/ Hamptons International Film Festival: TO THE POINT 2006





BIG GIRL / 14 minutes
Director: Renuka Jeyapalan / Toronto, Canada


Synopsis: Nine-year-old Josephine is unabashedly resentful of her mother’s newfound love life. When her mother hesitantly introduces her new boyfriend to Josephine, she gives him the cold shoulder. A bittersweet battle of wills erupts that is at once heartbreaking and hilarious. Enemies transform into sweethearts in this poignant tale of modern family politics.

Director Bio: Renuka attended the Canadian Film Centre’s Director’s Lab and graduated from the University of Toronto with degrees in Biochemistry, French and Cinema Studies.  She has made several award-winning short films including Sunday Afternoon, Baggage and Sing For Your Supper. 
     Winner: Bravo!Fact Short Cuts Canada Award:
Toronto International Film Festival, 2005
 Winner: Best Short Film: Whitehead Int’l Film Festival, USA 2006
 Special Mention of the Children Jury:
  Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Germany 2006
    Winner: 1st Prize, Children’s Competition Interfilm Berlin, Germany 2006,




EXPLODING BUDS / 20 minutes
Director: Petra Schröder / Munich, Germany

Synopsis:  Two young girls, Kate and Echo live in their own land of make- believe.  When one of them stumbles across into the real world, their friendship faces a serious challenge.
Director Bio: Petra Schröder was born in 1974 in Trostberg, Bavaria.  After studies at the Academy of Art in Hamburg she worked as storyboarder, modelmaker and puppeter. She completed post-graduate studies in screenwriting at the Film Academy Ludwigsburg with Christoph Fromm, Keith Cunningham and Michael Gutmann. She has been working as a Producer for Bavaria Film GmbH in Munich since 2006.
                                First Prize: Interfilm International Short Film Festival, Berlin 2006       NYWIFT/ Hamptons International Film Festival: TO THE POINT 2006
Best Art Direction: La Pedrera Short Film Festival 2006                                                                        Hanse-Short Jury Prize: Hamburger Short Film Festival 2006













FISH OUT OF WATER / 8 minutes
Director: Lala Rolls / Wellington, New Zealand


Synopsis: A young man rows to work to escape the rush hour mayhem, but where can he go when it follows him onto the water? 

Director Bio: Fijian born, Lala moved to New Zealand in 1981 to study at Otago University. Since then she has made her mark on the Kiwi film industry as an Editor and Director of both film and television. As an Editor, Lala is known for her work on the award-winning television series An Insider’s Guide to Happiness (2004) and An Insider’s Guide to Love (2005). Lala has also directed three short films, Olives (1993), Tall Stories (1996) and Fish Out of Water (2005), a number of music videos and a children's TV series QTV. Lala is particularly interested in stories of the Pacific, and in 2005 she made the documentary Children of the Migration, which followed the stories of Pacific Island children whose parents migrated to New Zealand from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Best Short Film Award: Wet West Film Festival, New Zealand 2006
                                 NYWIFT/ Hamptons International Film Festival: To the Point 2006
				Newport Beach Film Festival 2006
                                                                         Homegrown Film Festival, New Zealand 2005
Uppsala International Film Festival, Sweden 2005



THE BROKEN HEARTED /11 minutes 
Director: Antoinette Karuna / Montreal, Canada

Film Synopsis: In this elegant contemporary fable, a young woman journeys deep into a forest in search of a tiny community that repairs broken hearts. Visually lush, poetically rendered and at times unsettling, this film explores the necessary and ritualistic mending of a broken heart.
Director Bio: Antoinette was born in England to a Sri Lankan father and a French Canadian mother.  She moved to Canada at the age of nine and later studied film and creative writing at Concordia University in Montreal and at the University of London in England.

A year after graduating, she won First Prize at the 2004 edition of the Cours écrire ton court! screenwriting competition funded by SODEC and hosted during Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, for her script The Broken Hearted which she went on to direct in 2005.

Antoinette resides in Montreal where she is writing her first feature film, The Lonely Hunters.

Official Competition: Toronto International Film Festival 2006
Official Competition: Vancouver International Film Festival 2006
Best Original Screenplay:  Malibu International Film Festival, 2006
Jury Award: San Diego Women Film Festival, 2006
Women in Film and Television Ireland’s French Women’s Film Festival 2006






THE SAINT OF AVENUE B / 14 minutes
Director: Rene Alberta / New York City, USA


Synopsis:  What do you give the woman who has everything? A spiritual awakening. One woman’s journey from having it all in the material world, to becoming a modern-day saint.

Director Bio: Rene hails from the Lower East Side of NYC.  In 2000, she founded A MENTAL PICTURE, LLC, a production company specializing in the creation of motion pictures for independent cinema and media-based educational initiatives for non-profit organizations.

The short film above & beneath marked her directorial debut and premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, screened at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival; broadcast premiered on PBS – REEL NEW YORK and was bought by the Independent Film Channel (IFC).

Her second short, The Saint of Avenue B premiered at the 2006 Hampton’s International Film Festival and won an audience award at the African American Women in Cinema. 

Rene’s third short, Rosco Effect, is currently in pre-production.

Rene holds a BFA from Sarah Lawrence College




URSA DREAM / 6 minutes
Director: Kate Brown / New Mexico, USA

Synopsis:  A young girl from an unnamed tribe is drawn into a ceremony where she begins a frenzied dance that will change her life forever.  Hand drawn and painted animation.
Director Bio: Kate Brown discovered animation after 40 years of work as a potter. In 2001, she enrolled as an undergraduate at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and discovered her passion to study animation. URSA DREAM is her first film, with each frame drawn or painted using techniques developed in her work with clay. She plans to continue to work in both clay and animation.  She ponders whether the eventual outcome will be her own form of claymation.
First Place: Animation / Second Place: Best of the Festival:                                                  Port Townsend Film Festival, WA 2005                                                                             Official Selection: NYWIFT/ Hamptons International Film Festival: To the Point 2006
Spiritual Film Festival: Goa, Thailand and India 2006                                                                        Santa Fe Film Festival 2005                                                                                                                                 Organ Mountain Film Festival, Las Cruces NM 2005








YELLOW BIKE / 2 minutes
Director: Rachel Max / New York, USA


Film Synopsis: A short animated tribute, to a stolen but never forgotten bike.

Director Bio: Rachel Max has been animating professionally for nine years and has been screening her work in festivals since 1999.  Her awards to date include the Best of the Berkeley Film and Video Festival 2006 and several Cine, ITVA and Telly Awards.  She is currently a freelance animator and broadcast designer in New York City.

NYWIFT/ Hamptons International Film Festival: To the Point 2006
Brooklyn International Film Festival  2005
Slamdance NYC special screening 2005
Sarajevo Film Festival 2005
Bang Film Festival, London 2005




9 films, 84 minutes total

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