CIFF 2023 2024 Official Selections
Selected Films
The Official Selection, Finalists, and Award Winners for the first full season of CIFF is now complete. Thank you artists for your submission, and sharing your vision with CIFF.
Much appreciated,
Crossings Jury
We are currently considering our options for a live screening event.
Words from the CIFF Jury
Why this film?
The CIFF Jury was in full agreement that this film should earn the awards offered this season.
”The timing, spacing of language to image, the pace, the message moved me proudly.”
“From the first character on screen, the first words, the first impressions to the last, pulled me inside the story and left a lasting impression.”
”There are just certain moments in life where everything aligns; thought, image, spirit, and you are thankful for the experience. That is how I felt viewing this film, listening to and watching the story unfold. Bravo!
Honorable Mentions
Learning to Fly
The CIFF Jury was very impressed with the talent and creativity of this young film artist. We believe he will have a secure place in the industry and are looking forward to seeing his growth and future films.
Learning to fly is a stop motion film by Sam Slowik featuring the adventure of Lego man and his rig friend, as they set out to learn how to fly.
The Borders Never Die
The CIFF Jury was moved by this expressive, emotional film submitted by HAMIDREZA ARJOMANDI
a filmmaker from Islamic Republic of Iran.
We believe it is important to understand all cultures and sometimes the most simple and best way to do that is to experience life in image. This film accomplished that.
A couple (Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan) have decided to cross the border because of the war in their land. The woman is pregnant. They have difficult and impassable roads ahead of them.
Official Selections 2023/2024
The Little Axolotl
A little axolotl, with body anomily, tries to fit in and find a family to call his own.
Defne Aydemir is a Turkish animator that came to the US on 2019. She has graduated with honors from her school with a BFA on 3D Animation and Visual Effects. Now Defne work in an advertising company as an animator.
Animation Hotline, 2022 (Ohio Edition)
Animation Hotline is a series of over two hundred crowd-sourced telephone answering machine message that have been being animated since 2011.
This documentary collection focuses on stories about or voicemails from Ohio.
Dustin Grella is an animator and documentary filmmaker whose work attempts to glean glimpses of colorful insight into the seemingly mundane. His films have screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and won the Walt Disney Award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
From the Dark
Laura, a quite shy and introverted thirteen year old teen, embarks in a dark journey to get free from her worst enemy: Her own self.
Erika Sanz is a Brooklyn based filmmaker and award-winning screenwriter for her previous work on “Onlookers” (awarded with the Denali Award at the Alaska International Festival) and as a director on “The Art of Saying Goodbye” (awarded with the Jury Prize at the Aviles Film Festival and the Gijon International Festival, on top of the many official selections on prestigious festivals internationally). She moved to New York City thirteen years ago from her native Spain to fulfill her dream of working in film. She started her film career as script supervisor on well acclaimed films like iOrigins, Complete Unknown or the recent, White Noise by Noah Baumbach, as well as the HBO TV Shows High Maintenance and The Flight Attendant. Erika’s artistic work focuses on the deepest layers of human behavior, humanizing characters who have often been misrepresented by the media. Currently, she’s working on several feature film scripts for preproduction and an episodic script in the United States.
Death & Sandwiches
A chance encounter makes two strangers realize that they have been deeply connected.
Directed by: Andre M Zucker
Image From Now
Image from now shows a mysterious figure arriving to the city. Wherever he appears, strange things start to happen. We do not know what takes him there, we do not know his idenity.
Directed by: Kacper Krupiński, Mikołaj Pietrzykowski
Poland
Admissions of Desire
A man and a woman talk on the phone and express their feelings and desires for each other for the first time. We watch as they listen to the other's admissions.
Becca Rieckmann is a Wisconsin-born, Los Angeles-based visual artist and first-time filmmaker.
The Source 1996
A saturation diver discovers an old sea chest at the bottom of the underwater oil rig in the southern Caribbean Sea and carries the chest away with her. To her surprise, the chest brings unforeseeable trouble for her manager on the ship.
Director Biography - Ivy Luxen
As a recent BFA graduate from SVA, I'm an environment artist, 3D animation director and Unreal Engine Filmmaker.
As Easy As Closing Your Eye
Academy Award-nominee Abigail Breslin presents:
As Easy As Closing Your Eyes.
The story of a grieving mother who battles her addiction to a black-market drug that gives her life-like dreams about the son she lost.
Parker Croft is a writer-director with a background in acting and cinematography. His short Suncatcher received sixty-two festival selections, winning thirteen awards with an additional twenty nominations.
He has directed content for the NBA, FIBA Basketball World Cup, Shiseido, Better Booch, Happier Living and numerous music videos for artists ranging from Vader the Vilin to the All-American Rejects.
Dreamy Fragrance of Spring Blossoms
A dead family lives in a house for a long time. A mother, a father, and a son. War's taken the son, the heart of this family.
Hera Khanmirzaei
I'm an Iranian 20-year-old film student at Tehran University of Art. My main interest is filmmaking, and I work as a screenwriter, director, and editor. I've directed short films and documentaries so far. I'm joyful and hopeful in this extraordinary journey.
Amirhosein Saqafi
Love Don't Bully
A teacher and her middle school students talk about, interview, act out and research bullying, both at school and as a society.
Directed by
Dr. Lisa Spencer & her Middle School Students
Learning to Fly
Learning to fly is a stop motion film by Sam Slowik featuring the adventure of Lego man and his rig friend, as they set out to learn how to fly.
Samuel Alexander Slowik Starting his stop animation journey in 2019 at the age of 10, Sam began making stop motion films. Gradually self learning styles and production techniques by watching and creating stop motion animation films.
The Existentialist Machine
A poetic and playful exploration of existential philosophy in the modern world.
Paul Wolffram - writer, rider, maker.
Paul is a documentary film maker who has received many international awards for his collaborative film making with communities throughout the Pacific and in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Sometimes he rides motorcycles.
THE SPRAYER
In the land occupied with the sprayers army, no one has the right to grow any kind of plants either in public or private.
So many of the people and soldiers do not even know how dose a plant grows or look like, until one day one of the soldiers finds a seed buried deep down in the dust and his curiosity is just the beginning of something extraordinary, something big, something revolutionary
Farnoosh Abedi was born in 1985 in Isfahan/ Iran.
He has made more than 20 short animated films and TV series, documentaries and one Feature Animated .
His films was presented and screened in more than 1000 domestic and international film festivals and received 330 awards.
Null Island - Cyano Sun Suite
Null Island is the fourth track off of CYANO SUN SUITE: a live concert film of poetry and improvised hipjazzsoulbopfunkhop shot at the iconic Montreal Biosphere. Directed by Stefan Verna; written, performed and produced by poet Tawhida Tanya Evanson; and featuring improvised music by members of Kalmunity Vibe Collective. This visual album is an afro-ancestral dream told through word, sound and science.
Stefan Verna Movement inspires all of Stefan Verna’s creations; ‘Poeticizing our pain’ describes both his process and the impact he seeks with his filmmaking. Stefan started dancing in his late teens and later got involved in theatre before dedicating his professional life to cinema. His deep interest in Afro Culture, Politics and Dance fuels his body of work.
A graduate of Concordia University's Film Production program, Stefan Verna has been active in the film community as a Director, Scriptwriter, Director of Photography and Video Instructor to marginalized youth. As a director he has explored various filmmaking forms: documentary, fiction, music videos and dance films.
The Beauty Within Us All
Celebrating the kindness and generosity of people who choose to save the life of a stranger, this film is a heartfelt exploration of human compassion and the essence of universal beauty.
Lorenza Castella Born 1988 in Mondoví, Italy. B.A. and M.A. Degree in Philosophy at the Universities of Turin and Jena with distinction. Researcher at Forschungszentrum Gotha, writer and editor of various academic publications. Director, writer and creative producer of numerous documentary films for the European and German television.
THE BORDERS NEVER DIE
A couple (Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan) have decided to cross the border because of the war in their land. The woman is pregnant. They have difficult and impassable roads ahead of them.
HAMIDREZA ARJOMANDI Iran, Islamic Republic of
The Bridge
A mother-daughter relationship grows more explosive in this coming-of-age story.
Germán Guzik Traditional and digital illustrator and animator.
Screenwriter and animation film director.
- Bachelor degree on Cinema, Animation and Multimedia -Head and co-founder of my own studio: - Borguz -
Resurrection under the Ocean
“Resurrection under the Ocean" is about the resurrection of a man who was helplessly sinking to the bottom of the ocean, after falling to the bottom of the ocean, with a symbolic narrative.
Serkan Aktaş Director’s statement "Resurrection Under the Ocean" depicts the resurrection of humanity in the darkest place of the ocean in a symbolic way through a helpless character. The film's metaphorical narrative style and its use of fictional and formal elements aim to bring a different-unique approach to cinema. It offers a visual feast with the harmony of music and choreography.
In the deepest part of the ocean, death is tried to be portrayed in the dark. Then, the pain of resurrection, which begins with the sound of a whale symbolizing vitality, is completed when the character comes to the surface of the sea.
I can say that with the film "Resurrection Under the Ocean", it is a film that develops the tendency of other films I have made to benefit from tradition, this time in a different form and framework
Walking with Savta
The relationship and histories of a Jewish grandmother and grandson are explored on a walk around the neighborhood.
Walt Schoen
Itchy Bears
Itchy Bears is the music video for Petey Shanks, a character in the show Grumbles and Mr. Bones.
Chris James Keefer
Nemorise
A scientist tries to put his consciousness into the AI drone. (Canada)
Vladi Haivoronski is an authentic independent filmmaker - desperate frustrated and neurotic.
The Old Age Home
The Old Age Home as a short story around a wholesome experience. Then around the first wave of the Covid pandemic, I collaborated remotely with an Argentinian artist and created a comic out of that story.
Upon meeting the crazy folks at Bamarmax, I was encouraged to develop it further into an animated film with their help.
This is a story that has resonated with people across genders, age-groups, geographies and value systems.
Rahul Razdan is an architect by education, a corporate leader by profession, and a film maker by passion.
He graduated from the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi (1990-1995) and then studied Management at the Indian Institute of Management, Indore (1998-2000).
He has 25+ years of diverse experience across various media comprising television, documentary films, interactive media, internet, social media, online gaming and mobile.