The Omaha Film Festival begins it’s 13th season today! Noted for its very robust short film programs, this year they offer 10 specific tracks which include 90+ short films. Three of the tracks are local to Omaha and Nebraska, one is animated the other 6 are amazing sets of theme oriented short film. The Omaha Film Festival opens today, March 6 and runs through March 11.
So what are cool aspects of this festival in addition to the amazing short films and…feature film, the Omaha Film Festival Academy for local film students, high school age and beyond and the script competition and a really fun ‘conference for filmmakers!
This year, the festival has invited two writers from Pixar to work with the film students which includes critiquing their work and ends with an actual ‘pitch contest’. They’ve also invited two writers from the film Moana who will specifically work with the filmmakers who have both short film and feature films at the festival, a sort of master class and mentorship opportunity, not to mention networking effort. Finally, the script competition where there are 12 finalists whose work is ‘table read’ by local actors from Omaha. Definitely a total blast of a festival nestled in the heart of Omaha; here’s a link to the program:
http://omahafilmfestival.org/films/
Omaha Film Festival 2017 winners…just for giggles:
Best Animated Short Film – “Post No Bills” by Robin Hays, Andy Poon
Animated Short Film Honorable Mention – “Green Light” by Seongmin Kim
Best Nebraska Short Film – “The Quest for Excalispoon” by Sam Senser, Thomas Johnson
Best Nebraska Short Film Honorable Mention – “Spelling Bee” by Dominic Cilfalo
Best Nebraska Short Documentary – “Missing Piece” by Tim Guthrie
Best Short Film – “A Beautiful Day” by Phedon Papamichael
Trailer:
Short Film Honorable Mention – “The Firefly Girls” by Katie Micay
The Oscars!
The awards were poignant, thoughtful and intriguing! Jimmy Kimmel by all accounts was once again an amazing host and all of the guests announcers were terrific…no real faux pas…not like last year!
The results for short film:
Documentary Short Subject
- Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405
Animated Short Film
- Dear Basketball
Live Action Short Film
- The Silent Child
These shorts are actually available on Youtube. Here’s a link to best documentary short:
itsashort.com
itsashort.com interviewed Jeremy Decker for this blog post. He is one of three co-founders of the Omaha Film Festival and the person who actually answers the phone! The backstory on the festival is that Jeremy and his two co-founders are themselves filmmakers and were invited to a film festival to show their film. They had an amazing time and wondered why there wasn’t such a festival in Omaha. Jeremy, then in between paying opportunities took the lead to launch a festival in Omaha. Fifteen years later they are amazing, attendance is just over 10,000, submissions were over 900 this year and the festival has grown from one day to five days with a conference nestled in the programming that is industry specific.
Spirit Awards also happened last week…we will talk about those amazing results…genuinely the most democratic in their approach, next week.
Shout out to our festival partner in crime Tinsel and Tine!
