Features
WINNER BEST COMEDY & AUDIENCE CHOICE
CINEMA PURGATORIO 99 min USA
Chris White, Director
GREENVILLE, SC
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Synopsis: In a last-ditch effort to break through in the crowded and convoluted indie film world, a husband-wife producing team make a film especially designed to win a regional film festival and attract the attention of actor Bill Murray.
WINNER BEST FEATURE BEST DIRECTOR
BEST ACTOR
DIG TWO GRAVES 97 min USA
Hunter Adams, Director
LOS ANGELES, CA
Synopsis: A girl's obsession with her brother's disappearance leads her on a nightmarish journey through a small town's Gothic landscape where she is faced with a deadly proposition. How far will she go to save the people she loves.
THE LENGTHS 98 min USA
Tim Driscoll, Director
JACKSONVILLE, FL
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Synopsis: Self sabotage permeates the relationships of Tom, Charlie and Hannah as they drive across the country to rescue Lily from her own wedding. It's a love triangle turned emotional horror story.
WINNER BEST ACTRESS
SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP 82 min USA
Malindi Fickle, Director
HONOLULU, HI
fSynopsis: Drug addiction's collateral damage is laid bare when a former honor student, newly addicted to prescription pills, triggers a fast-moving chain of events that devastates her friends and threatens to tear her family apart.
THE FRONTIER 90 min USA
Matt Rabinowitz, Director
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA
fSynopsis: A retired professor and his ranch hand son try to reconnect after years of estrangement.
DOCUMENTARY
WINNER BEST DOCUMENTARY
COTTON ROAD 73 min USA
Laura Kissel, Director
Columbia, SC
Synopsis:
Americans consume nearly 20 billion new items of clothing each year. Yet few of us know how our clothes are made, much less who produces them. Cotton Road follows the commodity of cotton from South Carolina farms to Chinese factories to illuminate the work and industrial processes in a global supply chain.
YOU BELONG TO ME 88 min USA
John Cork, Director
Carmel, CA
Synopsis: You Belong To Me Documentary tells the 1952 story of Ruby McCollum, an African American woman who killed a prominent white doctor in Live Oak, Florida and the remarkable secrets and terrible truths revealed during her trial and incarceration. Her case haunted jurors and prosecutors for decades. Ruby McCollum was the wealthiest black woman in Suwannee County, Florida.
IN AN IDEAL WORLD
83 min USA
Noel Schwerin, Director
San Francisco, CA
Synopsis: Follow three men over seven years inside a California prison as they struggle to survive and to change, themselves as well as their brutal environment. Direct from the frontlines of America's locked down racial system, their stories expose--and honor--the human drama at its core, revealing the institutional nature of racial hierarchies, and the hope and hidden risks of transformative change.
NOT ANYMORE: A STORY OF REVOLUTION
10 Min USA
Matthew VanDyke, Director
Baltimore, MD
Synopsis: The story of the Syrian revolution as told through the experiences of two young Syrians, a male rebel fighter and a female journalist, as they fight an oppressive regime for the freedom of their people.
Shorts
THE CIVILIAN-MILITARY DIVIDE: BRIDGING THE GAP 54 min USA
Robert Roy, Director
Toronto,Ontario CANADA
Synopsis: It's not that Americans don't like the military, they love it! They just don't have a clue who's in it what it does, what it costs them, or costs those that join it. Military service has become something other people do. Members of the military, in turn, see themselves as having little in common with the rest of the country.
SOMETHING YOU CAN CALL HOME 75 min UNITED KINGDOM
Rebecca Kenyon, Director
London, UK
Synopsis: For some, the coastal city of Wilmington, North Carolina, is a tourist
playground. However the face of homelessness is changing rapidly.
A GREAT PERSONALITY IS JUST SKIN DEEP 5 Min UK
John Schwab, Director
London, UK
Synopsis: It's what's inside that really counts. Isn't it?
COUNTER 12 Min USA
Nicholas Bouier, Director
Los Angeles, CA
Synopsis: A worldly activist, Bayard Rustin, walks into a 'whites only' small town diner and challenges a waitress to serve him at a price she can't refuse.
LAST NIGHT AT THE ELLINGTON
12 Min USA
Geoffrey Gunn, Director
Greenville, SC
Synopsis: When the managers of the Ellington learn their classic movie theater is closing to make way for a new megaplex, they come up with a plan to shut the Ellington down in style.
LOVE SICK LONNIE 8 Min USA
Chad Matthews, Director
Austin, TX
Synopsis: A heartbroken man suffers from an embarrassing affliction. He can only communicate through the lyrics of boy band songs.
NOSTALGIC 11 Min USA
Ronald Eltanal, Director
Wilmette, IL
Synopsis: An aging scientist must decide whether to give in to early-onset dementia, or to take an experimental drug which locks him into his memories, unable to form new ones.
THE QUOTA 10 Min USA
Jim Cushinery, Director
Los Angeles, CA
Synopsis: Lucy and Viv are having a bad day at work. Viv is distracted by marital problems, and Lucy struggles with a new performance quota that, if not met, could mean their jobs. Then they meet a psycho killer. Yeah, their day just got worse.
Student Film
WINNER BEST SHORT
TIMES LIKE DYING 23 Min USA
Evan Vetter, Director
Wilmington, NC
Synopsis: Surviving the night begins to outweigh saving the family farm, after four desperate men who robbed a bank, have a chance encounter with a dying lawman.
UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE
19 Min ITALY
Gabriele Altobelli, Director
Rome, Italy
Synopsis: Modern technology has undoubtedly facilitated our communication, but at the same time has dramatically affected our personal relationships.
WRONG SIDE UP
15 Min USA
Henry Darrow McComas, Director
Englewood, CO
Synopsis: A coming of age story about a twelve-year-old boy whose fate is determined by his father's departure and the impending Dust Bowl as he is forced to care for his family and their farm.
COMBUSTABILLY
11 Min USA UNCSA
Jake Bellew, Director
Winston-Salem, NC
Synopsis: Billy's first day on the job at a fireworks store goes amok when a wacky duo of robbers bursts into this explosive comedy.
WINNER BEST STUDENT FILM
INTO THE SILENT SEA
25 Min USA CHAPMAN/DODGE
Andrej Landin, Director
Orange, CA
Synopsis: Alexander, a lone cosmonaut, is adrift in orbit around Earth. He has lost communications and life-support systems are dwindling fast. At the same time in Italy, a radio engineer is working the night shift. He discovers a voice amidst the empty static. Under desperate circumstances, and across vast distances, an intense connection is made.
ROSES FOR MARGARET
13 Min USA UNCSA
Christene Hurley, Director
Winston-Salem, NC
Synopsis:
A lonely secretary falls in love with a co-worker after witnessing his suicide.
SEA ODYSSEY
12 Min USA SCAD
Adam Nelson, Director
Savannah, GA
Synopsis:
A father embarks on an ambitious deep sea expedition to find solace in the shadow of his son's looming death.
THE BRIGHT SIDE
38 Min USA CHAPMAN/DODGE
Sarah Thacker, Director
Orange, CA
Synopsis:
With a nation on the brink of war in December of 1941, a young theater performer who dreams of becoming a Hollywood star lets go of his past fears to try to win over the girl of his dreams.
THE COLLECTION
17 Min USA UNCSA
Ian Gullett, Director
Winston-Salem, NC
Synopsis:
Ava, a bored young girl out shopping with her parents, wanders off in an antique store. She finds herself locked in the shop's back room where she discovers a mysterious door that opens to many different places and times.
Animation
BLUE
8 Min USA CHAPMAN/DODGE
Katelyn Bianchini, Asia Lancaster, Rena Cheng, Directors
Orange, CA
Synopsis: A fearful balloon must learn to put his fragile life in the hands of an unlikely friend.
GREEN ACRES
6 Min USA CHAPMAN/DODGE
Jason Beck, Director
Orange, CA
Synopsis:
A parched tortoise wanders through a vast desert desperately in search of water. He comes across an oasis only to find that trespassers are unwelcome. Somehow he must slip past the defenses to quench his thirst.
GROUNDED
7 Min USA CHAPMAN/DODGE
Monica Stefanelli, Director
Orange, CA
Synopsis: The story of a baby elephant who wants to jump like the other animals. The only problem is elephants are the only mammals who cannot
WINNER BEST ANIMATIONLIGHT ME UP
9 Min USA CHAPMAN/DODGE
Derek Dolecheck, Ryan Walton Directors
Orange, CA
Synopsis: Meet the Wattsons. They're spending some quality time together. In this short film, animation and live-action are combined to tell a story about a of light bulbs.
MY LIGHT HAS GONE
10 Min USA CHAPMAN/DODGE
Jason Kummerfeldt, Directors
Orange, CA
Synopsis: A story about a man who's job it is to make light bulbs. His relationship with his wife causes him to sink into a depression that disables his ability to do his work.
Screenplays
A CLASH OF IRON USA
Richard Reed, Writer
Riverside, CA
Synopsis: Two super weapons--the Monitor and the Merrimack--battle each other in a naval engagement that could decide the outcome of the Civil War in A Clash Of Iron.
SANDBOX COORDINATES USA
Sheila Watson, Co-Writer
Tony Watson, Co-Writer
Johns Island, SC
Synopsis:
A discovery in the Iraqi desert pits a jaded Naval Intelligence agent against an embittered admiral and a rash seminarian, shattering all their core beliefs.
WINNER BEST SCREENPLAY
CLUB BONG SON USA
Tom Bixby, Writer
St. Helena Island, SC
Synopsis: Heart pounding emotional roller coaster ride through the war experiences of naive nineteen
year old, Tommy Shumaker. The Vietnam War, not as a moral dilemma, but as a personal battle
for survival and sanity. Club Bong Son... this ain't Club Med!
HELL AND HALLELUJAH! USA
Margaret Ford Rogers, Co-Writer
Shaytee Gadson , Co-Writer
Charleston, SC
Synopsis: Martee Ravenel is growing up in a world of turmoil, scandal and prayer. His alcoholic and womanizing father is also the first Black Mayor of a small, rural South Carolina town. His mother is a Jesus freak, who makes Hallelujah oil and prays long and loudly to save her family and community. Amidst pain, politics and sin, Martee strives to keep his family together and understand the harsh realities of his world.
LOST CAUSE USA
David Schroeder, Writer
Miami, FL
Synopsis:
Medically retired Naval explosive expert, PETER 'PETE BERGER' GERSTENBERGER, has a defective heart and an implanted heart defibrillator. He says, 'After twenty years being married to the U.S. Navy, they could have pinned a medal on my chest, but instead I got mine implanted.'
MINT CONDITIONS USA
Gary Weeks -Writer
Roswell, GA
Synopsis:
Cole likes his relationships like he likes his baseball cards: In perfect mint condition, safely tucked away in their protective pages. But on the verge of weaseling his way out of his engagement, an opportunity to meet his childhood hero propels him possibly change the way he thinks.
THE LIFE SHIFT USA
Marcia Chandler Rhea -Writer
Charleston, SC
Synopsis:
Amidst a world ravished by an unknown disease, a young female doctor forges an unlikely alliance with a latter-day prophet to expose its source. Along the way, she manages to reconcile her scientific training with her new found faith.
Best Actor
Daniel R. Jones (Last Night at the Ellington
Max Gail (The Frontier)
Ted Levine (Dig Two Graves) WINNER
Mike Nussbaum (Nostalgic)
Chris White (Cinema Purgatorio)
Best Actress
Traysie Amick (Cinema Purgatorio)
Katharyn Grant (Wrong Side Up)
Lacy Marie Meyer (Suck It Up Buttercup)
WINNER
Susan Ruttan ( The Quota)
Corsia Wilson ( The Lengths)
Best Director
Hunter Adams (Dig Two Graves)
WINNER
Malindi Fickle (Suck It Up Buttercup)
Geoffrey Gunn (Last Night at the Ellington
Henry Darrow McComas ( Wrong Side Up)
