With the festival kicking off in just two days, I’d like to introduce the good people who are helping us determine our three juried award winners. We’ll be giving away a total of $1,000 in prize money with the help of our audiences, as well as these fine industry leaders.
Narrative Jury
Laurence Boyce
Laurence Boyce started out at the Leeds International Film Festival in the UK and went on to become an award-winning critic for various outlets, including Sight and Sound and Screen International. He currently resides in Tallinn, Estonia, where is the head of programme for the live action section of PÖFF Shorts, a part of the A-List festival Black Nights. He is a member of BAFTA, FIPRESCI, the European Film Academy, London Critics’ Circle and is on the board of the Short Film Conference.
Gina Dellabarca
Gina Dellabarca is the Festival Director for Show Me Shorts Film Festival, New Zealand’s leading international short film festival. She co-founded this festival in 2006, and under her guidance it has grown into a highly respected Oscar-qualifying event.
Ms Dellabarca’s background is in marketing and publicity for films. She also co-owned and managed an important art-house cinema in Auckland.
She is a Board member for the world-wide Short Film Conference organization, working to promote the status of the short film and unite the global short film community.
donna g
donna g is a film lover and radio host/producer at CIUT 89.5 FM in Toronto. She has been covering films and film festivals for almost two decades, and is especially passionate about supporting new and emerging filmmakers. Currently the host of “The More the Merrier with donna g”, she is a fan of both large and small festivals, having recently wrapped coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and fulfilled a role as a jury member (Short Film) for the Durham Regional International Film Festival (DRIFF). From “Fubar” to Béla Tarr, donna g believes strongly that there is a film out there for everyone.
Animation Jury
Kieran Argo
Kieran has been working in animation for more than 25 years. He worked at Aardman for fifteen years where he promoted a number of favourites including Wallace & Gromit and managed their international Events and Exhibitions Department. A career highlight was working with Studio Ghibli in Japan on a year-long special exhibition at the famous Ghibli Museum in Tokyo. He also served on many international film festivaljuries including BAFTA.
He helped establish the Encounters Short Film Festival in Bristol and served as a Board Director for twelve years. He has been the Animation Programmer since 2010. In recent years Kieran has been responsible for delivering a number of professional development events including the Encounters Producers Courses and a number of training events for the Random Acts (Channel Four/Arts Council England) filmmakers in the South West of England.
Penelope Bartlett
Penelope Bartlett was most recently the programmer for the streaming service The Criterion Channel on FilmStruck. She served as Director of Programming for the 2016 Palm Springs Shortfest, has curated for the website shortoftheweek.com, and held positions at the Chicago International Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and the Glasgow Short Film Festival.
Hector Herrera
Hector Herrera is a creative director and animator living and working in Toronto. Having headed the design teams of several award winning studios (Cuppa Coffee Animation, The Studio Upstairs and Trace Pictures) he now freelances as a creative director designer and animator. He’s a founding partner of the animated content production studio Together: Words+Pictures for Art & Culture where he has designed and directed several animated music videos and short films. His short film The Ballad Of Immortal Joe won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Animated short in 2016.
Documentary Jury
Myrocia Watamaniuk
Myrocia Watamaniuk is a Senior International Programmer at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto. She has programmed fiction and non-fiction features and shorts for more than 20 years, holding programming positions at Toronto International Film Festival, Aspen ShortsFest, and the Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival. As a broadcaster and television producer, she has hosted programs and appeared on CBC News, CBC Toronto and Rogers TV.
Sébastien Simon
Sébastien Simon is a filmmaker and a programmer/organizer for Busan International Short Film Festival, Jeju French Film Festival (Korea) and Rencontres Cinématographiques de Cavaillon (France), as well as a preselection juror for Slamdance Film Festival (USA) and Seoul International Extreme-Short Image & Film Festival (Korea). He graduated from the E.S.E.C film school and from Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. His recent short films as director or co-director include One-minded (2014), The Urban Suite (2014), Tetsu Kono’s crazy routine (2016) and The Troubled Troubadour (2016).