The Finalists for Moscow Shorts Annual Awards are…
BEST FILM
ARCHIBALD´S SYNDROME (2019)
BEST FILM AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JULY 2020
Director: DANIEL PEREZ
Country: France
Duration: 20:00
Synopsis: Archibald was born with some curious curse: he can’t make a move without everyone around doing the same.Now, grown man, he robs by despair a bank and, there, meets Indiana, a young woman who always escaped every form of control.
Garage Romantic (2021)
BEST FILM, BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY & BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JANUARY 2021
Director: Daniel Sadgrove
Country: New Zealand
Duration: 12:35
Synopsis: A big dreamer from the small town of Togliatti, Russia ponders life while building a rocket powered sled made from discarded trash.
DA YIE
BEST FILM & BEST DIRECTOR AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – FEBRUARY 2021
Director: Anthony Nti
Country: Ghana
Duration: 20:00
Synopsis: A foreigner in Ghana gets an assignment from his gang to find kids for a risky job that will take place later that evening. While spending the day with two energetic children, Prince and Matilda, he starts to question his decision and how it will affect their lives.
BEST NARRATIVE
Cover (2019)
BEST NARRATIVE AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JUNE 2020
Director: Vahid Alvandifar
Country: Iran
Duration: 15:00
Synopsis: Everyone has a reason
GETTING FAT IN A HEALTHY WAY (2016)
BEST SCREENPLAY & BEST NARRATIVE AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – NOVEMBER 2020
Director: KEVORK ASLANYAN
Country: Bulgaria
Duration: 22:00
Synopsis: In a world where gravity is weak and skinny people fly into the sky, Constantine has never left the apartment he shares with his father Atanas. But one day the beautiful stewardess who moves into the building will change Constantine’s life forever.
DAVID (2020)
BEST SCREENPLAY & BEST NARRATIVE AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – FEBRUARY 2021
Director: Zachary Woods
Country: United States
Duration: 11:40
Synopsis: David needs help. So does David. A severely depressed man reaches out for an emergency therapy session. He’s not the only one who needs help.
Best Russian Short Film
My own sky (2019)
BEST SCREENPLAY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JULY 2020
Director: Pavel Palekhin
Country: Russian Federation
Duration: 29:55
Synopsis: The story takes place in the nearest future. The main character, Georgiy, spends every night at the lake looking up at flying spacecrafts. One day he decides to spend all the family money and buys a spacecraft. When he finds out that the rocket is out of order and may cost him his life, Georgiy takes a chance and organizes a space journey for his children.
Quarantine (2020)
BEST SCREENPLAY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – OCTOBER 2020
Director: Aleksandr Khant
Country: Russian Federation
Duration: 14:20
Synopsis: Irina works as an accountant. In the middle of a coronavirus pandemic she decides to go to
the office to transfer salaries to the company’s employees. However, her plan falls apart when she meets Boris, the paranoid security guard who protects the office not only from robbers but also from the virus itself.
Happy Birthday (2020)
BEST NARRATIVE AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – OCTOBER 2020
Director: Boris Dobrovolskiy
Country: Russian Federation
Duration: 07:00
Synopsis: She invited guests to her birthday party, but nobody came…
BEST DIRECTOR
Bully (2020)
BEST DIRECTOR & BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – APRIL 2020
Director: Adhip Iyer
Country: India
Duration: 23:57
Synopsis: A 12 year old boy struggles with bullying at school.
Christy (2020)
BEST DIRECTOR AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – SEPTEMBER 2020
Director: Brendan Canty
Country: Ireland
Duration: 14:55
Synopsis: A 16-year-old school-dropout interviews for a job, but when he’s let down by his brother he lashes back and looks to his friend for support.
The Saverini Widow (2020)
BEST DIRECTOR AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – NOVEMBER 2020
Director: Loïc Gaillard
Country: France
Duration: 19:00
Synopsis: Bonifacio 1883, extreme south of Corsica. The widow of the late Saverini lives in an isolated house near the cliffs, with her only son Antoine, and her dog. During the day, she assists women giving birth in town. One night her son is killed in a clash. The murderer flees to Sardinia. Her world falls to pieces…
BEST СINEMATOGRAPHY
Young Lady in the Pantry
BEST FILM, BEST DIRECTOR & BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – MAY 2020
Cinematographer: Albee Zhang
Director: Tian Shi
Country: China
Duration: 28:48
Synopsis: Many years later,In order to forget the hunted nightmare, Anna goes to a hospital where she bumps into a journalist, a nurse and a doctor who respectively knows her legendary yet unfortunate stories in different stages.However no one knows the truth of her nightmare but herself.
Cuckoo! (2019)
BEST DIRECTOR & BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – OCTOBER 2020
Cinematographer: Richard Spierings
Director: Jörgen Scholtens
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 07:00
Synopsis: Absurd comedy about a lonely man (Frank Lammers) who lives inside a cuckoo clock. Every
hour he straps himself into his ejection seat and shoots through the doors of the clock. “Cuckoo!” He yells, “Cuckoo!” His work is of vital importance. The old lady who sits under the clock needs to take her medication exactly at the top of every hour. One day the man has the opportunity to win a substantial sum of money in a radio quiz. He loves gadgets and wants to buy a new computer. The only problem is that he can only dial in at the exact time he’s supposed to sit in his seat.
CHARON (2020)
BEST FILM & BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – NOVEMBER 2020
Cinematographer:
Director: Yannick Karcher
Country: France
Duration: 15:42
Synopsis: Freshly retired, a man doesn’t know how to occupy his days. For fear of being killed by boredom, he gets involved in the crazy project of building a boat in the cellar of his suburban house.
BEST SCREENPLAY
Wings of the Spirit (2019)
BEST SCREENPLAY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – MAY 2020
Writer: Albert Meisl
Director: Albert Meisl
Country: Austria
Duration: 29:02
Synopsis: The failed Viennese musicologist Szabo works as an animal career and house sitter for wealthy people. But when visited by his successful, younger ex-colleague Fitzthum, a rare parrot, which he should guard, escapes him. Szabo sees his already precarious life in shambles, but Fitzthum has a brilliant idea and together they go out in search of a doppelganger of the precious animal.
Sunburned (2020)
BEST DIRECTOR & BEST SCREENPLAY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – AUGUST 2020
Writer: Nadia Ayala Tabachnik
Director: Nadia Ayala Tabachnik
Country: Mexico
Duration: 13:16
Synopsis: Two neighbors and a rough Sunday. Elena, a woman with a well-structured life, the “perfect” boyfriend and perfectly ironed clothes. Irene, a free woman who hates being tied down and pre-established relationships. They are accidentally forced to spend a whole day together and interact, discovering they’re not so different and that sometimes there’s no better conversation partner than a stranger.
GETTING FAT IN A HEALTHY WAY (2015)
BEST SCREENPLAY & BEST NARRATIVE AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – NOVEMBER 2020
Writer: KEVORK ASLANYAN, GEORGI MERDZHANOV
Director: KEVORK ASLANYAN
Country: Bulgaria
Duration: 22:00
Synopsis: In a world where gravity is weak and skinny people fly into the sky, Constantine has never left the apartment he shares with his father Atanas. But one day the beautiful stewardess who moves into the building will change Constantine’s life forever.
BEST STUDENT
The Next One (2020)
BEST STUDENT AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JULY 2020
Director: Dominik György
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 15:00
Synopsis: About men without men.
Road (2020)
BEST STUDENT AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – NOVEMBER 2020
Director: Kirill Khaletsky
Country: Belarus
Duration: 08:23
Synopsis: The most important thing in life is people and the relationship between them. This film is about that. It doesn’t matter when this story took place and where, only people are important and what everyone in the audience will discover for himself.
EINE SCHOKOLADEN LAMPE
BEST STUDENT AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JANUARY 2021
Director: Andrius Bartkus
Country: Lithuania
Duration: 23:00
Synopsis: A risk-averse man invests not his money in a profitable business
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Mothers Of
BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – APRIL 2020
Director: Ross Lai
Country: Canada
Duration: 21:03
Synopsis: El Salvador has some of the most extreme anti-abortion laws in the world. It is one of a handful of countries in the world where abortion is banned under all circumstances, including cases of rape and when a pregnancy poses a clinically verifiable risk to a woman’s health. As an extreme consequence of the law, women who have naturally occurring obstetric emergencies are routinely imprisoned on homicide charges. When they seek emergency care after miscarriages or stillbirths, doctors report them to the police on the suspicion of having an abortion. Between 2000 and 2011, 129 women in El Salvador were prosecuted for abortion or homicide when the fetal deaths occurred in the last months of pregnancy. ‘Mothers of’ explores the hyper-strict abortion regulations in El Salvador through the story of Teodora del Carmen Vásquez, a woman forced to serve over 10 years in jail after suffering a stillbirth in her 9th month of pregnancy. Through Teodora’s perspective, we begin to understand how loss and motherhood are felt in the face of bitter social injustice.
Fata Morgana
BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JULY 2020
Director: Daniella Bokor, Leanna Berkovitch
Country: Israel
Duration: 11:04
Synopsis: Three women living life as nomads. Christina travels the world, Anna takes her daughter wherever she goes, and Rachel has made her home under a branch roof, in a tent and in a cave . What does each woman pack in her knapsack before she sets out on her own? The movie confronts the conflict between the stability of motherhood and life at home, and the yearning to wander.
BY THE RIVER
BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – NOVEMBER 2020
Director: Daniel Braga Ulvestadd
Country: Australia
Duration: 25:00
Synopsis: Stretching along the river Ganges rests Varanasi, the holiest of India’s seven sacred cities, and a place where devout Hindus go to die in hopes of achieving moksha – becoming liberated from the cycle of rebirth. Several so-called ‘death hotels’ exist to accommodate believers who abandon their lives and come here in wait for death – some for as long as 40 years.
BEST ANIMATION
AT FIRST SIGHT (2018)
BEST ANIMATION AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JULY 2020
Director: SJAAK ROOD
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 17:00
Synopsis: A man and a woman drive straight towards one another. They hit the breaks just in time and come to a standstill, facing each other. They’re both too stubborn to give way to the other. A life story begins.
Opinci (2019)
BEST ANIMATION AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – OCTOBER 2020
Director: Anton Groves, Damian Groves
Country: Romania
Duration: 17:53
Synopsis: A film based on a true story about a record breaking globetrotter and widowed father, who uses his extraordinary past to teach his young daughter lessons about life.
Sheep, Wolf and a Cup of Tea… (2019)
BEST ANIMATION AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – FEBRUARY 2021
Director: Marion Lacourt
Country: France
Duration: 12:11
Synopsis: At night, while family members indulge in curious rituals before sleeping, a child invokes a wolf from the bottom of a box hidden under his bed. Disturbing sheep then besiege the door of his bedroom….
BEST EXPERIMENTAL
DREAM/LIFE
BEST EXPERIMENTAL AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – OCTOBER 2020
Director: DAVID AUFDEMBRINKE
Country: Germany
Duration: 22:00
Synopsis: A young man escapes his routine to find out what he truly wants in life. His friends refuse to participate in his endeavor, so he goes alone and arrives further than he ever would have dared to dream.
Kilter
BEST EXPERIMENTAL AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – DECEMBER 2020
Director: Rob Stanton-Cook
Country: Australia
Duration: 11:36
Synopsis: Kilter explores the wreckage left in the wake of generational toxic masculinity. Following a violent crime of passion, a gentle young man descends into a tormented reality as he struggles to reconcile who he is and what he has become.
The Secret Walls (2020)
BEST EXPERIMENTAL AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – FEBRUARY 2021
Director: Anne Charrin, Lise Charrin, Aude Charrin, Jean-Marie Gatin
Country: France
Duration: 14:25
Synopsis: (freely inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy) A theatre in the rain, people outside crowding to get in. A tired man comes through the stage door where a child -the master of the place- has been waiting for him. Engulfed in that theatrical machinery and caught up in the beguiling cogs of time, guided by some unknown force, the man plunges deep into a maelstrom of many faces…
BEST MUSIC VIDEO
MADBEN – GRIEF, DANCE TO DEATH (2020)
BEST MUSIC VIDEO AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – OCTOBER 2020
Director: CHARLES KERAMOAL, NICOLAS PASQUET, SYLVAIN LEFEBVRE
Country: France
Duration: 04:00
Synopsis: A soldier wakes up in a desertic landscape. Completly lost, he walks for days and weeks before encountering a mysterious object.
2 Down (2020)
BEST MUSIC VIDEO AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – DECEMBER 2020
Director: Sam Farage
Country: Finland
Duration: 06:55
Synopsis: The 2 Down music video depicts a journey of a lonely backpacker in a vast, dreamlike landscape of a never-ending mountain range. The traveller seems to be completely lost in thought. Painful memories start to arise from the past and she is forced to dive into them. She must fight the demons of guilt, blame and sorrow within in order to break free from this mental dissonance and find forgiveness, acceptance and gratitude to replace them. The story is about overcoming the worst of sufferings and clearing one’s mind from agony. It’s about facing one’s deepest fears and painful emotions head on, and growing from them as a person. No one is perfect and sometimes one needs to accept what is in order to move forward in life and strive to do one’s best. Life is short, and we should be spending it loving each other instead of fighting. Utimately, 2 Down is about gratitude towards life.
Bi-2 — God of the Jilted (2020)
BEST MUSIC VIDEO AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JANUARY 2021
Director: Vladimir Besedin
Country: Russian Federation
Duration: 03:43
Synopsis: A person deprived of love can become a monster is the main idea of the video. This is the story of the ugly duckling. But unlike Andersen’s fairy tale, where the hero’s suffering is rewarded and he becomes a beautiful swan, there is no happy ending here – revenge follows the insults.
BEST ACTOR
Fred Hechinger from
DAVID (2020)
BEST SCREENPLAY & BEST NARRATIVE AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – FEBRUARY 2021
Director: Zachary Woods
Country: United States
Duration: 11:40
Synopsis: David needs help. So does David. A severely depressed man reaches out for an emergency therapy session. He’s not the only one who needs help.
Will Ferrell from
DAVID (2020)
BEST SCREENPLAY & BEST NARRATIVE AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – FEBRUARY 2021
Director: Zachary Woods
Country: United States
Duration: 11:40
Synopsis: David needs help. So does David. A severely depressed man reaches out for an emergency therapy session. He’s not the only one who needs help.
Rytis Saladzius from
CRUCIFIXION (2019)
BEST FILM AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – DECEMBER 2020
Director: Danielius Minkevičius
Country: Lithuania
Duration: 25:00
Synopsis: A secretive man’s inner thoughts confront against the reality.
BEST ACTRESS
Lesana Sovičová from
The Next One (2020)
BEST STUDENT AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – JULY 2020
Director: Dominik György
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 15:00
Synopsis: About men without men.
Christiane Conil from
The Saverini Widow (2020)
BEST DIRECTOR AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – NOVEMBER 2020
Director: Loïc Gaillard
Country: France
Duration: 19:00
Synopsis: Bonifacio 1883, extreme south of Corsica. The widow of the late Saverini lives in an isolated house near the cliffs, with her only son Antoine, and her dog. During the day, she assists women giving birth in town. One night her son is killed in a clash. The murderer flees to Sardinia. Her world falls to pieces…
Marie-Pierre Casey from
Bumper (2018)
BEST FILM AWARD @ MOSCOW SHORTS – OCTOBER 2020
Director: Ralantoaritsimba Nirina
Country: France
Duration: 18:00
Synopsis: For many years, Max, a young man full of ambition, has been dreaming of being accepted in a prestigious school of political sciences. The day before the interview, he plans to spend the night at his grandmother’s house which is near where the oral exam will be taking place the next morning, thus hoping to be in the best mindset to succeed. But once he gets there, Max finds out his Grandma has decided to take her driver’s license again…
