Harold Matzner would like to invite you to The Palm Springs International ShortFest, which starts today! View the lineup for ShortFest which runs from June 20-26 at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. This year’s festival features 299 films across 50 curated programs. The programming includes 53 world premieres, 10 international premieres, 33 North American premieres, and 18 U.S. premieres. More than 6,000 short films were submitted from 129 countries!
ShortFest’s award-winners, some of which are eligible to submit to the Academy for Oscar consideration, will be shown at the closing night awards ceremony as well as at a virtual Best of Fest July 7-13. The Oscar Qualifying Awards include Best of the Festival Award, Best Animated Short, Best Documentary Short, Best Live-Action Short Over 15 Minutes and Best Live-Action Short 15 Minutes and Under.
“We are so thrilled to be bringing such incredible talent to Palm Springs to celebrate film and the craft of short filmmaking” said Artistic Director Lili Rodriguez. “We are honored to be sharing their work with our loyal Palm Spring audience and the world. We are looking forward to helping create the kind of experience only a film festival can provide.”
This year, 125 out of 299 films ― nearly 42% ― feature women directors, and 139 films (47%) have filmmakers who identify as non-white. The shorts also feature a number of Hollywood’s biggest names, such as Edward Norton and John Turturro in “High Noon on the Waterfront,” Judith Light as a producer on “Aikāne,” Margaret Cho in “Gianna,” Tom Holland in “Last Call,” Whoopi Goldberg in “Three Trees” and Ken Marino and Kate Flannery in “Help Me Understand” produced by Paul Feig, among others.
Tickets and passes are available online, at the Box Office at the Cultural Center, or by phone at 800-898-7256.
Photo of Harold Matzner at the 2019 ShortFest by Zoe Meyers for the Desert Sun.