The 19th HollyShorts Film Festival shines a light on animation with its line-up of 48 films

American Sikh

This year animation is setting the bar high at this year’s prestigious HollyShorts Film Festival. The 19th edition, happening from August 10-20 at TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood, unveiled its diverse selection of 48 animated short films.

Just some of this year’s selections include Sean McCarron’s beautiful tale CORVINE which shares a story of a boy who loves nature, especially crows, Andrew Chesworth’s THE BRAVE LOCOMOTIVE, an Old West musical tale with 1940’s flair about a mighty little train facing harrowing disaster, Vishavjit Singh’s AMERICAN SIKH, an animated true story of a turban-wearing American Sikh, in Ana Gusson’s PIVOT a defining moment in Ashley’s quest to be herself is at the risk of disappointing the person she loves the most, Mitra Shahidi’s STARLING focuses on the spirit of a little girl who shoots down from the heavens to spend her birthday with her family, ​​Pierre-Hugues Dallaire, Benoit Therriault’s CANARY is a story about a young boy named Sonny who works in an underground coal mine and Andrea Deja’s MUSHKA which tells a story about Sarah, who discovers an orphaned baby Siberian tiger and realizes she must raise him.

Pivot

Other standouts include Matthew Kalinauskas’s THE TIGER AT THE ZOO, a tiger-obsessed little boy goes to the zoo on a class field trip, only to discover that the tiger is off exhibits, in Farzaneh Omidvarnia’s BROKE everything is peaceful, until an unknown aggressor repeatedly breaks the living room window glass, in Martha Grant’s LLAMAS AT THE LAUNDROMAT two stylish llamas as they dance and sing their way through the steps of doing laundry at the laundromat, Almudena Toral, Mauricio Rodriguez Pons THE NIGHT DOCTRINE focuses on an Afghan journalist embarks who on a journey to find out who murdered her family 30 years ago and Jinkyu Jeon’s THE HOUSE OF LOSS which tells a tale of the elderly at the nursing home have their heads shaved.

Corvine

The annual Academy Awards-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival (HSFF) brings together top creators, industry leaders and companies and has launched many filmmakers into the next stages of their careers. HollyShorts, regular on MovieMaker Magazine’s “Top 50 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee list”, also engages its community and spotlights short films year-round through monthly screenings, panels, and networking events.

The Brave Locomotive