This year, the STFF Shorts Committee selected 10 short films to screen within the festival program. The STFF Shorts 2020 Grand Jury Awards went to One Thousand and Nights, and the Seattle Audience Awards was shared between Free Fun and Best Actress.

STFF Shorts Program has been accepting short film submissions annually since 2014 and received 200+ submissions in 2020.

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FILM PROGRAM:

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• Free Fun | Directed by Fehmi Öztürk, Turkey, 2020, 5 min

• Cleats | Directed by Abdullah Şahin, Turkey, 2020, 11 min

• Best Actress | Directed by Umut Alaz Kökçü, Turkey, 2020, 20 min

• Some Cats of the Neighborhood | Directed by Emre Sefer, Turkey, 2020, 20 min

• Aylin | Directed by Ozan Yoleri, Turkey, 2020, 20 min

• Turning to Dust | Directed by Hüseyin Aydin Gürsoy, France, 2020, 20 min

• Rain, Snorkel & Green Beans | Directed by Yavuz Akyıldız, Turkey, 2020, 19 min

• Octopus | Directed by Engin Erden, Turkey, 2020, 13 min

• Break Off | Directed by Öykü Orhan, Turkey, 2020, 18 min

• The Thousand and One Nights | Directed by Mahsum Taskin, Turkey, 2020, 17 min

Hakan and Nihal have been married for many years. Shortly after they find out that Nihal is unable to have children, she disappears. While frantically searching for her, Hakan makes some painful discoveries about himself and their marriage. He must face his inner demons to discover what happened to his wife.​

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Year : 2019

Runtime : 117 min

Language : Turkish w/ English subtitles

Country : Turkey, Germany

Director : Ali Aydin

As teenagers, Eren, the daughter of a powerful member of the parliament, and Reyhan, the daughter of the keeper in the summer house Eren’s family owns on the Istanbul island of Büyükada, had a forbidden love affair. When their relationship was revealed, Eren's family forced them to separate. They sent Reyhan and her father away from the island and Eren to a boarding school in Europe. The two women haven’t seen each other since. The film begins 20 years later. 

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Year : 2019

Runtime : 98 min

Language : Turkish w/ English subtitles

Country : Turkey

Director : Umit Unal

Fatih Mehmet Macoglu is the first mayor ever in Turkey elected from the Turkish Communist Party. He is the mayor of Ovacik, Tunceli, a small Kurdish-Alevi town in the heart of Eastern Turkey. Unknown to the rest of the world, it is an area where cultural and humanistic values, peace, love and community work are cherished, and where production and education are pursued with almost no budget. The film follows the daily life in Ovacik and Mr. Macoglu's efforts to strengthen a sustainable economy by promoting community-based agriculture. Both the mayor’s and the residents’ remarkable efforts set an example for agricultural towns around Turkey. The honest and heartfelt example of Ovacik starts building a very important communication bridge between the East and the West of the country.

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Year : 2019

Runtime : 91 min

Language : Turkish w/ English subtitles

Country : Turkey

Director : Aysegul Selenga Taskent

In the early 2000s, a handful of peasant women from the mountains of southern Turkey formed a theater group, which later became the subject of the documentary, The Play. The women acted out their own life stories in the village, and the play changed their lives. Now, they take to the road with an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, traveling the dusty, dangerous roads to the farthest-flung mountain villages where there isn’t even running water. On the road, their lives merge with the world of King Lear and become bound up with "the good and the bad", the young and the old", "the rich and the poor", "the honest and the dishonest" of the play.

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Year : 2019

Runtime : 84 min

Language : Turkish w/ English subtitles

Country : Turkey

Director : Pelin Esmer