STFFShorts 2023
celebrating Short Program's 10th year!
STFFShorts 2023 Selection
Agora
Tolga Evguzel | TURKEY | 2023 | 14 min
An agoraphobic writer, who is depressed of modern world contradictions, puts a challenge on herself about getting out of her home to prove that she is free. However her depression brings her to a point where she is completely detached from reality.
Fatih the Conqueror
Onur Yagiz | FRANCE | 2023 | 15 min
This Saturday is a Turkish wedding day at Espace Venise (France). Huddled in a car in the parking lot, Fatih, 21, wants to get married. He has set his sights on Ipek, Recep’s sister. But neither Murat, his best friend, nor Recep, nor even Ipek are aware of this yet.
Game, Interrupted
Ilayda Iseri | TURKEY | 2023 | 15 min
In 1979, during their winter break, two siblings aged 7 and 8 find their way out of boredom by switching from one game to another in a small apartment in Ankara. Their father passed away a few years ago, their mother is at work all day and their grandmother is sleeping on the couch as usual. However, something goes wrong that day. While trying to figure out what happened, they notice a strange intruder at the door, who resembles Khomeini or Darth Vader. They must fix the course of events before their mother returns home.
hell is empty, all the devils are here
Özgürcan Uzunyasa | TURKEY | 2022 | 18 min
Aspiring actress Gülsah is preparing for the auditions of an acting school. She also volunteers for a theatre and one day she is sexually assaulted by famous actor Levent, who is also a jury member for the audition she is preparing. Daily reality and the reality of the theatre world flow into each other and Gülşah has to fight against several patriarchs in order to fulfill her dreams.
Lipstick
Burcu Görgün | TURKEY | 2022 | 12 min
Sabahattin, a ten-year-old, sells water and tea on the streets in order to help his family earn a living. He surpasses the boundaries of the violent world that he was born into, with the help of his imagination and the superheroes in the comics he reads. When he understands the people are not aware of his existence, he thinks that he is invisible. His only wish is to become visible. He believes that when people notice him, his fate will change. And to become visible, he finds out a childish and the simplest way to imitate the superheroes he reads in comic books.
Sparks Lampini
Rebecca O'Neill | UNITES STATES | 2022 | 18 min
After hints of possible abuse, a Turkish-American woman confronts her teenage sister’s boyfriend.
The Maze
Selçuk Ören | TURKEY | 2022 | 4 min
While searching for an exit in the corridors of the labyrinth, a middle-aged man faces his past and through the cracks on the wall confronts his hidden conscience.
The Moisture
Turan Haste | TURKEY | 2022 | 20 min
Teacher Ishak, who is doing his compulsory duty in Anatolia, on the one hand, trying to solve the child custody problem with his wife, on the other hand, enters into a struggle for authority with Yusuf, the most prankish student in the class, who distanced him from his ideals. When he decides to regain his ideals, which he has become increasingly distant from, he soon realizes that nothing will be the same as before.hile searching for an exit in the corridors of the labyrinth, a middle-aged man faces his past and through the cracks on the wall confronts his hidden conscience.
Things Unheard Of
Ramazan Kilic | TURKEY | 2023 | 15 min
A little Kurdish girl tries to put a smile back on her grandmother’s face after the disappearance of her television, her only window into the world
Water of Life
Sündüs Gören | TURKEY | 2023 | 15 min
Sema lives in Babadağ district of Denizli. She is married and has a child. As in many houses in Babadağ, they have to be evicted from the house they live in due to landslides. Those who leave their homes will be allocated a mass housing flat (an apartment) in Denizli. Sema could not cut the emotional bond between her after her mother's death. Sema does not want to leave the house because of this bond she established with her mother. Her husband, Osman, wants to go to the apartment to be allocated because he sees moving to a mass housing flat as ranking social status. Sema thinks that if she leaves home, her bond with her mother will decrease. She is torn between environmental pressure and the bond she established with her mother.
You All & I Alone
Baris Kefeli, Nukhet Taneri | TURKEY | 2022 | 14 min
A city - wide power outage strikes Istanbul. Deniz discovers he has electricity in his apartment although his building doesn’t. Despite the chaos in the city, he tries to resume his life as usual. However, as the blackout lasts, he finds himself wrestling with uncanny feelings.
STFFDocs 2023 Selection
Children of the White Mountain
Yalcin Ciftci | TURKEY | 2023 | 20 min
We are at a village school in Anatolia in a cold and snowy winter. The village school in the cemetery contains many mysteries.
Emma
Merve KUŞ MATARACI | TURKEY, UNITED KINGDOM | 2022 | 29 min
It is about the life of British Emma, who is engaged in animal husbandry and agriculture, in her village in Turkey, and the inspiring 'deep bond' she establishes with nature.
When Emma is a high school student in England, she and her girlfriend run away from school to a wedding. This escapade changes her destiny when she falls in love with Turk Mehmet, whom she saw at the wedding. When Mehmet, an illegal immigrant, is deported, Emma follows him to Turkey.
She lives in Sarılar village with Mehmet and her 8 children. Emma, while adapting to her life, focuses on the struggle of being a foreign woman and a mother in the circle of financial difficulties.
In Due Time
Murat YÜKSEL | TURKEY | 2022 | 15 min
The quartz and feldspar mines located in the southeast of Aydın's Çine district harm public health and ecological structure. Workers employed without job security come down with lung diseases. Approximately six thousand workers work in twenty-five mining companies in the area. On the other hand, the most common disease is silicosis. While health impaired people have been struggling for life in agony for many years, it is stated that at least fifty workers have passed away so far. The director interviewed villagers, workers, health professionals, environmentalists and representatives of the professional chambers; and also imaged the encountered events and ecocide.
Minik, My Mother's Short Story
Mert Inan | TURKEY | 2023 | 8 min
My mother was taken out of school with excitement when she was just in the first grade and was sent to religious courses at the mosque. Forced by family pressure to attend the mosque until the age of 13, my mother later moved to a new neighborhood, where she was able to take external exams thanks to a teacher, and she completed her interrupted story by herself, finally obtaining her elementary school diploma. "Minik, Annemin Kısa Öyküsü" is the story of my mother's childhood, what she experienced, thought, and felt, as she narrates it to me in conversation.
Summer Holiday
Mehtap Samiloglu | TURKEY | 2023 | 15 min
Beritan is 13 years old. He lives with his mother. His father goes to Istanbul to earn money as a construction worker during the summer months. Beritan is the child who wants to support her family and takes cows to graze in exchange for money. Beritan talks about the burden-some conditions in the village and how they spend their summer holidays with his family.
One day, he expresses his desire to become a veterinarian and dedicate himself to animals, to buy back her horse, Kartopu, which he had to sell due to hardship of financial during the pandemic, and to set an example for his friends with his beautiful words.
The Birth Of Kennedy
Gülben Arıcı | TURKEY | 2022 | 16 min
The spirit of the American President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, resurrects in Mahmut Haklıgör's body. The entire neighborhood sincerely believes that he is Kennedy. Kennedy Mahmut is currently a vegetable transporter and also plays the organ at weddings. The perspective of the director's neighborhood and his colleagues on this reincarnation event and Mahmut Bey's colorful life are the subject of the documentary.The story is told in a natural language and from a participant-observer perspective. The documentary "The Birth of Kennedy" is about Mahmut Bey's journey to becoming a Kennedy and the stance of his people on this journey.
STFFShorts 2023
Film Screeners
Burak Boyacioglu
Didem Demirkilinc
Duygu Aktas
Gokhan Duymaz
Guven Kara
Irem Gokce Aydin
Nural Sumbultepe
Sarah Anderson
Osman Ibis
Tugrul Cafer
STFFShorts 2023 Grand Jury
Eren Odabasi
Professor of Global Cinema
Dr. Eren Odabasi is an Associate Professor of Global Cinema in the English Department at Western Washington University. He holds a PhD in Communication & Film Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and an MA in Economics from Bogazici University. As a film critic, he has been writing extensively for Altyazi (www.altyazi.net), one of the oldest and most widely read film publications in Turkey, since 2008. He was invited to the Talents Program of the Berlin International Film Festival twice and served as a jury member in the Semaine de la Critique section of the Cannes Film Festival in 2013.
Jeff Ferrell
Filmmaker, Musician, Actor & Author
Jeff Ferrell is a Seattle-based filmmaker, musician, actor and author. He has written and directed three feature films, including Holiday Hell starring horror icon Jeffrey Combs, Dead West, which was available on Netflix and in Walmart stores, and Ghostlight. He is currently preparing his fourth feature film, which will be made in 2024.
Safiye Senturk
Producer & Production Designer
Safiye Senturk is a producer and production designer. Her recent film, Fantasy A Gets a Mattress, opened Local Sightings Film Festival, Tacoma Film Festival, and Silent City Film Festival, has screened to sold-out audiences at SIFF Film Center, Northwest Film Forum, The Beacon and Grand Illusion Cinema, as well as won Best Narrative Feature at the Seattle Black Film Festival. Apart from Senturk’s work as a filmmaker, she has held positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Frick Collection, Pratt Institute, and Gagosian Gallery.
Virginia Bogert
Filmmaker, Producer & Curator
Virginia Bogert is the recipient of the 2023 recipient of the Mayor’s Film Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film and has directed, written, edited and produced award-winning film and media for three decades. Her company Laughing Dog Pictures focuses on human rights and the Arts. Bogert has served as Director of Film & Media at MoPop producing national and international programs. She founded the Post Alley Film Festival, a woman-centric and eccentric film festival, and is President of Women in Film Seattle. Her many credits include documentaries for PBS: Pike Place Market: Soul of a City, which garnered six Emmys and a Telly; the award-winning Healing a Soldier's Heart and Fields of Plenty, and created documentaries for National Endowment for the Arts (American Masterworks), and Spoonman for the United Nations, winning another 1st prize Telly. Virginia’s romantic comedy The Delivery, a SIFF Fly Film, won Best Short at Port Townsend Film Festival. Tootie Pie, her dramatic short, premiered at Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), screened at Langston Hughes Black Film Festival, and is broadcast on PBS.
STFFShorts 2023 Awards
New STFFShorts award for 2023!
We are delighted to offer
the Unique Lens Award
as another way to
celebrate filmmakers!
Jeremy Spaunhurst
As a young boy Jeremy’s interest in Photography was sparked by images of tiny water drops colliding and creating crown like sculptures. From then on he was fascinated with photography and its possibilities. After two years of attending a business college Jeremy decided to make photography his career. This step ended up taking him to Santa Barbara where he studied and graduated from Brooks Institute. After running away to Los Angeles for some time he is now located in Seattle and excited to begin working in the great Pacific Northwest area.
Check out more of his artworks at https://www.spaunhurstphoto.com/
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