| The 6th Annual Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series June – August, 2011 Winners and film schedule below. |
| 1st Place Chienne d’Histoire by Serge Avedikan, France  |
| 2nd Place & Audience Award Bottle by Kirsten Lepore, USA  |
| 3d Place Next Floor by Dennis Villeneuve, Canada  |
Screening dates: June 9 / June 16 / June 23 / June 30 / July 7 / July 14 / July 21 / July 28
August 4 / August 11 / August 18
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 Crossing Salweenby Brian O’Malley , Ireland/Burma/Thailand In Karen State, Eastern Burma, 9 year old Ko Reh finds herself orphaned after the massacre of her village by the Burmese Military Junta. Befriending a mysterious hunter named Dante, who made a promise to her father’s soul that he would take her to safety, Ko Reh and Dante make the perilous journey across her troubled homeland in search of freedom. |
 Play With Me
by Rafal Skalski, Poland Hania and Pawel; a young married couple going through their first serious crisis. They run from their problems; Hania becomes enthralled by a video game in which she creates Lucjan – the perfect man. One day Lucjan comes to life and moves in with Hania and Paweł… A story about escaping into the most selfish of fantasies. |
 Ecliptic
by Andreas Wiget , Germany Set in post-apocalyptic Berlin, Germany where cockroaches are the last creatures living on earth. They will show us the destroyed and lost world on their own way to leaving the earth, too. |
 Under God
by Richard Farmer , USA Bringing together questions of Faith, Technology and Politics during the Cold War era, UNDER GOD is a tale often told by Joseph Campbell and Ray Kurzweil, about a story when President Eisenhower met with the world first super computer, UNIVAC |
 The Miserables
by Ben Taylor Wheatley United Kingdom Struggling to cope with his wife Evelyn’s terminal illness, Murray Pickleton (Ian Hogg: Rockliffe’s Folley) constructs time machines out of their furniture in his efforts to relive their past and escape the present. Evelyn (Maggie Steed: Jam & Jerusalem) is skeptical, but when her doctor insists she is to be moved to a hospice, she joins her husband in remembering their life together and attempts to discuss his life after hers. |
 Lost Paradise
by Mihal Brezis Israel A man and a woman are tenderly making love in a one star hotel room. A moment later when they are both dressed up, the idyll that seamed authentic is now gone. A present-day Adam and Eve story. |
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 At Home
by Nenad Mikalacki , Serbia An elderly lady goes from Germany to Eastern Europe to find and visit the house of her childhood. Parallely, two deported boys, now back in Serbia, are trying to survive in totally different living conditions. They say that they can help her find this house. |
 Water Lillies In Bloom
by Emil Stang Lund, Norway The suspended synchronized swimming guru Labanosov entices overweight women to join him in his mission to prove Isaac Newton wrong at the Championships. |
 The Gruffaloby Jakob Schuh & Max Lang, United Kingdom A cunning mouse goes for a walk in the forest and outwits a succession of predators. |
 Chimères by Fanny Ardant, Italy Directed and written by Fanny Ardant against Roma discrimination, stars Ardant herself, Francesco Montanari, Paolo Triestino, and inhabitants of Roma camp Chimères. |
| Yelp: With Apologies to Allen Ginsberg’s Howl by Tiffany Shlain, USA Directed by Tiffany Shlain and narrated by Peter Coyote, it is a brief essay (really a rant) about technology and how we need to–as Peter Coyote shouts to the world–“unplug, unplug, unplug and revisit the present tense.” |
 Jaukka Bro’s
by Peter Grönlund, Sweden A small crime tale. Jani and Toumas are brothers. They are in the business of robbing and burglary. In other words, not the kind of guys you want your daughter bringing home for dinner. |
 Pass the Salt, Please
by Tatjana Najdanovic, USA Dinner. A glass of wine. Stimulating conversation. What better way to wind down the day? A couple’s dinner repartee quickly morphs into a scene ripped straight from the script of an adult film. Who wins this battle of the sexes is anyone’s guess. |
 Be The Light
by Guru Khalsa , USA A short film of Rachael Short’s recovery after her spinal injury is a look into her spirit and determination during the first stage of her new journey. She is an inspiration and continues to amaze us all. |
 Deeper Than Yesterday
by Ariel Kleiman , Australia After three months submerged underwater, the men have become savages. Oleg fears that losing perspective may mean losing himself. |
 Pentecost
by Peter McDonald, Ireland Ireland, 1977. Eleven-year-old Damian Lynch is called in at the last moment to serve as an altar boy at an important mass in the local parish. Following his last appearance as an altar boy, when he knocked Father O’Toole off the altar, he faces a choice: either conform to the status quo or serve an extended ban from his passion in life, football. |
 El Orden de las Cosas
by Manuela Velles, Spain Julia´s life takes place in the bath tub. Drop by drop she will gather the courage to change the order of things. |
 La Vie D’Un Chienby John Harden , USA Paris, 1962. A scientist formulates a serum that transforms him into a dog. It’s only when he changes back into a human that his troubles begins. |
| Bottle by Kirsten Lepore, USA Two lovers from opposite sides of the world find love when their messages–in-a- bottle cross the oceans. But when Snow and Sand meet, will their love survive? |
 I Have Sinned
by Gabriela Tollman, USA An Iranian woman confronts the violent consequences of her secret love affair. Based on the poem “The Sin” by Forough Farrokhzad. |
| Next Floor by Dennis Villeneuve , Canada During an opulent and luxurious banquet, complete with cavalier servers and valets, eleven pampered guests participate in what appears to be a ritualistic gastronomic carnage. In this absurd and grotesque universe, an unexpected sequence of events undermines the endless symphony of abundance. |
 0507by Ben and Chris Blaine , United Kingdom Sometimes an iPhone makes your life that little bit harder… |
| Hans’ Voice
by Luca Vacchi, Spain |
 Coccuniellidae
by Géraldine Frery, France Every morning, Emile and Barbara awake in love in their car. They live in their garage because they rented the remainder of the house. Each morning, the softness of their alarm clock is stopped by Francine, their tenant. One day, a mysterious letter d’ love slips under the large door of the garage. The more the mornings follow one another, the more the mystery of the letters grows hollow. |
 Requiem for Kosova
by Dhimitri Ismailaj USA/Kosovo Fatmira is a 7 year old girl living in post-war Kosova, she has the typical childhood belief in fairytales which convinces her that she can reunite with her deceased mother as a “Zana” ( a mountain fairy in Albanian folklore). Mrs U.N. is a United Nations judge responsible in the rebuilding of Kosova’s judicial system and is amidst a personal crisis, as her own daughter lies dying. |
 Chienne d’Histoireby Serge Avedikan , France Set in Constantinople in 1910, where stray dogs populate its busy streets. Judged a problem, the newly formed Ottoman government devises a plan to rid the city of the strays by transplanting them to a deserted island. |
 The Terms
by Jason LaMotte , United Kingdom A father and son face off in this darkly amusing tale. The father, returning to find his son has set fire to their shack, offers the boy a deal: he’ll give him a fifty meter head start and he’ll put only one bullet in the chamber. |
 Pitstopby Melanie McGraw, USA It’s 1981 and thoughtful, introverted, 12-year-old Margaret (Maggie) feels invisible sandwiched between the restless limbs of her eight, high-spirited siblings as they drive across the southern California desert in the family’s aging Pontiac wagon. Out of desperation, Maggie escapes her loneliness and the chaotic world of her family by entering the strangely beautiful world she sees through the viewfinder of her snap-n-shoot, plastic camera. However, she doesn’t trust that what she sees is worthy of expressing, and as a result she never snaps a picture. |
 Deep end Dance
by Conor Horgan , United Kingdom Mother and son, above and under water, the dance of their lives. |
 Sing Me to Sleepby Magnus Arnesen, Norway A picturesque village surrounded by fjords near Bergen, Norway. Robert, a 40-year-old postal worker, gives up work to spend time by the bed of his mother diagnosed with terminal cancer. She has only one wish before dying: she wants to know that her only son is not alone in the world. The man lies to please her ensuring that he is already dating a girl. The film is an adaptation of a short story by a renowned Norwegian writer Frode Grytten. |
 Two Men, Two Cows, Two Guns
by Pardis Parker USA A testy visitor sends a farmer’s quiet Sunday on a hilarious downward spiral into udder chaos. |
 Catharsis
by Cedric Prevost, France An aspiring film director wakes suddenly to find a camera following his every move. He is trapped inside a film as it is being made. He struggles to escape, to get back to reality, to sanity and to the girl he loves. |
 From the Stars
by Kristian Landmark , Norway He is quietly sitting in his outhouse, something remarkable happens, his life changes… |
 Watchingby Max Myers, United Kingdom Ian Hart stars in this devious tale about a coffee shop encounter between a naïve young man and a wily old scam artist. |
 Mobile
by Verena Fels , Germany a story playing with the forces of nature, i.e. gravity, balance, mass and impetus. |
 PassengersBy J.T. Walker, USA Underneath a grim city, a floating feather momentarily unites a crowd of strangers. |
 Shoeby Nick Kelly, Ireland Vince is about to kill himself – but that crazy beggar keeps killing the mood. |
 The Piano
by Levon Minasian , France The film portrays a life story of a little orphan girl Lusine, a talented pianist from Gyumri, who survived the devastating earthquake of 1988. |
 Mi Otra Mitadby Beatriz Sanchis, Spain Twins and doppelgangers have nothing on Adrián and Andrea—two young people linked by an unusual optical deformity and their individual quests for finding their “other half.” |
 Blue Rinseby Matt Leigh, Ireland Time may be a great healer but he’s a lousy beautician. Still, black, brown, grey or even blue your hair is your crowning glory no matter how old you are. |
 Eat
by Janicza Bravo, USA August has never been with a woman. Claire is his neighbor. One day she is locked out of her apartment and August lets her in to his. He does what he can to keep her there. |
 Last Rain
by Tony Lopea and David Sanz, Spain Nazán, in a low personal moment, finds Irene, his dream woman, in a crowed disco. Knowing that he has just one chance, he’ll try to convince Irene that their fates are linked in a near future. Thus Irene will find herself in the paradox to distinguish if that mysterious man is someone from another time or just a cunning impostor. |
 Apele Tac / Silent River
by Anca Miruna Lazarescu, Germany/Serbia Romania, 1986: Gregor and Vali want to escape. They will cross the Danube swimming. On the other bank of the river there is Yugoslavia. They need each other, but they do not trust each other. Each of them has to make his choice. That’s the way everything begins… |
 A Bit Of Counselingby Deb Hiett, USA In this short adult comedy, a couple with an unusual problem seeks counseling from a therapist, with some unusual results. |
 All Animals
by Cynthia Mitchell & Robert Arnold, USA An elliptical mysterious scene between two characters that asks the question: Where between sound and silence does communication appear? |
 Ghild
by David Yarovesky, USA The secret world of a giant child—Brauley lives an outsized life inside his parent’s little house, and dreams of friends he can only draw on the walls. |
