ShoreLake Arts hosted their 8th annual Short Short Film Festival on Saturday evening in SCC’s on-campus theater, “where people young and old ‘left their couches’ to gather in ‘the best place to watch a film,’” as described by co-host Kris Boustedt.
Kris Boustedt, SCC film instructor’s second year to host the festival alongside Lindy Boustedt, a screenwriting instructor at Seattle Central College and his professional partner for 22 years. Kris Boustedt directed “A Little Existential”, 1 of the 12 selected films and a picture produced almost entirely by his students from the latest summer film camp. Since his purchase of $50,000 worth of new equipment in 2020, film students at SCC have had access to excellent, industry-like technology that can prepare them for an ascent into the filmmaking industry.
Cinematic genres at the festival ranged from Boustedt’s student-led drama about a college student struggling to find her path, to Nicky Smit’s comedy “Family Time” centered on an Addams-esque family that bonds by committing murder together, to Tokala Tatum’s dramatic horror “They’re Not Here”, in which the classic trope of a shadow-shrouded beast with glowing, red eyes represents the object of a child’s fear: their drunk and emotionally unstable adult guardian.
The night’s ultimate ringleader was the program director for ShoreLake Arts, Teresa Pape. She conducted most of the coordination and assigned the task of choosing the “Best Picture” to 4 jurors with veteran experience in film: E Mandisa, Vee Hua, Sophia Perez, and Tony Doupe. Only the 12 highest scoring films in areas including acting, directing, creativity, sound, and cinematography were selected for the festival. Doupe, another film instructor at SCC, described the selection process as “unique to each judge”; he watched each of the short films he likened to poems 3 times and ultimately called it a “close call”.
In addition to $1000 cash per winner, new Sasquatch trophies are made by an artist every year for the winners of two titles: “Best Picture” and “People’s Choice”. The latter is decided by votes from the festival’s audience. This year’s awards, two Golden Sasquatches, were provided by sponsor Jack Malek of Windermere Real Estate. After all 12 films were presented, Tommy Heffernan’s apocalyptic comedy “The Retreat” was announced as the winner of “Best Picture” and Angelo Carmelo Visser’s philosophical drama “Symptoms of Greed” as the winner of “People’s Choice”.
Jurors were impressed by Heffernan’s tale of a man on a remote retreat with his boyfriend, his boyfriend’s boss, and her boyfriend who finds himself wrapped up in the trio’s plan to save humanity from extinction in the midst of a deadly “haze”. This clever demonstration of suspense, satire, and farce is reminiscent of critically acclaimed films like Jordan Peele’s Get Out. However, the many viewers that occupied the theater’s stalls were generally won over by Visser’s “Symptoms of Greed”, a commentary on the potential of a person’s theft of something they lack to spread like a contagion. This was the second year that Visser, a student at Shorecrest High School, has participated in the Short Short Film Festival.
Dahyun Kim, an attendee of Cornish College of the Arts and director of “Deep Fake”, was the second of the festival’s two student directors. He was paid to make this music video for a song of the same name produced by one of his high school teachers, a member of the indie rock band behind the record. It took Kim about two months to record and edit the dazzlingly colorful visuals inspired by what he calls “new media” (e.g. the contemporary digital projections that can be found at museums today).
Though only two directors earned cash and Sasquatch prizes, every present director bore the posture of a winner during the on-stage Q&A and title announcement following the exhibition of all 12 films. For the 8th year in a row, an audience was given the opportunity to witness and bathe in a group of filmmakers’ passion for their work in SCC’s on-campus theater.
