Reviews and exclusive coverage from the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival. Dive into filmmaker interviews, red carpet highlights, and behind-the-scenes stories that celebrate short-form cinema at its best.
At this year's HollyShorts, Liam James Collins's "King of the Iron Will" stages a final war of words between a farmer-turned-king and the tyrant he overthrew, asking whether vengeance crowns a man a liberator or its opposite.
At this year's HollyShorts, Luboš Vacke's "Director" traces the quiet distortion of a boy by his well-meaning father, asking whether we might all be living with a version of the same unspoken conflict.
At this year's HollyShorts, Carlos Torres's "Playground Director" transforms an ordinary playground into a stage for imaginative play, reminding filmmakers and audiences alike that the joy of creating never has to grow up.
At this year's HollyShorts, Imole Ladipo's "8:38" places audiences inside the confusion of a mind losing its footing, turning a contained thriller into a study of identity, trust, and the fragile bond between memory and self.
At this year's HollyShorts, Yoo Lee's "A Man Who Takes Pictures of Flowers" traces one photographer's forty-year devotion to Korea's wildflowers, finding in his passion a quiet argument for what makes a life well lived.
At this year's HollyShorts, Timofey Pozhitkov's "Katya" follows a homesick immigrant mother weighing a return to Moscow, tracing how the pull of home persists even when home has become unrecognizable.
At this year's HollyShorts, Ava Bounds's "The Witches of Pool Bottom" turns a teenage girl's beauty-industry anxieties into a surreal poolside showdown, pushing everyday self-doubt to the point of absurdity until it becomes something honest.
At this year's HollyShorts, Eric Jackowitz's "The Seeing Eye Dog Who Saw Too Much" resurrects the 1970s Italian giallo as a blood-soaked fever dream, chasing both a mysterious killer and a reason to laugh in a cinema again.
At this year's HollyShorts, Iris Breward's "Micro Bangs" follows a woman whose fixation on a drastic haircut spirals into a five-minute study of relationships and validation, finding the danger that lives right next to laughter.
At this year's HollyShorts, Sean Billings-Almendarez and Romeo Okwara's "Lunch Box" turns a playground contest for a junk-food prize into a story about the friends who help us find our place, and the quiet victories that outlast childhood.
At this year's HollyShorts, Paige Morrow Kimball's "Wait" confronts the silence that follows sexual assault, asking whether accountability, hope, and healing are still possible seven years after the harm.
At this year's HollyShorts, Ward Bond's "Bond on Cinema" goes past the red carpet and into the creative heart of filmmaking, treating each conversation as a chance to reveal the story behind the story.
At this year's HollyShorts, Joshua Kushner's "Braving the Night" turns a father's love into a dream-spanning rescue mission, asking whether a bond can outlast the memories that hold it.
At this year's HollyShorts, Jessica Rizk's "Cracked" turns an ordinary breakfast into a slow slide toward psychological horror, tracing how a room and a self can quietly fall apart together.
At this year's HollyShorts, Laura New's "America" traces the ordinary days before a school tragedy, following a single mother whose fight for a better life is quietly racing a clock she cannot see.
At this year's HollyShorts, Jon Boogz's "Remedy in the Rhythm" follows a young man haunted by his best friend's suicide, using dance to reach the pain that words can't, and to argue that movement can carry a story with real depth.
