Category: Chicago Short Film

Short Film: SATURDAY, 9min., USA/Iran, Drama

As the viewer follows a joyful trip to the beach by a family with three young children, innocence and happiness give way to the unthinkable. While the day unfolds on-screen, the audience comes to realize, through subtle audiovisual cues, that a tragedy has occurred: one of the three children has drowned. Decisions are made in a state of shock, and the blurred lines between the rational and irrational interrupt and fragment the journey back home. The parents opt to bring their dead son back in the same car with the two other children pretending as if he is sleeping.

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Director Biography – Yijun Pan, Anh Vo (RED THREAD)

I believe in the power of storytelling with a camera. Before I came to the United States, I was a full-time fashion photographer. Still, I want more, which makes me decide to pursue a new education at DePaul University with a cinematography concentration to prepare myself to understand and tell a better human story through visual storytelling.

Director Statement

The Red Thread of Fate (also referred to as the Red Thread of Marriage), is an East Asian belief originating from Chinese legend. According to this myth, the gods tie an invisible red cord around the little finger of those that are destined to meet each other. The two people who connected by the red dread are destined lovers, regardless of place, time, or circumstances. This myth is similar to the western concept of a soul mate or a destined flame.

Through stages of the relationship, the concept we want to portray is in the modern world; people’s relationship is getting more and more complicated; our red thread sometime is not tied on only one person anymore. Sometimes people are getting suffer and torture in the relationship mentally and physically.

Short Film: RED THREAD, 3min., USA, Experimental

A red thread connects your destiny, but perhaps not the only one you find.

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News & Reviews

Director Biography – Ryan Matthew Jolly (LACUNA)

Born, March 22, 1996. Ryan Jolly started animating in early middle school. Always planning film ideas and character designs on the sides of notebooks. He loved to create stories and shared them on YouTube. After graduating college he took a job as a tutor, helping young animators with the same classes he had taken.

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Collide Short Film, Audience Comments from CHICAGO FEEDBACK Film Festival. Sept. 2019

COLLIDE, 10min., USA, Drama/Relationship

Directed by Ralph Klisiewicz

Sally comes home and starts talking with her boyfriend, Tim. Initially, she talks about having a baby. The conversations takes a turn and Sally begins describing her day. She talks about a car accident that she has witnessed. She reveals to Tim what an emotional impact the accident had on her. She saw a man “under the sheet, they were carrying him away” and how it could it have been Tim. However, there was no accident. The man under the sheet was a young, athletic, and charming Kevin.

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Enjoy? Short Film, Audience Comments from CHICAGO FEEDBACK Film Festival. Sept. 2019

ENJOY?, 3min., USA, Comedy/Parody

Directed by Dave

A dark comedy about the student debt bubble and the people behind it.

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Hope Is French Short Film, Audience Comments from CHICAGO FEEDBACK Film Festival. Sept. 2019

HOPE IS FRENCH, 15min., France, Comedy/Relationships

Directed by Christopher Mack

Ever have a bad hair day? Where you should’ve stayed in bed? In Paris, city of lights and rain, Polly, an American in Paris, struggles with clogged toilets, heartbreak, STDs, bad therapy, a handgun surprise, mastering the French subjunctive and the police. But there’s always Hope. The cat. But can even Hope survive?

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King Of The House Short Film, Audience Comments from CHICAGO FEEDBACK Film Festival. Sept. 2019

KING OF THE HOUSE, 11min., USA, Animation/Music

Directed by Zige Zhang

A delusional man lives alone in a small dark house, believing that he is the king of the world and his supremacy is secure. However, his sovereignty is shaken by the arrival of a stranger. Little by little, this intruder occupies his living space, forces him to face his inner fears, cowardice and inferiority. Eventually, he realizes the great king he conjured in his tiny kingdom, is nothing but a pitiful tramp to the rest of the world.

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Now And Not Yet Short Film, Audience Comments from CHICAGO FEEDBACK Film Festival. Sept. 2019

NOW AND NOT YET, 6min., USA, Drama/Crime

Directed by Daniel John Harris

A young man finds himself caught between an armed robber and a gun-carrying citizen.

CLICK HERE – and see full info and more pics of the film!