ShortFest Signals 5 ‘Oscar-Worthy’ Films

The 2022 Palm Springs International ShortFest has come to a close, but the excitement goes on looking at Oscar season. When Festival winners were announced on the fest’s Closing Night, five Academy Award® qualifying awards were presented to the winners. The winners were selected from the 300 short films that were part of the Official Selection and $25,000 in cash and prizes were awarded that evening.

The Award-Winning Shorts

Watch for these winners when Academy Award season nears, and remember you saw it at the 2022 Palm Springs International ShortFest first!

Sierra (Estonia), Directed by Sander Joon. A father and his son are losing the folkrace. In order to win, a boy turns himself into a car tire. Loosely inspired by the director’s childhood, Sierra pulls us into the surreal car racing world.

The Cave (South Korea), Directed by Kim Jinman, Chon Jiyoung. A boy longs for affection from his distant fisherman father. When he dies, the boy’s grief turns into an obsession with his father’s belongings. In an imaginary cave, he curses those relatives who took items of his late father’s. The curse begins to eat the boy’s soul…

The Sentence of Michael Thompson (USA), Directed by Kyle Thrash, Haley Elizabeth Anderson. Michael Thompson is the longest serving nonviolent offender in the history of Michigan. After 25 years, three appeals and two denied applications for clemency, it seems that Michael may finally have a chance at freedom.

Further and Further Away (Cambodia), Directed by Polen Ly. A young indigenous Bunong woman and her older brother spend one last day in their rural village in northeastern Cambodia, before an impending move to the capital city in search of a more prosperous life. While her brother is excited for the move, she feels a quiet desire to return to their long-gone village that was lost to the development of a nearby hydroelectric dam a few years earlier.

The Right Words (France), Directed by Adrian Moyse Dullin. Kenza, 15, and her little brother Madhi, 13, regularly humiliate one another. On the bus, Kenza puts her naive and romantic little brother to the test: profess his love for Jada, a girl that Madhi loves but who does not know he exists.

Photographs courtesy of Palm Springs International ShortFest