INDIANAPOLIS – The 2022 Indy Shorts International Film Festival (Indy Shorts) presented by Heartland Film announced its award winners and presented more than $30,000 in cash prizes at its Awards Ceremony which took place on Saturday, July 23 at Newfields. The Festival’s three Grand Prize-winning films “Ousmane” (Jorge Camarotti, Canada), “Stranger at the Gate” (Joshua Seftel, USA) and “Black Slide” (Uri Lotan, Israel/UK) will receive Academy Award® qualification in their respective categories and $5,000 in cash prizes. Recent 2022 Emmy nominee Colman Domingo (“Euphoria”) was honored with the Pioneering Spirit Award at the event. Domingo’s short films, “New Moon” and “NORTH STAR”, won Audience Choice awards in the Animated and Narrative categories, respectively.
Indy Shorts is one of only 34 festivals in the world to have earned the special designation of being a qualifying festival for the Annual Academy Awards for all three Short Film categories: Live Action, Documentary and Animation. The festival lives up to its carnival theme, “The Greatest Shorts on Earth” with a track record of nearly three dozen Academy Award nominations and nine Oscar wins by short films featured at Indy Shorts/HIFF.
With more than 3,200 submissions, 150 short films from 25 countries were officially selected for the six-day festival which included 14 World Premieres, 11 US Premieres, 53 Midwest Premieres and 50 Indiana Premieres. More than one hundred filmmakers came to Indianapolis for Q&As following their short films. This year’s Indy Shorts had a record number of attendees and more than 7,000 short films were streamed (roughly 65,000 minutes of virtual festival viewing).
Heartland Film will host the 31st Heartland International Film Festival in Indianapolis on October 6-16. More information can be found at www.HeartlandFilm.org.
