Shorts Night

RUDA

Written & Directed by Maria Victoria Ponce

Logline: Stuck indoors, instead of battling imaginary villains, adventurous Aurora must help her grandmother, the local curandera, ease the pains and ailments of neighbors and family. Only when she herself needs some healing does she recognize the real superhero.

Writer/DirectorMaria Victoria Ponce:
Originally from Michoacán, Mexico, Maria Victoria Ponce is a San Francisco Bay Area film director/writer who grew up in Richmond, California. She appreciates the complexity in the routine lives within poor and working class neighborhoods, and themes of sexuality and coming of age tend to recur in her work. Ponce is a fellow at Cine Qua Non Lab, NALIP Latino Media Market, and Latino Screenwriting Project, and an artist resident at SFFILM Film House. She was selected as one of five finalists for Tribeca/AT&T Untold Stories 2019. Her script Washing Elena is currently on the Black List’s inaugural Latinx List, a curated collection of the most promising scripts about the Latino experience, written by, for, and about the Latinx community. Washing Elena was selected as a fellow for Film Independent’s Fast Track and was just awarded the SFFILM Rainin Grant in development.

Ponce’s short films have played at Festival Internacional de Dine de Morelia, Urbanworld, Femme Frontera, San Diego Latino Film Festival, CineFestival San Antonio, Boston International Latino Film Festival, Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, HBO/New York International Latino Film Festival, and Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival. She directed and produced the documentary Engage Her, interviewing civil rights leaders Dolores Huerta, Aileen Hernandez, and Voto Latino founder María Teresa Kumar.

RING

Written & Directed by India Dupre

Logline: A video doorbell spies on a new couple across the hall as their relationship takes a dark turn.

Writer/DirectorIndia Dupre:
India Dupre is an English/Australian filmmaker and performer who received her B.A. magna cum laude from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. Her debut short film as writer/director, Stripped, won the audience award at EIFF and collected numerous laurels globally. Stripped was shot by Academy Award-nominated D.P. Dean Cundey (Jurassic Park) and starred actress Katheryn Winnick (“Vikings,” “Big Sky”).

She recently won the Australia’s Writers Guild and Audible Originals On-Air Podcast Competition and is currently working on a podcast based on her childhood fleeing the Australian government. After shadowing director Breck Eisner on the set of “The Expanse” (Amazon) and completing the directing lab with Sundance Co//ab, she is currently prepping her first feature.

www.indiadupre.com

KAMA'ĀINA (CHILD OF THE LAND

Written & Directed by Kimi Howl Lee

Logline: A queer sixteen-year-old girl, Mahina, must navigate life on the streets, until she eventually finds refuge at the Pu’uhonua o Wai’anae—Hawai’i’s largest organized homeless encampment.

Writer/DirectorKimi Howl Lee:
Kimi Howl Lee is a biracial writer and director from New York City, and a graduate of Stanford University’s Film and Media Studies program. Lee began her career as a Story Editor curating short-form content for Snapchat Inc., before transitioning full time to filmmaking. In addition to writing for television, Lee’s award-winning short films SUGAR and KAMA’ĀINA have traveled the film festival circuit internationally, and have premiered on Nowness, The Future of Film is Female, Short of the Week, and Vimeo Staff Pick, among others. Lee was a participant in FilmIndependent’s 2019 Episodic Lab, the 2020 Breaking Through the Lens Directors Fellowship, and WIF’s multi-hyphenate program. She has a television project in development with Hulu, and is currently slated to direct her debut feature, NIGHTSHADE, which she also wrote. Lee is currently repped by UTA and Kaplan Perrone.

PREPARED

Co-Directed by Shandrea Evans & Erika Kelley

Logline: A low confidence sales clerk is hopelessly in love with a frequent customer, and in dire need of a confidence boost, which she finds through the guidance of a popular self-help book.

Co-Director Shandrea Evans:
Shandrea Evans is a writer-actor-filmmaker from Augusta, VGA. As a graduate of the University of Georgia with conservative business and communications degrees, she continued playing it safe, working in compliance at NBCUniversal. In 2107, she pursued filmmaking full time, starting over as a humble P.A. and enlisting in writing classes. Evans eventually worked her way up to producer, collaborating with companies like Nike, Google, and Viacom in scripted and unscripted content. While working across mediums, Evans solidified her goals and filmmaking sensibilities as a storyteller.

Evans intentionally explores the nuances, heart, and humor of marginalized folk—particularly Black women. Her work aims to subvert stereotypes by reclaiming narratives and humanity to show the fullness of Black life. With a cynically optimistic POV, Evans’ sweet spot is character-driven dramedy. She enjoys using her cheeky, irreverent tone to follow quirky outcasts who struggle to come into their own.

In 2019, Evans’ dedication to her craft began to bear fruit. She was invited as a shadowing director on season four of HBO’s “Insecure” under showrunner-director Prentice Penny. She was a 2020 WIF INSIGHT Fellow and mentee in the WIF Mentoring Program for actor-content creators. Evans is currently a 2021 mentee in the Unlock Her Potential Mentorship Program. Her body of work includes her web series “Undecided,” short films, and original pilots.

Co-Director Erika Kelley:
Erika Kelley is a writer and director from Houston, Texas and a graduate of Johns Hopkins University where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Film and Media Studies. While Kelley’s background is in experimental film, she enjoys incorporating the art into reality by playing with mixed media on screen. Her desire to write a story that is playful at heart, yet reveals a necessary message, is the inspiration behind her work. After spending four years as a producer on HGTV’s “House Hunters Renovation,” Kelley made the transition to scripted content where she worked as a showrunner’s assistant on BET’s “Boomerang” and “Twenties,” served as the director’s assistant on “A Black Lady Sketch Show.” Kelley recently wrapped as the writer’s assistant on season two of “Twenties” and the BET+ series “Birth of Cool.” Her short, PREPARED, is a love letter to any woman who has ever benefited from a good self-help book!

YOU

Written & Directed by Jess Carson

Logline: Renee isn’t having the best day. In fact, she’s probably having the worst f&#@ing day ever.

Writer/Director Jess Carson:
Jess Carson is a Los Angeles-based Black writer/director who made her way into filmmaking in her hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. In 2016, she decided to branch out to hone her skills in more saturated markets—first by way of Brooklyn, NY, where she was hired to write an Off-Broadway musical, Only Human, starring Gary Busey, and then settling in Los Angeles, CA in 2018. Her work spans genres and her focus is on well-rounded, character-driven narratives that resonate with audiences of all demographics as well as those that put society under a lens via undertones of social commentary. Currently, Carson is working on a wide range of projects. She is a staff writer on The CW’s “The Flash,” where she was the first Black woman to write an episode of the hit series. She is also actively developing a gritty, original limited series, “Dead Red,” with Echo Lake Entertainment producing. She was included on Tracking Board’s 2019 Young and Hungry list. Carson is represented by Kegan Schell, Lauren Williams, and Chris Davis at Echo Lake Entertainment.

STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Written & Directed by Jalena Keane-Lee

Logline: STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS follows Native Hawaiian mother-daughter activists as they stand to protect their sacred mountain Mauna Kea from the building of the world’s largest telescope.

Writer/Director Jalena Keane-Lee:
Jalena Keane-Lee (director, cinematographer, producer) is a filmmaker who explores intergenerational trauma and healing through an intersectional lens. Named one of Paper magazine’s top five Asian creators to know, Keane-Lee’s work subverts traditional narratives about the female, Asian American Pacific Islander experience. She’s currently directing her first feature-length film, STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS, which follows Native Hawaiian mother-daughter activists and has been supported by Pacific Islanders in Communication, Nia Tero, CNN Films, and Points North Institute. Her short film by the same name screened at New Orleans Film Festival, NFFTY, and Allied Media Conference. Standing Above the Clouds won Best Short Documentary at L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival, Special Jury Mention from the Center for Asian American Media, and is playing on the Criterion Collection. Keane-Lee co-founded Breaktide Productions, an all women of color production company, has produced commercial series for Nike and Facebook, hosted the national environmental television show “Eco Company,” and won Tribeca Through Her Lens 2020. She’s also been an AAJA, NeXt Doc, and Jacob Burns Film Center Fellow.

HARANA (SERENADE)

Written & Directed by Marie Jamora

Logline: In 1995 Las Vegas, a homesick cover band singer writes an original song to connect with her daughter who is growing up in the Philippines without her.

Writer/Director Marie Jamora:
Marie Jamora is a writer-director-musician named one of Five Visionary Asian-American Female Filmmakers in Kore Magazine‘s ‘New Hollywood’ issue. She is the executive producer and director of “Family Style,” an Asian food and pop culture series with Justin Lin’s YOMYOMF and Warner Bros./Stage 13. Her first feature film, WHAT ISN’T THERE, premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival, and her short film, FLIP THE RECORD, screened at over thirty festivals worldwide and won the Grand Jury Awards for Best Narrative Short at Urbanworld and the St. Louis International Film Festival.

She began her career directing music videos during the golden age of the Philippine rock scene, and her stories often explore the rhythms of youth through music. After graduating from Columbia University with an M.F.A. in Film, she returned to Manila where she directed commercials and television for over a decade. She was the showrunner of the first season of “Project Runway Philippines” and a university professor who mentored a new generation of filmmakers.

As a champion of Philippine films, and to foster the new movement of Filipinx filmmakers in los Angeles, she founded Cinema Sala, a screening series and workshop for Filipino and Filipino-American artists from the film and performing arts industries. Community partners of Cinema Sala include Visual Communications, AFI Fest, and ARRAY.

Jamora is the first Filipina director to be accepted into AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, where she finished her latest short film, HARANA. She recently immigrated to the U.S. and is now based in Los Angeles.