Classic Couple Academy

Two short films, official selections programmed for screenings at the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival August 11-20, 2022, center on scenarios of control, and what happens when control is lost. Vastly different stories, Celebritas Ex Machina and The Censor of Dreams are comedic fantasies demonstrating the futility of trying to exert control over our lives. Celebritas […]

The Baldwin Archives short film potently reenacts segments of a 1963 BBC interview between famed author James Baldwin and BBC journalist Peter Duval Smith. Running 8:37minutes, The Baldwin Archives historical drama centers on a critical conversation about racism between Duval Smith as journalist provoking Baldwin as interviewee. Throughout, Baldwin commands his responses and elevates the […]

Twenty-four-year-old Glaswegian Sean Lionadh has established himself as powerful storyteller as poet, writer, musician and filmmaker. A trailblazer, Sean uses the alchemy of film and poetry to share intimate work, making notable social impact. His short film Time for Love, made for BBC, catapulted him onto the global stage as an artist exploring themes of […]

Two short films, official selections programmed for screenings at the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival August 11-20, 2022, highlight the impact of family ties on children moving into adulthood. Both demonstrate the pull of family obligations and the emotional dilemma of choosing to break free and define oneself as an individual. Vastly different, Only the Moon […]

Syndrome K recounts the incredible story of three courageous doctors working in a hospital in Rome during World War II. Fatebenefratelli Hospital, directly across the the Tiber River from Rome’s Jewish ghetto became a refuge for Jews. The hospital’s doctors invented a highly contagious and deadly disease they called Syndrome K. Isolated entire Jewish families […]

Let Me Be Me traces one family’s journey raising a child with autism in the mid-1990s, amid the backdrop of a medical community struggling to find ways beyond behavior modification and even institutionalization to help. Jenifer and Jeff Westphal’s middle child, Kyle, exhibited symptoms of autism at age three. His constant spinning and inability to […]

One Small Visit tells the incredible true story of immigrant Indian family the Abrahams, who unexpectedly pass through the Midwest hometown of Neil Armstrong in the wake of the ’69 moon landing. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the Abrahams experience unease from being racially different as they navigate small town America. […]

After decades apart, family bankruptcy reunites estranged and vastly different sisters facing their egomaniacal artist father’s terminal prognosis. Fiona lives the life of a conservative midwestern housewife as the direct product of her upbringing with their born-again Christian mother who reinvented herself after leaving her philandering artist husband. Freya, a talented artist in her own […]

Fifth-grader Savannah fears speaking in front of the class at school. Witnessing her mother’s strength, she steals her mother’s gold hoop earrings to wear on the day of her speech, believing in the magic of the hoops. Donning the hoops, Savannah transforms into a world of imagination, only to be brought back down to earth […]

American fashion designer Anne Klein famously said, “Clothes won’t change the world, the women who wear them will.” Flash forward almost 50 years, and fashion designer Amy Powney of cult label Mother of Pearl is doing just that. Raised off-the-grid in rural England by environmentalist parents, Amy always felt conflicted about the environmental impact of […]