Classic Couple Academy

In I Like Movies socially inept 17-year-old cinephile, Lawrence Kweller is self-absorbed and movie-obsessed. Driven by his desire to attend film school at NYU, he gets a part-time job at Sequels video store, fully convinced he can earn $90,000 to meet his tuition needs. There Lawrence forms a friendship with the older store manager, Alana. […]

Award-winning cameraman Patrick Dykstra spends his life to traveling the globe, following and diving with whales. On one dive in Dominica, his close encounter with a female sperm whale changed his life. He named her Dolores and the two engaged in mutual study—her studying him as he studied her. Patrick and the Whale follows Patrick’s […]

Addiction is an all-encompassing force impacting the lives of the afflicted and everyone around them. Documentary film Our American Family provides an honest, unfiltered look at a close-knit Philadelphia family impacted by generational substance abuse. If you are a young person who is worried about your own substance abuse or a parent or teacher with […]

Two short films, official selections programmed for screenings at the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival August 11-20, 2022, highlight the work of authors who embrace their identities to teach others about what it’s like to be viewed as different in society. Each shares in their own words the importance of being true to one’s self and […]

Elsa Sjunneson is many things: professor and media critic, skilled fencer and hiker, published author and writer for Marvel Comics’ first Women of Marvel, Assassin’s Creed, and the Magic the Gathering universe. She’s also the first Deafblind winner of the Hugo Award and the Aurora Award. Through her disability and queer rights activist work, Elsa […]

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 […]