Florida Film Festival showcases 10 Sunshine State shorts

Under the banner “Sunshine & Swampland,” 10 shorts by Florida filmmakers will screen this year at the Florida Film Festival.

A short can be the path to a bigger showcase at the event, now in its 28th year. After having five shorts in the festival, Orlando filmmaker Todd Thompson supplied this year's opening-night feature, “Woman in Motion,” a documentary about “Star Trek” actress Nichelle Nichols recruiting astronauts for NASA.

This year's shorts, which screen at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Regal Cinemas Winter Park Village 20, range from animation and documentary to intimate narratives.

Kathryn McCarthy, a 2018 University of Central Florida grad, wrote, directed and edited the nineminute “Nothing is a Thing.” She also plays Kat, who explores her feelings for pal Ben as they pack up her house and she prepares to leave.

“The film was made in Orlando on the days following Hurricane Irma,” said McCarthy, 22. “The film I submitted includes so much of what I love about Florida, mainly the sunrises.”

McCarthy attended the festival last year, watched the shorts and said she became “enamored” of the atmosphere. She is in preproduction on a feature she wrote and will direct.

Nikki Willson co-directed “That's It” with fellow Full Sail University grad Jimmie Roberts. In the sixminute story, a twentysomething woman seeks advice on losing her virginity from an eccentric aunt. The film won an audience award last year at the Brouhaha showcase.

“It was a wonderful shoot,” said Willson, 35, who also produced. “I teach producing and production management content at Full Sail, and we worked with a crew of my grads and students. We laughed a lot.”

Willson has placed shorts in the festival before as a producer, but never something she had co-directed and co-written. “This is a new and exciting opportunity for me,” she said, adding that she had attended the festival the past seven years. Roberts, 37, will be attending the festival for the first time as a filmmaker, having worked as a volunteer at the 2017 and 2018 events.

Roberts and Willson have their own production company, Shoot the Box Productions. They are working on a feature documentary and a narrative feature film.

“The Monarch Initiative” is a seven-minute celebration of sustainability and conservation in Audubon Park, the Orlando neighborhood. Director Colin Morris, 30, and producer Jacob Kaplan, 40, are staff members at Full Sail University's creative department.

“It was incredible to film inside businesses that I frequent and hear their stories of embracing sustainability,” Kaplan said. “Listening to the residents of Audubon Park share their stories and passion about helping to make their community a better place was truly inspiring.”

This will be the first time Morris has attended the festival. “I'm excited to be surrounded by other filmmakers and people who love storytelling,”

Florida Film Festival

■ What: The 10-day event offers its 28th edition.

■ When: Through Sunday.

■ Where: The Enzian Theater in Maitland and Regal Cinemas Winter Park Village 20. “Sunshine & Swampland: New Florida Shorts” will be at 2:30 p.m. today at Regal Cinemas.

■ Online: Details and prices at floridafilmfestival.com.

he said.

Karim Dakkon, a 2017 UCF grad, wrote and directed the animated, fiveminute “Hanging Bear.” A boy hunts a dangerous bear, lures the animal into a primitive snare trap and torments the creature.

“The boy's plan works at first until a sudden twist reveals the moral ambiguity of nature,” said Dakkon, 25.

The project took two years, and Dakkon said he worked on it every day, first while going to school and later while employed fulltime. “I love how it turned out, but I won't be doing anything like this again unless I have a crew,” he said.

Dakkon said attending the Florida Film Festival made a deep impression. “I was so moved and challenged by all the films, I immediately made it a goal to show one here,” he said. “It was actually the only festival I submitted to, and it is an honor to be a part of it. However, after being accepted, I decided to submit to more.”