The Mar to Apr 2022 edition of the Hollywood International Golden Age Festival is a monthly and annual international film festival based out of New York City. The festival started 2 years ago, and their vision is to embrace the filmmakers’ creativity with no institution imposed on how their art would look. Their festival welcomes “ALL” artists and are treated equally with the same degree of respect. These are a few select award-winning filmmakers for the Hollywood International Golden Age Festival Mar to April 2022 season highlighted in this article to watch in the film festival circuit.
EXTRA CREDIT – Category: Best COVID19 Short Film
Director: Angel Yau, United States
Angel Yau, founder of Asian American Thing and Director of ‘Extra Credit’, found her calling in life as an award-winning comedian, storyteller, and filmmaker from Queens, New York. Her latest short film is a light-hearted stop-motion story about her younger self and her journey growing up in academics. One stereotype known for Asian American’s is that they get good grades. However, Angel struggled in excelling in school. Her short film shows that not all Asians excel in school, and she personally felt it was hard to make friends, and not feeling special when she was young. Over time, the reflection of compassion, love, and support from others helped validate herself and made her realize as an adult, that she is special. Grades are only a number. Love is forever. And her story of her younger self conveyed that positive energy.
OMEGA – Category: Best Experimental Short
Director: Alberto Martín-Aragón, Spain
Director Alberto Martín-Aragón is known to be an experimental filmmaker and writer. ‘Omega’, his latest short film, has further established his legacy by winning the award for ‘Best Experimental Short’. The film is about a man and woman who are at an impasse of life and death as the world has been decimated by a nuclear war. The film is Spanish with English subtitles, filmed entirely in black and white. The story focuses on the discussions between a man and woman about their heavy thoughts on self-destruction as their way out of their suffering from the post-war apocalypse.
LOCKSTEP – Category: Best International Documentary
Director: Peter Andrew Sacco, Canada
Note: Trigger warning, strong sensitive content and controversial opinions and subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised.
‘Lockstep’ takes the literal definition and applies it to the opinions of experts about how individual freedoms have been robbed for decades “one step at a time”. The discussions focus on past and current events, such as World War II told by a Holocaust Survivor and the story of Canadian Indigenous children genocide told by Indigenous Leaders. COVID-19 and lockdowns were also a part of a discussion, where it was viewed as a good wake-up call for people who were set in their ways, without realizing the peoples’ rights and freedoms that everyone worked hard for were taken away from them by ‘world powers that be’.
WE ARE AVAILABLE – Category: Best Advertising
Director: Origo Studios, Hungary
Hungarian production company Origo Studios teamed up with a digital design brand agency, weareEnigma, to create their inaugural (and now award-winning in ‘Best Advertising’) campaign to showcase their ambitious and unorthodox branding for clients who are looking for their form advertising. The advertising short starts off in the typical brainstorming meeting, before all the visual effects come out of nowhere, from fast paced car chases to cowboys and Vikings. In only a minute-and-a-half, as it should be, this campaign really sells the idea that their agency is capable to help make a client’s brand stand out.
NIRVANA – Category: Best Music Video
Director: Amir Hossein Nouri, Iran
Amir Hossein Nouri is not only the Director of the ‘NIRVANA’ music video, but he is also the song writer and the singer of this very brilliant masterpiece of music. The Iranian musician has pulled out all the stops with his wonderful vocals packed with a very catchy kamancheh solo and techno-style beats, along with contemporary dancers in silhouette visual effects. The single camera setup was simple yet very effective in capitalizing on the video editing skills and music to carry the emotion throughout the song. For one man to utilize multiple skills in creating this video, Amir truly deserves the award for Best Music Video.
FOR I AM DEAD – Category: Best Short Cinematographer
Director: Patricia Delso Lucas, Belgium
‘For I Am Dead’ exemplifies the high quality and art style of cinematography, with photography done by Dominika Podczaska, and directed by Patricia Delso Lucas. The incredible costumes and set pieces shot in a beautiful mansion with effective lighting techniques sets the tone of the mid-1800s feel in Europe. The story of the film is about a wealthy but lonely middle-aged man named Oscar who confesses his love to his gardener before he passes away.
Director: Felix Williamson, Australia
Grey Nomads 2, winners of the ‘Best Web Series/TV Pilot’, focuses on episode 3, ‘Wine Country’. This episode about Bev and Don enjoying their quality time together, but have their plans altered to work with Ingrid, Ella, and Ernie by putting their problems aside to help put together a wedding for their son Stephen. The show focuses on the third stage of life, where characters are retired from their careers and are moving forward in removing any physical/mental weight that held them down from fully embracing the simplicities in enjoying life as a nomad. It is an interesting journey, with some added challenges to try to adapt and change their meanings of life.
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