Hosted by Cape Town festival manager Sean Drummond, the Shnit Short Film Festival celebrated the closing of its 2013 festival at an exclusive Soho loft in New York City.
Winners of the Shnit Open International Competition as well as filmmakers who received the international theatrical Audience Award and the Festival Award were in attendance and received Flaming Faun trophies along with a $22,000 (R220,000) cash prize.
The international jury included, among others, Asger Hussain (Precious, The Paperboy), US-based filmmaker Kelly Nyks (Legally Blonde, Split: A Divided America), acclaimed South African actress Moshidi Motshegwa (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Wild at Heart) and Durban International Film Festival manager Peter Machen.
Cape Town’s festival and offering of local films attracted significant attention from Shnit’s international audience this year. The Realtime Competition, which involved creating a short film from script to screen in 72 hours, resulted in Alasdair McCulloch, head of Realtime, looking to expand the competition to participating cities in South and Central America.
Shnit is proudly supported in Cape Town by the Cape Film Commission, the National Film and Video Foundation and the National Lottery Distribution Fund (through new partner the Cape Town International Film Festival).
Out of a selection of 6,729 short film entries from 141 countries, the winners are:
• Jury Award Category up to 10 min: Happily Ever After by Yonni Aroussi and Ben Genislaw from Israel
• Jury Award Category up to 20 min: Nashorn Im Galopp (Rhino Full Throttle) by Erik Schmitt from Germany
• Jury Award Category up to 40 min: Great by Andreas Henn from Germany
• Audience Award International Competition: La Prima Legge Di Newton (Newton’s First Law) by Piero Messina from Italy
• Festival Award International Competition: Dit is Ronald (This is Ronald) by Jules Comes from Germany
