Introducing our Short Circuit 2024 Programmers & Screeners

 

Introducing the Programmers for our 2024 Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival coming up May 2-5 in Victoria / Lək̓ʷəŋən Territory / BC / Canada!

Eva Grant is an Indigenous/Eurasian filmmaker and programmer from the St’at’imc Nation. She is a Sundance Native Lab fellow and a former Vancouver Queer Film Festival Programming Disruptor Fellow and an AGO x RBC emerging artist-in-residence. Eva was an associate producer on Madison Thomas’ Emmy-winning documentary Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry it On, the writer/director of Forest Echoes, the co-writer of CBC’s This Place, the creator of the upcoming heist series Degrees of Separation, as well as a guest director on the Francophone TV show Couleurs du Nord. She studied philosophy and literature at Stanford University.

Iván Reina Ortiz is a Colombian filmmaker and programmer, and director/producer of the documentaries The Squatters of The Devil’s House and autoethnography. In 2020 they co-curated and produced “Más Allá del Trabajo – Beyond Work, Labour Film Festival” for the Cinematheque of Bogotá, and they were invited as guest curator for OutFest’s The OutMuseum with the short film programme “Queer workers of the world, unite!” They currently work at Cinematheque of Bogotá as Programming Coordinator.

And they’re joined by our Screeners for this year — a wonderful group of filmmakers, programmers, and festival alumni.

Local folks reviewing international submissions are:

Dannie Wang was born in Shanghai, China, and has more than 10 years of experience in journalism and a career engaged rich explorations of nonfiction writing. She has co-written feature film scripts adapted from her nonfiction stories in China as she endeavoured to bridge the gap between nonfiction and fiction storytelling. She completed the screenwriting program at Vancouver Film School in 2022, and has started to produce student short films as her career transition. She is currently in the Intercultural and International Communication program at Royal Roads University.

Michael Korican is a prolific filmmaker with over 60 short films and passionate about telling stories through movies. He has been associated with CineVic’s Short Circuit Pacific Rim Short Film Festival since 2013. In 2005, he was on the jury of the Festival of Forbidden Fruit along with Passia Pandora and Stan Fox. He organized the Toronto Film Now and Film Can screening series at the Bloor Cinema between 1985 and 1987, and founded the St. John’s Ciné Club in Brussels, Belgium, in 1975. He loves a good rom-com and is currently watching a lot of K-dramas on Netflix.

Sina Moazenizadeh is the visionary founder of Helz Pictures Inc. He embarked on his filmmaking journey in Montreal, transitioning from a producer assistant to an assistant location manager in Vancouver. Over the past two years, his talent in creative direction and producing has been evident through award-winning works like Chaos Theory: Decades and The Minute I Was Born, recognized at film festivals including the Whistler Film Festival and Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival. These accomplishments were fuelled by multiple grants from Creative BC, supporting impactful music videos and showcasing Sina’s dedication to pushing artistic boundaries. A graduate of Capilano University’s Documentary Filmmaking program, Sina holds an MS in Industrial Engineering and a BM from Tehran Music Conservatory.

International folks reviewing local/BC submissions are:

Madi Stine is an award-winning writer/director based in Los Angeles. Her short films have screened at festivals including Palm Springs ShortFest, and Nantucket Film Festival. A feature script of hers recently won the Harvardwood Writers Competition. Her short mermaid film Out of Water was an award winner at the 2023 Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival, she’s a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia’s Film MFA program, and she has volunteered at Vancouver International Film Festival.

Nicholas Riini has worked in the film industry for 20 years in technical departments and currently as a Gaffer, on everything from music videos to television and feature films in New Zealand and abroad, from Wellington Paranormal to The New Legend of Monkey, King Kong to Ghost in the Shell. His on-set experience has provided a front-row seat to many storytelling and directing styles, and Nicholas has written and directed several award-winning short films with more in development. He has been a judge for international script writing competitions and the International Youth Silent Film Festival, and his short film A Morning with Aroha screened at the 2022 Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival.

Stephani Gordon is an award winning cinematographer and producer with 15 years experience in documentary filmmaking. Before becoming a filmmaker, she was a marine field biologist, living and working in remote locations around the Pacific. Stephani has filmed for National Geographic, NOAA, National Park Service, Smithsonian, BBC, Conservation International, US Fish and Wildlife, PBS, and others. Her short films have received international recognition and awards, playing for the United Nations, the Office of the U.S. President, IUCN World Parks Congress, film festivals around the world, and in remote villages of island nations. She has a love of all things wild and of helping people tell their stories. Her short documentaries My Haggan Dream and Vala North screened at the 2017 and 2021 Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival, she has judged for Jackson Wild Film Summit for several years, and she currently works for Oregon Public Broadcasting and runs Open Boat Films in Portland, Oregon.

🎬 Submit your film at filmfreeway.com/ShortCircuit