Year: 2025

FEMALE Festival Best Scene: HACKED BY LOVE, by Rosemary Lokhorst

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A major Esports event is in full swing, with a dynamic A.
I host partnering with a legendary player. When the massive prize
money is threatened by a bomb threat, the event begins to descend
into chaos; forcing the resident A. I and a star player team up with
the F.B.I. to unravel the conspiracy.

CAST LIST:

Narrator: Hannah Ehman
Male Voice: Sean Ballantyne
Classy Woman: Val Cole

POETRY Reading: Krispy Kreme by Derrick J. Johnson

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Performed by Val Cole:
—-
POEM:

Where are my Krispy Kremes?
Did someone take them away?
Hot and fresh and slowly glazed,
I must embrace the great sensation.

Where are my Krispy Kremes?
For I’ve watched they as they were made.
Jelly filled, chocolate covered, or Bavarian crème,
The variety of a great sensation.

I’ve done the math enough to know,
That the calories will,
Clog my arteries and expand my waist,
But I care not,
For I must embrace the great sensation.

Where are my Krispy Kremes?
For they are what I crave,
Who’s at fault?
Who’s to blame?
Just because I don’t have them,
Doesn’t mean that I’ll settle for…
Bakery pastries or cinnamon buns,
Fried apple pies made in haste,
Or Dunkin Donuts,
With their bland taste.
Must keep it together,
And find my doughnuts,
To rediscover the great sensation.

I must have my doughnuts,
I don’t care if I have coffee or milk,
Open twenty-four hours a day,
It must be a dream,
The promise land of temptation…

I want my Krispy Kremes.
I want my Krispy Kremes!
I want my Krispy Kremes!!
I want my Krispy Kremes!!!

I WANT MY KRISPY KREMES!!!
5/23/05

Movie Review: The Planet That Doesn’t Exist. Animation/Sci-Fi short from Israel (watch film)

festreviews Movie Review, Short Film Movie Review

This is the tragic and emotional story of a young scientist, Professor of Astronomy Star l’Etoile, who did not have time to make her most significant discovery in life due to her untimely death. This story is symbolic because the author of this comic, Navy Bird, died without ever seeing her main book, “Arlekino & Pirrot,” published. She had been working on it for the last two years. She was killed at the age of 24.

Project Links

Review by Julie C. Sheppard:

A gripping sci-fi animation short, The Planet That Doesn’t Exist, combines a character study with profound existential musings about mortality. The credits inform the viewer that the project is sponsored by the “Mom of Navy Bird”. We discover that Navy Bird is a comic character created by her daughter, a brilliant young woman. You sense the admiration the mother has for her, in this lovingly created project.

The animation depicts her as sensitive and, perhaps, a classic science-focused introvert. The voice over artist does a superb job providing the character with a delicate balance of both quiet confidence and at, at times, deep insecurity regarding the validity of her calculations and the potential discovery of a new planet. This central voice is suitably amplified as if coming from a rather nervous mission controller. A ghostly echoey voice of death is also chillingly effective.

In addition to the emotional richness of the main character, the CGI-generated celestial imagery is breathtakingly beautiful, as the actual solar system. Another stunning component is the soundtrack with tinkling strains, and intense rumblings of an outer space echo chamber. Scenes of the “undiscovered country” of a massive outer space are perfect for this luminous short, in order to consider the bigger questions of the mysteries of science, life, and life after death.

  • Nadav Embon – Director
  • Navy Bird Revital Bronshtein – Writer

Watch film here