Victor Gabriel’s “Hallelujah,” Seemab Gul’s “Mulaqat/Sandstorm,” and Joseph Pierce’s “Scale” have all won top prizes at the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival, which presented its awards Saturday afternoon in Hollywood, thus qualifying for this year’s Academy Awards.
“Hallelujah” won the Grand Prix for best short film at the festival, “Mulaqat/Sandstorm” took honors for best live-action short film, and “Scale” won best animated short. HollyShorts is an Oscar-qualifying festival in the short film categories, and the winners of those three awards are automatically entered into the Oscar race.
The award for “Hallelujah” was presented via video by the winners of this year’s Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film, “The Long Goodbye” filmmakers Riz Ahmed and Aniel Karia. Oscar winners for the 2018 live-action short film “Skin,” Jamie Ray Newman and Guy Nattiv, presented awards to “Mulaqat/Sandstorm” and best director winner Carlos Segundo (“Sideral”), respectively.
Other winners included Ben Proudfoot, who won this year’s Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film for “The Basketball Queen,” and who took home the HollyShorts award for his new documentary, “Mink!”
The 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival took place August 11-20 in person at the TCL Chinese 6 Theaters in Hollywood and virtually on the Bitfix streaming platform.
This is the full list of winners:
OSCAR Qualifying Grand Prix Best Short Film : “Hallelujah”, Victor Gabriel
Best OSCAR Qualifying Live Action: “Mulaqat/Sandstorm”, Seemab Gul
Best OSCAR Qualifying Animation: “Scale”, Joseph Pierce
Best Director: Sidereal, Carlos Segundo
Best Action: “My Heart Begins”, Kelsey Bollig
Best Comedy: “All I Ever Wanted” Erin Lau
Best Costume Design: “Sauerdogs”, Carmen Granell
Best Drama: “Like the ones I used to know”, Annie St-Pierre
Best Documentary: “Mink!”, Ben Proudfoot
Best edit: “The Machine” Rowan McKay
Best Female Screenplay presented by BeCine: “Last Ship East”, Eris Qian
Best Horror: Moshari, Nuhash Humayun
Best International: “The voice actress”, Anna J. Takayama
Latinx Award presented by Viacom International Studios: “Footprint”, Gabriela Ortega
Best LGBTQIA+: “North Star”, PJ Palmer starring Colman Domingo
Best Midnight Craze: “Nostalgic”, Will Seefried
Best Music Video: “Consensual”, Jeff Hilliard and Joey Danger
Best Producer: Hallelujah Duran Jones
SAG Independent Winner: “My Jerome”, Adjani Salmon
Hawk Films Screenplay Award: “Mina Finds Her Edge!”, Robin Rose Singer
Best Science Fiction: Waltz of the Angels, Braden Barton
Script Compass Screenplay Award: “In the garden of tulips”, Ava Lalezarzadeh
Best Take on Kodak Film: “North Pole”, Marija Apcevska
Kodak filming in Super 8MM: “The Deerwood Death Trap”, James P. Gannon
Kodak Shot on Film Honorable Mention: “Not the 80s”, Marleen Valien
Social Impact Award: “A stranger at the door”, Joshua Seftel
Best Student Film: “The Visit”, Ebele Tate
Best suspense novel: “Wild Bitch”, Rebekka Johnson and Kate Nash
Best TV: “A Question of Service”, Erin Brown Thomas
Best television script: Forsyth County, James Sasser
best visual effects: “Black Dragon” (“Rồng đen”)
best web series: “Kura”, Vince McMillan
Women in Film Award: “Apart, together”, Olivia Hang Zhou
ZEISS Presents: Hollyshorts Film Festival Achievement in Film and Cinematography: “Dream Censor”, Khalib Mohtaseb
ZEISS Presents: HollyShorts Film Festival Achievement in Film and Cinematographyand: Nancy Schreiber
