St. Lawrence International Film Festival Announces April Official Selections For Sliff Online

Monthly Digital Online Competition Features Second Month of Short Masterpieces. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) April 10, 2017 - Canton, NY - St. Lawrence International Film Festival has announced its official selections for April, 2017 via the SLIFF Online format.

Now in its second month of online screenings, SLIFF Online has selected two short films for its April round of digital screenings. Both in the Sci-Fi genre, the films represent the best work in short filmmaking, selected from submissions from around the world.

From South Africa, "Tears in the Rain," directed by Christopher Grant Harvey, is set in the world of Phililp K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), which was adapted into the Sci-Fi classic film "Blade Runner" in 1982. Harvey's 11-minute fan film acts as a sort of prequel to the original "Blade Runner" set in a dystopian Los Angeles future, where genetically engineered humanoids are hunted by 'retirement engineers' when they start to display erratic behavior. Featuring Sean Cameron Michael and Russel Savadier, the film was co-written by Evan James Dembskey and produced by Andrew Eric Macdonald.

"Embers & Dust," written and directed by Patrick Biesemans, follows a boy in 1938 Concrete, Washington as the legendary radio broadcast of War of the Worlds set America on edge, believing the nation was under attack by Martian invaders. As the boy's rural town is plunged into a coincidental power outage, his imagination is sparked, sending him on his own kind of vision quest, deep into the neighboring forest.

"Embers & Dust" was the winner of Musicbed's Annual Film Fund Initiative and features Joel Nagle, Virginia Logan and Henry Gagliardi as the film's young protagonist, Gene. It's produced by Stephanie Cohen and Jeff Croghan.

Previous official selections include documentary "Between Us" directed by Brad Rothschild, web series "Popp Over America" directed by Joe Popp and March winner "Ici ou La-bas (Right Here or Over There)" directed by first-time filmmaker Pauline Mabille.

After a successful inaugural year in 2015 featuring guest of honor Dan Aykroyd with screenings on both sides of the US/Canada border, and a Gala event in 2016 held at SUNY Potsdam's Performing Arts Center honoring the indie zombie thriller "Here Alone", St. Lawrence International Film Festival shifts its focus this year to an online-only format highlighting short narrative, documentary and animated films, as well as web series pilots each month exclusively on the Festival's website www.stlawrencefilm.com

Online screenings begin the first of each month and run until the last day of the month. Submissions for the following month's screenings open the first of each month prior with entries permitted until the 20th of that month. Filmmakers can submit at www.filmfreeway.com/festival/stlawrencefilm or link to the submission site through the Festival website www.stlawrencefilm.com.

The objective of the new monthly online format is to celebrate and promote emerging and professional filmmakers with the greatest accessibility possible. Official Selections receive promotional laurels, promotion to the Festival's database and on social media. Winning projects each month will be featured on the Festival's Filmmakers to Watch page for the year and promoted to the Festival's list of entertainment industry influencers.

ABOUT St. Lawrence International Film Festival
Founded in 2015 with headquarters in Canton, NY, St. Lawrence International Film Festival is an online monthly world-class event established to showcase the best in new short films to a worldwide audience and the entertainment industry at large.
The 2017 St. Lawrence International Film Festival (SLIFF Online) seeks to provide filmmakers of short-format works exposure to a global audience and a highly curated list of entertainment industry decision-makers and influencers on a monthly basis. The Festival advisory board is lead by industry notables Sara E. Johnson (Oscar-winning Executive Producer of "Birdman" and "The Hunting Ground"), Mark Valley ("CSI"), Aaron Woolf ("King Corn, Peabody Award-winner), Drea Clark (Programmer Slamdance Film Festival & Los Angeles Film Festival), Gloria Campbell (Managing Director of the American Pavillion at Cannes), Lenore VanderZee, Carol Smith Pynchon, Brian Hauser (Co-Editor of The Journal of Short Film), and Bob Penski (Founder of Penski, Inc) and actor/writer Scott Alan Smith.

PRESS CONTACT:
info ( @ ) stlawrencefilm dot com

###

space

Other Related Press Releases