To enter AVALONIA FESTIVAL 8, click the blue button here or look up “Avalonia Festival of Short Films etc” on filmfreeway!

We had a great turnout today for Avalonia Festival VII, an intelligent, enthusiastic, and even rambunctious packed house joined us!

Here are some videos from the event! Thanks to LionShare CoWork and ALL those who were able to attend!

Actress & Model Naira Agvani Zakaryan captured this year’s cover image to support Avalonia Festival creator Mike Messier’s first novel A Distance from Avalon – when the dying and the dead reunite, which is the “origin story” of Avalonia Festival. (To enjoy Naira’s acting and Mike’s writing and direction, experience The Impeccable.)

A Distance from Avalon also features cover art by Avalonia Award-Winning filmmaker Nazar Germanov.

Yes! Avalonia Festival VIII is now open for entries! Click here to enter!

To enter AVALONIA FESTIVAL 8, click the blue button here or look up “Avalonia Festival of Short Films etc” on filmfreeway!

Special thanks to our returning Judge Kazuya Ashizawa for his great dedication, talents, and service to our festival once again!

LIVE EVENT INFO:

Avalonia Festival of Short Films etc. VII Live Event was at LionShare CoWork Auditorium, where we returned for our second straight year on November 5, 2022, from 1pm – 4pm.

This was a FREE EVENT, with casual attire encouraged, for filmmakers, cast & crew, fans & family, and members of the general public that are curious about independent filmmaking and art.

LionShare CoWork at Harbour Village

13475 Atlantic Blvd. Unit 8

Jacksonville, FL 32225

Light refreshments (and delicious pizza) were served. Attending filmmakers participated in a brief Q & A about their projects.

We are planning to return to LionShare CoWork for Avalonia Festival 8 Live Event on Saturday, November 4, 2023 from 1pm to 4pm.

All Avalonia filmmakers and their guests are invited to attend, however, due to our financially independent status and low entry costs, the festival itself cannot provide any travel or accommodation funds. Please use your best discretion and judgment in deciding whether to attend our Live Event; we personally feel it will be worth a “long drive” but perhaps not an expensive air flight! (Save your resources to make more movies!)

For those who can’t join us in person, we will, as is our custom, share many photos & videos from the Live Event right here!

STATISTICS: Avalonia Festival VII had a total of 375 entries (our second-largest amount of entries after Avalonia Festival V). From those 375 entries, we selected 77 Avalonia Festival VII Award–Winning projects.

Why are ALL the projects in Avalonia Festival Award Winners?

Every year, we get asked about our unique selection system so we’ve decided to explain it at length here. We only feature our yearly Avalonia Award Winners as “selected” works in our festival. While this may seem simple enough to understand, we realize this is a bit non-traditional. Furthermore, we realize that as an International Festival, many nuances of the English language may differ for people in different parts of our world. As we look to bring people together through Art, not to further divide them, we wish for our process to be fully understood.

Unlike most festivals, we do not select or nominate many films but then only name a chosen few as award-winners at the Live Event. Our festival creator Mike Messier believes that the traditional way of doing things can cause unnecessary suspense and even a tinge of anxiety for attending filmmakers at a Live Film Festival event. Mike wants attending filmmakers to be at ease and enjoy themselves without having to worry about “will we win?”

If your project is in our festival, it is an Avalonia Award Winner because we only feature our Award Winners in our festival. We do not feature projects that have not won an Award from us. This is not to disrespect or devalue the many great projects that don’t win an Award from us every year but rather to “streamline” our system and in the aforementioned respect for our Live Event atmosphere.

There is certainly more than one way to run a competition, however, we feel that our system best services both our filmmakers and our judges.

Our system may be unique but we like it. We hope you do too (or at least can tolerate it).

We also feature our Avalonia Award Winners, at the discretion of their respective creators, right here on our website for the enjoyment of the world. Look at our previous festival pages to enjoy our Avalonia Festival heritage and legacy as well as Avalonia Photography Competition.

Some have asked us why we don’t feature “LGBTQIA+”, “female”, or “student” film categories. The answer is that we encourage everyone to enter ANY and ALL of our competitive categories that they feel their project is appropriate for. We have proudly had several High School and college/university students win Avalonia Awards many times. Several LGBTQIA+ artists and LGBTQIA+ themed projects have won Avalonia Awards over the course of our seven seasons. Although nobody is keeping an official count, our festival creator estimates that about fifty-five percent of Avalonia Award Winning projects have come from female filmmakers.

As you will notice, we do not label any project as being “2nd Place”, “an Honorable Mention”, or even a “nominee”. Once again, only Avalonia Award-Winning projects are showcased at Avalonia Festival.

Simply put… Win and you’re in!

AVALONIA FESTIVAL of Short Films etc. VII Avalonia Award-Winning Projects

* A few projects have won Awards different than the categories they were initially entered into, at the discretion of Avalonia Festival.

* Avalonia Award Winners, if you’d like us to add or modify your project’s representation on this webpage, please email us at avaloniafestival@yahoo.com with the subject line: Seven.

* Short = 21 minutes & Under, 180 = 3 minutes & Under, 1 Minute Movie = 60 seconds or less

Award/ Title of Project/ Director (unless otherwise noted)/ Country of Origin

Best Fantasy Short/ My Mom Wants to Kill Me/ Shuojia Chen/ USA

Joe Jafo Carriere Fun and Music Award/ Guru$$/ Chris Johnson, Erik Passoja/ USA

Best Music Video/Musical Short/”D-Up (Here’s To Diversity)”/ Freeworld & Richard Cushing/ USA

Best Music Video/Musical 180/Stubborn Breathing Heart/ Artist Forest Sun, Director Scott Steiner/USA

Best Music Video/Musical 1-Minute Movie/ Don’t Give Up/ Diane Kaufman/ USA

Best Family/Children’s Short/ Twitch/ Sarah Horn/ USA

Best Comedy 1-Minute Movie/ Bomb Defusing for the Abducted Adolescent: An Instructional Demonstration/ Thomas Robert Brandt/ USA

Best Florida 180/ Infinite/ Peter Tedone & Benjamin Bryant/ USA

Best Jax 180/ The Candles Are Wilting/ Craig Pedroza/ USA

Best Pandemic Survival Short / The Beyond/ Daniel Maurer/ Switzerland

Best Pandemic Survival 180/ (PAUSE)/ Marcelo Ignacio Lagreze/ Chile

enter password (pause) to watch Pause below

https://vimeo.com/614547151

Best Pandemic 1-Minute Movie/ PANDEMIC/ Direk Bee/ Philippines

Best Behind-the-scenes/The Nightlings – In Focus/David Van Der Like, Chad Sanders/USA

Best Dark Comedy 1-Minute Movie/ She Doesn’t Like Pizza/ Matt McKisson/USA

Best Experimental Short/ Metaphysical Reclamations / Mary Flanagan / USA

Best Experimental 1-Minute Movie/ October Eleventh/ Damian Gonzalez, Jeremy Weinstein/ USA

Best Experimental 180/ un·fixed still life of Dolly S. Dalí… /Jennifer Scully-Thurston/ USA

Best Dance & Movement Short/ a quiet con·triv·ance – a dance film/ Jennifer Scully-Thurston/ USA

Best Actor/Actress/Performer Reel – Showreel – Andrea Rose Sandell – United Kingdom

Best Romance or Romantic Comedy 180/ Sensuous/ Joseph Allen Wedge/ USA

Best Romance or Romantic Comedy Short/ Chamomile/ Jonghyeon Han/ Republic Of Korea

Best Horror 180/ Un-Mirrored/ Leonidas Stanescu/ Singapore

Best Jacksonville Short Film/ Genre/ Royce Freeman/ USA

Best New England Dramatic Short/ Sisyphus/ David Graziano/ USA

Best Dramatic Short/ Masterclass: The Patrice Gaines Story/ Chiquita Lockley/ USA

Best Dramatic 180/ Milk/ Ponne Thrift/ USA

Best Dramatic 1-Minute Movie/ Sheep/ Dmitry Dias/ Latvia

Best Fantasy 180/ Alter Demo/ Thibault Castan Boissy/ France

Best Comedy Short/ Kaijuburbia!/ Bailey Oliver, Nathan Henry/ USA

Best Comedy 180/ Gary/ Andrew Hawtrey/ USA

Best Environmental Documentary Short/ Manatee Rescue – The Last Stand of a Florida Treasure/ Shannon Malone-deBenedictis/ USA

Best film noir Short/ Private/ Steve Blackwood/ USA

Best Holiday Short Film/ Santa Doesn’t Need Your Help/ Kevin Maher, Joe Dator/ USA

Best Holiday 180/ Mr. Box & Boogy’s Jingle Bells Song Parody/ Al Diaz, Javi Diaz, Tash Boyden/ USA

Best Holiday 180/ Holy Tradition/ Ian Paul Johnston/ Canada

Best Environmental Documentary 180/ Jing-im jylli, jong ki dkar (Life Cycle of Turtles)/ Dr. Satyakam Phukan/ India

Our Best Environmental Doc 180 Award Winner can be viewed and/or downloaded from this link https://disk.yandex.com/i/Ozht6yI7Nm6OcA

Best Environmental Documentary 1-Minute Movie/ The Unfulfilled Closet/ Donna Winnett Guthrie/ USA

Special Judge Kazuya Recognition/ Call of Nature/ Donal O’Dea/ Ireland

Best Documentary Short/ The Hard Knock Life/ Eric Trosch/ USA

Best Documentary 180/ Land of Excellence/ Jérémy Lifart/ France

Best Documentary 1-Minute Movie/ The Next Pandemic in One Minute/ Sheila Gail ORourke/ USA

Best ThoughtCrime 180/ Unmasked/ Ray Downs/ USA

Best Dark Comedy Short/ A Special Dinner/ Haley Pine, Brendan Egan/ USA

Best Dark Comedy 180/ Suicide Assistance Hotline/ Jacob Quanbeck/ USA

Best Animation Short/ My Grumpy Grandpa/ Komi Messan Anthony/ Togo

Best Animation 180/ Chick Wash/ Bethany de Forest/ Netherlands

Best Animation 1-Minute Movie/ Nightmares/ Deb Ethier/ Canada

Best Web-Series Drama /No Way Out/Frank Raybuck, Shannan Raybuck, Marc Alan Solomon/ USA

Best Web-Series Comedy/ Daddy Issues/ Ortal Odelia Biener/ Israel

Best One Actress Short Film/ Drawing Blank/ Director George Nicholas, Actress Eliza Bonev/ USA

Best One Actor Short Film/ Music Box/ Kyle Cyr / USA

Best Teaser/Trailer Coming Attraction Award/ Bezmorye (Teaser)/ Yura Seleznev/ Russian Federation

Best Mobile 1-Minute Movie/ Be like the bug/ Carmelo G. Puglisi/ Italy

Best One Actress or Actor 180/ Option 2/ Director Connor Young, Actress & Writer Lucy Forrest/ United Kingdom

Experimental 180/ Infinite/ Directed by Peter Tedone, produced by Benjamin Bryant/ USA

Best Florida Short Film/ It’s Sunny Outside/ Michael Robert Kessler/ USA

Best Horror Short Film/ A Knocking In The Woods/ Zachary Debedout/ USA

Best Mobile Short Film/ Zombie Resurrection/ Brad Prime/ USA

Best Florida 1-Minute Movie/ Sara/ Rebecca Jimenez/ USA

Best Mobile 180/ I MET FELLINI!/ Domenico Saverni/ Italy

Best Science-Fiction Short/ House of the Unholy/ Daniel Merlot/ USA

Best Iranian Short Film (Award formerly known as Iranian Film of the Year) / Attila/ Omid Shenavar/ Iran

Best Iranian 180/ Dagger of Words/ Zahra Bagheri/ Iran

Best Iranian 1-Minute Movie/ For A Better Life/ Reza Golchin/ Iran

One Actor or Actress 1-Minute Movie or Monologue/ One Last Thing/ Logan Busbee/ USA

Best Vampire Short/ And Now the Bacon/ Director- Christian Schönleitner, Writer- Daniel Limmer/ Austria

Best ThoughtCrime Short/ Garbage People: Trash Conspiracies + Trash Carnival/ Brit Tobin/ USA

Best Canine/Dog Short Film/ Where’s the Bitch?/ Sarah Hendry/ USA

Best Horror 1-Minute Movie/ You Have My Blessing/ Hisham Iyad Hajir/ USA

Best Performance Art 1-Minute Movie/ The Cocoon Thread/ Ivo Reis and Vanessa Fernandes/ Portugal

Best Movie Poster/ Just Like Water/ Manos Triantafillakis/ Greece

Best Performance Art Short/ Bound/ Sera Milavetz/ USA

Advertisement 180/ A Weekend at Holly’s – Red Band Trailer/ Aidan Sherlock/ United Kingdom

Best Florida Horror Short/ Villain/ David Borges/ Puerto Rico & USA

Best International 1-Minute Advertisement/ Get Your Game On/ Evgeniy Tametskiy/ Kazakhstan

Best USA 1-Minute Advertisement/ Port of Pensacola Stakeholders/ Travis Patterson &
David Van Der Like/ USA

Best Behind-the-scenes Photo/ Where Your Treasure Is BTS/ Jake Moore/ USA

Best True Crime Short/ Vanished in Ohio/ Tatalovic, B. R., Ochwat, Deborah/USA

Yes, we are now accepting submissions for Avalonia Festival 8!