An Interview with Gigi Saul Guerrero

Gigi, Co-Founder of Luchagore Productions, is a Mexican-Canadian dynamo-genius-horror maven with a bunch of shorts, feature anthology, and her most anticipated show “La Quinceañera” a Warner Brothers/Stage 13 mini-series under her belt as a director. She is also an actress, writer, editor, etc.  Recently has also worked in the video gaming industry and currently teaches film directing at VANCOUVER FILM SCHOOL in British Columbia, Canada.

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Goodnight, Gracie (2017)

As a little girl reads in bed, she hears an ominous noise from outside her room. Going to investigate leads to a nasty surprise.

Written and directed by Stellan Kendrick, Goodnight, Gracie is a short film that clocks in under 5 minutes, giving itself just enough time to create a story and shock just a little bit, then leave a quick and effective impression. The film manages to attain its goals in that short period of time. The writing and direction show careful writing of the story and a good grasp of suspense and shock. The way this short is built gives its story maximum effect through the set-up discovery, and ending. It shows that sometimes less is indeed more and that not all stories need a two-hour runtime to be effective.

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Father’s Day (2017)

A recently widowed father visits his daughters in Los Angeles for Father’s Day with the hopes of saving them from their tortured artists’ lives.

Written and directed by Betty Ouyang, this short film explores family relations between two artist sisters and their more down to Earth father through one meal together. The family dynamics on display here are interesting to watch develop as more information is revealed about each member. Ouyang takes this subject and makes it distinctly hers by putting herself in the lead as well as in the writing and directing style. Here the subject is taken head-on and shown through intimate conversations. The way she approaches each discussion, each interaction is honest and done in a manner that is up close and personal for the characters thus pulling the viewer into their lives.

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Top 10 Best Shorts of 2017 According to Emilie Black

2017 was a crazy year for film short and long.  I saw 880 feature length films and 131 short films.  Of those I chose my favorites have already been posted for the features here and here.  The shorts were harder for me to sort through so it took longer to get this out there for you all to read.  I decided to use shorts that were part of my festival coverage for the year so a few have creating dates before 2017 and I also decided to not include what I have seen online as those were too numerous.  So without any further ado, here are my top 10 Shorts Films for 2017:

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