The Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival has wrapped its 18th edition, after 10 days of compelling short film programming at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood, Calif. This year’s top prizewinning films, which are now eligible for Academy Award consideration in the short film categories, are Victor Gabriel’s Hallelujah (Grand Prix), Seemab Gul’s Sandstorm (Best Live Action) and Joseph Pierce’s Scale (Best Animation).
Adapted from the novella by Will Self, Scale is a 13-minute French, British, Belgian and Czech co-production, produced with rotoscope animation. Pierce also wrote the screenplay with Nicolas Pleskof; the cast features Sam Spruell, Zahra Ahmadi and Evelyn & Lila Neghabian Pierce. The short received a special screening at Cannes Critics Week and was selected for Annecy and the Guanajuato International Film Festival.
Driving along the motorway, Will loses his sense of scale. As his crippling drug addiction deepens, he struggles to unpick the sequence of events that led to his predicament, before he’s lost forever.
Scale was created with the support of French broadcaster Arte, receiving multiple CNC funds and production grants from around France. Paris studio Melocoton drove the project, produced by co-founder Hélène Mitjavile, with U.K. coproducer Chris Hees at Bridge Way Films (support from BFI), Jérémie Mazurek & Christophe Beaujean at Belgium’s Ozù Productions (support from FWB) and Jiri Konecky at Endorfilm in the Czech Republic (support from the Czech Film Centre).
You can find the HollyShorts 2022 animation competition lineup here.
