Upcoming HollyShorts Film Festival Lineup Features Strong LGBTQIA+ Titles

The HollyShorts Film Festival opens later this month, and, like last year, the lineup features a strong crop of LGBTQIA+ titles. The festival is an Oscar-qualifying stop on the road to the Academy Awards, so could one of these be in the conversation if it takes the festival’s top prize?

Below is the official press release along with images from Garbriela Ortega’s Beautiful and David Cornue’s Let It Kill You.

___________________________________________________

The LGBTQ+ community is growing and the 19th edition HollyShorts Film Festival is delighted to be a part of the increasing LGBTQ+ society with this year’s official selection including Gabriela Ortega’s BEAUTIFUL, FL, Logan Vaughn’s BENNY & JAMES and many more.

Some of this years exciting line up include, Emmie Lichtenberg COMPLICATED ORDER follows the story of Remy, a depressed twenty-something who’s just been dumped who accidentally places a food delivery order to her estranged girlfriend’s house, and must set out on a journey to retrieve it. David Cornue’s LET IT KILL YOU tells the tale of a disillusioned soldier who unearths an alleged enemy combatant from a tomb, he fights to prove the man’s innocence. Fiorella Vescovi Garcia’s MAL DE AMORES (LOVESICK) Natalia “Nat” Barbieri just discovered that her ex-girlfriend Tara is engaged to a douchey, rich, European playboy. Feeling lost and alone, Nat hooks up with Noel, a woman she meets at the bar, but it doesn’t help. Reluctantly, she knows exactly what will, a recovery meeting for other love-addicts like her. Niki Ang’s MAXINE which shares the story of Allie, a newly out teen who is keeping her girlfriend a secret from her Chinese American family. Alex Bush’s THAW follows two friends isolated in a remote farmhouse for the winter, where they enter into a game of roleplay.

Other’s amongst this incredible selection include Omri Laron’s MORE THAN FRIENDS takes an unexpected turn when a quirky lesbian mom discovers a love letter written by her 11-year-old son to another boy, she decides to take matters into her own hands. In Sofia Garza-Barba’s PECCADILLO we explore Lorenzo’s desire to explore his feminine side, which is a secret and according to his religious family, secrets belong to the devil. With a choice to make, he’ll either live a lie. A 15-year-old boy who comes out as gay must fight for his life when his parents react with otherworldly acceptance in Michael Schwartz SNATCHED. Jill Gutowitz THE LADIES we follow Emma who struggles to hide an affair with her grandma’s best friend from her grieving grandma and nosy cousin. In Tom Petty’s TICKER Howard drives his partner Joseph to hospital to undergo a high-risk operation, and the intimacy of the car sees the masculinity of their forty year relationship start to yield. An isolated young woman uses her vibrator compulsively — until it starts deforming her body in disturbing ways in Kara Strait’s VIBRATOR GIRL.

The annual Academy Awards-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival (HSFF) brings together top creators, industry leaders and companies and has launched many filmmakers into the next stages of their careers. HollyShorts, regular on MovieMaker Magazine’s “Top 50 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee list”, also engages its community and spotlights short films year-round through monthly screenings, panels, and networking events.