Roster and/or sequence subject to change

BLACK SANTA
Director:  Travis Wood, 2022, USA, 10:00, Live-Action, Comedy
Black Santa follows Henry, who every year looks forward to his holiday job at the Arbor Place Mall in Georgia, working as a Santa alongside his son Otis. As Otis grows older, has he outgrown his role as Santa’s Elf? Will peer pressure make this their last holiday season as a duo?  Will his father’s words of wisdom overcome Otis’s reluctance to perpetuate a myth? Premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival;  Jury Award Nominee, Blackstar Film Festival.

Travis Wood is a director from Minneapolis, sometimes based in Brooklyn. His short films have been selected for multiple Staff Picks on Vimeo, SXSW film festival, True/False, Rooftop films, an NY EMMY award, and featured on NoBudge, Booooooom and Directors Notes. CWC viewers may recognize Travis from his 2020 short Affurmative Action, nominated for the SXSW Grand Jury Award. He is a current member of the Meerkat Media Artist Collective and part of the commercial directing team at Farm League. 

HE CUTS A TREE
Director: Bretton Miller, 2023, USA, 15:00, Live-Action, Drama
Shot in Cincinnati, He Cuts A Tree is a quiet picture about the realities of cutting down and putting up a Christmas tree.  It follows a lonesome man who visits a tree farm and cuts down a tree for Christmas in his home.  But there are unsuspected elements bubbling under the surface – more than just putting up lights and ornaments. 

This world premiere is the newest short from Cincinnati’s Devra Labs, helmed by Bretton Miller and Pierce Ryan.  The duo collaborates on short film selection and post-film discussion with CWC, and Hazy Shade of Winter is the third installment of the Shorts Spotlight Series at the Garfield.

DOWNTON ABBEY CHRISTMAS
Director: Unknown, 2014, UK, 4:30, Live-Action, Comedy
Here’s a humorous sketch from a short fundraiser for the UK charity Text Santa. Sadly both the charity and the original video are now extinct, but we are sharing our treasured copy!  Set at Downton Abbey during the holidays and featuring the original cast plus guest stars, the short parodies the somber and “proper” mien of the aristocracy. With an obvious parallel to Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, and Dean Martin crooning Let It Snow in the background, it offers a brief taste of nostalgia for DA fans and newbies alike.

An angel appears (Joanna Lumley, Absolutely Fabulous), showing Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonnevile) how terrible life would be if he had never been born.  Things are not going well. The downstairs staff is drinking heavily and playing strip poker.

Upstairs, Isobel (Penelope Wilton) is having an affair with Harry Selfridge (Jeremy Piven, Mr. Selfridge) while he offers racy undergarments to the ladies of Downton. The daughters are over the top, as usual, and Lord Grantham’s wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) ends up marrying the Most Honorable George Oceans Gravity, Marquess of Hollywood (George Clooney). Fortunately for loyal followers, the entire sketch is a dream sequence, with the series returning to more-or-less normal the following season.

SNOWSHOE
Director: Chris Wood, 2021, USA, 12:00, Comedy
Written, directed and starring Chris Wood (Supergirl, Masters of the Universe, The Vampire Diaries, The Flash, Mercy Street), Snowshoe is a one-take dark comedy about two brothers, one with mental illness, confronting personal issues in the most obtuse and backwards way possible. 

When Wood was in his early twenties, his father died due to an untreated mental health condition that resulted in psychotic symptoms.  Wood felt that his father couldn’t get the help he needed because of the lack of awareness surrounding his condition. Since then, Wood has become an active ambassador for mental health awareness and member of the Board of Directors for Mental Health America.

SNOWFLAKE
Director: Natalia Chernysheva, 2012, Russia, 5:44, Animation
In this beautiful, 2D animated short, a little African boy gets a letter. In it, he finds a snowflake made of paper and imagines his world filled with snow, ice and joy.

Now living in France, Natalia was born in 1984 in Sverdlovsk, Russia, She graduated from the Ural State Academy of Architecture and Art, majoring in graphics and animation and began her career as an animator, character designer and artist on several animated films. Snowflake was her debut as a director and the film won 17 international prizes, including best film by an emerging director at the Chicago Intl Children’s Film Festival and the audience award at the New York Intl Children’s Film Festival.

FUNNEL:
Director: Andre Hyland, 2013, USA, 7:00, Comedy
A Sundance Film Festival selection, shot in Cincinnati, starring and made by Cincinnatian Andre Hyland, who has the journey of a lifetime, as he brings a gas station funnel to his immobilized car. An unusual comedy about attention, ranting, and what comprises “a waste of time.”

GASMAN: 
Director: Lynne Ramsay, 1998, Scotland, 14:00, Drama
From legendary filmmaker Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, You Were Never Really Here, Morvern Callar), this story follows a man who leads a double life, and his daughter Lynne, an eight-year-old girl who, alongside her brother and two mysterious children, go with their Dad to a Christmas party. This classic short film has been acclaimed by many filmmakers as one of the great short films, notable through beautiful, subtle execution and the power of showing stories rather than just telling them.

RARE EXPORTS, INC:
Director: Jalmari Helander, 2003, Finland, 7:00, Comedy
The original short film that inspired the cult-classic Christmas dark comedy Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (shown several times at CWC), Rare Exports Inc. follows a trio of expert hunters who venture into the woods to track and capture rare and dangerous prey for the Christmas season. A subversive, clever mockumentary with a serious take on a deeply unserious premise.

LA NORIA:
Director: Carlos Baena, 2018, Spain/USA, 13:00, Drama
This is one of the most celebrated animated shorts in recent years, garnering 50+ festival awards. La Noria is an animated fable about a young boy who loves to draw and build ferris wheels. Suddenly, he encounters strange creatures that turn his life upside down. This short combines horror, incredible animation, and tear-jerking drama into a uniquely beautiful package.

Please welcome FSU film grads Bretton Miller and Pierce Ryan.  One of the nation’s top-twenty film programs, the FSU College of Motion Picutre Arts doesn’t stop with technical and creative proficiency. Equally important – especially for our viewers – CMPA graduates are exposed to the traditions of  world cinema from Kubrick to Kurosawa, plus have access to the program’s extensive film library and alumni network. Miller and Ryan have established a film making hub in Cincinnati — we look forward to seeing and sharing their work going forward.

BRETTON MILLER

Bretton has been involved in filmmaking since his early teens, exploring live-action shorts, documentaries, and animation. He graduated from Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts, with a BFA in Film Production specializing in directing.

He has had various roles in the production of forty short feature-length films, in front and behind the camera.  In addition, Bretton served as a screenings coordinator and film programmer while at Florida State. Currently, he is the co-founder of Devra Labs in Cincinnati which creates short films, commercials, music videos and feature films. His activities include directing, writing, editing, shooting and acting in Devra’s short films.

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PIERCE RYAN

Born and raised along the panhandle of North Florida, Pierce first discovered his interest in storytelling on a scout campout, retelling old Orson Welles radio broadcasts around a fire.

A graduate of the Florida State College of Motion Picture Arts and co-founder of Devra Labs, Pierce aims to continue his film education through independent film production in collaboration with artists he meets along the way. His activities include directing, writing, editing, shooting and acting in Devra’s short films.