Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 9:30 PM

21 ISLANDS — 5th Anniversary Film Fest Highlights!

Bronx Film Wednesdays – Independent films you will love.

Pregones/PRTT’s 21 Islands International Short Film Festival celebrates its first benchmark 5th Anniversary starting April 14, and this edition of Bronx Film Wednesdays serves as a special tribute and teaser of what’s ahead!

Championing independent filmmakers since 2017, 21 Islands ISFF offers a kaleidoscope of the real and the imagined, bursting with memorable stories and characters, and plenty of visual pizzazz. Multi-genre and multi-style films from islands territories and island nations around the globe lend the festival both its expansive and uniquely focused character.

Orchestrated by filmmaker, producer, and curator Melisa Ramos, 21 Islands ISFF film groupings are the outcome of preview and deliberation by multidisciplinary artists, activists, scholars, audiences, and neighbors of diverse age and cultural heritage. Selected from thousands of multilingual submissions originating in hundreds of qualifying locations worldwide, our finalists compete for Festival Jury Prizes and Audience Choice Awards.

The festival invites viewers to experience and marvel at the world from the islander’s point of view. Underlying and recurring questions include: What are the particular and distinguishing features of island life and creativity? Are there cultural, philosophical, or aesthetic preoccupations shared by island artists and audiences? How do the histories of different islands from around the world resemble and contrast each other? What imprint can island life leave on film genre, style, and tone?

This BxFW program kicks off the festival’s 5th Anniversary with a choice selection of eight jury and audience favorites from prior years!

APRIL 7, 2021 at 9:30PM — Hosted by BronxNet’s Sonyi Lopez and featuring interviews with 21 Islands curator Melisa Ramos and Pregones/PRTT’s Artistic Director, Rosalba Rolón.

  • White. Director: David Moya. 2017. United Kingdom. 15 min. After dying of food poisoning in a cruise, a white man arrives at the Transition Centre Plus, where he is informed that he cannot be white in his next life.
  • We’re Going to Paris (Nos vamos pa’ París). Director: David Norris. 2019. Puerto Rico. 9 min. – An old married couple plan to rob a bank in order to save their house from foreclosure… and something else.
  • Sparrow. Director: Welby Ings. 2019. New Zealand. 15 min. – The lyrical story of a small boy who believes he can fly, his life overshadowed by the legend of his grandfather who died a hero in World War Two.
  • The Bathtub (La bañera). Director: Jonay García. 2019. Tenerife. 4 min. – To dive is not necessary to know how to swim. You sink into the water and that’s it.
  • Think Deep. Director: Peter Skovsbo. 2016. Montreal. 7 min. – Plotting his wife’s murder for the umpteenth time, Marc and Jodie learn the hard way that actions speak louder than words.
  • Baozha! Director: Jasper Liu. 2016. Singapore. 7 min. – A young guardian angel must overcome her gaming distractions to protect her mortal, a hapless old grandmother, from untimely death.
  • Old Habits. Director: Mary Musolino. 2019. Australia. 7 min. – A beach-side change-room becomes a confessional for two sisters who must choose whether to keep or end their respective marriages.

WAYS TO WATCH:

Pregones/PRTT
—Facebook Live: www.facebook.com/pregonesprtt
—Vimeo: www.vimeo.com/pregonesprtt

—YouTube: www.youtube.com/pregonesprtt

BronxNET TV
—Cable: 67 Optimum
—Cable: 2133 FIOS
—Web: www.bronxnet.org/watch/

Bronx Film Wednesdays (BxFW) screens new, little-seen, and standout indie films that you will love! Travel the world and open your mind to stories as wild and from as far as the imagination can go — romance, comedy, action, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, thriller, drama, music, sports, animation, documentary, and more! Carefully selected to illustrate cultural, aesthetic, and geographic diversity. This year, BxFW goes digital in partnership with BronxNet Community Television, bringing our monthly screenings online and to public access television!

More About The Artists – Click To Open

JONAY GARCÍA has a degree in Art History and highlights in his filmography include Sirope de fresa, El secreto, and Ayer empezó todo. With Digital 104, a production company he co-founded, he has directed the short films Veneno and Las otras camas, selected to more than fifty international festivals and winner of more than ten awards. He has been director of photography for the feature film Modernos. Avant-garde theater in the Canary Islands; head of production in the short film Como siempre; and assistant director in the short film Ridícula.

WELBY INGS is a Professor in Design at Auckland University of Technology. He is an elected Fellow of the British Royal Society of Arts, and a consultant to many international organisations on issues of creativity and learning. He is an award-winning designer, film-maker and playwright. His short films have been long-listed for the Oscars and selected in competition at over 50 international film festivals. Welby is also a long-time activist for LGBTQ rights. He was arrested numerous times during the 1980s law reform campaigns and he continues to advocate both in New Zealand and overseas for the rights of sexual minorities. In 2001 Welby was awarded the Prime Minister’s inaugural, Supreme Award for University Teaching Excellence and in 2013 the inaugural AUT University medal for his contributions to research, narrative design and education. Early in 2017 Welby published the best-selling non-fiction book Disobedient Teaching which resulted in substantial media coverage, and invitations to speak on the subject at numerous conferences and seminars in NZ and overseas.

RADHEYA JEGATHEVA is a Perth-based Australian filmmaker born in Johor, Malaysia, to parents of South Korean, Japanese, Indian, and Malaysian ancestry. He studied Commerce and Arts at Curtin University in Western Australia. Radheya’s films have been selected to 16 Academy Award Qualifying Festivals along with a nomination for the Australian Academy of Cinema & TV Arts (AACTA) Award, often described as Australia’s equivalent to the Oscars. Radheya’s films, which collectively have more than 900 official selections and 340 awards worldwide, have been played in all the world’s continents with the most difficult bastion breached when iRony played at Antarctica’s Davis Research Station.

DAVID MOYA pursued studies in Fiction Screenwriting at ESCAC (Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya). Over the years he has directed and edited short films, music videos, and commercials in Europe and Northern Africa for major clients such as BBC, Discovery Channel, The Telegraph, Disney Channel, Barclays, Jaguar, Top Gear, and Nissan, amongst others. His first short film, White, a comedy about white privilege, competed at the Brest European Short Film Festival (France) and the Purbek Film Festival (UK), among others. His short film The Silence surveys one of the darkest pages in Romanian history, the Pitesti Experiment.

MARY MUSOLINO is an Actor, Writer and Director living in Melbourne, Australia. She has worked both in front of and behind the camera on more than 30 short films. Mary has also featured as an actress in 3 feature films. Old Habits is her directorial debut.

DAVID NORRIS has a Master’s degree in Mass Media Writing from Sagrado Corazón University and has distinguished himself as a screenwriter and movie director. For the past fifteen years, David has worked in various facets of the world of communications and his six short films have had a positive impact on the local film scene. He is currently working on the development of his first feature film.

Our Esteemed Funders – Click To Open

Still frame from iRony by Radheya Jegatheva reproudced by courtesy of the artist.

Special thanks to our media broadcast partners at BronxNet Community Television.

This program is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Southwest Airlines is the official airline of Pregones/PRTT. For a full list of our funders, visit www.pregonesprtt.org.

Logos of funding agencies.

Event Details

  • Location

    ONLINE & CABLE TV:
    Facebook Live
    Vimeo
    YouTube
    BronxNet
    67 Optimum
    2133 FIOS

  • Date & Time

    APRIL 7, 2021
    9:30 PM Eastern

  • Bronx Film Wednesdays

    DIRECTORS:
    Jonay García
    Welby Ings
    Radheya Jegatheva
    Jasper Liu
    David Moya
    Mary Musolino
    David Norris
    Peter Skovsbo

    INTERVIEWS:
    Melisa Ramos
    Rosalba Rolón

    HOST:
    Sonyi Lopez