Miami Short Film Festival Celebrates 10 Years of ADD-Friendly Flicks

​The founders of the Miami Short Film Festival (MsFF) have a great idea for combating the over-prescription of attention deficit drugs like Ritalin and Adderall: instead of making attention spans longer, just make movies shorter! While this ingenious solution to one of America's pill popping problems does not seem to have taken off, the festival has still managed to survive and thrive, now for its tenth year running.

This year, the festival received more than 800 submissions from all over the world, including Japan, Australia, Iran, Sweden, South Korea, Mexico, Germany, and Venezuela. The festival's panel selected around 70 of these films for the competition. Lincoln Road's historic Colony Theatre will host screenings each night, starting at 7:30 p.m. from November 14th through 19th.

Highlights include God of Love, from American director Luke

Matheny, which will run Monday, the first night of the festival. The

night's theme is "The Glorious Crew," chosen for the highly decorated

films it will showcase. Winner of last year's Academy Award for Best

Short Film, this is the story of a lounge-singing darts player who longs

for love. His prayers are answered when he comes upon a batch of

love-inducing darts. 

I Wish Someone Was Waiting for Me,

from Iranian director Babak Amini, is among the shorts to run Tuesday,

the second night of the fest, themed "Our Secret Lives." It follows

Maryam, a 26-year-old woman taking care of an elderly woman, and also

having an affair with that woman's married young son. Things get real

when Maryam discovers she's three months pregnant with her lover's baby.

Night three, Wednesday, titled "The Latin Files," will showcase short film talents from Mexico and Venezuela. Corazon de Perro, or Perro's Heart,

is among the films playing. The short, from Mexican director Ismael

Nava Alejos, follows Silvano, a thirty-something year-old alcoholic, and

a young prostitute named Taibele. Their paths cross and their lives

take an exciting and dangerous turn, involving an opportunity, ambition,

and a gun. 

"Moments of Insanity" will ensue on Thursday, the fourth evening of the MSFF, including an animated short called The Birds Upstairs,

from American director Chris Jarvis. In it, unsuccessful attempts to

conceive frustrate an aristocratic avian couple in the early 1800s.

On

Friday, the final night of the festival, "Heroes" will take the screen.

One of the featured hero-centric films is an Italian flick called Il Rumore Della Neve from

director Andrea Marini. The film's motif is the consuming bustle of our

daily lives and how that noise can distract from what's truly

important.

The awards ceremony will take place

Saturday, November 19, starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Colony Theatre. An

after-party will follow at 10 p.m. at the Lincoln Courtyard.

All-access passes to the festival and its opening and closing night parties cost $85. Go here to buy, or write to [email protected].