OCFF 2022 – Documentary Shorts

The 6th Annual Ocean City Film Festival, or OCFF, returns to in-person screenings at five venues throughout the resort town. The festival will showcase more than 100 independent films. Over 20 of those are films by filmmakers from the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia area. The majority of those are short films that are packaged together in blocks, according to their genre or thematic similarity. One of those blocks is the collection of films that are a part of the Documentary Shorts. These are films that are nonfiction narratives, shining a light on various people, places or ideas. Here is a list of what you’ll see:

The Artificial Revolution by Elyas Masrour. Masrour went to high school on Long Island, New York. He’s currently studying computer engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He’s made several short films about his interest in Earth science and animal conservation, as well as his Muslim background, culture and traditions. Here, he investigates the recent advancements in creative Artificial Intelligence to see if we’re approaching the end of art.

Breaking Vanilla by Hollis Rosenkranz. Rosenkranz is studying Motion Picture Production at Florida State University, College of Motion Picture Arts. Rosenkranz enjoys baking bread, training for triathlons, and finding stories in unusual places. Rosenkranz has written, directed, and produced 15 short films since 2015, including this one about the global shortage of the vanilla bean sending prices sky-high, as well as vanilla’s counterfeit chemical.

In Plain View, by Luis Palomino Benítez. We meet a blind man who plays the saxophone on a sidewalk in Bangkok. Ten meters away from him is a deaf-mute, homeless man who sniffs glue and sleeps all day. Through an impossible encounter between the two, instigated by the director of the film, secrets will unfold that will change their perspectives.

Organic by Egor Subbotin. Subbotin’s film is a short nature documentary that explores the vast alien world of aquatic fresh-water ecosystems, which are the most ancient, but also some of the most resilient on Earth. Subbotin’s film focuses on the ways of their survival and adaptation, as well as highlighting how fragile these aquatic worlds can be when the delicate climate balance is thrown off.

Generation Burnout by Lena Faeskorn. Faeskorn is from the Boston area where she was home-schooled. She is a photographer and filmmaker, having made this piece about students sharing their experiences from the pandemic.

Rowing for Gold by Alexis Patton. Patton graduated Magna Cum Laude from Princeton University with a Certificate in the Program of Theatre and Dance. She is currently an M.F.A. candidate in Film & TV Production at the University of Southern California where she has directed and produced six short films. Her documentary is about Ron Harvey, an M.I.T-trained aerospace engineer, who has been a champion rower both before and after a grave biking accident rendered him paraplegic.

The Long Shore by Tyler Ford. Ford takes us to the Chesapeake, from its beginnings during the nation’s settlement era to its evolution into a center of maritime life. Exploring the challenges faced by generations of people on the sea and how the Maritime Museum is both preserving and celebrating this piece of American culture and way of life.

Abundance by Colleen Thurston. Mitch Albright and Michelle Bowden are Quapaw Nation citizens who are leading their community’s food sovereignty initiatives. The Quapaws have reintroduced bison to the Southern Plains, established the first Native-run meat processing plant and are even remediating a super-fund site for seed saving purposes. Located in a food desert of Northeastern Oklahoma, the Quapaw Nation was able to provide over forty tons of local beef and bison products to the region when the global meat supply chain was drastically affected during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nice Guy by Devin L. Githara-Pipkin. An introspective 22-year-old male examines the negative African American male stereotypes seen in media while comparing himself to the one word that’s used in contrast to describe his own self identity.