box[ur]shorts™ Film Festival is proud to name writer/director Shunji Iwai, Sony executive Stacey Kalish and film critic Erik Childress among the judges for the upcoming 4th film festival competition. The jury panel also includes Michael DelVecchio, last year's winner of the box[ur]shorts™ Audience Choice Award, and two audience groups from Switzerland and Indonesia.
“I love comedies and yes, the festival competition has proven to be on the funny side when it comes down to the type of movies we show. There is however a diverse line up of films in the 2010 festival competition ranging from animation to documentaries to dramas and I can't wait to find out what films the jury will choose to be finalists,” says festival director Giacun Caduff.
The jury panel of the 4th box[ur]shorts™ Film Festival includes...
Shunji Iwai - Writer/Director
Shunji Iwai was born in Japan, and graduated from Yokohama National University in 1987. He immediately started his career by directing music videos and music-oriented cable television programs. He vigorously wrote and directed numerous TV dramas, video clips and commercial films, establishing a reputation for his distinctive visual style known as “Iwai Aesthetics.” In 1993, he was awarded Best Newcomer by the Japanese Director's Association, before making his debut as a feature film director with Love Letter. In 1998, Iwai directed April Story, a beautiful, loose picture often compared to the magic of a freehand sketch. He went on to bring his interactive novel, All About Lily Chou-Chou, to the big screen, which earned international acclaim and was awarded the C.I.C.A.E. Panorama Prize at the 52nd Berlin International Film Festival. Iwai served as a juror in the World Cinema category of the 24th Sundance Film Festival in 2008. In the spring of that year, he filmed one of the stories in the anthology film New York, I Love You, starring Orlando Bloom and Christina Ricci. To date, he has written 19 and directed 16 films.
Stacey Kalish - Producer
Stacey Kalish is a studio executive at Sony Pictures Entertainment. After being a researcher for the author, Malcolm Gladwell and a freelance journalist in New York (whose reviews and articles appeared in publications like The New Yorker, Time Out, Moving Pictures, Psychology Today, Huffington Post, Sydney Morning Herald and more), she moved to Los Angeles to work for the chairman of the studio before joining the Columbia Pictures creative group.
Erik Childress - Movie Critc
Childress attended Columbia College Chicago and got his start as a film critic on the Jonathon Brandmeier show back in 1998. Erik Childress has been writing for the website, eFilmCritic.com, since 2000 where he provides regular weekly reviews, his annual “The Oscar Eye” and “Criticwatch” features as well as cover the film festival circuit from Sundance to South by Southwest to CineVegas to Toronto. He is also a regular weekly guest with Nick Digilio on Chicago’s WGN Radio where they cover the new movies and provide live reports from the various festivals and is currently the Vice President of the Chicago Film Critics Association. At eFilmCritic.com you can catch his weekly feature, The Ben Lyons Quote of the Week, in an attempt to restore some integrity back into film criticism.
Michael DelVecchio - box[ur]shorts Audience Award Winner (2008)
Born in a small town on Long Island, Michael DelVecchio began filmmaking after seeing "Jurassic Park". He wrote his first feature length screenplay when he was 14, and went on to study at Hofstra University in New York and Cal State Long Beach, Steven Spielberg's Alma mater. He worked at DreamWorks in the effects department on the 2006 animated feature "Flushed Away" while directing a short film based on the crash of TWA Flight 800, a compelling true story about a plane that went down off the coast of New York (winner of the box[ur]shorts™ Audience Choice Award). Currently, DelVecchio is developing a feature length version of the film and is also writing and directing a movie for David McKenna of American History X.
Ratih, Anna, Riri & Tomas Geiger from Bali, Indonesia
Team Nuqu consist of Anna Nuryani, Riri Septine, Ratih Purnama and also features the notorious Bali tour-guide Tomas Geiger. Besides watching movies in their leisure time, Anna and Riri enjoy travelling and cooking. Ratih likes to sing and write. And Tomas, when not guiding tourists around Bali, plays chess and guitar. They go to the local cinema or watch movies on their computers which 'quote' have "a wonderful sound system". Suh-weeet!
Nadine, Bianca, Anna, Mio & Daniel from Basel, Switzerland
In the probably most awesome shared flat in Basel with outlook on the Rhein river lives our 2nd Audience Jury group. Meet Nadine and Bianca, two young social workers; the watchmaker Daniel; design student Annatina; and Mio, a visionary architect from Japan. Besides frequent shindigs at their apartment and out in the town they frequently go to the movies and enjoy anything from Hollywood blockbusters to art films. Attention box[ur]shorts filmmakers, you are in for a treat with this highly qualified audience jury!
Winners in this year’s contest will be commemorated at the New Beverly Cinema on January 9th, 2010, where the top three winners will be awarded their undie trophies in addition to the box[ur]shorts™ Audience Choice Award and the Best Student Film Award. The festival will award winners win over $6,000 worth of prizes sponsored by Showbiz Software, Avid, Fuji Film and the Write Brothers, to name a few.
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