Forgive Us Our Debts
Dir: Howard L. GATO Mitchell
Oregon Independent Film Festival Premiere
The telephone keeps ringing while a terrified 14-year-old African American boy, growing up in a rapidly gentrified neighborhood, hides foreclosure notices from his family. Soon, his worse fears are realized when police Officers G. Zimmerman and D. Wilson, arrive with a Land Developer from the bank to remove the young boy, his angry dad, and his Grandmother from their home.
Starring: Starring Jason Putnam & Jacques Allison.
BEST DRAMA
The Boy with the Sombrero
Dir: Constantine 'Tino' Konstin
Oregon Premiere
A boy and his mother are walking the city streets together running errands when a mysterious sombrero wearing entity holding a guitar appears before him.
The boy so scared wants to go back home and decides to sleep with his parents for the night. Before he closes his eyes to sleep, he hears a translucent melody guiding him out of the room, and the boy becomes "face to face" with the "boy with the sombrero".
BEST HORROR FILM
Background Noise
Dir: Robert Brooks
Oregon Independent Film Festival Premiere
A college sitcom falls apart as its cast struggles to tell the difference between who they are and who the show wants them to be.
Background Noise depicts issues that are present in every day life in a surreal setting that shows how every issue and every person that enters into a persons life is just 'background noise' to other, deeper issues within themselves.
BEST DIRECTOR
BEST ACTOR - William Igbokwe
Brightside
Dir: Julia Levanne
World Premiere
Nikola (played by Lea Lawrence) is a Filipina college student dealing with her suicidal father, while combating her own depression.
She struggles to get help due to her cultural expectations of respect for family and family privacy. Nikola must navigate the confusing waves of her emotions while trying not to bring shame to her family.
Clear Creek
Dir: Raymond Hill
Oregon Independent Festival Selection
In the late stages of the Wild West, a priest meets an old gunslinger in the woods.
Upon learning that the gunslinger is hunting a man, the priest is initially critical of the gunslinger and his motives.
However, when they encounter the outlaw face-to-face, things go awry, forcing the priest to make a mortal decision that redefines his perception of innocence.