Founded in 2005 by longtime friends Daniel Sol and Theo Dumont who have known each other since high school in Miami. It was during a phone conversation that they decided Los Angeles needed a festival dedicated exclusively to short films.
They had almost no budget. Sol’s brother owned a tiny 40-seat venue called The Space Theatre in Hollywood, which they were able to rent for about $300 for the weekend. The screening equipment was improvised — a borrowed projector and a white sheet pinned to the wall—but the founders believed the films, not the production values of the venue, would attract filmmakers and audiences.
Their inaugural festival took place in August 2005, screening 23 short films from countries including the United States, Canada, Poland, the United Kingdom, Thailand, and India. Even that first edition featured filmmaker discussions and industry Q&A sessions, establishing a tradition of connecting emerging filmmakers with working professionals. By the second festival in 2006, HollyShorts had moved to a larger Hollywood venue, Cinespace, and had expanded to 53 films representing more than a dozen countries. Over the subsequent years, the festival outgrew its locations before eventually establishing itself at the Hollywood TCL Chinese Theatres, one of the world’s most recognizable cinema landmarks.
Today, HollyShorts is recognized as one of the world’s leading Academy Awards®-qualifying festivals for short films. It has become a launching pad for filmmakers seeking Oscar and BAFTA recognition and now operates year-round through screenings, educational programs, screenplay competitions, and international editions in London and Dubai.
What started with two friends, a tiny theater, and a shoestring budget has evolved into one of the mot influential showcases for short-form filmmaking in the world — a reminder that today’s unknown filmmaker may become tomorrow’s Academy Award winner.
the wordreview Editor Gregg W. Morris