17th Annual Dam Short Film Festival Goes Virtual

Launching February 11, 2021, the Dam Short Film Society is proudly taking the 17^th Annual Dam Short Film Festival online as a virtual event. Offering all the great qualities of past festivals – including excellent and diverse programming, filmmaker Q&As, and scheduled virtual events that give audiences and filmmakers the opportunity to mix, mingle and learn more about these original and unique stories from around the world. The 2021 Festival is COVID-friendly and more accessible than ever before. 

“Though we will not be physically together for our 17^th Annual Festival, we are excited to be able to stay true to our mission of making original, unusual and entertaining short films available to the general public,” said Lee Lanier, Dam Short Film Festival Founder and Director of Continuity. “What’s even more exciting, is that by going virtual, we can make these films accessible to even greater audiences.” 

Growing despite the pandemic, this year’s Dam Short Film Festival will premiere and screen more than 160 short films, broken down into 25 thematic 60- to 75-minute program blocks with categories including Animation, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Horror, International, Love & Romance, Music Videos, Nevada, Sci-Fi and Underground. It comes as no surprise that countless films with pandemic subject matter were submitted to the festival; however, only a handful of films were chosen to screen, with selections in the Comedy, Love & Romance, and Nevada categories.  

The Festival is also excited to showcase “Done With Those Days,” a music video from the popular Colorado band DeVotchKa; and the short films “All-In” starring iconic filmmaker and actor King Orba, “Doesn’t Fall Far” featuring Oscar-Nominated actor Eric Roberts, “A Piece of Cake” starring Rich Sommer, and “Ganef” with Sophie McShera from Downton Abbey. 

“Filmmaking continues to be an important and impactful art that we are honored to share with movie lovers,” said Tsvetelina Stefanova, Dam Short Film Festival Executive Director. “The Dam Short Film Society received more film submissions this year than any years past. The quality, passion and just pure fun of these films deserves to be shared and enjoyed. We’re excited that we were able to pivot and find a safe way for the Dam Short Film Festival audience to experience our festival. We also look forward to a time when we can all enjoy these films together, back in beautiful Boulder City, Nevada.”

Powered by Eventive, the Dam Short Film Festival’s virtual experience will offer viewers an on-demand screening experience, with tickets sold for entire households to enjoy rather than per person, like in years past. All-access household passes to the entire Festival are available for $100, while household tickets to individual program blocks can be purchased for $12 each. A full lineup of live-streaming events will be announced soon.

For more information and to purchase passes, visit damshortfilm.org; the full virtual Festival catalog can be found here. 

The Dam Short Film Festival ranks in the top 1% of more than 9,000 film festivals and contests worldwide, as per Film Freeway – the premiere platform for festivals and filmmakers. Earlier this year, the Las Vegas Review-Journal named the Festival Best of Las Vegas 2020 Bronze in the category of Best Arts & Culture Event. Throughout its 17 years, Dam Short Film Festival has screened more than 2,000 films – giving international filmmakers a platform to showcase their films, and audiences the access to these unique and original stories. Dam Short Film Festival was supported, in part, by the Nevada Arts Council, a state agency, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the state of Nevada. Funding to support this organization has been provided by Nevada Humanities through Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the CARES Act economic stabilization plan of 2020. 

About Dam Short Film Festival

Dam Short Film Festival, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, was founded in 2003 by Lee and Anita Lanier. The pair developed a love of short films while traveling to numerous film festivals in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Lee worked in film production and computer animation since 1989 and directed a half-dozen short films. In 2008, the festival moved to the historic Boulder Theatre. John LaBonney served as festival director from 2012 to 2019, expanding the scope of the event and reaching sell-out crowds. Today, the Dam Short Film Festival has become a traditional Southern Nevada cultural event that attracts thousands of visitors to Boulder City each February. The festival has welcomed scores of filmmakers from all over the world and has screened several thousand unique independent short films during its history. For more information visit damshortfilm.org; like on Facebook @damshortfilm; and follow on Twitter @damshortfilm and Instagram @damshortfilm.