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International
Short-Film Competition
In Rounds 1 and 2, the pool of
applicants will be narrowed to 20 Semifinalists,
and then to 10 Finalists. In Round 3, the 1st,
2nd, and 3rd Place Winners will be selected.
Stephen
Root | Keiko
Agena | Cirroc
Lofton
Sayed
Badreya | Ty
Burr | Safa
Sadeghpour
Aaron
Howland | Seth
Howland
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Judges: Round 3
(More Judges Coming Soon!)
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Stephen
Root
Dodgeball
(Actor)
Office
Space (Actor)
From
the Earth to the Moon (Actor)
King
of the Hill (Actor)
Born in Sarasota,
FL, Root majored in acting and broadcasting at the
University of Florida, but left before graduating
when he won a regional audition for the National
Shakespeare Company. After three years of touring
with the troupe, Root settled in New York. His Broadway
debut came in So
Long on Lonely Street, which was followed
by the Tony
Award-winning All
My Sons. A starring role in the Broadway
national tour of Driving Miss Daisy
brought Root to Los Angeles.
For five years, Stephen
Root starred as Jimmy James in NBC's
NewsRadio.
Mike Judge cast Root in the animated Fox
series King
of the Hill, and later as Milton Waddams
in the film Office
Space. Since then, Root and his character
Milton have become cult heroes. Root's other work
includes roles in Dodgeball,
From
the Earth to the Moon, The
West Wing, and Finding
Nemo. He is currently shooting Mad
Money with Queen Latifah and Diane Keaton.
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Keiko
Agena
Gilmore
Girls (Actress)
Kim
Possible (Actress)
Western
Avenue (Actress)
Keiko Agena began
acting at the age of ten. In 1993, she made her first
television appearance, on the popular show Renegade,
and then followed up with appearances of shows such
as ER;
Beverly
Hills, 90210; Felicity,
and Without
a Trace.
From 2000 to 2007,
Agena played Lane Kim on the critically acclaimed
show Gilmore
Girls, while also making regular appearances
on the Disney
animated series Kim
Possible. In addition to television work,
Agena has also appeared in several independent short
films, including Western
Avenue, in which she starred opposite
John
Cho (Harold
& Kumar Go to White Castle).
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Cirroc
Lofton
Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine (Actor)
The
Hoop Life (Actor)
The
Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks (Actor)
Born in Los Angeles,
Lofton entered the acting arena at the age of nine.
Lofton is known best for his work as Jake Sisko in
Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine, the son of Captain
Ben Sisko, and the youngest regular cast member of
any Star Trek series.
Lofton also played
Curtis Thorpe, a young basketball phenom, in the acclaimed
Showtime
series The
Hoop Life. He also had a recurring role
on the ABC
series Invasion,
and will appear in the upcoming film, The
Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks.
Lofton resides in
Los Angeles, is currently recording an album, and
recently was cast in the independent feature Ball
Don't Lie.
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Sayed
Badreya
Shallow
Hal (Actor)
The
Insider (Actor)
AmericanEast
(Writer, Actor)
T
for Terrorist (Producer, Actor)
The Egyptian-born
filmmaker Sayed Badreya realized a childhood dream
when he won roles as an actor in major Hollywood films
such as The
Insider, Three
Kings, Independence
Day, and Stargate.
Growing up in poverty in Port Said, his dreams of
movie stardom looked as bleak as the prospect of peace
in the Middle East. Movies were his escape from the
Six Day War in 1967 through the Yom Kippur War in
1973. It was at this point that Sayed knew he was
destined to be a part of the film world.
Sayed attended New
York University film school, and then moved
to Hollywood to pursue his film career. He worked
as an assistant to actor-director Anthony
Perkins and worked closely with director James
Cameron on True
Lies. Sayed later founded the production
company Zoom
In Focus, and produced and starred in T
for Terrorist, which won Best Short
Film at Boston
International Film Festival. He also wrote
and stars in the upcoming film AmericanEast.
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Ty
Burr
The
Boston Globe (Film Critic)
The
Best Old Movies for Families (Author)
Ty Burr is a film
critic for The
Boston Globe, a position he has held since
July 2002. For ten years prior to that, he worked
for Entertainment
Weekly as the magazine's chief video critic,
and also covered film, music, theater, books, and
the internet. He began his career at HBO
in the 1980s, where he helped program the Cinemax
pay-cable service.
Burr's latest book, The
Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching
Together, was published by Anchor
Books in February, 2007. Burr has also written
articles on film and other subjects for The
New York Times, Spin,
The
Boston Phoenix, and other publications.
He is a member of the National
Society of Film Critics and the Boston
Society of Film Critics.
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Judges: Rounds 1 & 2
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Aaron
Howland
The
Albino Code (Director, Editor, Composer)
Interrogation
(Producer, Editor)
Aaron Howland co-founded
7
Fluid Oz. Productions LLP in 2001. In 2006,
he directed the critically acclaimed short film The
Albino Code and produced the feature film
Interrogation
(currently in distribution talks). In 2003, he produced
the award-winning short film Jack
Milton: Fairy Tale Detective. In addition,
his work has been screened at festivals across the
US, released on DVD, and featured on CNN,
MSNBC,
and Inside
Edition.
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Seth
Howland
The
Albino Code (Producer)
Interrogation
(Producer)
Seth Howland co-founded
7
Fluid Oz. Productions LLP in 2001. In 2006,
he produced both the critically acclaimed short film
The
Albino Code and the feature film Interrogation
(currently in distribution talks). In 2003, he produced
the award-winning short film Jack
Milton: Fairy Tale Detective. In addition,
his work has been screened at festivals across the
US, released on DVD, and featured on CNN,
MSNBC,
and Inside
Edition.
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South
Park (Writer, Actress)
So
Graham Norton (Writer)
Smack
the Pony (Writer)
Bussmann's
Holiday (Writer, Actress)
Jane Bussmann began
her career at 19, with a column for Britain’s
Guardian newspaper. At 22, the
BBC hired her to produce topical jokes
for their radio presenters. She later wrote for the
hit British sketch series Smack
The Pony, which won two International
Emmys.
In 2001, Bussmann
was a writer for the controversial British Brass
Eye Special. A satire about the media’s
coverage of pedophilia, the show led to calls for
new censorship regulation. Tony Blair was "dismayed"
by the comedy. It was nominated for a BAFTA
and a Royal
Television Society Award.
Bussmann's live comedy,
Bussmann's
Holiday, recently premiered at The
Comedy Store in Los Angeles, followed by sell-out
runs at Manhattan's 59e59
Theater and at England's Around
the Fringes festival and Britdoc
Festival. Bussmann has also written for both
South
Park and So
Graham Norton.
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Mystery
Science Theater 3000 (Writer, Actor)
Freaks
and Geeks (Actor)
America's
Funniest Home Videos (Writer)
People
Traps (Writer, Producer)
For seven years,
Trace Beaulieu worked as a writer and actor, playing
both Crow T. Robot and Dr. Clayton Forrester, on the
cult-classic television show Mystery
Science Theater 3000. After the seventh
season ended, Beaulieu reprised his roles as writer
and actor on Mystery
Science Theater 3000: The Movie.
Since then, Beaulieu
has written for America's Funniest Home Videos, appeared
as a regular in the sitcom Freaks and Geeks, and appeared
in the 2001 "Bad Moon Rising" episode of
The
West Wing. In addition, Beaulieu wrote
and produced a pilot entitled People
Traps for the cable network Animal
Planet, and wrote the script for the comic
book Here
Come the Big People, published by Event
Comics.
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Harold
& Kumar Go to White Castle (Actress)
This
Is Wonderland (Actress)
The
Best Years (Actress)
Kata
Practice (Writer, Producer, Director)
Siu is best known
to Canadian audiences as “Nancy Dao," the
feisty articling student turned criminal defense lawyer
in three seasons of This
is Wonderland (CBC).
She is best known to American audiences as "Cindy
Kim" in Harold
& Kumar go to White Castle. Other
film/tv credits include The
Art of Woo (CFC
Feature Film Project) and Leap
Years (Showtime).
Siu won a Best Actress award at the Hart
House Film Festival for her work in God’s
Goodness. Recently Siu played "Cynthia
Song" in six episodes of The
Best Years, a new TV series that will
broadcast on The
N in the States and Global
Television in Canada.
On stage Siu has appeared in Soap Opera
(Art in a Cup), Story of a Comfort Girl
(Alumnae
New Ideas), and Jishin (Danger
Girl Productions). Last spring, she also appeared
in the world premier of Hana's Suitcase
at the Lorraine
Kimsa Theatre for Young People.
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South
Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (Actress)
South
Park (Actress, Musician)
Orgazmo
(Actress)
Toddy Walters is
a Los-Angeles based singer, songwriter, voice-over
talent, and eco-warrior. While a student at the University
of Colorado at Boulder, Toddy was cast as the lead
in the first movie that South
Park creators Trey
Parker and Matt
Stone made, Cannibal!
The Musical (Troma).
October
Films' 1999 release Orgazmo
showed Toddy's comic timing and her curves. Toddy
also played a character on Comedy
Central's ill-fated show, That's
My Bush. In addition to performing numerous
voices for South
Park, she also wrote spoof songs for the
show, a memorable example being a spoof of an Enya
song in the episode "Death,"
as well as spoofing the singing voices of such luminaries
as Celine
Dion and Alanis
Morissette.
Nowadays, Toddy
continues to do voice-over and write her own unspoofed
music (available at myspace.com/toddyivycom).
Look out for her upcoming album release of Planet
Satsuma. You can also catch her hosting a
weekly video podcast as 'mz toddy' for prairietreeproject.com,
a web site dedicated to battling this exponentially
growing monster known as global warming. She'll entertain
and inform you, in her wacky wily ways, about how
you can be part of the cure.
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Judges: Rounds 1 & 2
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Dennis
Hurley
The
Albino Code (Writer, Actor, Executive
Producer)
Let
Them Chirp Awhile (Actor)
Dennis Hurley co-founded
the production company Down
Cellar in 2005. In 2006, he wrote, executive
produced, and starred in the critically acclaimed
short film The
Albino Code. He also studied with The
Upright Citizens Brigade, and appeared on
both Law
& Order (NBC)
and Saturday
Night Live (NBC).
Dennis will also be appearing in the upcoming feature
film Let
Them Chirp Awhile, starring Zach
Galligan (Gremlins)
and Anthony
Rapp (Rent).
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Aaron
Howland
The
Albino Code (Director, Editor, Composer)
Interrogation
(Producer, Editor)
Aaron Howland co-founded
7
Fluid Oz. Productions LLP in 2001. In 2006,
he directed the critically acclaimed short film The
Albino Code and produced the feature film
Interrogation
(currently in distribution talks), and in 2003, he
produced the award-winning short film Jack
Milton: Fairy Tale Detective. In addition,
his work has been screened at festivals across the
US, released on DVD, and featured on CNN,
MSNBC,
and Inside
Edition.
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