Sherman Oaks Film Festival

2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): Joshua Tobin Rees
• Writer(s): Joshua Tobin Rees
• Producer(s): Daniel E. Catullo III, Brian Mitchell, Ian Start
• Key Cast: Vince Hill Bedford, Jordyn Jones, Robert Stephenson
• Editor(s): Brian Mitchell, Ian Start
• Cinematographer(s): Christian Klein

Language: English

Runtime: 11m

Country: United States

Synopsis: White Room is the story of Reese, as he finally tries to come to terms with the loss of his sister fifteen years ago. But standing in his way is his own mind, scared to deal with those suppressed emotions. In coming to terms with them he must confront not only his feelings of loss but those of resentment and denial he has about losing her.

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2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Comedy

One day Benson will stop running from this intervention, just give him a few millennia

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): Kyle Allen, Anders Jay Ravenstad
• Writer(s): Anders Jay Ravenstad, Kyle Allen
• Producer(s): Kyle Allen, Anders Jay Ravenstad
• Key Cast: Matt Cook, Kyle Allen
• Editor(s): Shelby Lee Parks, Anders Ravenstad
• Cinematographer(s): Shelby Lee Parks
• Production Designer(s): Anastasiia Glushneva, Josh Lykkeberg
• Sound Designer(s): Marco Cordova

Language: English

Runtime: 15m

Country: United States

Los Angeles Premiere

Synopsis: A play on film, in which the unpredictable Benson has become addicted to his ability to time travel, forcing his friend Parker to stage a one man intervention. This leads them to confront a lifetime of misgivings together as they try to find out if this relationship was ever really worth it.

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2026 Official Selection: Feature Film – Comedy

Siblings Cassie and Max’s petty war escalates when she discovers their dad’s secret—turning their rivalry into a crisis that could destroy the family.

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): Michael Kellman
• Writer(s): Michael Kellman
• Producer(s): Michael Kellman, J. Zachary Thurman
• Key Cast: Jenny Lange, Matt Linton, Genevieve Thomas, Manny Spero, Ben Taylor, Roxanne Hart, Philip Casnoff
• Editor(s): Michael Kellman
• Cinematographer(s): J. Zachary Thurman
• Production Designer(s): Nancy Mette
• Sound Designer(s): Chris Campbell
• Composer(s): Lex Stout, Sam Mohart

Language: English

Runtime: 1h 21m

Country: United States

Synopsis: With their parents out of town, the already-fraught relationship between a brother and sister is strained to its breaking point as they vie for control of the house, each inviting over a romantic interest and making cataclysmic discoveries about their parents, and each other, along the way.

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2026 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Short Film

Screenplay Awards Ceremony · Sun, Dec 6, 2026 · 2:00 PM — Get Tickets →

His wife is gone. His hair is going. Her $100,000 life insurance can only buy back one of them, and it might include a trip to Turkey.

• Writer(s): Tommaso Di Blasi

Language: English

Country: Not Specified

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Dominic Russo only trusted his wife, Grace, to cut his hair. A year after she dies giving birth to their daughter, he’s balding fast, and nightmares of a veiled widow aren’t helping. When Grace’s $100,000 death benefit arrives, his dermatologist suggests a hair transplant in Turkey. Then a prank goes awry, and his half-blind neighbor Morris recommends a toupee. At Grace’s grave, an allergic reaction forces Dominic to face reality. He shaves his head clean.

2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

A young adopted woman meets her biological mother for the first time.

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): John Liang
• Writer(s): John Liang, Anna Jaller
• Producer(s): Diana Cody, John Liang
• Key Cast: Anna Jaller, Kathryn Kelley
• Editor(s): Joe Carugati
• Cinematographer(s): Carolyn Morgan Glassman
• Production Designer(s): Samantha Robles
• Sound Designer(s): Nando Costa

Language: English

Runtime: 13m

Country: United States

Synopsis: A young adopted woman meets her biological mother for the first time.

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2026 Official Selection: Short Film – SciFi

A young mother’s fleeting wish to abandon her family comes true in an instant that ends up being the rest of her life.

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): AJ Lambert
• Writer(s): AJ Lambert
• Producer(s): Rebekah Sherman-Myntti, Briana Bursten
• Key Cast: Serena Mello, Michael Neeson, Hilary Dennis
• Editor(s): Katherine Horak
• Cinematographer(s): Matt P Jones
• Production Designer(s): Grace Lees
• Sound Designer(s): Andrew Smetek

Language: English

Runtime: 16m

Country: United States

Synopsis: Cerulea is a science fiction micro-epic about the traumas that get passed down to us, the guilt around having complicated feelings about motherhood, and the bonds of love that we as mothers are nonetheless so desperate to forge with our children – even when we feel at our most incapable and unworthy.

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2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

In 1924 Ireland, a 17-year-old illustrator risks everything to expose abuse inside a convent for unmarried girls through her drawings before authorities silence her.

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): Lusha Li
• Writer(s): Lusha Li
• Producer(s): Valentina Chang
• Key Cast: Mackenna Shults, IX Mendoza, Patrick Sprague, Coco Blignaut, Shey Bogumil, Alistair David Herz, Caleb Noel
• Editor(s): Ailin Huang
• Cinematographer(s): Yucong Li, Lusha Li,
• Production Designer(s): Nya Patrinos
• Sound Designer(s): Shannon O’Shea
• Composer(s): Lusha Li

Language: English

Runtime: 11m

Country: China

Synopsis: In 1924 Ireland, as the Church moves to confine unmarried girls, 17-year-old Margaret’s father secretly plans the family’s escape. But Margaret’s growing awareness of the hidden suffering around her—and an unexpected encounter that reveals the system’s true brutality—pulls her into a world far more dangerous than she realizes. The forces tightening around the family challenge their bonds, their freedom, and Margaret’s understanding of her own place in a collapsing world.

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2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

Only the curtain stands between them.

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): Jet Harris
• Writer(s): Antonio L. Rodriguez
• Producer(s): Jet Harris
• Key Cast: Antonio L. Rodriguez, Matthew Martinez Hannon
• Editor(s): Jet Harris
• Cinematographer(s): Emma Pillsbury
• Production Designer(s): Saskia Bakker
• Sound Designer(s): Yiran Chen
• Composer(s): Eliya Gwetta

Language: English

Runtime: 10m

Country: United States

Synopsis: THE GUY frequents THE HOLE’S apartment for anonymous sex.
THE GUY wouldn’t mind losing the curtain. THE HOLE would. Is he running away from a connection worth pursuing?

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2026 Official Selection: Feature Film – Drama

A dying contract killer takes on a young female protégé to carry on his work.

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): Zaki Rubenstein
• Writer(s): Robert Alan Dilts
• Producer(s): Tommy Nash
• Key Cast: Tommy Nash, Sara Noah
• Editor(s): Joe Fraley
• Cinematographer(s): Lars Struck
• Production Designer(s): Tommy Nash
• Sound Designer(s): Julian Schuller
• Composer(s): Julian Schuller

Language: English

Runtime: 1h 41m

Country: United States

Los Angeles Premiere

Synopsis: George is a professional hitman. A contract assassin who works out of the back of a limo office. He is a shadow of the man he once was. Frail and weak, he is dying of cancer, but agrees to honor three final contracts before he retires.
Kate is new to the world she thinks she wants to become a part of.
George agrees to take Kate under his wing for his final assignments, teaching her a professional killer’s tools of the trade.

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2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

On the night before he leaves for college, a teenager takes his little brother away from their alcoholic mother for one last night in the city…the only goodbye they may ever get.

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): Michael Guillod
• Writer(s): Howard Campbell
• Producer(s): Jean-Marie Gindraux, Floriane Anderson, Yessi Sanchez, Michael Guillod
• Key Cast: Howard Campbell, Jaden Carson Baker, K.Steele
• Editor(s): Mykyta Kryvosheiev
• Cinematographer(s): Pietro Zuercher
• Production Designer(s): Linda Dahlem Espinoza
• Sound Designer(s): Allan Mantilleri
• Composer(s): Kevin Queille

Language: English

Runtime: 19m

Country: Switzerland, United States

Los Angeles Premiere

Synopsis: On the eve of leaving for college, Braden Hall once again finds his mother lost in drunken chaos. Determined to protect his younger brother from the turmoil at home, he takes him out into the city for one final night together, a bittersweet journey of laughter, connection, and lasting memories amid the fractures of their family.

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