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We’re taking a look back at the winners of this year’s A&E Short Filmmakers Award for best film in the NSI Online Short Film Festival.

Chosen by an independent jury, these films are some of the most outstanding from our 2018 programming. Each filmmaker wins a cash prize courtesy of our long-standing festival sponsor A&E Television Networks and a complimentary Friend membership to the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.

Thank you to all our jury members and festival partners for supporting great Canadian talent.

Regular festival programming returns with new films on January 7. And we’ll be issuing a call for films later that month. Until then, enjoy the best of the fest.

Winter

Winter | Drama, 6:30, English, ON, 2015 | Director: Lina Roessler

Ten-year-old Farzin and his little sister Gita try to make sense of their mother’s passing and their new home in Canada shortly after the Iranian Revolution in the early 1980s.

Upon discovering their first snowfall, they uncover the harsh reality between truth and imagination.

Fish

Fish | Drama, 11:33, English, NS, 2016 | Director: Heather Young

A single mother navigates raising three young children while clinging to her fading relationship with their father.

She Came Knocking

She Came Knocking | Drama, 11:44, English, ON, 2016 | Director: John Ainslie

When a woman witnesses what she believes is a husband abusing his wife, she ignores standard procedures and takes matters into her own hands.

PYOTR495

PYOTR495 | Sci-fi/Horror, 15:06, Russian with English subtitles, ON, 2016 | Director: Blake Mawson

Set one evening in present day Moscow, 16-year-old Pyotr is baited by an ultra-nationalist group known for their violent abductions and anti-gay attacks bolstered by Russia’s LGBT propaganda law, but Pyotr has a dangerous secret his attackers could never have accounted for.

Emmy

Emmy | Drama, 8:55, English, ON, 2016 | Director: Hannah Cheesman

An iPhone obsessed gym-rat overdoses on a muscle relaxant and makes an unlikely connection with a stranger.

Four Eyes

Four Eyes | Drama, 15:00, English, ON, 2017 | Director: Michael Clowater

Brian is 11 years old and failing socially in his neighbourhood.

In 1977, being slightly on the autistic spectrum just means you’re weird and a target. He is repeatedly beat up and abused by a bully. Meanwhile his mother, Helen, doesn’t fit into her role of housewife and mother either as she struggles with the stresses of being at home and raising three kids completely on her own.

As the two stories come together, Helen finds herself by helping her son stand up for himself in the only way that makes sense to her. Regardless of what ‘proper’ society thinks of it.

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The NSI Online Short Film Festival is made possible through the support of Festival Partner Telefilm Canada; Supporting Sponsors Corus Entertainment, Blue Ant Media and Breakthrough Entertainment; Award Sponsor A&E Television Networks; and Industry Partner the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

The post Best of the NSI Online Short Film Fest 2018: winners of the A&E Short Filmmakers Award appeared first on National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).