Films in 2018 UMFF

Films in 2018 UMFF

All About The 2018 Universe Multicultural Film Festival

2018 Universe Multicultural Film Festival Films

Feature Films

		FORCED ORPHANS USA \| 67 min Feature \| Drama Director V N Aditya Producer T G Vishwa Prasad Writer SriramVegaraju CastTrin Miller, Tom Ricciardelli, AnkitaJhaveri, Raj Virk Two siblings Sid and Meenu returned from school only to learn that their parents are getting divorced. Their life changed forever…			NEERU THANDAVARU India \| 109 min Feature \| Drama Director/Writer Aasifkshathriya Producer NidasalePuttaswamaiah CastAnanyaKashyap, Naveen Patil, Achyuth Kumar, Shaanthala S Ganga, a young girl, lives in a ‘Keri’, a colony of so called ‘lower caste’ people. On the other hand, so called ‘upper caste’ people live in the neighboring town and have their own belief systems. However, the only river, which is the source of drinking water for ‘Keri, goes dry…

		MEET IN NAMTSO China \| 103 min Feature \| Romance Director Fei Chai Writer Xueping Liu ProducerFeihao Chen CastSuozhen, Jita This tells the love stories of Qingcuo, a devoted nursing school student who commits herself to healing the patients in Namtso after graduation.			ULAN BATOR SLEEPLESS China/Monglia \| 92 min Feature \| Drama Director WeiKe Writer MoSha Producer Linsheng Xiao Cast Rina Sa, Ying Ge Ma, Wei Li Si This film tells a story of Ajitai, a rich second-generation who encounters a sudden family bankruptcy while he is on his way to purchase a famous horse in Ulan Bator and then gets saved by a local girl called Duoerna.

Short Films

		INIQUITY USA \| 26 min Short \| Drama \| Thriller\| Mystery Director/Writer Joey Lanai ProducersJill Herrera, Joey Lanai CastKim Estes, Joey Lanai When a traveling salesman seeks therapy, the demons of his fractured childhood are examined by an overly ambitious intern who finds herself on a bloody trail of serial murder			JONAH Austria \| Italy \| 13 minShort \| Drama \| Action Director/Writer/ProducerMichael Maschina CastDaniela Mutafova, Heide Maria Hager Austria, 2015. It's pitch dark in the night and a lorry is trying to reach the Austrian border. A group of Syrian refugees is hidden in its interior. A girl trembles in the dark while a woman tries to sooth her narrating a story. They are both waiting to get into Austria.

		TIRAOGO Burkina Faso \| 7 min Short DirectorAndré Daniel Tapsoba WriterArsène Bazongo ProducerSerge Dimitri Pitroipa Tiraogo, a young rural man, fought the deadly conflict between farmers and herders in his village. He finds himself in the big city. He is quickly disenchanted by the incivism, barbarism and atrocities he sees.			TWENTY YEARS AFTER USA \| 10 min Short \| Drama\| Family Director/Writer Yiqing Catharine Lin Producers Yiqing Catharine Lin, Zoe Pelloux Cast Randall Taylor A man needs to refit the world he's been kept out for twenty years.

Youth Made Films

		HOUSE DETENTION Germany \| 10 min Short \| Youth-made \| Family \| Drama\| Action Director/Writer DominikSaal Producers DominikSaal, Lukas Götz Cast AlexisRaptakis, Anna Wagner, Lukas Götz, Evelyn Jahn A bank heist is what Damian and his friend are planning, because their money is very scarce.			IN THE TREES USA \| 8 min Short \| Youth-made \| Horror Director/Writer Will Nordstrom Cast SpencerFlippen, Spencer Sherman Teenagers on a school field trip become lost in the woods and strange things start to happen.

		THE RESIDENCY India \| 9 min Short \| Youth-made \| Documentary Director/Writer/Producer Tanmay Srivastava This Short Documentary is about a Building Complex in the North Indian City of Lucknow called The Lucknow Residency.			THE SUNRISE STORYTELLER Canada \| 65 min Feature \| Youth-made \| Documentary Director/Writer Kasha Sequoia Slavner Producer Global Sunrise Productions Inc. This documentary follows the hero's journey of teenage filmmaker & social justice advocate, Kasha Sequoia Slavner, as she sets out for six months on her 16th birthday across the world in search of stories of hope and resilience that shine a light on what it means to be a global citizen and how we can all make a difference.

Student Films

		MAYDELEH AND THE PRISONER USA \| 27 min Short \| Student \| Drama Director/Writer Maya Ben Yair Cast NamiPaix, Milt Kogan, Stewart J. Zully As a result of an injury that puts him in a wheelchair, an elderly Holocaust survivor must now learn to trust a non-Jewish caregiver who has no prior knowledge of the Holocaust and its prolonged trauma.			MUÑECAS USA \| 25 min Short \| Student \| Drama Director/Writer OsvaldoOzuna Producers Jacob Chacko, Juan Felipe Zuleta Cast Alexis Cervantes, Alexander Villaseñor, Conner Taylor, Amy Sloan, Daniel Mora Teenagers Pablo and Ray are best friends, despite living on opposite sides of the US/Mexican border. Both were born into a life of drug smuggling and are now the two sides of weekly transactions. Inevitably, a deal goes wrong and Pablo must face the horrors of the melting pot culture that rejects who he is…

		THE LITTLE DICTATOR Israel \| 29 min Short \| Student \| Family \| Comedy \| Drama Director Nurith Cohn Writer Emanuel Cohn Cast Emanuel Cohn, MeniFlorentin, Ruth Geller Professor Yossi Kleinmann, a religious Jew, gets stuck with a calamitous moustache at the 90th birthday party of his wife's grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. The rest is history.			THE ORANGE CRAYON USA \| 4 min Short \| Student \| Animation Director/Writer/Producer/Animator Eric Hug Late at night on a table, a box of crayons spills over and the crayons come to life…

Special Screening Films

		BEHIND CLOSED HEARTS USA \| 10 min Short \| Thriller Director/Writer AnthonyDiBartolo Producers AnthonyDiBartolo, Nick Stahl, Andrew Giordano, Mike Slagter Cast Andy Carlson, Kris Graves, India Everett, Bill Ousley, Tom Evans A businessman makes a chilling discovery when he arrives home early from a work trip.			BEVERLY HILLS: 100 YEARS, 100 STORIES USA \| 100 min Feature \| Documentary Director/Writer PhilSavenick Producers Suzanne Hertfelder, Jeff White This documentary offers an inside look at life in Beverly Hills from the Rancho Days to the 21st Century. The City's vibrant past comes alive through interviews with more than 150 Beverly Hills residents and hundreds of rare photographs and film clips.

		RAILROAD TO HELL: A CHINAMAN'S CHANCE USA \| 90 min Feature \| Drama Director/Writer AkiAleong Cast Reggie Lee, Timothy Bottoms, Jason Connery Producers AkiAleong, Ari Shan Aleong, ConchitaCulandingAleong In California 1850’s, a Chinese immigrant railroad work in the wild west is accused of killing a white woman. Can he prove his innocence? Can he beat the odds while California considered the Chinese to be 3/5 human?