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Aspen Film Streams ShortsFest Winners Online

Courtesy Aspen Film

Audiences who missed this year's Shortsfest from Aspen Film can tune in over Memorial Day weekened to catch the festival winners. Films will be available via a single online streaming platform, and viewers can catch all nine short films in one sitting, or watch in segments.

AspenFilm’s annual ShortsFest was supposed to be held in mid-March at the Wheeler Opera House, but the festival was held online instead due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

"By the afternoon of [March] the 12th, we had decided we wanted to move forward with a virtual festival," explained Aspen Film's executive and artistic director Susan Wrubel. "And in two weeks turned our whole festival around keeping our original dates by taking the whole thing online."

Three of this year's winners weren't available for the virtual screening when the festival went online, and this will be their debut to Aspen Film audiences; best drama "Bablinka," animation winner "And Then The Bear," and this year's pick for student short "Heading South" will all be available online for the first time. Wrubel says that despite going virtual for this year's festival and encore presentation of short film winners, there's some benefits to streaming the films online—especially while everyone's stuck at home.

“If we were to be hosting a live festival at the Wheeler it’s really only for people who are here [in Aspen]," she said. "So the great benefit of this was that we were able to access people around the country.”

Aspen Film is splitting its revenue its streaming ShortsFest winners with the filmmakers, and tickets can be purchased at Aspen Film's website. Viewers can access the films between Thursday, May 21 and Monday, May 25.

 

Kirsten was born and raised in Massachusetts, and has called Colorado home since 2008. She moved to Vail the day after graduating from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2011. Before relocating to Basalt in 2020, she also spent a year living in one of Aspen’s sister cities, Queenstown, New Zealand.