Every year at the Palm Springs International ShortFest Film Festival and Market, Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging The Borders Award goes to a short film that helps to bring people of the world and different cultures closer together. In 2012 the winner of Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging The Borders Award will receive a certificate for an upcoming Method Acting Intensive with a value of $2000 from Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute.

The seven nominees for the 2012 CWB’s Bridging The Borders Award are Asad (South Africa), Buzkashi Boys (Afghanistan), Dura Lex (Belgium), The Other Side (Israel), Poetry Of Resilience (USA), Road To Peshawar (USA) and What You Are Looking At? (UK).

The winner of the Best International Short Film Award will be announced in the closing ceremony of the Palm Springs International ShortFest Film Festival and Market on Sunday June 24, 2012.

Asad
South Africa, 2011, 16 Minute Running Time
Additional Countries: USA
Language: English,Somalian
In this authentic coming of age story, a young Somali boy must walk a tight rope between doing the right thing and self-preservation, all the while clinging to his dream of one day becoming a fisherman. Winner, Best Narrative Short, Tribeca FF.
DIRECTOR: Bryan Buckley
Producer: Bryan Buckley, Mino Jarjoura
Editor: Chris Franklin
Screenwriter: Bryan Buckley
Cinematographer: Scott Henriksen
Principal Cast: Harun Mohammed, Ibrahim Moalim Hussein, Ali Mohammed, Abdiwale Mohamed, Mariya

Buzkashi Boys
Dari
Afghanistan, 2011, 29 Minute Running Time
Additional Countries: USA
Language: Afghan Persian
Shot on location in Kabul, Buzkashi Boys tells the story of two best friends, a blacksmith’s son and a street urchin, who struggle to realize their dreams as they come of age in war-torn Afghanistan.
DIRECTOR: Sam French
Producer: Ariel Nasr
Editor: Nels Bangerter
Screenwriter: Sam French, Martin Roe
Cinematographer: Duraid Munajim
Music: James Dooley
Principal Cast: Fawad Mohammadi,Jawanmard Paiz,Wali Talash

Dura Lex
Belgium, 2011, 18 Minute Running Time
North American Premiere
Language: Dutch
When two detectives show up at Kristi’s house asking lots of questions about her Albanian maid, she has little time to decide what to think, say, and do – and her answers will have major consequences for all concerned.
DIRECTOR: Anke Blondé
Producer: Dirk Impens
Editor: Alain Dessauvage
Screenwriter: Bert Van Dael, Sanne Nuyens
Cinematographer: Ruben Impens
Principal Cast: Wine Dierickx,Wim Willaert,Nico Sturm

The Other Side
Israel, 2011, 15 Minute Running Time
Additional Countries: United Kingdom
Language: Arabic,Hebrew
A young Israeli boy, the last to be picked for soccer teams but the one who owns the ball, finds an unusual friendship with someone on the Palestinian side of the West Bank separation wall. But can a wordless, gaze free relationship survive with only a ball between them?
DIRECTOR: Khen Shalem
Producer: Paul Robinson
Editor: Khen Shalem
Screenwriter: Khen Shalem
Cinematographer: Paul Robinson
Music: Nate Connelly
Principal Cast: David Feuerstein, Hanan Yehieli, Shimon Mimran

Poetry of Resilience
USA, 2011, 40 Minute Running Time
Language: Arabic,Chinese,Farsi,Japanese,Vietnamese,English,B
Six international poets who individually survived Hiroshima, the Holocaust, China’s Cultural Revolution, the Kurdish Genocide in Iraq, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Iranian Revolution share through their words the restorative gift of poetry—a collective voice that illuminates our shared human experience.
DIRECTOR: Katja Esson
Producer: Katja Esson
Editor: Susanne Schiebler
Cinematographer: Ferne Pearlstein, Martina Radwan, Caspar Stracke
Principal Cast: Li-Young Lee,Carolyn Forché,Choman Hardi,Yasuhiko Shigemoto,Majid Naficy,Alexandre Kimenyi,Lillian Boraks-Nemetz

Road to Peshawar
USA, 2011, 19 Minute Running Time
Language: OTHER
In the murky circumstances of the Afghan/Soviet war, a homesick Russian soldier becomes involved in the plight of a young Afghan girl whose father has stepped on a mine while traversing the treacherous Peshawar pass through the mountains seeking to take her to Pakistan for medical attention.
DIRECTOR: Hammad Rizvi
Producer: Hammad Rizvi
Editor: Hammad Rizvi
Screenwriter: Hammad Rizvi
Cinematographer: Russell Bush
Principal Cast: Philip Kreyche,Mustafa Faiz,Yasmine Al-Bustami,Isabela Costine

What You Looking At?!
United Kingdom, 2011, 9 Minute Running Time
Language: English
A young Muslim woman in a Burkhßa finds herself trapped in an elevator with a flamboyant drag queen when their building’s power goes out, leading to a culture clash of major proportions in this hysterical tale of East meeting West when things go South.
DIRECTOR: Faryal
Editor: Ben Unwin
Screenwriter: Faryal Velmi
Cinematographer: Peter Emery
Principal Cast: Michael Twaits,Hussina Raja,Michael Twaits,Rez Kabir

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Sara Tehrani, is a film publicist and a fan of international cinema

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