We talked with Tomer Shushan, writer and director of 2020 SXSW’s best narrative short film, WHITE EYE. The film is in consideration for Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Short Film (Live Action). A tense and suspenseful movie, WHITE EYE is shot in one long take and portrays race and class inequalities in Israel. It was nominated for Bridging the Borders Award in 2020 Palm Spring International ShortFest.

“This topical film has screened at over 70 film festivals, including 22 Oscar-qualifying. This Live-Action short has won numerous accolades including the Oscar-qualifying Best Narrative Short Award at SXSW Film Festival. White Eye was nominated for a 2020 Ophir Award.

A man finds his stolen bicycle and it now belongs to a stranger. In his attempts to retrieve the bicycle, he struggles to remain human.” (London Flair PR)

In this talk, Mr. Shushan discusses his creative choices and strategies, from screenwriting to cinematography, sound, editing, production design, as well as finding and working with actors. He also talks about how he financed and distributed his film as well as his feature debut, BETWEEN THE SAND GRAINS.

“Director Tomer Shushan is a writer and film director from Israel whose 2017 short film Inside Shells screened in FIPA, Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival and many others. White Eye is his second short, which went on to win the Oscar-qualifying Award at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival and 2020 Urbanworld Film Festival.  Tomer is currently developing an Israeli TV series Torso and his first feature film Between The Sand Grains.” (London Flair PR)

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Hamidreza Nassiri is a PhD candidate in Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation examines the influence of digital technologies in media industries on democracy and social justice on local and global levels, with a focus on Iranian cinema. He also founded and directed the Wisconsin Iranian Film Festival for two years, was the programming director of the first Midwest Video Poetry Festival, and the executive director and jury member at the 3rd Globe International Silent Film Festival. Hamidreza is a filmmaker. His last short film, IMMORTAL (2018) became finalist and semi-finalist in several film festivals. He has taught film production and film studies for years, in college and in community. In 2019, after receiving the Humanities Exchange (HEX) Award, he ran free filmmaking workshops for underrepresented communities in Madison, Wisconsin. In 2021, he ran a free digital storytelling workshop for working class people of color in Madison. He was also the Educational Development Fellow at the Arts + Literature Laboratory, a non-profit dedicated to democratizing art and art education in Dane County, from 2019 to 2020.

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