It’s really incredible news I just received for my film The Lost Jews of Pakistan! I’m offically the WINNER of Best Short Form, Short Film for the 2023 Toronto Documentary Short Film Festival. The team over at TDSFF has been a pleasure to collaborate with and they do an awesome job promoting the films that are a part of their festival. Checkout below on some of the history of their festival, their audience reactions of my film, and the interviews we conducted with their partner platform WILDSOUND FESTIVAL TV
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
Since 2016, the Toronto Documentary Short Film Festival (TDSFF) has been showcasing the best of Documentary Short Films. They currently have been showcasing a Documentary Film Festival every month in the heart of downtown Toronto at the Carlton Cinemas.
They created a unique hybrid festival with 4 tiers to enhance participant’s films and the overall festival experience. Which is a four tier system:
Tier #1 – Selected films play at a private festival event where the audience will record their comments/reactions to the film on their camera or phone. Then they said that video collage to the filmmakers.
Tier #2 – They put up the selected films live on their WILDSOUND FILM FESTIVAL APP for 24 hours and invite a select industry audience to watch it. With this system, some films have already received a distribution deal as many platforms are looking for solid feature and short documentaries.
Tier #3 – They send filmmakers a list of questions to answer for their blog interview that will promote you and your film.
Tier #4 – Lastly but not least, they set up a podcast interview on their popular WILDSOUND iTunes show where will we chat with you about the process of how the film was made.
For more details check their out their website at: documentaryshortfilmfestival.com
OUR AUDIENCE REACTIONS
Watch all the Audience Reation highlights here: WILDSOUND AUDIENCE REACTIONS
Here are some of the most memorable quotes I loved:
Audience Member #1 – “How sweet of this young boy (Zeineddine) to see that and think…maybe I can do something about that. And talk to the right people to put the right things in place in order to honor these people.”
Audience Member #2 – “I like how they separated the shots into 3 Acts with the text on screen. This makes it very easy to comprehend and very easy to follow along with all the information.”
Audience Member #3 – “Meeting this young man Zeineddine was inspirational. I thought is was so touching when he said his father was supportive, his father was proud”
Audience Member #4 – “This was a terrifically well made film. It was wonderfully directed and edited and photographed. The interviews were done very nicely.”
Audience Member #5 – “I really liked how this was setup in Act I, Act II, Act III. And I loved the fact that all of this was very easy to follow.”
Audience Member #6 – “All of this comes from a young teenager I think it was very powerful and the documentary itself the way it is shot and directed and told is very – very interesting and compelling.”
Audience Member #7 – “I do like the spin that this documentary did where they took the time and effort to restore this graveyard.”
BLOG ARTICLE WITH MATTHEW TOFFOLO FOR WILDSOUND
Writers of the film Eric Brionez and myself was interviewed by Matthew Toffolo. You can read the article in full here: matthewtoffolo.com
Stay tuned on my blog for more updates regarding this festival as we’ll be on their Podcast soon! This was a great experience and validation that people are truly moved by my documentary The Lost Jews of Pakistan.