Canadian filmmaker Jeremy Comte’s short film Fauve won the top “Best of the Festival” award at the Palm Springs Shortfest on Sunday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The French-language drama, which narrates the story of two boys engaged in a seemingly innocent power game near a surface mine, had also won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
The 2018 Palm Springs Shortfest, held in California from June 11 to June 24, showcased 333 shorts and handed out prizes in 21 categories. Lorenz Wunderle’s Coyote, about an animal that loses its family during a attacks by wolves, won the top International Jury Prize. The Best North American short film prize was awarded to Logan George and Celine Held’s Caroline, which follows a six-year-old girl on a hot Texas day.
Emily Ann Hoffman’s stop-motion comedy Nevada, in which a romantic weekend is disrupted by a birth control mishap, won the best animated short award. The best documentary award went to Guille Isa and Angello Faccini’s Dulce, which chronicles the effects of climate change on a small Colombian fishing community.
Meanwhile, Jerry Carlsson’s Shadow Animals, focusing on parents misbehaving at a party, was awarded best live-action short over 15 minutes. Lendita Zeqiraj’s Fence, which centres on a chaotic family gathering, was named as the best live-action short under 15 minutes.